Submitted by Robert Rabinoff

And you shall count for yourself … seven weeks, complete shall they be.  (Parashat Emor, 23:15)

And you shall count for yourself seven Sabbaticals of seven years, 49 years (Parashat beHar, 25:8)

Time is money (Benjamin Franklin)

Time is evolution (Indian saying)

The locution “count for yourself” indicates that the count, even though it is a commandment given to us by Gd, is for our benefit.  (These two commandments were not given by Herman Cain… .)  In the same way, our father Avraham is told to “go for yourself” from your native land to the land which I [Gd] will show you – and there Rashi comments explicitly: “for your benefit.”  In the latter case the benefit to Avraham is that only in the Land of Israel could Gd “make [him] a great nation,” but not in his native land.  What is the benefit to us of counting the Omer (first quote, from Emor) or counting to the Yovel (Jubilee)?

The Artscroll Series Vayikra gives two answers:

   By saying you shall count l’cha, for yourself, the Torah alludes to the Jew’s goal in counting days and years. One does not count money for himself, because no matter how long he lives, his money will eventually go to others. But when someone counts time, he should do it for his own benefit, because he can use his time for the sake of Torah and mitzvos (Tzror HaMor [R. Avraham Sabba 1440-1510]).

   R’ Moshe Leib of Sassov [1745-1807] used to say: A person who does not have even one hour a day to meditate upon his personal standing in this world is not a true person.

The Tzror HaMor, as opposed to Ben Franklin, contrasts time and money.  Paradoxically, money is temporal, time is eternal.  Money is a stand-in for everything in the material world, and everything in the material world changes constantly.  Therefore it is futile to hang our figurative hats on anything material.  It is attachment to the material world, to its objects and its outcomes, that causes us to get stuck in destructive ruts, wasting our lives and accomplishing little or nothing.  Time, on the other hand, while it seems to be more fleeting, can be turned into something of lasting worth.  How so?  Time is in fact fleeting – it’s become a cliché that once a moment is gone it can never be reclaimed.  If we waste time, letting our attention get bound up in the ephemeral (in the case of one of my own vices, for example, devouring the sports pages) then time is our great enemy and we are constantly looking for ways to kill it.  In that case, in the words of the country music song, we might just find that killing time is actually killing us.

How different is the situation when we spend our hours and days and years productively.  Days that are spent in prayer and meditation, and then in positive action in accord with Gd’s Will for us are days that bring us only blessings, both material and spiritual.  Torah alludes to such a life when it says of Avraham Avinu (Bereishit 24:1): And Avraham was old, he came with days (idiomatically, “well advanced in years”).  He came with days full of growth, full of giving, full of bringing himself and others close to Gd.  How do we spend our days?  We have to work to make a living to be sure, but how much time do we spend at work so that we can have material luxuries that we don’t really need?  How could that time be better spent?  Could we be developing ourselves spiritually with that time?  Could we be helping those in need through various volunteer organizations?

In the yeshivot of Europe it used to be the practice that when someone was seriously ill, his friends and colleagues would “donate” a certain amount of their own lives to the ill person.  These donations were taken very seriously, as if we were really in control of how long we live.  [I believe this tradition comes from a Midrash that relates that Adam was originally supposed to live for 1000 years.  When he found out that King David was "scheduled" to die immediately on being born, he "donated" 70 years to King David (see Bereishit 5:5, I Melachim 2:11).]  At one point the Chafetz Chaim was asked for such a donation.  He thought long and hard, and agreed to donate one minute of his life to the ill person.  The story is often told to demonstrate what great value a tzaddik puts on time.  I think we can also look at it as a demonstration of the great value that is given to time by the great tzaddik – he can accomplish more in one minute than most of us can in many days or weeks, because of his more intimate connection with the eternal.

At the beginning of Sefer Shemot Moshe returns to Egypt and inspires the Israelite slaves to begin to dream of, and demand, their freedom.  What did Pharaoh do?  He immediately loaded on the work, forcing us to gather our own straw to make the bricks he demanded of us.  Why did he do this?  He tells us himself – so that we won’t have any leisure time to listen to Moshe Rabbeinu’s inspiration.  Our Rabbis liken this to our own Evil Inclination – it keeps us so busy chasing the illusory “benefits” of the material world that we have no chance to reflect on who we are, where we are going, and what we should be doing here.  It seems almost trivial to say it, but the Evil Inclination succeeds every time we waste our precious time, diverting our life energy away from the infinite, eternal, transcendental basis of life and towards the finite, ephemeral, surface value of life.

