D'Var for April 7, 2013The Parasha, Shemini, starts with the eighth day after Aaron’s sons’ inauguration as priests. God goes on to issue a fire from the altar, consuming the sacrifice and asserting Gods presence in the sanctuary. Later, we see Aaron’s two oldest sons, Nadav and Avihu, give a strange fire before God that God had commanded they not to give and subsequently they die for their actions. Aaron and Moses have a disagreement over the laws of the sacrificial offering but Moses finally acknowledges Aaron is correct. This Parasha is the first time God gives the laws of kashrut and demands certain foods not to be eaten. God states that land animals have to chew their cud and have split hooves, fish must have fins and scales and God gives a specific list of which insects can be eaten and which birds we cannot eat. The Parasha goes on to cover the laws of ritual purity and the Israelites are told to “differentiate between the impure and the pure”.
The Parasha is not the only interesting aspect of that week, though. That night began our painful remembrance of the Shoah, the Holocaust. We remembered the six million Jewish men, women and children who lost their lives to the terrors of concentration camps and ghettos. We also recalled the survivors who were left with nothing and those forced out of the country their family had lived in for generations.
As Jewish young adults, we must remember both the fate of Aaron’s children and the fate of the Jewish Europeans. Aaron’s children lost their lives for disobeying God’s orders and building the fire that God commanded them not to build. The holocaust victims were forced into concentration camps for no apparent reason. In both these stories we see punishment that doesn’t really seem to fit the crime. Aaron’s children made one fire that God had not requested, but did this warrant their death? Did the victims of the holocaust deserve the terror that they endured for so many years?
To answer these questions we must looks towards both our rabbis who have thought about and studied punishment and towards the Torah. Throughout the Torah there are innumerable cases of punishment that today would seem unfit for the crime it is supposed to correct. One example in the Torah is that the breaking Shabbat is punishable by being stoned to death.
Many people have searched for an explanation for the harshness of God’s rules and found nothing but we all know God doesn’t do anything without a purpose. To explain God’s rules and punishments, the Lubavitcher Rebbe created an analogy, comparing our dilemma to that of astronauts going into space. Throughout their training, the astronauts are specifically taught how to do everything from eating to sleeping aboard the spaceship. They are told that any deviation from these methods could cause billions of dollars in damages and be detrimental to the space mission. Only a few scientists know the technical and mechanical reasons the astronauts should be obeying all these rules and the astronauts know nothing about why they are following the strict guidelines. However, this doesn’t stop the astronauts from following the rules without questions. They trust that the scientists are not leading them astray and they understand the consequences of not following the orders. Additionally, not one astronaut assumes “oh, well there are 2 other crew members aboard so if I don’t follow the rules the other two will make up for it.”
The Torah guides our lives just like these life–saving rules guide the astronauts. We do not question why the rules and repercussions are in place because we trust that they are there for a good reason. We don’t assume others will take on our responsibilities for us because we know that each and every person is important and must be responsible for themselves in order to protect all those around them.
To explain this better, rabbi Shimon bar Yochai uses a little story about men fishing in a boat. Three people are sitting in a boat and one of them starts drilling a hole. The others immediately exclaim “what are you doing?” but the man drilling merely responds, “Why does it matter? Its only under my seat”. The world behaves in a similar way. Rabbi Akiva taught that the entire world depends on you so you have to act accordingly. Since your own actions can affect all those around you, you have the responsibility to protect others through your actions.
For this reason, God protects all of God’s creatures by being harsh on all of them. No one knows what affects their own actions can have on someone else so everyone strives to do what is best and most helpful.
Although Torah may call for these harsh punishments, our history proves that these strict laws were rarely carried out in such a stringent way. The Sanhedrin, the holy court in the ancient Jewish times, only killed one person every seventy years. In order to incur such harsh punishment, there had to be solid proof and lots of debate over the crime and the perpetrator. By seeing punishment as a way of deterring bad actions as opposed to a way of hurting others we create a stronger connection to the rules and guidelines God sets to govern our lives.
Nothing can explain the holocaust or the death of Aaron’s sons but we can try to reason out why God’s punishments were so harsh. God is not trying to make us fail and mess up; rather God is trying to leave wiggle room for us and to demonstrate how detrimental seemingly harmless actions can be.
Workshop Reflection from May 12, 2013
This past workshop was one of my favorites. We covered Tikkun Olam but more specifically meaningful giving and helping. I learned so much about the difference between merely giving of yourself and helping others in a thoughtful, and more impactful, way. We had a special guest, Benji Berlow, who talked to us about examples of meaningful Tikkun Olam and how we can achieve it. He really showed us the importance of aiding others when they need help but in ways that can be most beneficial to them and that will create the biggest impact. Our JC’s also planned a wonderful activity where we looked at Jewish thoughts about Tikkun Olam and how we can repair the world. Overall, this provided a great start to the Tikkun Olam projects we are starting to plan. After creating groups for these projects, we talked to our group members about ideas for our projects and really incorporated the concepts about meaningful Tikkun Olam we had just learned. I can’t wait to continue planning the Tikkun Olam projects and I know my group will incorporate everything we learned at the past workshop to make our project meaningful and impactful.
--Ayelet Bahary
.JPG)
.JPG)
