Yonason Goldson
I'm a Talmudic scholar and professional speaker, as well as a former hitchhiker and circumnavigator, applying ancient wisdom to the challenges of the modern world. I've published seven books, including, Proverbial Beauty: Secrets for success and happiness from the wisdom of the ages.
Homepage: http://yonasongoldson.com
Hopefully or cynically, all the world looks to Israel
Posted in Israel on March 1, 2009
Here’s a quiz: which nation is most often mentioned in the news and on the floor of the United Nations?
It’s not China. Not Iraq. Not North Korea, Russia, or the United States. Rather, since its inception barely 60 six decades ago, the little Middle Eastern country of Israel has received more media attention than any other single nation and has monopolized more United Nations debate than all other nations combined. Bosnia, Chechnya, Rwanda, and currently Afghanistan may briefly grab center stage, but always the world turns its focus back to Israel.
Why?
Of course there is the Holocaust, the most systematic, cold-blooded effort to exterminate a people in modern memory. Having sprouted forth from the ashes of Nazi annihilation, Israel symbolizes the eternal struggle against oppression, racism, and hatred, testifying to the nobility and tenacity of the human spirit. As such, Israel has captured the hearts and minds of Jews and non-Jews alike all around the world.
In reality, of course, Israel is not the fanciful setting of historical fiction, but a real place where ordinary people grapple with extraordinary problems. Israeli Jews are not all saints, not all heroes, and not always above human failings or even human corruption. And the Israeli government is an unsteady ship tossed upon the stormy seas of international politics and global economics.
But Israel is unique among all civilization in that it crowns an ethnic and cultural history nearly 4,000 years old. The Jewish patriarch Abraham, a single man with an unorthodox view of mankind’s place in the universe, stood alone against the pagan sensibilities of an entire world and founded a people and a nation dedicated to ethical behavior, personal responsibility, and the pursuit of peace.
Abraham’s children grew into a nation that aspired to spiritual and moral self-perfection, sometimes conquering and sometimes falling to enemies within and without, but always struggling to uphold the mission of their patriarch as a moral conscience to the world.
And they succeeded. As the non-Jewish historian Paul Johnson explains, “To [the Jews] we owe the idea of … collective conscience and so of social responsibility; of peace as an abstract ideal and love as the foundation of justice and many other items which constitute the basic moral furniture of the human mind.” The very notions of peace and brotherhood, it seems, are the legacy of the Jews, and the country of Israel waves as the banner of those ideals.
No one wins popularity contests by serving as a moral conscience. Morality comes under fierce fire both from tyrants who wish to justify their atrocities and from civil libertarians who thirst for an amoral society where self-indulgence is not only allowed but venerated. Such as these look upon the nation of Israel’s shortcomings and shriek, “Hypocrisy!”
But there is nothing hypocritical about falling short of noble standards, and such failure is far more noble than abandoning standards altogether. Indeed, perhaps anti-Semitism is, at its root, the violent reaction against the proposal that there is a moral compass for navigating our social universe, that there can be an absolute definition of right and wrong, that individuals and societies should be held responsible for their single and collective actions. Better to revile a people and censure a nation that raises the standard of morality than to jeopardize the free license of moral autonomy.
After centuries of enduring crusades, pogroms, and jihads – always in the name of peace and justice and the Divine Will – the Jews finally reclaimed their ancient homeland with the endorsement and blessing of the world community, only to have their Arab neighbors deny Israel’s right to exist and try repeatedly to drive them into the sea. And now, another half-century later, the world community turns a blind eye to the duplicity of Israel’s enemies while demanding never-ending gestures of “peace” from the very Israelis who must fight for their lives.
How tragic that the world prefers to trample upon symbols of morality rather than look to them for inspiration. And how shameful that the nations of West, whose ideals of freedom and justice stand upon Jewish foundations, are compromise Israeli security for the sake of political correctness and political expediency.
Originally published in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Parshas Terumah — The Heart of the World
Posted in Weekly Parsha on February 26, 2009
And you shall make Me a dwelling (mikdash), and I will dwell (v’shochanti) among them (Sh’mos 25:8).
The construction of the Mishkan, the Tabernacle in the desert — which foreshadows the Beis HaMikdash, the Temple in Jerusalem — offers a compelling perspective on the nature of the universe. But a complete understanding requires an explanation why the Almighty commanded the construction of a mikdash, which lay four hundred eighty years in the future, rather than a mishkan, which is what the Jewish people were about to build.
The word mishkanliterally means “that which creates a dwelling.” In the desert, with no land, no permanence, and no boundaries, the tabernacle provided the focal point around which the Jewish nation could coalesce. Of course, the spirit of HaShem is everywhere. But the House of God that would reside in the midst of the people would bind them together in a way that the conceptual knowledge that they were a holy people could not. Indeed, a careful reading of the verse reveals HaShem’s true intention. Build Me a tabernacle, commanded the Almighty, and I will dwell not in it but in and among them, the people.
