Benefits of an unpredictable world

When tragedy becomes common place, the emotional callouses thicken to the point that one barely notices. You read the article, shake your head in feigned disbelief, because of course you are not really surprised that there has been another attack, and move on with your day.  If not in a rush, you utter a prayer for the families of the named victims.  This week, I was in a rush having arrived in Israel and in charge of another group of idealistic young adults, and I read the names of the victims with barely a register.  However, on my way home, things slowed down in a real way.  My wife called me and asked if I was going to the funeral.  Of whom, I asked.  The Rabbi murdered this week was from our old neighborhood, just two buildings down with seven children at home.  Instead of making a left to my in-laws house, I turned right towards my old apartment and joined the procession for the eulogies.  The tragedy hit a fever pitch as his nine year old boy uttered with surprising composure the blessing ‘Blessed are you the true judge’ and then said the mourners kaddish with equal steadiness.

 

                Rabbi Reuven Biermacher had just taught a class in the old city at Aish haTorah, and presumably, was on his way back to Telzstone. Just outside of Yaffa gate, he was accosted and murdered.  Until now, there was a partly predictable nature to the mayhem with most of the incidents occurring in the West Bank or in East Jerusalem aside from a few ramming attacks in the middle of the city.  But, there is a lesson to be learned from the randomness of it all.

                If we shift to another death, the death of Yaakov, we see an interesting thing.   He wanted to reveal certain details of the future, but G-d’s spirit left him- he was blocked.  Hence the parsha begins without any space as is customary between Torah portions.  Why was this necessary?  As soon as Yaakov’s family arrived in Egypt, ‘they settled in the land of Goshen’.[1]  They got comfortable because they knew with certainty that the plan was to be in Egypt for an extended stay.  There was no longer a yearning for inspiration and for the holy land.  For this reason, G-d realized it was best to block future knowledge, leave things unpredictable.  The benefit of unpredictability is that one pushes a little harder. One has to live more inspired because one never knows what lies around the corner. 

                The biggest difference I see between America and Israel is the sense of focus here.  People are more in touch with what is important because here, one never knows and that may be a good thing. 

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[1] See Cli Yakar

In search of nuance

In today’s world that seeks simplicity, politics follows suit.  Ideas, at least as peddled to the public, lack all forms of nuance.  There are enough news outlets repeating clumsy proposals without having to repeat them here.  When it comes to Torah, things are markedly different.  It constantly operates through a multipronged approach that contains facets and layers. 

                A classic example is in the encounter between an Egyptian leader (well, sort of) and a Jewish one, Yoseph and Yehuda respectively.  Yoseph frames the youngest brother Binyamin for stealing a goblet as a pretext to enslave him.  Yehuda, as the leader of the brothers, cannot allow this to happen to him as it would be the final nail in Yaakov’s coffin.  And so he approaches him- the most powerful man in Egypt besides Pharaoh- in an attempt to make a deal.  More than what he says, it is how he says it.  

                Without getting into nuances of the text, the midrash highlights that he employed three different tactics at once.  When it says that Yehuda ‘approached’ (Vayigash, the moniker of our parsha) Yosef, the midrash sites three different opinions of what an ‘approach’ implies. One connotation is an approach with fists ready to fly- an aggressive one. Another opinion says an approach involves humility, in this case, to placate the despot.  And finally, whenever one approaches a complicated situation, it involves prayer. The final opinion is that it was all three at once.   In order to get a job done, one must be ready to stand his ground while at the same time look to appease the other party if possible. And of course, during complicated encounters, a little divine assistance doesn’t hurt.  The Ba’al ha Turim points out a hint to this idea by showing that the numerical value of ‘And Yehuda approached him’ is equivalent to both ‘this is to go to war with Yosef’ and ‘also to appease him’. 

                Human relationships are sticky and all the more so relationships between civilizations.  Consequently, different avenues are needed simultaneously to make things work. Broad brush strokes are not the answer to a world that is vastly more complex than an encounter between two brothers. 