The years of a person’s life are threescore years and ten, or, by reason of strength, fourscore, (Psalm 90 – written by Moshe Rabbeinu).  Compared with eternity, we have just a precious few moments on this earth.  But it is only here, in a world of imperfection waiting to be rectified, in a world of challenges and tests, that we can grow to realize our full potential.  As our Sages tell us, today is for action, tomorrow (i.e. in the World to Come) is for receiving the reward.  If we make our every moment count, the reward will be there.

Pirke Avot, Chapter 5

Mishnah 7

Ten miracles were performed for our forebears in the Holy Temple:

… The Omer, the Two Loaves [of Shavuot] and the Showbread were never disqualified.

These three grain offerings all had to be offered at a specific time (the day after Pesach, Shavuot, and every Shabbat respectively); had they been found to be contaminated for any reason (e.g. ritual impurity, wormy flour, etc.) there would not have been time to replace them, with consequences of varying severity.  R. Yisrael Meir Lau (former Chief Rabbi of Israel) comments:

These miracles occurred to teach our forefathers that one must do all one can to perform the time-related mitzvot – “when a mitzvah comes to your hand, do not neglect it.”  We must not waste our precious time, for “there is nothing as irretrievable as lost time.”

In discussing the commandment to “guard the matzot” our Sages point out that the words matzot and mitzvot are spelled exactly the same.  They thus interpret the command to “guard the mitzvot” – don’t let them become leavened, puffed up, heavy – rather when an opportunity for spiritual advancement comes to hand, seize the time!  Once the moment has passed, once the initial enthusiasm has diminished a little bit, once the inspiration has faded into memory, it is never quite the same.  Rather, keep focused on Gd’s signposts of evolution, every moment of every day, and live a life full of material and spiritual fulfillment.

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Minyan Needed for Shabbat Services Friday, May 18 (26 Iyar) at 8:00 p.m.

Jane Roman Pitt will be observing the yahrzeit of her husband, Barry Pitt, this Shabbat.  Please join us to help form a minyan so Jane can recite Kaddish.

Shabbat Candle Lighting Times for Fairfield

Shabbat (candle lighting) begins at 8:04 p.m. on Friday, May 18. Shabbat ends (Havdalah begins) Saturday, 9:11 p.m. in Fairfield.

Submitted by Robert Rabinoff

[The Kohanim] shall not make a bald spot on their heads, and they shall not shave an edge of their beard; and in their flesh they shall not cut a gash. (21:5)

You shall sanctify him, for he offers the food of his Gd; he shall remain holy to you, for I, Hashem am holy, Who sanctifies you (21:8)

Even against their will Beit Din [the Rabbinical Court] sanctifies them in [these matters]. (Rashi to 21:6)

The reason for this is that the Kohen is not merely an individual; he is an expression of the Sanctuary.  As such, he is responsible to the nation, and the nation is obligated to compel him to remain true to his calling (R. Shimshon Rafael Hirsch quoted in the Artscroll Series Vayikra)

The entire issue of the sanctity of the Kohanim raises issues of free will and autonomy, hereditary privilege and responsibility, and the relationship between the individual, society and Gd.  I would like to try to throw some light on this issue using an analogy from classical Physics, and see if we can understand Torah’s view of the matter, which, as usual, differs substantially from our Western perspective.

When I was growing up in the 1950′s the common understanding on the playground was “It’s a free country – you can do whatever you want as long as you don’t hurt anyone else.”  Of course we quickly learned that was not exactly the case.  Our parents and teachers were constantly reminding us that there were plenty of things we couldn’t do, even though on the surface they didn’t appear to be harmful to anyone else.  They were simply deemed “inappropriate,” though often nobody could explain just why.  For example, if my New York accent started getting a bit too broad for her tastes, my mother would simply say “educated people do not speak that way.”  So there!  And, growing up even in an assimilated Jewish household, we were often reminded “Jews do not act like that.”  In Yiddish, ‘s passt nisht.

All this is to point out what should be obvious, that even in the “ruggedly individualistic” US there are social controls over individual behavior, even in areas that should, by rights, be matters completely left to individual discretion.  In countries with a more socialist leaning (e.g. most of Western Europe) there is more social control, and in the communist world there is suffocating social control.  And while we might like to say that “that government is best which governs least,” the period of social disruption and economic dislocation we are currently experiencing in the US indicates that individualism taken to its logical extreme may lead to instability as well.

The way Torah treats the Kohanim, and by extension the entire Jewish people, the “kingdom of Kohanim,” can give us an insight into the right path for us to follow.  Kohanim are born, not made.  If your father is a Kohen and you are male, you are a Kohen.  You get the first aliyah, you get priority in leading the Grace after meals, you get to go up on the bimah and give the priestly blessings (daily in Eretz Yisrael, on holidays in the diaspora).  Of course when the Temple stood you also got to perform the Divine Service in the Temple and you received the various gifts that went to the Kohanim – gifts of grain, wine, oil, parts of most sacrificial animals, etc.  In return, you were required to maintain a certain standard of holiness – there were certain women you were forbidden to marry, and if you did marry one of them, you could be forced by the Sanhedrin to divorce her.  You were not allowed to attend funerals, except for a few close relatives.  You had to guard yourself from ritual impurity.  It’s not a gig everyone would want, but if you were a Kohen, you were locked into it, willy-nilly.  You could never resign and become just a plain old Israelite!