Consequently, we understand that the Mishkan was never intended to be permanent. Its purpose was to sustain the people until they could enter the land. At that point, they would no longer require a mishkan, for the land itself would bind them together. From then on they would require a mikdash — literally, that which creates sanctity. Once in the land, the purpose of a House of God would be to remind the people of their divine mission and inspire them to strive for ever higher levels of spiritual achievement.
To that end, the people would gather three times a year for the pilgrim festivals — Pesach, Shavuos, and Sukkos. And herein lies the secret of the Mikdash, as explained by the Chassidic classic Arvei Nachal.
Just as the universe is created with three physical dimensions, similarly is it created with three spiritual aspects: space, time, and life. As a microcosm of the physical universe, the human body provides the most familiar model for the pattern of spiritual existence.
Within the body, the heart pumps blood throughout the system. Through arteries and capillaries, the blood reaches every corner of the body, carrying with it oxygenated blood that literally breathes life into every cell. Returning to the heart, the blood is pumped through the lungs to become oxygenated once again, so that the body’s internal cycle of life can continue.
The same pattern manifests itself in the nature of time. According to the kabbalists, time is not linear but circular. In the course of each year, every soul visits every day and every moment in the 365 days that describe the solar year. Just as the flow of blood deposits life-giving oxygen to the body’s cells, similarly does each soul deposit kedusha, sanctity, to the individual moments that together form the body of time. And just as the body’s cycle begins and ends with the heart, similarly does the annual cycle begin and end with Yom Kippur — the holiest day, and the heart, of the year. The extent to which the Jew renews his relationship with the Almighty on Yom Kippur will affect not only his own fortunes for the coming year, but the fortunes of all mankind. Symbiotically, our involvement in Torah and mitzvos draws the innate kedusha from the temporal fabric of the universe and allows us to return to the next Yom Kippur on a spiritual level higher than we were on the year before.
Finally we come to physical space. Once established in the land, the Jewish people spread out to settle their country, striving to strike the perfect balance between material prosperity and spiritual purpose. Their involvement in Torah and mitzvos throughout every corner of the Land of Israel would draw out the spiritual essence of the land, enabling them to achieve greater levels in preparation for each successive festival, when they would come together at the Beis HaMikdash — the heart of the world. Inspired and elevated by each festival, the Jews would return to their homes, elevated in their spirituality so that they could elevate the land on which they toiled, thus creating a virtuous cycle that brought them ever closer and closer to their Creator.
After the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, the great sage Rabban Yochanon ben Zakkai decreed that every shul, every place of Jewish prayer, should be treated as a mikdash ma’at, and Temple in miniature. Every time the Jewish community comes together to pray, on weekdays and on Shabbos, on festivals and on the High Holy Days, we have the opportunity to renew the cycle of spiritual elevation. Prayer is not for God; it is for us. It is not a burden; it is a privilege and an opportunity. It is not an inconvenience; it is as fundamental to our existence as our life’s blood, as our heart, and as our soul.
E Unibus Plurum
Posted in Jewish Unity on February 25, 2009
Well, it didn’t take long for my most recent essay on Jewish Unity to ruffle some feathers. Anyone else think I’m off base?
Who are the Real Nazis?
Posted in Israel on February 24, 2009
Sharon and Hitler are the same. Only difference is the name. (Pro-Palestinian rally slogan, Washington, D.C., April 19, 2002).
It’s not surprising that Palestinians and their supporters have routinely made this kind of equation. But it’s another matter entirely when it comes from mainstream politicians, journalists, and academics.
Quoted in the Guardian, BBC commentator and Oxford University lecturer Tom Paulin remarked that the state of Israel has no right to exist, and that Israeli settlers should be shot dead. “They are Nazis, racists,” Paulin said. “I feel nothing but hatred for them.” Neither the university nor the BBC has taken any action against Paulin. Alas, most of the European press seem to share his sentiments. Even Archbishop Desmond Tutu recently admonished Israel for having “forgotten the collective punishment” of the Holocaust.
It staggers the imagination that only half a century after Hitler’s Nazis vilified the Jews as international criminals, the international community has been denouncing the Jews as Nazis. But if Sharon was indeed Hitler, where were the public rallies declaring death to Palestinians? Where are the arm bands imposed on every Arab Israeli? Where are the textbooks teaching Israeli school children that Arabs are subhuman beasts? Where is the ejection of Arab Knesset ministers, who make up nearly 10 percent of the Israeli parliament? Where is the desecration of mosques and Moslem holy places?
