Mishpatim 5772
All of us have a deep desire to connect with Gd. Each and every one of us has had peek spiritual experiences in our lives where, for the moment, that was possible. For some it may have come in shule with the ark opened and the congregation beautifully chanting with a full heart as we just did: Hashiveynu Hashem elecha v’nashuva, “Return us, O Gd, to You and we shall return.” For others it may have come while looking out at the majesty of nature’s wonders like the Grand Canyon or Stone Mt. (just kidding). Still for others it may come after walking away from a terrible car accident unscathed. Life will provide us with these special transforming moments and it’s up to us to use them as opportunities to connect with Gd.
We see many such moments in the Torah: Noah and the flood, Abraham and the sacrifice of his son Isaac or the Jewish people at Sinai. Periodic spiritual peaks are useful to inspire us. But we can’t live on the peaks—the air is too thin. We need to find a way to walk with Gd on the plains. After the revelatory moment passes and the high is over, life begins. And we need Gd to be part of our life as we live it.
After the peak experience of Sinai—hearing Gd speak to the Jewish people amid thunder and lightning and the mountain spouting forth volcanic fire—today’s Torah portion gets down to the business of life. It teaches us that we can find Gd in the world—not only in our peak spiritual moments—but by making the world more Gdly—by living with love, compassion and justice. Today’s parsha is, therefore, a collection of laws pertaining to the art of living every day with Gd: laws of marriage, employment, lost property, integrity and financial practices. Following these laws can bring holiness—a bit of Gd into our lives every day.
What is holiness? Some people, when they hear the word “holy” think of a shule, a siddur, a chumash, tallis and tefillin, a mezuzah, a Kiddush cup and, of course, a Torah—and rightly so, for these are surely holy things. Yet, holiness extends much beyond things. It’s a way of living that brings Gd into the world. Let me illustrate with 3 examples (with thanks to Rabbi Jack Reimer).
Today’s Torah reading deals primarily with things that in other cultures would be considered “secular” matters; questions like: who is liable if an animal gores another animal, or who is liable if a fire spreads from your backyard to your neighbor’s, or what is the difference in the punishment for someone who breaks into a house at night and one who holds someone up by day? Some would say: what do these things have to do with Gd and religion? The answer is that the relationships between human beings are just as much a part of Judaism and Gdliness as the relationship between human beings and Gd. The Torah is just as concerned about the kashrut of what comes out of our mouths as it is about the kashrut of what goes into our mouths, and the Torah is just as concerned about a dollar that has a bloodspot on it as it is about an egg that has a bloodspot on it.
The 2nd example comes from Dr. Tsvi Blanchard, who is a member of the faculty of CLAL the organization that is involved with training future Jewish leaders. Blanchard writes this story about his father-in-law, who was a pediatrician:
One of this man’s patients was a young man named Bryan, who was fighting a running battle against cancer. The procedures that the doctor had to give him were very painful, but he was able to relieve the pain with anesthesia. Once, however, when Bryan came in for his treatment, he had a very bad cold. The infection made giving him anesthesia too risky. But skipping the treatment would also be very risky.
So the doctor sat Bryan down and explained to him what had to be done. He said: “Bryan, I have to give you this treatment. There is no way we can postpone it. But because you have a bad cold, I cannot take away your pain by giving you an anesthetic. So this is what I am going to do. I am going to give you the medicine, and then I am going to hold you very, very tightly in my arms. I love you very much, and so I will hold you close when the pain comes.”
And that is what he did. The doctor watched the monitor carefully. Whenever the moments of greatest pain were about to come, he would hold Bryan tightly in his arms and somehow, they both got through it.
After the treatment, Bryan insisted on giving the doctor a present in order to express his gratitude. He gave him a pencil, his favorite pencil. The doctor did not really need the pencil, but in order to make Bryan happy, he accepted it.