In other words, some areas of what we would consider very personal choice, such as choice of a spouse, were quite constrained.  Why should this be the case?

R. Hirsch explains in the above quote.  An individual is more than just an individual.  While we, especially in the West and most especially in the US, see ourselves as detached units, free to make our own choices, Torah sees each one of us as part of a greater whole.  While the Western viewpoint sees a society as a group of individuals who interact with one another according to certain rules, the Torah view gives greater prominence to the social grouping, and sees individuals as expressions, or limbs, of that group.  Thus the Kohanim are not just individuals who choose to fulfill a specific rôle, rather they are parts of an organic whole, who must fulfill their given rôle for the society to function correctly and to fulfill its purpose.

Now here is the example from physics.  Consider two pendulums side by side, both swinging away; for simplicity assume that they are the same length and therefore have the same frequency (and no, the mass of the bob doesn’t matter; that statement is the basis of General Relativity, but that’s for another parashah…).  As I have just described the situation, each pendulum will swing independently, its specific trajectory given by its specific initial conditions.  These systems are called “uncoupled.”  Now suppose we attach a small, very weak spring between the two bobs.  When the leftmost pendulum swings to the left, it pulls the other pendulum along with it – not very hard, because the spring is weak, but there is a pull nonetheless.  These two systems are called “coupled.”  It is not hard to convince yourself that there are two stable modes of vibration of the two pendulums – one where the two both go left together and then back right together, like the Rockettes.  In this case the spring doesn’t actually ever stretch – yet it is the spring’s presence that couple the two systems together.  The other stable solution is where the two pendulums vibrate in opposite directions, and the spring stretches and compresses to the maximum degree.  In the first case the vibration is at the natural frequency of the pendulums, and in the latter it is faster, due to the extra force of the spring.

The history of physics has shown that whenever two systems appear to be separate but coupled to one another, they are really two different aspects or expressions of one unified, underlying system.  For example, in the 1800′s it was discovered that the electric field and the magnetic field could interact with one another (the principle behind electromagnets and electric generators).  Later it was discovered that there was really one underlying field – the electromagnetic field – which could express itself as electricity or magnetism (or both) under different circumstances.

What Torah appears to be telling us is that all individuals in a society are very strongly coupled.  It is simply not possible for one to do “whatever one wants as long as he doesn’t hurt anyone else.”  Everything we do contributes to the moral atmosphere in which we live, and everything we do therefore affects everyone else in society.  If we are doing our part to raise the level of holiness in the society – by performing the function that our heredity, our talents, our skills, our natures have assigned us (in other words, that Gd has assigned us and given us the tools to accomplish) – then we uplift society and all the individuals in it.  If we don’t, we are “hurting someone else.”  Therefore society responds.

Torah tells us further that the ultimate reality in the cosmos is Gd.  Gd is all there is, was or ever will be, and all existences are expressions of Gd.  Just as the electric and magnetic fields are two expressions of the same underlying electromagnetic field, so all of us, Kohen, Levi, Yisrael, non-Jew, are expressions of Gd.  We may appear to be separate, but coupled individuals, but that is only on the surface.  At the depths we are united.  We therefore all have a responsibility to one another and to Gd to act appropriately, in the loving, caring, giving, holy manner Torah demands.  None of us has the option to resign.

Pirke Avot, Chapter 4

Mishnah 3

[Ben Azzai] would say: Do not scorn any person, and do not dismiss any thing, for there is nobody who does not have his time, and there is nothing that does not have its place.

The view of life that we presented above sees everyone and everything as part and parcel of one organic whole.  Each individual has a particular part to play in the evolution of that system.  In some cases, especially those of the most evil people, it may be very hard to discern what that part may be.  Yet, ben Azzai tells us, that part is there, and sooner or later that person will be necessary for the entire proper functioning of the cosmos.  The underlying reason for this is that while on the surface level that person (or thing) may appear to be separate from, and even opposed to, everything else, this is only a partial view of the situation.  On a deeper level, he (or she or it) is intimately connected to us and to everyone else.  The essence of that person or thing is the same infinity that is our own essence.  When we rise to evaluate everything in our environment in terms of our own infinite nature, we grow in love for the Creator and the creation.  Scorn will naturally be the furthest thing from our minds and our hearts.

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Shabbat Services Friday, May 11 (19 Iyar) at 8:00 p.m.