If Israel has been guilty of any crime, is not her worst crime that she is no longer weak, no longer downtrodden, no longer a sympathetic David slinging stones at some towering Goliath? Is this not the true reason, given the superficial perception that every prosperous Western nation is evil and every anti-capitalist entity is good, that the court of world opinion refuses to admit as evidence the decades of Arab aggression, the unbroken record of Yasser Arafat’s duplicity, the targeting of Israeli civilians with wholesale terrorism?.
In short, it seems that the academic and journalistic communities have just gotten too lazy to wean themselves away from the sloppy thinking of moral equivalence, the reduction of complex problems into simplistic, black-and-white constructs. And, even more disturbing, is how such narrow reasoning extends far beyond the current Mideast crisis, for it mirrors the thinking behind the last great attempt to annihilate the Jewish people.
On November 24, 1933, Hitler’s National Socialist Party passed a law for the protection of animals, “designed to prevent cruelty and indifference from man … and to awaken and develop sympathy and understanding for animals as one of the highest moral values of a people.”
Over the next 12 years, doctors working for this same Nazi Party infected human subjects with such maladies as typhus, smallpox, and cholera, and imposed upon them forced sterilization, experimental surgery, and euthanasia.
Some might take comfort that at least no schnauzer puppies were mistreated. But to recognize the perversion of granting human dignity to animals while denying it to human beings is to take the first step toward understanding how a Holocaust can happen.
Moral equivalence begets moral confusion, distorting our sense of fair play so that we fail to distinguish between perpetrators and victims, between aggressors and defenders. Our well-intentioned desire to give the benefit of the doubt blinds us to simple justice until, by refusing to acknowledge evil as evil, we allow evil free reign over ourselves and over society.
Conventional wisdom insists that a Holocaust could never happen again. But some parallels between then and now are unsettling. Today, animal rights activists are pushing ever harder for legislation according human rights to gorillas and chimpanzees, following in the path of Peter Singer, the Princeton University ethics department chairman who made headlines advocating the legalized murder of deformed babies in the first month after birth.
When we start seeing animals as equal to humans, when we can no longer appreciate that human rights are a function of human responsibilities, then we’re only a step away from discarding our responsibilities and treating humans as less than animals. Similarly, when we start to see murderers as freedom fighters, we’re a step nearer to the amoral abyss at the edge of which our civil society is already faltering.
The Jews of Europe were not Hitler’s only victims. The Nazi’s exterminated blacks, gypsies, the handicapped, and the elderly. Given more time, they would undoubtedly have gone still further. Given the opportunity, their ideological successors will go just as far.
How terrifying that the specter of Holocaust once again looms over the civilized world. How much more terrifying that the world might stand idly by while it happens, or worse, hasten its arrival.
Originally published in the Miami Jewish Star Times, July 2002.
A Short History of Justice
“Upon three things the world endures,” says the Talmud. “Upon justice, upon truth, and upon peace.” Maybe that’s why my world has often felt as if it’s on the brink of collapse.
Where is justice? Is justice in American foreign policy, which has consistently pressured Israel to make concessions while overlooking Arab violations of Oslo and Wye? Is justice in the UN condemnation of Israel, tacitly endorsed by the United States, after former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak risked his political career by offering once unthinkable concessions? Or is justice in the return of the Jewish patriarch Joseph’s tomb, revered by Jews for three thousand years and now desecrated by the same Palestinians who promise to protect Jewish holy sites given over to their control?
Where is truth? Is truth in the American press, which has continually accused Israel of provoking Arab violence, even as Arab parents send out their children to throw stones at Israeli soldiers and martyr themselves on international television? Is truth in the vilification of former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, after he received false assurances from Palestinian security — before his visit to the Temple Mount — that there would be no violence, and despite the full day that passed before the “eruption” of “spontaneous” Arab violence? Or is truth in the squalor of Palestinian refugee camps in nations throughout the Arab world, whose governments have brokered violence for half a century rather than welcoming their own dislocated people as citizens?
Where is peace? Is peace in the concrete blocks hurled down by Arabs onto the heads of Jewish worshipers at the Western Wall, or is it in the beating and stabbing of American yeshiva students pulled from their taxi by an Arab mob? Is peace in the insistence that Judaism’s holiest site on earth should be placed entirely under Palestinian authority? Or is peace in the river of hate pouring out of Palestinian press releases and into the minds of Palestinian school children?