When he got home that night, he shared the story of Bryan’s treatment with his family and showed them the pencil. His oldest child took the pencil, went to the breakfront, and said: “Dad, take out all the glass and silver here, and put this pencil in their place. This is what we should show everybody.” And he put Bryan’s gift into the breakfront.
The family realized that the boy was right and they kept that pencil on display, right next to the Kiddush cups, menorahs and the tzedaka boxes from then on.
Perhaps we should create a new set of blessings in order to make us more conscious of the holy moments that we mistakenly think of as secular. What if there was a bracha for voting? There should be, for it is a holy moment, not to be taken for granted. What if there was a bracha for entering the office and starting work each day? There should be for that would make us realize that the office can be a holy place? What if accountants and lawyers began their day with a bracha? There might be less business scandals if they did. What if we had blessings for nurses and doctors to say so that they might always realize that what they do is holy work? What if we all kept something like that pencil that this doctor kept in his breakfront, right next to the Kiddush cups and the menorahs, to remind us that Gd is with us in our offices as well as in shule?
There’s a famous story of a Chassidic Rebbe who, like most Rebbes, inherited his position from his father. But unlike his father, he would go out constantly to visit his people and to give them counsel and support:
The Chassidim were kind of embarrassed that the Rebbe came to them so often, and so they said to him, timidly and politely: “Why don’t you stay home, as your father did, and we will come to you when we have problems for which we need your help.”
The Rebbe said, “Thank you, but no thank you; I would rather go to you.” And then he explained why. He said that one night he had a dream and in his dream he saw his father now in heaven. His father was wearing a magnificent gown, and a royal crown, studded with jewels. The gown and the crown were made up of the mitzvot that he had done while on earth. But then he noticed that his father was barefoot. He asked his father: “Why are you barefoot?” And his father said: “My gown and my crown are made up of the good deeds that I did while I was on earth. But I waited for people to come to me for help instead of going to them. Therefore, I have no good deeds that were done with my feet. This is why I am now barefoot.”
The Rebbe explained to his Chasidim that this is why he wants to go to them instead of waiting for them to come to him.
The point of this story is that you can bring holiness to this world not just with your prayers, not just by studying Torah, not just with your checkbook...you can do it with your feet as well, if you use them to go to people when they need your help.
The point of today’s Torah reading with its emphasis on the mundane details of life—after the peak experiences of the 10 plagues, the Exodus from Egypt, the crossing of the Red Sea, the receiving of the 10 Commandments at Sinai—is that we can achieve holiness in every aspect of our lives: by the way we do business, by the way we handle the claims of our employees, by the way we buy and sell and hire and fire. The point of the story of the doctor who got a pencil to put in his breakfront is that we can be holy by the way we treat others when they’re in pain. And the point of the Chassidic story is that every part of us can be holy, our bodies as well as our minds, our souls and our hearts—if we use them to do good.
In today’s parsha (Ex. 22:30), the people of Israel are told: Anshey kodesh t’hiyun li, “You shall be holy people unto Me.” Why do we need the extra word: anshey, “people”? Would it not be enough to say: kodesh t’hiyun li, “Be holy unto Me?” Answers the Kotske Rebbe: “Anshey kodesh t’hiyun li means: ‘Be a holy mentch, human being, to Me. Angels I have enough without you.’”
What it all adds up to is that we can connect with Gd and bring holiness into this world just by the way we eat and drink, by the way we work and play, by the way we hire and fire, by the way we buy and sell, by the way we use our hands and feet, as well as by the way we pray and study Torah. We connect to Gd by how we live, love and help each other. Every day we should have special holy moments where, after doing something, we look up and feel our hearts and souls soaring with Gd—every day! This is what it means to be holy. Amen!
Rabbi Mark Hillel Kunis
2/18/12 Last Updated (Monday, 20 February 2012 22:45)
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B’SHALACH 5772
Who here this morning is a worrier? What is it that worries people the most? From my perspective it’s the things we have little or no control over—like illness or the economy or the happiness of our children. We worry and worry some more and get so frustrated, but we have so little control over what happens. Let me suggest 2 things that we need to stop worrying about: the past and the future.