Shabbat Candle Lighting Times for Fairfield

Shabbat (candle lighting) begins at 7:58 p.m. on Friday, May 11. Shabbat ends (Havdalah begins) Saturday, 9:03 p.m. in Fairfield.

Submitted by Robert Rabinoff

When you reap the harvest of your land do not reap all the way to the corner of your field, and do not take the gleanings of your harvest. … for the poor and the stranger shall you leave them – I am Hashem your Gd (19:9-10)

Among the roots of the commandment are that HASHEM, Blessed is He, wanted His chosen people to be crowned with every good and precious trait, and for them to have a blessed heart and a generous spirit. I have already written that as a result of deeds, the soul becomes conditioned and becomes good, and the blessing of Gd will rest upon it. There is no doubt that by leaving a portion of his produce in the field and relinquishing his ownership so that the needy can enjoy it, one’s soul will realize an abundance of [Divine] favor and a proper and blessed spirit; Gd will satisfy him with good and his soul will dwell in goodness. But someone who gathers everything into his home and leaves nothing for the poor who saw his field with its standing grain, and lusted after it to still their hunger – such a person will surely train himself to be mean hearted and mean spirited, and evil will befall him, as the Sages taught (Sotah 1:7): According to the standard by which one behaves, so he is treated (Sefer haChinuch).

The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, the world and they that dwell therein. (Psalms 24:1)

Our two Parshiot are dedicated to the attainment of holiness.  We therefore expect to find things like lists of sexual transgressions that take us in quite the opposite direction and are to be avoided like the plague.  We might also expect to find exhortations to engage in spiritual practices, such as prayer and meditation, but we do not find them here (and we find only hints of them elsewhere in Torah).  What we perhaps don’t expect to find are laws dealing with gifts to the poor, yet here they are.  What is the connection between holiness and charity (even Torah-mandated charity)?

Now if we are poor Gd forbid, we know the value of charity.  This is an absolute value, for it preserves the lives of those who are in need, and if done properly, their dignity as well.  Thus we are enjoined to leave the corner of our field for the poor to harvest.  We may not do them a favor and harvest it for them.  Rather they are to be treated as the owner of that 1/60^th of the field that we leave over.  Similarly we leave the gleanings for the poor to pick up; once we drop one or two stalks they leave our possession and become the possession of the poor.

We find similar rules surrounding the Shemittah (Sabbatical) year.  Every seven years we abandon our fields, our vineyards and our orchards, doing no agricultural work and reaping only a single day’s supply of what grows by itself.  Everything else is given over to the public to eat.  No gate is supposed to be locked before the poor, no door shut in the face of the needy.  Thus everyone is equal before the Creator. (Iggeret haRamban).

Now there are a number of levels on which we can give tzedakah (charity, but the real meaning of the word tzedakah is righteousness, something that we are required to do to live up to Gd’s expectation of us, rather than caritas, affection – something we do out of the goodness of our hearts, but not strictly required, something extra, above and beyond the call of duty).  On one level, we take some of our resources and give them to others who are in need of physical sustenance.  As the quote from Sefer haChinuch indicates, this does wonders for our character, changing what is by nature a clinging, grasping, hoarding disposition into a open, generous, giving one.

On a deeper level, we see that Torah demands of us not that we give of what is ours to someone else, but rather that we relinquish the notion that that object is ours to begin with.  Thus we don’t give the poor part of our crop – we relinquish it entirely and let the poor claim it as their right.  From the point of view of the poor, they are raised from simple schnorrers to partners and owners.  More important, from the point of view of the giver, he begins to recognize that his attachment to the material is something that is holding back his evolution and expansion.  By releasing his hold on the material world, he releases the material world’s hold on him.  Instead of defining himself by what he has, he begins to define himself by what he is.

The ultimate value of tzedakah comes when we evaluate everything in the world justly, that is, just as it is.  The Ramban’s quote above can be translated Thus everything is the same before the Creator.  The proper evaluation of everything is that it belongs to Gd.  Gd created it, Gd maintains it, Gd supervises its behavior, Gd makes it grow and evolve, Gd harmonizes everything in creation with everything else in creation.  In fact, everything in creation is nothing more than a “piece” of Gd’s substance, in the same way that every wave is a “piece” of the ocean.  When we allow our minds to expand fully, so that we identify with the infinite basis of all existence, then we become able to evaluate everything in terms of the infinite basis of its existence.  As the Psalmist sings, The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof.

Thus we see that the ultimate value of tzedakah leads us to holiness.  Holiness, kedushah, comes from a root that means separate.  As long as we are bound to the physical, we are not separate from it.  Once we rise to the level of infinity in our mind and our perceptions, we are naturally separate from the finite, yet, through the medium of our bodies and senses, able to act within the realm of the finite.  In this state we fulfill the verse: Be holy!  For I, Hashem, your Gd am holy.