There is yet no justice. There may not be peace any time soon. But allow me to offer this grain of truth:
I was there, in Israel, during the first intifada, when bomb squads regularly cordoned off metropolitan boulevards upon the discovery of unattended handbags or backpacks, where Jews were murdered in their own apartment buildings by Arab knives and on their own street corners by Arab suicide bombers. I was there during the Gulf War, stuffing my one-year-old daughter into a plastic tent to protect her from threatened Iraqi gas attacks, shuddering beside my wife in the middle of the night as American Patriot missiles exploded in the skies over Jerusalem and Saddam Hussein’s Scud missiles devastated the streets of Tel Aviv. I was on buses that were pelted by Arab stones and whose windows were shattered by Arab cinder blocks.
And now I am here, watching in disbelief as journalists around the world paint Israelis as war criminals and Arabs as freedom fighters. And, even more astonishing, is the perpetuation of this macabre fantasy by Jews in the media, by the New York Times and National Public Radio and others. To paraphrase one American student writing from Israel: often Jews have been victims of blood libels, but never before have Jews believed those libels themselves.
American Jews have believed for decades that America would become their haven from the terrors of thirty centuries of anti-Semitism. But those hopes vaporize before the unreasoned biases of the “objective” media, whose slanted reporting discredits both them and the First Amendment they invoke whenever their integrity is called into question.
American Jews must be both Americans and Jews. We must speak out in defense of what’s right and what’s fair for all peoples, but we must also speak out to defend ourselves. We owe it to the hundreds of thousands of Jews murdered by Inquisitors in Spain and Cossacks in Poland, to the millions massacred by the Romans in 2nd century Israel and the Nazis in 20th century Europe. We owe it to the Jews who suffered in uncountable numbers under the Babylonians and the Persians and the Greeks and the Syrians, under Almohads and Crusaders and Bolsheviks and in the Reformation, from thousands of years before any modern nation existed until our own generation. We owe it to all of them.
The rest of the world owes it to them, too.
Originally published in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, October 2000
The Arba Parshios – Four Stages of Renewal
Posted in Holidays on February 21, 2009
Adapted from a shiur by HaRav Nachman Bulman zt”l.1
Now we are slaves; next year we will be free. This is cheirus, freedom, the overarching theme of Pesach, the idea that defines the first of the three festivals.
But there is another theme, perhaps even more fundamental to appreciating the significance of the season: geirus – conversion. The exodus from Egypt marks not only our emancipation from slavery but also our inception as a people. Although the 600,000 who went out from Mitzrayim were all descendants of Avrohom, Yitzchok, and Yaakov, it was on that first Passover that we became an am haKodesh – a holy people.
But it is not enough to simply remember the exodus: In each generation, every person is obligated to see himself as if he personally went out from Egypt. It’s a tall order, to not only reenact but recreate the experience of yetzias Mitzrayim. Indeed, it is virtually impossible without preparation, and that preparation begins six weeks before Pesach with the Arba Parshios, the four special Torah portions that usher us into the season of redemption: Shekalim, Zachor, Parah, and Chodesh.
These four weeks are neither separate nor disconnected. Together they constitute a progression that, if observed correctly, enables us to derive the greatest possible benefit from the Festival of Freedom.
SHEKALIM – Facilitating Yaakov’s Fulfillment
It was HaShem’s original intention, explains the Ramchal, to create a universe in which the spiritual and the physical coexist without the slightest tension or disharmony. 2 According to this design, the flow of spirituality into the material world requires a physical vessel able to receive and hold the infusion of kedusha. Ostensibly, the altar of the mishkan or the mikdash served this function. Ideally, the Jew himself becomes the altar of HaShem.
An altar must be constructed and maintained physically before it can function spiritually. As the mishna says: Ain kemach, ain Torah; if there is no flour, there is no Torah. 3 The spiritual survival of the Jewish nation requires, most fundamentally, the provision and maintenance of material resources.
From the very beginning, the Jewish people understood this principle implicitly. Zevulun worked to support the Torah study of Yissachar, just as the whole nation donated the priestly tithes to support the spiritual service of the Kohanim and Leviim. 4 And even earlier, Yaakov and Eisav were to have had a similar relationship, with Eisav, the man of the field, supporting the spiritual pursuits of Yaakov, the one who dwells in the tents of Torah study. 5
But Eisav’s rejection of that partnership necessitated a change of plan. Yaakov would have to shoulder both burdens – the material support and the spiritual service. 6 That dual mission would pose such enormous challenges to the descendants of Yaakov that, by virtue of the natural limitations of the physical world, they could not possibly succeed. Only supernatural effort and merit could keep the Torah alive.
This is the significance of the battle between Yaakov and the malach, identified by the sages as the guardian angel of Eisav. 7 Although Yaakov ultimately prevailed over the malach, the contest left him wounded him in the hollow of his thigh. This injury of the lower extremities, the more physical part of the body adjacent to the organs of reproduction, alludes to a future conflict regarding the role that was originally intended for Eisav.