In this morning’s Torah reading (Ex. 17:3), and again and again later in the Torah, the people of Israel cry out to Moses, “Why did you take us out of Egypt? Why did you not leave us there, where we were happy, instead of taking us out into this dreadful wilderness?” It’s an astonishing question.
There are lots of answers Moses could have given. He could have countered, “Were you really so happy in Egypt? Were you really so well off there, living as slaves, at the mercy of your taskmasters? Or is it just fear and nostalgia that are making you homesick for Egypt?” Moses could have said that, but, if you read the Torah carefully, you will see that he never does.
Why? Rabbi Jack Reimer teaches that it’s because Moses understood that wallowing in regret over what you did yesterday does no good. He understood that, whether he was right in taking them out of Egypt or whether he was wrong in taking them out of Egypt…it is done. It is a fact that they have left Egypt, and it is a fact that they can’t go home again. Moses understood that the Exodus cannot be undone, whether they want to or not. And therefore, the only thing worth focusing on is: What do we do now? Moses understood that if you focus on what you should have done yesterday that only paralyses you and keeps you from thinking about what you need to do now. Saying, “We should have” or “We could have” do us no good. It’s so obvious, but so hard to do.
Recently, someone told me that she couldn’t sleep because of a terrible mistake that she had made. I asked what she had done that upset her so much, and she said: “Rabbi, I had a job, a wonderful job and, in my foolishness, I left that job for another one because it paid more. And now, all I can think of is how much I miss my old job, and how sorry I am that I left.”
She went on and on and on, extolling the blessings of her old job, until finally I got a little tired of listening because I suspected that nostalgia was distorting her reality. The old job could not really have been as wonderful as she described it now. Very few jobs are. So I asked her just one simple question: “Can you go back to your old job now if you want to?”
And she said, “No.”
So I said, “In that case, forget about it. If you can’t go back, then you have to go forward. You have no other choice. And if you continue to bewail the mistake you made much longer, you will lose your new job too.”
That is why Moses did not respond to the complaints of the Israelites, when they said: “Why did you take us out of Egypt?” It doesn’t matter why he took them out of Egypt. The fact is that they are out and they can’t go back, and therefore, it does no good to wish that they could. Therefore, my advice to all of you today, including myself, is that we should not waste our time and energy worrying about what happened yesterday. It does no good.
The 2nd word of advice that I have for you today, for you and for myself, is that we should not waste our time and energy worrying about what may happen tomorrow, for that, too, will do us no good. I don’t mean that we should ignore the future, or that we should not accept our responsibility for it. Of course I don’t. I think we need to guard the environment as well as the deficit, because, if we don’t, future generations will have to pay for our carelessness. I think we should be careful to exercise and watch what we eat so we don’t invite future health problems.
I am not saying that we should not care about our responsibility to the future. I am saying that we should not burden ourselves with needless worries about things that we have little or no control over. Your house may be hit by a tornado tomorrow—Gd forbid. But if you have no way to prevent it, then all you can do is make sure you have a strong roof and a good insurance policy, and then go about your life.
That’s the lesson that appears in the Torah right after the story of the crossing of the Reed Sea. The people complain against Gd and against Moses, and say: “What are we going to eat in this wilderness?” Gd hears their complaint, and sends down manna. But He does so on 2 conditions: They must go out and gather the manna every day themselves. This is a world in which you have to work in order to eat, even when Gd is helping you.
The 2nd condition is that you are not allowed to go out and gather manna on Shabbos. Instead, you will receive a double portion on Friday. What happened? Some of the people didn’t listen and went out on Shabbos to gather the manna. They didn’t find anything, but they made Gd angry. And He said to Moses (Ex. 16:28): “How long will this people refuse to observe My mitzvot and My teachings?”