Pirke Avot, Chapter 3

Mishnah 8

This was so à propos I decided to repeat it from Devarim 5770:

R. Elazar of Bartosa says: Give Him what is His, for you and all that which is yours are His.

A wise man once said, “Everything we get, we get to give away.”  On one level we must acknowledge that Gd is the Creator of the universe and as such everything that is in the universe belongs to Him.  Whatever we have we have permission to use only for permitted purposes, to further the ultimate purpose of creation.  On another level perhaps we can say that R. Elazar is asking us to acknowledge that ultimately, the only reality is Gd.  We ourselves have no existence independent of Gd, nor does anything else.  Giving Him what is His then would mean acknowledging that our possessions, our bodies, our minds and our souls are all part of Gd, and that our relationship with Gd is really Gd’s relationship with Himself.  When we give ourselves to Gd we come full circle, returning to the source of our existence and becoming One with it.

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Bella Unger Bat Mitzvah Saturday, May 5 (13 Iyar) at 10:00 a.m.

Isabella Rosa Unger, daughter of Alan & Katrin Unger and sister of Anna-Theresa & Jack, will be called to the Torah on May 5th, 2012, at 10:00 a.m., at Beth Shalom as a Bat Mitzvah.

Aliyahs and honors are planned for Michael Eisner, Neil Gritz, Richard Rubin, Mitchell & Renee Posner, Warren & Harriet Berman, Howard & Andrew Meyer.

The Ungers are expecting Bella’s grandparents Hilja-Anne & Valentin Merzin, Aunt Helen & Uncle Toomas Tomberg with cousins Peeter, Marko & Rene from Estonia; and cousins Andrew from San Francisco & Howard Meyer from New York.

David Matt will conduct the service.  All are welcome.

Shabbat Candle Lighting Times for Fairfield

Shabbat (candle lighting) begins at 7:50 p.m. on Friday, May 4. Shabbat ends (Havdalah begins) Saturday, 8:55 p.m. in Fairfield.

Lost & Found: Reading Glasses

A pair of glasses — they appear to be reading glasses — was found on the front lawn of Beth Shalom after the Seder.  If you lost a pair of glasses, please contact Susan Berkowitz at  susanberkowitzdesigns@gmail.com  or 472-9509 to arrange a time come to Beth Shalom and see if this pair is yours.

Submitted by Robert Rabinoff

That the affliction is upon him (13:46)

Be careful with tzara’at afflictions to do exactly as the Kohanim, the Levites tell you, as I have commanded them, be sure to do it (Deut 24:8)

In the section on kosher and non-kosher animals in last week’s parashah, we are introduced to tumah (ritual impurity) that comes from outside a person and contaminates him.  This contamination prevents him from entering the Temple precincts (the Mishkan in the desert), which is why it is introduced at this point, immediately after the Mishkan is inaugurated.  This tumah is relatively mild; one must immerse in a mikveh and wait till sunset and the tumah is gone.  In a few cases (e.g. eating neveilah / carcass of an animal that hasn’t been properly slaughtered) one’s garments have to be immersed as well.  Men wearing Armani suits are well-advised to avoid neveilah.

In our portions we turn to a very different kind of tumah – tumah that comes from within one’s body.  This includes the tumah of niddah (menses), tumat yoledet (childbirth), keri (seminal emission), zav (gonorreal discharge in a man), zavah (unusual menstrual flow in a woman), and tzara’at (the skin eruptions that form the bulk of parashat Tazria).  These forms of tumah are more severe; many require extended periods of purification and some require offerings and/or other rituals to remove them.  They are also more severe in that they can be transmitted to others, as well as to clothing and furnishings like bedding and the like.

Why is this second form of tumah so much more severe?  I think the answer is simply that it is something that erupts from within us.  It is an external manifestation of an internal impurity.  As we have pointed out before, tumah carries the connotation of “stopping up” – indeed one of the manifestations of the zav condition is a stopping up of the male member with the discharge.  What is getting stopped up?  It is the flow of the Divine from its “home” in the transcendent, infinite basis of creation, through the individual, into creation.  When the impurity comes from the outside, to be sure there is a blockage, but it is more like crud on the outside of a pipe.  It may corrode the pipe, but it is fairly easy to wash off.  When there is corrosion or plaque or some other kind of obstruction inside the pipe however, that is a totally different ball of wax.  Now, not only is there mechanical blockage that restricts the flow, but even the flow that does get through is no longer clear and smooth – rather it is turbulent and turgid.  It has much less pressure behind it, having basically wasted its energy turning over and over on itself.