And so, the sages describe Yaakov’s injury with the expression nogah b’tamchin d’oraissa – a defect in the support of Torah. They foresaw that the day would come when those Jews possessing the material means of supporting Torah institutions would no longer recognize their responsibility to do so, when their respect for Torah scholars would diminish to such an extent that they no longer consider themselves partners in Torah survival. 8
In such a generation, Yaakov Avinu limps. And yet, although he limped away from his confrontation with Eisav’s malach, Yaakov returned sholeim – intact – from his encounter with Eisav himself. If so, what must we do to enable Yaakov’s recovery in our generation?
HARMONY OF THE MATERIAL AND THE SPIRITUAL
Rambam offers a solution. In the generations since the destruction of the Beis HaMikdash, the tribe of Levi has redefined its role from ministering as priests to becoming serving as scholars and teachers of the Jewish people. And it is not only those Jews born into the Levitical tribe who have donned this mantle, but all who devote themselves exclusively to Torah study that have the responsibility to teach their brethren through words and through example. 9
When a Torah scholar conducts himself lifnim mishuras hadin, by upholding the spirit as well as the letter of the law, when he speaks pleasantly with all people, when he shows concern for them and greets them cordially no matter what their station, when he offers no insult and conducts himself impeccably in business, when he performs his mitzvos meticulously and carries himself with dignity – then, promises Rambam, his fellow Jews cannot help but be drawn to him and to the Torah that is the guiding influence in every aspect of his life. 10
And if we find that those of our fellow Jews who are not immersed in Torah and mitzvos are not inspired to be partners in the support of Torah, then the community of scholars must accept much of the responsibility upon itself, and must rededicate itself to the task of kiddush HaShem.
Herein lies an understanding of the first step in rebuilding the altar of HaShem, the foundation of which is secured only through the contribution of material resources – shekalim. In contributing to the literal and figurative foundations of the mishkan, every Jew was equal to every other Jew. Only in this way, through the harmonious combination of the material and the spiritual, can the service and the sanctification of the Jewish people become complete.
We find this very ideal expressed in the yotzros, the liturgical poems added by many congregations to the service of Parshas Shekalim:
Who can surmise the numbers of those “counted ones,”
Who are not countable through any kind of lottery?
HaShem struck a covenant with them from then, from the time of that census,
That there should never be lacking from their number a basic blend…
Whether through war or plague or pogrom, HaShem has promised that there will never be fewer than the number of Jews who left Mitzrayim. Yet this number comprises not the total count of the Jewish population, but the number of “counted ones,” those marked by the commitment to Torah, the basic blend of Zevuluns and Yissachars who serve as partners to ensure the material and spiritual survival of the Jewish nation. Within the context of this partnership, money becomes as kadosh as Torah itself.
And if from those counted ones there will be left only a few
Their number would never fall below 600,000 marked ones.
And even in times of vulnerability to epidemic or violence from above
These counted ones can be redeemed through the atonement of silver.
For the achievement of true atonement, however, both Zevulun and Yissachar must be worthy. Who can count the millions wasted in the name of Jewish philanthropy to build so many balloon-like institutions? And who bears responsibility for the money donated for scholars who fail to conduct themselves as genuine Yissachars?
Both givers and receivers must accept responsibility. When money is given and received with purity of purpose as the foundation of authentic Torah institutions, it elevates the giver, the receiver, and the money itself to the highest level of kedusha, tilting the scales of divine judgment and hastening the completion of the third and final Beis HaMikdash.
Always positioned at the outset of Adar, the month in which we celebrate the holiday of Purim, Parshas Shekalim prepares the way for our proper appreciation of the national redemption we commemorate in that month. It is no coincidence, therefore, that our reenactment of the contribution of shekalim in the desert falls out in this season. Indeed, it was those very shekalim, donated by the Jews toward the construction of the mishkan, that generated the merit that saved the Jewish people from the silver offered by Haman to destroy them. 11
ZACHOR – The Battle for Moral Clarity
But material resources provide only the first step. Without Torah guidance, a Jew cannot differentiate between right and wrong, between good and evil. This is the battleground of Eisav’s grandson Amoleik, the nation that risked annihilation for sole purpose of sewing doubt among the nations of the world and in the minds of the Jewish people. As with modern day terrorists (who learned their tactics from Amoleik’s suicide attack upon the Jews in the desert), there can be no peace with any ideology that would rather die than bow before malchus Shomayim.
But today we don’t know how to identify Amoleik, since the Assyrian king Sancheriv scattered the nations and confused their ethnic origins. 12 How then to carry on the battle against Amoleik?
