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.