Why did Gd become so angry? Why, as in the above verse, does Gd feel as if gathering manna on the Shabbos is equal to breaking all of His commandments and all of His teachings? Because going out to gather manna on Shabbos showed fear of the future, which is in reality a lack of trust in Gd. These people thought: “What will happen if we don’t gather manna every day? We will run out of food. We will starve.” That’s why they tried to gather manna on Shabbos, even though Gd promised them they would have enough from what they gathered on Friday and that there would be more on Sunday.
How do we remember this every single week? We put 2 challot on the table every Friday night, in recollection of the double portion of manna that fell on the 6th day in the wilderness so that the people did not need to go out and gather on Shabbos. What are we saying when we put these 2 challot on our tables? We are saying that we trust Gd—i.e. that if we work 6 days a week, we will have what to eat on the Shabbos. It’s a declaration of faith in the future when we put 2 challot on the table.
There’s a story of an astronomer is giving a lecture on the future of the universe: He says in passing that he believes that the universe will come to an end in 6 trillion years.
Someone in the audience becomes very agitated, and he raises his hand frantically. The lecturer sees that he can’t continue his talk until he lets this man speak, so he recognizes him. The man says, “Sir, will you please repeat what you just said. Do you really believe that the world is going to end in 6 billion years?”
The lecturer corrects him. He says, “No, that is not what I said: I said that the world may end in 6 trillion years—not 6 billion.”
The man wipes his brow in relief, and, as he sits down, he says, “Whew! What a relief. For a minute I thought you said 6 billion years.”
The point of this story is that it shouldn’t really matter that much to him whether the world will end in 6 trillion years or 6 billion years. Neither way will that affect his life at all. In the time we spend worrying over whether we have 6 trillion or 6 billion more years on this earth, we could be doing something to make this a better world in which to live.
Let me conclude with 2 proverbs that I believe can make our lives calmer and better. The 1st is from the Talmud: Dai litzara bisha-ata, “It’s enough to worry about a problem when it comes.” The other is the text of a popular song which says: “The past is past, and you cannot bring it back. And the future is not yet here; All we have is the present.” Perhaps that is why they call it a present. Let us use it wisely and well and stop worrying about the past and the future. Amen!
Rabbi Mark Hillel Kunis
2/4/12
BO 5772
Time Magazine was right when it named its Person of the Year, “The Protestor.” 2011 was filled with protestors in Tunisia, Egypt, Syria, Yemen, Bahrain, Mexico, India, Chile, Moscow—even Tel Aviv and the Wall St. area of NY were not exempt—all crying out for change.
The 1st protest movement in history can be found in today’s parsha when Moses appears before Pharaoh and tells him that Gd has commanded (Ex. 10:3): Shalach et ami, “Let my people go!” Those words became the rallying cry not only of the Jewish protest movement against the Egyptians, but most every protest movement in history…from the American Revolution to the French Revolution, from the civil rights movement to the Soviet Jewry movement. But the fact is that we have not paid enough attention to what follows Moses’ words, “Let My people go”: Shalach et ami v’yavduni, “Let my people go so that they may serve Me.” Freedom alone is not enough. That’s why so many revolutions devolved into chaos and violence. There must be a commitment to principles that guarantee continued freedom.
A few weeks ago the Jewish world was shocked as a new round of protests came out from Israel. This time it was not the Intifada of the Palestinians, but the protest of Hareidim. It took me a couple of weeks to process what had happened and now I’m ready to share my thoughts with you. Hareidim are ultra-religious Jews. Because of their very large families, they are now a significant part of the Israeli population. It 1st started in the city of Beit Shemesh where a group of ultra-Orthodox Hareidim taunted, cursed and spat on a 7-year-old girl walking to school who they claimed was not dressed modestly enough. I saw her on a You Tube video. She had a skirt down to her calves and a shirt with sleeves midway between her elbows and her wrists—pretty modest by most standards.
It soon escalated to another protest on New Year’s Eve which sent shock waves through the Jewish world. The protest was against the government of Israel and the people of Israel who they claim oppress them and their way of life. And to show how badly they are oppressed some of them dressed themselves and their children in concentration camp garb, wearing a yellow star, just as the Jews were oppressed in Europe and then ultimately destroyed.