Our world today contains no shortage of nations eager to carry on Amoleik’s military campaign against the Jewish people. And just as there could be no compromise with those intent upon our annihilation then, similarly is compromise with those determined to annihilate us now an irrational dream. We must be prepared to fight for our survival, to take up arms to defend ourselves and our land, to recognize the enemies that threaten our existence and not be seduced by false promises of peace.
But it is the irrationality of the dream that poses the greater threat. It is the cultural attack from the more subtle descendants of Eisav who, instead of striving to bite us to death, feign brotherhood in hope that they may kiss us to death. 13 It is the cultural assault from the culture of secularism that seeps into every facet of society, from literature and music, from movies and what today passes for art. True, Chazal tell us there is wisdom among the nations. 14 But we must be ever watchful for the insidious messages of modern society that seek to infiltrate and confuse the clear thinking of the Torah mind. The self-hating Jews, the apologists, the moral equivocators, and the halachic revisionists are among those who, no matter how sincere, have been won over by the seductive cultural terrorism of Amoleik.
Zachor – remember Amoleik, for what they did and for what their philosophy of ambivalence continues to try to do. As zealous as we must be in our war against external enemies, we must devote even greater passion to the battle for moral clarity and integrity.
PARAH – Facing the Enemy Within
Even after recognizing the enemy without and preparing ourselves for the battle of ideas, we dare not consider ourselves secure. There is an enemy inside as well, one far more dangerous than the one outside. Against external enemies we can accept the reality of standoffs or partial victories, but against the influence of tumah, the forces of spiritual impurity, we can settle for nothing short of absolute triumph. There are no half measures in the milchamas haYeitzer, the war for spiritual purity; taharah must be 100% or it remains tumah. We must recognize and acknowledge our own shortcomings, then labor feverishly to correct them all.
But the battle seems pitched against us. With so much impurity in the world, how can we keep ourselves pure without withdrawing, like monastic monks, and hiding ourselves from the outside world?
This was the question of Rabbi Yehoshua ben Kavsvi when he contemplated the mitzvah of Para Adumah. 15 The Torah’s description of the process, whereby one who is tahor sprinkles the ashes of the red cow to purify one who is tomei, seems to imply a one-to-one equation: one tahor is necessary to purify one tomei. If that would be so, the impurity of the outside world would seem unconquerable.
So thought Rabbi Yehoshua until he discovered the ancient records of Yavneh, wherein he learned that even if all the members of the Jewish nation would render themselves defiled, a single tahor could come and purify them all.
Rav Meir Shapiro explains that Rabbi Yehoshua had originally believed that only when the power of the spiritual exceeds the power of the physical can it prevail. Yavneh, not only through its writings but through its very existence, disproved this assumption.
Faced by the inevitable destruction of Yerushalayim, Rabban Yochanon ben Zakkai won the favor of the Emperor Vespasian, whom he asked to grant the yeshiva of Yavneh and its sages immunity from Roman interference. Imagine Vespasian’s astonishment when, after having offered Rabban Yochanon anything he desired, the rabbi asked for an insignificant academy in an obscure village. 16 How Vespasian must have laughed up his sleeve when he consented to Rabban Yochanon’s request.
Four centuries later, the Roman Empire had crumbled, while the Babylonian Talmud was on the brink of producing an explosion of Torah scholarship throughout the Jewish Diaspora. The little yeshiva of Yavneh had secured the future of Torah survival, and the immeasurable might of Rome had vanished.
Similarly, the internal purity of conduct and conviction of a single Jew will inexorably bring a hundred Jews closer to the Torah heritage of which they have been dispossessed.
CHODESH – The Gift of Renewal
Human beings are not static. We are constantly in flux, moving forward and slipping back.
Jews are no exception. Having laid the material foundations for spiritual growth, having identified and taken action against our external enemies, whether physical or philosophical, and having labored to refine and perfect our inner character, we dare not believe that we have finished the job. With each new victory, with each new achievement in spiritual growth, we face new challenges and new obstacles.
Reality is a cruel reminder. Rabbeinu Tam describes the human condition of the y’mei ahava and the y’mei sina, the natural human cycle of optimism and pessimism, of idealism and cynicism, of enthusiasm and emotional paralysis. 17 And when we fall into the dark side of the cycle, we forget that the wheel will turn and that we will eventually find our way back into the light.
Where the nations of the world are compared to the sun, shining brightly for their brief moment before disappearing forever, the Jewish people are compared to the moon, subtly changing, growing bright, diminishing, seeming to have disappeared completely before reappearing once again. 18 Every month, every chodesh, is a season of hischadshus, or renewal. The new moon reminds us not only that there is always more for us to accomplish, but that the darkness of the spirit will inevitably pass. 19
HaChodesh haZeh lochem – this month is for you, says the Torah. 20 It is not the Torah that needs renewal but we ourselves: a new heart, a new outlook, a new hope that we will overcome the difficulties of the future as we have overcome the difficulties of the past. With this sense of inner renewal, we are finally ready for Pesach; we are ready to accept the yoke of Torah and the challenges of freedom once again.