The most severe of these “internal” forms of tumah is tzara’at, generally mistranslated as leprosy, but actually having nothing at all to do with the disease now known by that name.  It is an eruption on the skin that is actually a symptom of a severe character deficiency, most often speaking ill of others or slandering others.  It only occurred in Eretz Yisrael, and only to the Jewish people, and only at a time when we were all living on a much higher spiritual plane, and were sensitive enough to hear the message that tzara’at was conveying to us.  (Just as a personal note, my case of psoriasis, which I’m convinced [solely on the similarity of sound and of course the fact that psoriasis is a skin condition] is the Greek rendering of tzara’at, erupted when I was in Israel, almost 30 years ago.  Obviously I still have not gotten the message or been able completely to correct the underlying problem.)

In its comment to the first quote above, the Artscroll Series Vayikra states:

The implication is that the contamination exists only so long as the tzaraat is actually on his body, but if he were to have it removed surgically, he could go through the purification process given in ch. 14 (Sifra).  However, since the Torah forbids the removal of a tzaraat affliction (Deut 24:8), the Sages decreed that its willful removal cannot be used to purify the metzora (Nega’im 7:4-5).

I think what our Sages are telling us is that an inner problem requires an inner solution.  One cannot put a band-aid on a cancerous lesion and expect anything good to happen.  Rather when we have an external sign of a deep-rooted internal problem, we have to go to the root of the problem and clean it out.  Do we have tzara’at?  Maybe we should look at the way we speak about others, or even better, maybe we need to correct the way we think about others – to value others for themselves, to focus on their strengths and good qualities rather than their weaknesses and challenges.  Merely cutting off the external symptom does nothing for the underlying problem – in fact, by hiding it, from society and from ourselves, we preclude the possibility of self-improvement, leaving the problem to fester until it erupts again.

Gd designed human beings to be perfect pipelines for His infinite energy and intelligence to flow into and perfect the material world.  It is our responsibility and our privilege to remove the impediments in ourselves that impede this flow.

Pirke Avot, Chapter 2

Mishnah 16

R. Yehoshua says: An evil eye, an evil inclination and the hatred of people take a person out of the world.

The “evil eye” generally refers to the subtle influence of jealousy upon one who is flaunting his wealth or good fortune.  Here Rabbi Lau indicates that it means miserliness or a grudging attitude on our part towards others’ good fortune.  While the “evil eye” directed at us from others is certainly damaging, all we can do about it is to live modestly, without ostentatious consumption or bragging about all the good that Gd has given us.  But what other people do about our good fortune is beyond our control.  What we can control is our reaction to other people’s good fortune.  Do we treat them with disdain?  Do we make excuses why our fortunes are not so great (although even this is a wrong attitude – all the challenges Gd sends us are only for our own good!)?  Do we use other people’s good fortune as a spur to our greater accomplishment in life, or do we just send them bad vibes because we’re jealous?  Or do we get angry?!  If our reaction to others is less than open and joyful, remember, we’re taking ourselves out of the world – this world (since we’re wasting energy that we could be using to perfect ourselves) and the World to Come (since we’re disrupting the harmony of creation and damaging our own souls with impure thoughts and emotions).  The answer is not to be attached to the material.  The material world is constantly changing – one day we’re up, the next day we’re down Gd forbid.  When our mind is fully expanded and we cleave to the infinite Gd, we have a pipeline to infinite blessings, enough to fill our own life and to overflow to the lives of everyone around us.

Message from David Serritt’s Family in England

Member of Fairfield Jewish Family, from circa 1910, visits Beth Shalom

Deborah Soodhalter found our Beth Shalom website and called to tell us we had the history of Jews in Fairfield incomplete. Her grandparents settled in Fairfield around 1910; her mom was born in Fairfield in 1919 and lived here for many years.

The first Jewish families in Fairfield were settled in 1910 – 1914.  They were Joe Feldman, William Finkel, Becky Ullman Feldman, Zara Ullman Finkel, and Harry Ullman.

Debbie’s grandfather, William Finkel, and his business partner, Joe Feldman, were in the scrap metal business in Rock Island, Illinois.  William Finkel and Joe Feldman bought Fairfield Iron and Metal in 1910.  In 1916 Joe Feldman married Betty (Becky) Ullman (Feldman) and William Finkel married Zara Ullman (Finkel) in 1917.  They all made their homes in Fairfield, Iowa until their deaths.

According to Milton Ullman, there were no other Jewish families in Fairfield, Iowa other than Debbie’s relatives when he was a young boy.   The Silverman’s and any other Jewish families came to Fairfield several years after the Ullman, Finkel and Feldman families.