                

Better left unsaid

Perhaps the most brilliant aspect of Torah is what it doesn’t say.  Conspicuously absent from the Torah text is any mention of the existence of the next world in explicit terms. There are small hints that the Rabbis hone in on as proof for something beyond but that is it.  The Torah did such a good job hiding it that many Jews today think the whole notion of an afterlife is a Christian concept which it’s not.  And even when the Rabbis do elaborate in the Talmud, the statements are not immediately motivating.  Images of the righteous dancing the ‘horah’ around G-d isn’t my idea of a good time, at least not right now. 

                There is a technical reason why this is so, and that is that the Torah is a prophetic document. Prophecy deals only with what the human mind can picture. We call prophets, ‘seers’ because they get a vision of what will happen in the future in this world. Or, they can penetrate behind the proximate causes of  events that have happened in this world and find the spiritual cause. Nonetheless, everything is limited to a perception of something explicit that is in this world. But the notion of a reality without a body, the next world, is not a reality we can fathom no matter our prophetic powers. For this reason, the Torah doesn’t mention it. 

                But that doesn’t stop us from believing in it.  Just because something is not said explicitly or that it can’t be viewed in a tangible way has no bearing on whether it exists.  Our minds were given to us to try and grasp things that aren’t tangible, that aren’t concrete. And since our mind is the tool used to conceive of that beyond, it is a safe picture that doesn’t sweep us too deeply into its grasp lest we forget to live fully in this life.  In fact, during our short time in this world it is our job to build our little space in the next world our self so the more time we get to do so the better. 

As Channukah approaches it is the time to reflect on this insight. Channukah is a time where the miraculous did penetrate the thick layers of nature but only in a subtle way.  It was meant to reassure us that there is something beyond nature but it is not meant to sweep us up into a frenzy. Just knowing it is there is enough, but don’t lose focus on the task at hand. 

Picking up the pieces

‘The Day of Broken Sound’[1]

Leviticus 23:24 Say to the Children of Israel in the Seventh month on the first of the month it will be to you a Sabbath, a remembrance (zikaron) of the Broken Sound (trua), a Holy occurrence

Numbers 29:1 In the seventh month, on the first of the month, a Holy occurrence it will be to you, you will not do any creative activities, a Day (yom)  of Broken sound (trua) it will be to you.

            Day of Judgment, the New year- those are the more common appellations than the day of Broken Sound; yet, it is the latter which is the only name written down in the Torah itself.  The other names were coined by the Rabbis and alluded to in the prophets.  In fact, all of the ideas of Rosh Hashanah are from tradition because unlike the other holidays mentioned in the Torah, the task or thoughts of the day are not spelled out.  No mention of Shofar or judgment is found in the Torah.  So what did the Torah have in mind when it described what we know to be Rosh Hashanah as the day of Broken Sound?  Why does that name encapsulate the day in the most precise fashion? And where did the Rabbis see the Shofar and Judgment hinted to in the Torah?

            Brokenness brings to mind despair, destruction, and disillusion.  But those allusions encapsulate only half the concept.  We forget that in order for something to be broken it had to be whole first.  Otherwise, it would not be called broken, rather a collection of disconnected pieces.  For example, two people walk into a junkyard, a mechanic and a car salesman.  For one, the view is a tragedy, all of these cars that used to be worth something, but are now all rusted and mangled.  For the mechanic there may be initial shock at all the work ahead, but the main thing he sees is a world of opportunity.  With all of the parts in one place, it is possible to rebuild cars with even better and more creative parts than before.  He can’t help but warm up his welder to get ready and build.  The car salesman sees pieces of car, while the mechanic sees the possibility of original wholeness. 

            Rosh Hashanah is the day to become mechanics and see that while at present the world is broken, it has the possibility of reconstruction and connection.  It is easy to see the world as a junkyard from the perspective of the car salesman, and internalize that vision as normal. The world is not at peace and it would appear that this is the status quo. Rosh Hashanah is the time we put our head, ‘Rosh’, to the seemingly endless string of years that are more broken than whole, more war than peace, to say that his year will no longer be broken, and I will play a special role in rebuilding it.[2]  That is where repentance comes in.  We would not have a broken world had we been proper mechanics the year before, so this year we need to think about how we can improve ourselves in order to make the world whole again.   