The anger and revulsion this protest evoked was unparalleled! We cry out when any group uses Holocaust symbols inappropriately. How much more so when it’s other Jews whose own families went up in smoke in Hitler’s ovens? For them to use Holocaust symbols and to use it against the State of Israel…to compare the State of Israel to Nazi Germany…you tell me: Can anything be more obscene? And don’t kid yourselves: this was not just a small group of renegade troublemakers. They’re part of a very large group that supports them and whose Rabbinic leaders attended and supported the protest.
My colleague Rabbi Mitchell Wohlberg asks: what did they hope to accomplish with this kind of protest? Did they think this would make the typical Israeli want to extend themselves more to help them? They’re not fools. They knew that the symbols they were using were only going to antagonize Israelis. They knew that in so doing it would not draw Israelis closer to them—just the opposite. It would create more distance. So why did they do it?
The answer: Because they wanted to create more distance! Their goal, 1st and foremost, is to separate themselves as much as possible from Israelis—whom they consider to be even worse than sinners. They consider Israel and its government Satanic. And their greatest concern is not that secular Israel is not reaching out to them, but that secular Israel is reaching out to them! And indeed, is reaching some of them! And some of them are reaching out to mainstream Israel as well!
There was a time when the ultra-Orthodox could completely isolate themselves from the general community. They can’t do that anymore for technological reasons—because of the Internet; for economic reasons—because they can’t support their families. A good deal of the Hareidi community in Israel is on welfare. Husbands go to the Beis Midrash all day to study Talmud instead of going to work, and receive a small stipend from the government. As Nehemiah Shtrasler from the Israeli newspaper Haaretz wrote: “In no part of the Diaspora neither in Poland nor in Morocco did Jews even dream of living as parasites at the public’s expense.”
But more and more Hareidim are now starting to enter the Israeli mainstream. Their sons are getting occupational training; their daughters are going to religious colleges; their wives are going to work in mainstream Israel. Indeed, some of their children are joining the army. And some are choosing to leave the Hareidi community. There are now programs and organizations geared to Hareidi men and women who want to enter the modern world. Shmuel Pappenheim served for many years as the spokesman for the Eda Haredit, the most extreme anti-Zionist sect. You know what he’s doing now? He’s studying for a degree at Bar Ilan University. This is what the ultra-Orthodox Hareidim are really protesting against! Not that Israelis are not reaching out to them, but that some of their own are reaching out to the Israelis!
No one said this better than the 101-year-old leader of Israel’s mainstream Hareidim, Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv, who in a Chanukah letter to his followers this year, called for his followers to: Exclude all paths that lead to national service, secular studies or the army, even if they assure a special framework for Charedi Jews…they encourage all sorts of programs, academies, colleges and the like which promise degrees, licenses, academic credentials, etc. intended to introduce goals and aspirations far against our way of life.” Boycott all the college programs and employment programs and army programs that the Israeli government and people are setting up specifically for the Chareidim…it’s all a trap to turn you off to Yiddishkeit.
So what was the purpose of the protest in Nazi regalia? To create more distance. For a while it may achieve its goal, but it won’t last. Protests whose goal is only to undermine never succeed. Moses’ protest that became the Exodus had to lead to Sinai—to Torah as its ultimate goal—to endure. As Moses said, “Let My people go that they may serve Me.” The ultimate goal of the Hareidi protests must be to serve Gd—a Kiddush Hashem, a sanctification of Gd’s Name. Instead they have created a Chilul Hashem, a desecration of Gd’s name. Let me illustrate with a true story.