Debbie herself was born in Davenport, Iowa, has lived most recently in Florida, and visited us at Beth Shalom for Shabbat Services this past Friday.  Debbie has sent us a more complete history of her family, which will add to our incomplete history of Jews in Fairfield (to be included in our Beth Shalom website, which is about to undergo revision), as well as the possibility of finding a video of her father “touring” Ottumwa’s B’nai Jacob Synagogue and narrating a history of his family in the area.

Submitted by Robert Rabinoff

And [Moses] was wrathful with Elazar and Itamar, Aharon’s remaining sons (10:16)

Moses understood [Aharon's reasoning] and he approved (10:20)

It is a man’s good sense to be slow to anger, and his glory to pass over a transgression (Prov. 19:11)

Elijah the prophet said: “If you never come to anger, you will never come to sin” (Berachot 29a)

Whoever loses his temper – if he is a scholar he will lose his wisdom; if he is a prophet he will lose his ruach hakodesh (Pesachim 66b)

Whoever gets angry, all the torments of Gehenna rule over him (Ramban, Iggeret haRamban – these last 4 passages are quoted in R. Avrohom Chaim Feuer’s edition of Iggeret haRamban, published by Artscroll)

He who is able, even here, before liberation from the body, to resist the excitement born of desire and anger, is united with the Divine.  He is a happy man. (Bhagavad Gita 5:23)

A sales manager I once worked under used to say “You teach what you need to learn.”  Indeed the issue I want to deal with in this drash is something that is very close to my heart – much too close.  Probably close enough to give me a heart attack Gd forbid.  It has taken me close to 50 years and I don’t know how many poisoned relationships to learn at least to direct my anger away from people and towards inanimate objects (my computer, which can be very frustrating at times, is a favorite target of my verbal abuse).  Nevertheless, anger is extremely destructive and potentially a great desecration of Gd’s Name, as we see in our passages quoted above.

As usual, Moshe Rabbeinu is our teacher, in this case, by example.  Moshe and Aharon were involved in a halachic dispute.  The dispute involved the consumption by the Kohanim (Aharon and his two remaining sons) of the sin-offerings.  On this first day of the Kohanim’s acceding to their office, there were 3 sin-offerings and two meal-offerings: there was the sin-offering and meal-offering of the inauguration – these were special, one-time offerings for the occasion of the inauguration only; they were never repeated, even when Solomon’s Temple was inaugurated.  The second were the sin-offering and meal-offering of Nachshon ben Aminadav, the first of the tribal princes to bring their special offerings in honor of the inauguration (see parashat Naso, the second parashah of Bamidbar, and also the reading for Chanukah).  These too were special, one-time offerings; each of the 12 tribal leaders brought his offering on a separate day.  Nachshon was the leader of the tribe of Yehudah and was the first to bring his offerings.  The third sin-offering (unaccompanied by a meal-offering) was the usual sin-offering of Rosh Chodesh (the new moon / beginning of the Jewish month) – an offering that was made throughout the generations as long as there was a Mishkan or a Temple.

One important feature of both sin-offerings and meal-offerings (most of them) is that they achieve atonement not only through the service at the Altar, but also by the Kohen’s consumption of the parts that are not offered on the Altar.  Even in the case of the offerings of the inauguration and of the tribal leaders, which were not specifically to atone for any sin, but rather to provide purification and elevation to a higher spiritual level, the Kohanim were instructed to eat the offerings.  The problem was, all the (three) Kohanim were mourners, as their sons and brothers (i.e. Nadav and Avihu) had just died!  A Kohen is not allowed to serve in the Mishkan or Temple while a mourner, except for the Kohen Gadol (High Priest, i.e. Aharon), and certainly may not eat of any sacred offerings.  What to do?

Moshe, presumably based on instructions received directly from Gd, ordered Aharon and his sons to eat the meal-offerings and the sin-offerings.  Aharon and his sons reasoned that since the meal-offerings were one-off deals, and they were the subject of a special exception to the laws governing a Kohen who is a mourner, then they should only eat of the meat of the two special one-off sin-offerings as well, but not of the meat of the regular sin-offering of Rosh Chodesh. 

Now here is the point: when Moshe heard that the Rosh Chodesh sin-offering had been burned (as must be done to a sin-offering that cannot be eaten for whatever reason), he got angry.  Once that happened, his ability to reason through the situation, and apparently also his intuitive insight into what was appropriate behavior in this unusual situation, were impaired.  It is only a few verses later, when Aharon calmly explained the reasoning behind what he did, that Moshe agreed that Aharon was correct.  It is a testament to Moshe Rabbeinu’s humility and integrity that he was not embarrassed or hesitant to admit an error.  But it is highly instructive to us to see the source of that error – anger.