            This idea is rooted in the Hebrew name, ‘yom trua’, תרוע.  On the one hand the root , רע means evil and ‘to break’[3].  But on the other hand, רע also forms the word for Shepherd, רוע and companionship, תרוע, both ideas of connectedness and unity.  The broken is also a sign of initial unity. 

That is also the general idea behind judgment or din.  It can be harsh and unforgiving, and yet it unites the world under commonality of purpose and gives life meaning.  That is zicaron or memory.   Through memory of action, in other words, that each action counts we get din.  Therefore, when the verse says that it is a day of remembrance, the Rabbis understood that it meant a day of Judgment. 

And it is from the Day, ‘yom’ of the verse that the Rabbis saw the idea of wholeness and shofar.  During the day our eyes can see a picture of how everything is whole and connected, while at night everything is mixed up in darkness. So too, the continuous blast from the shofar transforms the broken blast into its completion.  The word shofar means beautiful because it shows us how everything can come back together.    

   

            As we listen to the blast of the shofar on Rosh Hashanah, the most idealistic self needs to awaken.  Realize that the main goal of Rosh Hashanah is not to see our weakness and failings, but to realize our strengths and apply them to the world this year. That is why Rosh Hashanah does not come at the end of the year in terms of months, but in the seventh month.  We have spent a summer building up our strength, and now we need to use it during the winter months in order to have a world of blossoms in the spring. 

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[1]  Based on the Ramban Drasha for Rosh Hashanah as explained by Rabbi Gershenfeld

[2] At the root of the rebuilding process is making G-d our King and the King of the world.  Unity is only possible with G-d at the helm and by us subjugating our vision to His.

[3] See the Recanti’s commentary to the Ramban

Ellul- nurturing curiosity

On the plane ride back to Boston, I saw a unique sight.  As I stepped on to a small Jet Blue Embraer, trying to keep my bags and kids in order, the flight attendant by the door said, ‘Shalom Aleichem’.  Perplexed, I looked at his name tag, Anthony, and it only increased the mystery. But as I looked at the attendant I saw a subtle kippah.  Its colors matched his Jet Blue vest to perfection.  And under his vest, his tzitzis stuck out in a small loop as opposed to the typical hang down look.  He wasn’t flaunting them, but they weren’t tucked in either as is permitted by Jewish law if one wishes.  I was not expecting to meet my first orthodox male flight attendant on this flight and I was intrigued- I had to find out more.

                My opportunity to get the story came midway through the flight when my four year old needed abba to help cope with the noisy flush of an airplane toilet.  The attendant was organizing drinks in the kitchen when I asked how long he had been a flight attendant for. He said three and a half years. I asked how he managed with Shabbat flights. He said that he was now a senior attendant and he had the leverage to organize his schedule as he pleased.  He continued that he had only been religious for just over a year.  I prodded him to explain how that happened.  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I had been an attendant on a route from New York to Florida and during Channukah the flight was packed with religious Jews.  I realized that I was Jewish and I knew nothing about what it means to be Jewish, so I picked up a book and started reading.  That was that’.

 

                My daughter then tugged at my arm and it was time to go, though, I wanted to hear a more detailed version.  Nonetheless, the moral of the story is there.  Granted, I am sure his journey was not that simple and fraught with twists and turns. At the same time, all it takes is curiosity, a small desire to understand.  Because the Torah speaks for itself.  Its wisdom continues to be ahead of our time and the Jewish story that is playing out before our eyes is evident.  Scientific discoveries continue to demonstrate the complexity of creation in a way that makes it less and less likely that it happened ‘by accident’.  The facts are there, it just takes desire. 

                Ellul is the time to reawaken that desire to know, to understand on whatever level.  As long as the curiosity is nurtured and one chooses to learn, the rest will often fall into place. 

Making it easy

                 My second child had a long colicky spell.  One night I was left alone with her and I promised a student that nonetheless we would be able to learn in spite of fatherly duties. I would put the baby to sleep and we’d have a quiet house conducive to study.  The poor student schlepped in from half an hour away and I was just putting my last few rocks in when he arrived.  The eyes were drooping and then she was a goner! 