The Torah makes us a promise: if we make the effort, we can find such resources of internal power that when we face the obstacles of the soul, we will muster the strength to rebuild ourselves, to become fresh, to be fresh, to count ourselves among the counted ones of Yisroel, for whom HaShem redeemed His nation 33 centuries ago, and for whom He will redeem us again.
And so the piyut of the yotzros concludes:
How precious to me are those counted ones,
Those who are counted and who allow themselves to be counted.
Guard those who are counted, whether consciously or unconsciousl;
Keep watch over and mark those who would be marked and leave their mark,
That they should all bow to You.
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Footnotes
- 25 Adar 1, 5746, Yeshivas Ohr Yaakov, Zichron Yaakov
- Derech HaShem 1:3:4
- Avos 3:21
- Rashi on Bereishis 49:13 from Tanchuma 11; BaMidbar 18:21-24
- Bereishis 25:27 (and Rashi ad loc); Sforno on Bereishis 27:29-28:4
- Sforno loc cit
- Rashi on 32:25 from Bereishis Rabbah 77:3
- See Zohar Bereishis 171a
- Rambam, Hilchos Shemittah V’yovel 13:13
- Rambam, Hilchos Yesodei HaTorah 5:11
- Megillah 13b
- Brochos 28a
- See Rashi on Bereishis 33:4
- Eicha Rabbah 2
- Yerushalmi Damai 15b
- Gittin 56
- HaRav Shlomo Wolbe zt”l in Alei Shor, from Sefer HaYashar
- Sh’mos Rabbah 15
- Sfas Emes on Parshas Bo
- Sh’mos 12:1
Originally published in the Jewish Observer
Darwin at 200
Posted in Science and Nature on February 19, 2009
Historian Paul Johnson offers some compelling thoughts about Darwin and the new Darwinism.
Behind the hero on the screen
Posted in Culture on February 19, 2009
With Oscar night approaching, it’s worth reflecting how the cultural values of Hollywood are so violently opposed to the values of its most successful movies.
Parshas Mishpatim — The Slow Road to Sanctity
Posted in Weekly Parsha on February 18, 2009
You shall not ascend my altar by steps, so that you will not reveal your nakedness upon it. And these are the statutes that you [Moses] shall place before them [the Jewish people]
Exodus 20:23-21:1
During the early days of the Second Temple era, the sages divided the Torah into portions, or parshios, to be read on successive Sabbaths. The juxtaposition of any two of these parshios always alludes to some principle in Jewish thought. In the case of this week’s Torah portion, however, the connection with the end of last week’s parsha seems particularly elusive.
After the drama of the Almighty’s revelation at Sinai and the giving of the Torah, the narrative switches to a rather dry and technical description of the altar in the Tabernacle. Not by stairs should the kohain go up, lest the gaping of his robes expose his private regions to the stones upon which he walks; rather, he should ascend by a ramp, so that his shorter, more even steps will not result in any impropriety.
Immediately afterward, the Torah introduces the mishpatim, the statutes that govern civil law by establishing the legal parameters of business dealings, private property, loans, and damages. Superficially, no two subjects within Torah could be more disconnected from one another.
The revered Chassidic Master, Reb Elimelech of Lizensk, offers a tantalizing explanation. As we go through life, we should see ourselves as kohanim, the priests of the Almighty, engaged in a perpetual quest to ascend spiritually, approaching ever nearer to a more perfect service upon the conceptual altar of the Creator. Every attainment of a new spiritual level is called by the kabbalists a madrega — a “step” onward and upward. The Jew is not meant to remain static, but to pursue ever more challenging goals in pursuit of spiritual perfection.
The danger, however, is that we may try to take too much upon ourselves, that we attempt to move forward by unrealistic leaps, that we may seek inspiration in the ethereal at the expense of more fundamental forms of heavenly service. By reaching for the stars, we may find ourselves without firm footing underfoot, rendering ourselves vulnerable to the indictments of the divine attribute of Justice. By artificially propelling ourselves to a level that we cannot realistically sustain, we may find ourselves judged with a strictness that is beyond our capacity to endure.
The ramp up to the altar, therefore, serves to symbolize the measured, determined consistency with which we should approach our commitment to spiritual growth. HaShem may bless us at times with great leaps forward and moments of dazzling inspiration, but spiritual development is often like physcial development — painfully slow and paradoxically mundane.