Rabbi Ron Yitzchok Eisenman, from Passaic, NJ, himself a right-wing Hareidi, wrote in his weekly column, for his congregation a piece called: “Hey, Rabbi, Did You See the Paper?” Let me read some of it to you:
I pulled into the gas station just as I was thinking about what I should write in relation to the fast day this Thursday Asara B’Teves [1/5/12]. I had just begun to wonder what message of hope and inspiration I can offer on this day which is the 1st of the 4 fasts which were decreed because of Sinas Chinam (Baseless Hatred) and which climax with Tisha B’av…
The attendant had just about finished filling my car with gas. As he squeezed a few more drops of petrol into my car and a few more dollars for his coffers I squirmed to retrieve my wallet from my pocket.
“That will be $46 sir.”
“Why thank you so much, here you go and have a Happy New Year to you and your family.”
“Thank you and by the way, you’re the rabbi of that Synagogue there on High Street; no?”
I hesitated and then responded, “Yes, that’s me. How did you know?”
He did not resemble anyone in the Shul so I figured I’d ask how he knew me.
“I came by the Synagogue the other day as I wanted to ask you something?”
“Really, you came by when?”
“Oh yesterday in the afternoon, however, I saw you were preaching so I did not want to disturb. However, now that fate sent you in to buy gas I’d like to ask you something.”
…The fellow…[showed me] page 19 of the December 28th edition of the New York Post. As he passed the page to me in the car, I saw the headline, “Attacks by ultra-Orthodox Shock Israel”.
“Hey Rabbi, did you see this?”
Unfortunately, I nodded in the affirmative.
“Is this true? Did this really happen?”
…I nodded again in the affirmative. He looked down and then said, “This is pretty scary; no?”
…His sense of fear seemed above and beyond all normal expectations of any non-Jew reading a paper and therefore it was now my turn to ask him a question. “Hope you don’t mind my asking but why are you so concerned about what’s going on in Israel?”
“Rabbi, let me tell you something. I come from Pakistan. In my country there was no peace; there was always fighting and often people got killed. Finally, my wife and I decided to move to America with our 4 kids. We settled in the Bronx and for a while things were better; however, soon I saw there were problems here as well. My kids were getting beat up and my wife was scared to go shopping by herself. I was working 14 hours a day driving someone else’s taxi-cab. I was desperate to find a way out for my family. I felt that we went from the fire of Pakistan to the frying pan of the Bronx.
“One day I had a ride from JFK to Boro Park, Brooklyn. As we drove I spoke to the man in the car. I asked him what the meaning of his clothes was; he told me he was an Orthodox Jew. I told him how my children are taunted and bothered for being Pakistani. He told me how his children walk together to school in the morning and they have friends and they feel safe and secure. He told me how compared to other neighborhoods, the crime rate in his neighborhood was very low. After I left him off, I parked my car and walked around the neighborhood. People were quiet and the children were happy. People were secure and at peace.
I came home and told my wife we should move to a Jewish neighborhood and there we will finally find peace. I looked into moving to Boro Park, however, the prices were more than I could afford. Then my brother who also came over with us from Pakistan told me about an advertisement he had seen in the local Pakistani paper about a gas station which was for sale in Passaic, New Jersey. When we went to see it and I saw that there is a Synagogue right near the station and that there are many Jews here, we decided to pool our resources and we bought the station. So you see rabbi, we moved to Passaic to get away from the fights and the violence—from the lack of harmony and the constant confrontations which were so endemic to Pakistan and the Bronx. We settled in about 3 years ago and thank G-d; life has been good and peaceful. Then last week I bought the newspaper and this article just screamed at me. Rabbi, I know from my old days of driving my Jewish friends to Boro Park that you people look to Zion for direction. I know that you aspire and desire to live the way your people live in Israel. So rabbi, please tell me, is what is going in Israel going to start here? Will little girls soon be fearful of walking to school here in Passaic as well? Rabbi, I don’t want to move again. Rabbi, will things be good for your people? If you guys are fighting among yourselves, then what hope is there for me and my family? That is why I am so scared.”