In the incident where Moshe and Aharon were instructed to speak to the rock so that it would give forth its water for the people, we see a similar dynamic, only acted out in the public sphere.  After 40 years of wandering in the wilderness and dealing with the kvetching and complaining of several million people, Moshe cries out “Listen up you rebels, should we get water out of this rock?!” and he hits the rock instead of speaking gently to it.  For this transgression (and the commentators come up with a variety of explanations of what exactly constituted the transgression) Moshe Rabbeinu is denied entry into the Land of Israel.  Again, his anger apparently clouded his ability to perceive the fine levels of creation that would have been required to bring forth water from the rock (not that any of us can bring water from a rock by hitting it either of course!).  More to the point, it apparently displayed to Gd that it was time for new leadership.

If this is the case with Moshe Rabbeinu, the greatest of all the prophets and the man closest to Gd in all our history, how much more so for us.  How damaging is anger!  How many of us have gotten so angry that we “see red” (because our blood pressure shoots up and there’s more blood in our retinas) – we see red, but we can’t see anything else.  How many of us have gotten so worked up over some issue that we just rehearsed the arguments over and over in our minds, ceaselessly spinning, unable to pursue any other lines of reasoning, unable to even function in the world, an accident waiting to happen behind the wheel, putting off friends and family?  How many of us have taken a perceived slight and nursed our grudges into a decades-long family feud?  The list could go on and on – I am just bringing examples from my own life.  This is not to mention actual physical violence and murder.

Clearly it is in everybody’s interest to overcome anger, for our own sake, for our physical health and our psychological equanimity, and for the sake of everyone around us.  How do we do it?  If I knew for sure of course I wouldn’t still be struggling with this plague myself.  But I think there is a hint in a saying of our Sages, that when one becomes angry it is as if he worshiped idols.  What does this mean?  I think the root cause of anger is the feeling that the world was created to run according to our specifications; when it doesn’t we get uncomfortable, frustrated and we lash out at whatever is handy.  In other words, we deny the truth at the basis of our entire tradition and outlook on life, and that is that Gd created the universe according to His specifications, and put us here to bring that creation to perfection.  This is a daunting challenge, and we are bound to have setbacks along the way.  In fact, the challenges and setbacks are there for our own good – to force us to stretch ourselves, to grow to the maximum extent possible, and to earn the right to draw closer to Gd.  With this perspective perhaps we can take a step back when we feel anger coming on and remind ourselves that we’re too busy doing Gd’s work to waste time with this useless emotion.  Good luck!

Pirke Avot, Chapter 1

We begin our study of Pirke Avot again.  Each Shabbat we study one of the six chapters, so we complete the entire tractate by Shavuot, the commemoration of the giving of the Torah at Mt. Sinai, 7 weeks after the Exodus from Egypt.  We then cycle through the tractate until Rosh HaShanah.  We typically associate this study with the Shabbat Minchah service.  (During the winter, between Rosh HaShanah and Pesach, we recite Psalms 104 and 120-134 – Shir HaMa’alot / Songs of Ascents.)

Mishnah 1: 

Moshe received the Torah from Sinai and transmitted it to Joshus.

Even so, why does the mishnah not state that “Moshe received the Torah from Sinai and gave it to Joshua”?  Why does it prefer the verb transmitted?  The answer is that the Torah is no one’s property.  Although we can acquire knowledge of it, it is given into our hands only so that we may pass it on.  It cannot be given, which would imply personal possession.  It can only be transmitted.  (R. Yisrael Meir Lau, R. Lau on Pirkei Avos, Artscroll Series)

As Rav Lau points out, Torah, and by extension Judaism, is nobody’s possession.  It is eternal wisdom, the subtle structure from which all creation emerged, as our Sages tell us: When Gd wanted to create, He looked into Torah.  It is the blueprint of creation.  None of us, not even Moshe Rabbeinu, could comprehend it all, for it is bigger than any of us, it is bigger than all of us.  However, each of us is a vehicle by which Torah is actualized in the world.  By practicing what Torah preaches to us we become more refined vehicles, able to actualize Torah to a greater and greater degree and more and more perfectly.  Ultimately, we make Torah our own and we transmit Torah by living it every day.

I would like to add a personal note here.  I have been writing these drashes for several years now and I’ve experienced tremendous growth in my knowledge and understanding of Torah and of life, because writing (and all forms of teaching) really give you the opportunity to reflect upon and concretize your thoughts, experiences and understandings.  But – Torah is certainly not my possession either!  I’d really encourage every one of you to pick up pen and paper (sooo 1900′s…) and try your hand at these drashes.  Make Torah yours as well!

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Sabbath Services at 8:00 p.m., Friday Evening, April 20 (28 Nissan)

Shabbat Candle Lighting Times for Fairfield

Shabbat (candle lighting) begins at 7:36 p.m. on Friday, April 20. Shabbat ends (Havdalah begins) Saturday, 8:38 p.m. in Fairfield.