                We sat down at the dining room table, and exchanged our initial pleasantries.  As I grabbed the book we were about to learn the crying began.  Slightly embarrassed that my promise for a good night of study was now in question, I ran to the room and got rocking.  The rocking continued and continued and the screaming was not abating.  My anxious energy was now transferring into the rocks and making things worse.  An hour passed. I grabbed a computer and put on a lullaby.  It did little to help the now hysterical child.  A second hour passed and it was time to give up.  The student got ready to leave and he hadn’t learnt a thing. All he had to show for his efforts were ringing ears.

                I felt terrible for both my child and my student. One was in pain and the other had just wasted almost three hours of time.  But, the student was wise and as he was getting married in the near future he said that he had indeed learned plenty from being here- he had learned what it really meant to be a father.  The realization that this had been good for him changed the whole experience.

                This is the paradigm shift we all need to have with respect to Judaism.  So often have I heard the complaint,’ why does G-d need us to do all these actions for him?’ And the answer is He doesn’t, you do.  In an almost humorous under exaggeration, the verse says 10:12: ‘And now, what does Hashem your G-d request from you, only to fear Hashem your G-d, to go in all his ways, to love him and to serve Hashem your G-d  with all your heart and with all your soul. To guard the mitzvos and his decrees that I commanded you today for YOUR GOOD’. So, basically all G-d asks is to do everything! But, the key is that the way the Ramban reads the verse is that after the verse ‘only’, one should put a bracket until ‘commanded you today’.  Meaning that we need to realize that whatever it is that G-d is asking, it is for our own good- 'And now, whatever Hashem asks, it is only....for your good'! And when we realize that, the various requests in between are no longer overwhelming. When we realize that we are the ones that benefit, it changes the whole experience.

A small presence

                Despite sweltering heat, Chicagoans and their international guests were out in force.  It was erev Lollapalooza and the city was gearing up for the big event. The freshly minted parks were eager to accept swarms of children and exhausted adults.  And as we strolled around throughout the day I noticed one other tzitzi and kippah clad gentleman which made two of us, or rather, five of us if we include family.  I felt the weight of the verse in this week parsha: ‘Hashem will scatter you among the peoples and you will be left few in number among the nations where Hashem will lead you’.  

 Due to the fact that Jews often stick together in tight knit communities, it can feel like the opposite.  And if we took the amount of media coverage as any indication of size it would appear that we made up at least a billion people.  But the reality is we like to trumpet our 3,500 of existence and if we grew naturally like any other civilization, again the numbers should be staggering.  But we remain, ‘few in number’ only recently climbing to even keel from pre holocaust days.  

So what is this statement, ‘few in number’? Is it a threat or a statement of fact; why does it have to be?  And if our mission in life is to be a light unto the nations then it would seem that the more Jews to do the job the better.  To gain a foothold into the problem we have to view the role of the Jew a bit differently and it will also illuminate some of the issues we’ve had in exile. 

                The Talmud states the following: Says R’ Abba, it is better to be pursued than to be a pursuer, as there is no bird that is pursued more than the turtledoves and they are brought up to the alter. Babba Kamma 93a.  What is the meaning of this?   It means that things that have a natural spiritual quality to them will feature less prominently in the physical world.  And those animals that dominate the physical world, the hunters, are not kosher or brought to the temple. They are too entrenched in ruling this world that they can’t connect to the next world.  This goes the same with sheep, cows, and goats- they are the hunted and therefore get a place on the Alter.  This principle applies to the Jewish people. We have constantly been pursued and kept physically weak and it is no accident.

                While we can enjoy the physical world and strive to do well, the message is clear.  That is not where we are supposed to thrive and channel all our energies. There is no need for a Jewish empire and we shouldn’t be looking to dominate through physical means alone.  We are small in number for a reason, we are supposed to float above the confines of material success.  From that perch, though, small in number we are able to maintain spiritual leadership. [1]

               

 

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[1] See Netzach Israel chapter 15