http://ahavasisrael.org/torah/the_short_vort/the_short_vort_hey_rabbi_did_you_see_the_paper_1_2_12/)
What these ultra-orthodox Hareidi protestors have done is no less than a Chilul Hashem, a desecration of Gd’s name. To think a Pakistani who was inspired by the peaceful way of Jews echoing the verse from Proverbs (3:17) we sing as we put the Torah away: V’chol n’tivoteha shalom, “And all its paths are peace,” is now worried because the Jews have turned from their peaceful ways, is nothing more than a desecration of Gd’s name. To wear Holocaust garb and accuse the Israeli government of being Nazis bent on destroying Jews, is nothing more than a desecration of Gd’s name. May all Jews see this and be inspired to live their lives as a Kiddush Hashem, a sanctification of Gd’s Name. Amen!
Rabbi Mark Hillel Kunis
1/28/12
VA-EYRA 5772
“That Sinking Feeling: Lessons From the Costa Concordia”
Last weekend we all watched the tragedy of the Costa Concordia cruise ship turned on its side after hitting some big rocks in shallow water off the coast of Tuscany, Italy. 11 people died and 21 are still missing. The captain, Franceso Schettino, apparently abandoned ship before many of the passengers. He later said that he was helping passengers get into the life boats when he slipped and fell into one of them, prompting a coast guard officer to yell at him in vain, “Get back on board damn it!”
When the Titanic went down, women and children were given precedence. A great majority of them survived because of the chivalry of those, like Benjamin Guggenheim, who chose to stay behind, changed into his evening clothes, and said to those to whom he gave his seat in the lifeboats, “We dressed in our best and are prepared to go down like gentlemen.”
If reports are to be believed, the Costa Concordia crew fought with the passengers for the few seats in the lifeboats. The captain was among the 1st to flee, giving the lie to the noble ideal that the captain always goes down with the ship. The strong pushed aside the weak. And the moral order that defines us as civilized—as the best of creation, as those formed in the image of Gd—also perished with the victims.
I was trying to make some sense of it all when Rabbi Benjamin Blech sent me an article he wrote about it on www.aish.com. It seems that Blech was once a passenger on the Costa Concordia in the summer of 2008 serving as a rabbinic scholar-in-residence for a kosher program. He writes: I won’t ever forget the luxury, the beauty, and the latest state-of-the-art technology that was evident throughout. A high ranking member of the crew gave me a private tour, pointing out some of the remarkable advanced equipment and GPS which insured our total safety. What stayed with me was his jocular reference to a famous ship of a century ago, as he assured me that, “No one will ever have a Titanic experience here.” And yet that’s exactly what happened.
How could such a thing happen? With all the advances in modern technology, how can a ship go aground like that? The answer has profound implications for our understanding of the root cause of such tragedies. Actually, there was no reason for the Titanic to have sunk either. It happened only because people in 1912 were so awed by the size and technological achievements of the Titanic that the thought it was invincible. That permitted the order to be given to sail “full speed ahead” through icy waters. This order was given by the Titanic’s owners to recapture the trophy for the fastest crossing of the Atlantic from the Germans to help with publicity and revenue. And so the captain of the Titanic selected a northern—more icy—crossing which was much shorter than the traditional southerly route used by mariners during that time of the year.
This Titanic disaster was completely avoidable. North Atlantic crossings held perils well known to mariners and firsthand reports of ice conditions had reached the officers of the Titanic earlier that day. The Titanic had a radio, and both sent and received a steady stream of messages throughout the voyage. Wireless operators had 2 functions: track weather reports and transmit messages for the rich. They made their money from the latter. On April 14, 1912, another ship, the California, continually sent wireless messages to the Titanic that a large iceberg of one million tons was directly in the Titanic’s path.
No matter how good the technology of the Titanic, it could not compensate for moral error. Receiving these messages annoyed the operator trying to get messages out for their rich patrons. In fact, the Titanic operator demanded the California operator stop bothering him. He did and turned off his wireless. The messages never made it to the Captain. The 804 people who died were killed by greed. No matter how good the technology of the Titanic, it could not compensate for that.