This, teaches Reb Elimelech, is the connection between the details of the altar and the words that introduce this week’s portion, “And these are the statutes…” If we look for spiritual excitement only in mystical secrets and ethereal mysteries, we will inevitably miss the most essential opportunities for spiritual growth that our daily routines provide us. The concern for others, for their money and their time and their property, the respect for boundaries both personal and legal — these are the sensitivities that most effectively and meaningfully transform us into spiritual beings. If we think we can overlook them in our quest for personal revelation and divine intimacy, we will have no foundation upon which to stand. If we carefully cultivate them, we will awaken within ourselves a spiritual perspicacity that will enable us to recognize the presence of the Almighty in every aspect of our lives.
The Road to Compromise is a Two-Way Street
Henry Clay earned his reputation as “the great compromiser” when he forestalled the outbreak of the Civil War by ten years. Even so, one has to wonder whether even Mr. Clay’s genius for mediation could save the Mideast peace process from becoming a towering embarrassment to US foreign policy.
Compromise, according to Webster’s, is “a method of reaching agreement in a dispute, by which each side surrenders something that it wants.” This shouldn’t be hard to comprehend for anyone with a background in high school civics. What does remain incomprehensible is how otherwise reasonable people might seriously apply the term “compromise” to past peace proposals, and why anyone thinks it will be different the next time around.
Definitions notwithstanding, immediately after the Camp David negotiations in the summer of 2000 the New York Times observed that Yasir Arafat’s “willingness for more talks suggests room for compromise.”
The Times deserved credit for optimism and imagination, but won few points for objective editorial insight. Indeed, only a month earlier (on July 11 of that year), the Times reported that, “The Palestinians want a settlement based on United Nations Resolution 242,” implying that if not for Israeli intransigence, there would have been peace in the region long before.
Let’s see. Resolution 242 mandates 1) the “withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict,” and 2) the “termination of all claims or states of belligerency and respect for and acknowledgement of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every State in the area and their right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force.”
For its part, Israel returned more than 90% of the Sinai to Egypt in 1981, and offered to give more than 90% of Judea and Samaria to the Palestinians under former Prime Minister Ehud Barak. Pretty good, for a compromise.
From the Palestinian side, however, it’s been hard to detect even a whiff of compliance. Rather, these are the ways the Palestinian Authority has terminated its claims and belligerency: all government and schoolbook maps, as well as children’s television programs, identify the whole of Israel as “Palestine;” teenagers at Palestinian “summer camps” train with automatic weapons to fight Israelis; Arafat has named squares and streets after Hamas suicide bombers; Israeli security has caught PA officials smuggling numerous weapons, including anti-tank weapons, into Israel. The list could easily fill this column.
Ehud Barak had been prepared to overlook all that. But then the Camp David talks broke down anyway, largely because of Palestinian insistence of absolute sovereignty over East Jerusalem. Yet Jerusalem has been the heart and soul of Israel for over 3000 years, the holiest site on earth according to Jewish tradition and the Old Testament. The Arab’s spiritual capital is Mecca, whereas Jerusalem is merely a religious and historical footnote, not mentioned by name even once in the Quran. What’s more, from 1948 to 1967, when Jordan controlled East Jerusalem, not one Arab ruler visited the city, except Jordon’s own King Hussein. Electricity and water services were neglected, and no government offices or cultural centers were set up there.
So what does the Palestinian Authority want? What it has always wanted: everything. The very concept of compromise appears utterly foreign to the thinking of Palestinian leaders, and is entirely absent from their behavior. It’s hard to see what the PA has ever thought it’s bringing to the negotiating table, except for the vague promise of controlling terrorism and the hazy commitment of conceding Israel’s right to exist, a right already granted by the United Nations over half a century ago.
In hindsight, it’s also hard to see what Ehud Barak hoped to accomplish by bargaining away so much for so little. According to Mideast analyst David Makovsky, Mr. Barak’s objective was “peace without illusions.” Peace between governments, the former Prime Minister believed, is the only possible goal presently within grasp; peace between peoples is generations away.
Mr. Barak assumed that once a treaty is signed, all of Israel’s Arab neighbors will abide by its conditions, gradually leading to normalization and the eventual cessation of the hateful rhetoric that foments Arab violence.
The trouble is, there’s no evidence it would work. Whatever the terms, any deal that produces even the coldest peace must rest on the foundation of compromise, a foundation that doesn’t exist. The indoctrination of children with hatred of Israel continues, even in Egypt, nearly three decades after it grudgingly traded political recognition for the return of its land.
Other Arab nations have refused to offer even this little olive branch; they have never demonstrated the slightest willingness to compromise. Neither Israel nor the United States should take another step forward until they do. Let us hope that the new U. S. president will learn from the errors of his failed namesake and not put his hope in false promises that have already led nowhere.
Adapted from an article originally published in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 2 August 2002
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