Today’s Torah portion tells the detailed story of 7 of the 10 plagues that Gd rained upon Egypt because Pharaoh refused to let the Jewish people go. Each plague brought more and more devastation. By the end of the Torah portion, Egypt was in ruin with its fields and livestock destroyed. Thousands upon thousands of people had died. Yet Pharaoh still stubbornly refused to let the Jews go. Yes, in the beginning, Gd had hardened his heart, but by the end of the Torah portion it was Pharaoh who hardened his own heart. Couldn’t Pharaoh see the signs that his stubbornness was ruining his people and his land? Anyone could see it. Yet he put his own ego and pride above his people.
The Costa Concordia was the proud symbol of contemporary scientific nautical marvels. It, too, was unsinkable. Its GPS unerringly kept it on a safe course. Yet the ego of the captain who wanted to go closer to shore so that he could show off his “toy” cruise ship to friends on the island overrode every precaution. A GPS system can only give us direction. It can’t force us to steer in the direction it points to.
Perhaps that’s the message for us that comes out of this tragedy. Gd has given us a GPS. Rabbi Blech calls it “Gd’s Perfect System.” Otherwise known as the Torah, it guides us through life, pointing to the proper paths we should take. But it can’t force us to stay on the right path. We still have the freedom to obey or to disregard its warnings. What we can never avoid, however, is the consequences of our actions. The consequences of the captain of the Costa Concordia ignoring his GPS resulted in catastrophe. The consequences of ignoring our GPS—the Torah—can be equally as devastating.
We live in an age that worships every new scientific breakthrough. We are obsessed with gadgets meant to make our lives easier and more fun-filled. Yet we spend so little time stressing the importance of life’s values, without which all of these advances are meaningless. This tragedy happened because of human error. It was compounded by striking moral failures. Only with a renewed commitment to the morality of what’s right and wrong can we prevent disasters of Titanic proportions in the future. Amen!
Rabbi Mark Hillel Kunis
1/21/12
VAYECHI 5772
We Jews are big on forgiveness. Our holiest days of the year—Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur—are dedicated to it. In our weekday Amida prayer, 3 times a day we ask Gd to forgive us. And, as our tradition teaches, Gd does not forgive us from above until we forgive each other here on earth. But experience shows that sometimes it’s easier said than done.
Sometimes forgiving is relatively easy—like forgiving someone who missed an appointment or forgot to call you on your birthday. But what about the forgiving of the big hurts of life—like someone who deceived your or cheated you or abused you or has brought immense suffering to someone you care about? How does one forgive? How can one forgive?
At the end of today’s Torah portion we have a remarkable passage about forgiveness. After the funeral and shiva observance for their father Jacob, his sons become terrified that their brother Joseph will take revenge upon them and so they tell Joseph (Gen. 50:16-21): “Your father gave orders before his death saying, ‘Thus shall you say to Joseph: “Please forgive the spiteful deed of your brothers and their sin for they have done you evil.”’”
When Joseph heard those words he wept, realizing that his father Jacob had never said this. When his brothers flung themselves before him saying, “We are ready to be your slaves,” he understood the pain and fear his brothers were feeling. In an act of unbelievable compassion he tells them, “Fear not, for am I instead of Gd? Although you intended me harm, Gd intended it for good…in order to save many lives. So fear not—I will sustain you and your children.” And the Torah adds these remarkable words: “[Joseph] comforted them and spoke to their heart.”
How could he be so forgiving? His brothers tried to kill him and then sold him into slavery—throwing him out of the family and keeping him from his father and close brother Benjamin for over 20 years? No wonder the sages call him Yosef Hatzadik, Joseph the Righteous one.
Now most of us might be able to muster up the courage to ask for forgiveness for something we have done. But how do we respond when someone asks forgiveness of us? Can we forget? Can we forgive? Must we forgive? Sometimes we like to nurse our grudges. Oh, it can feel good to hate. But in the end it just poisons our souls, and consumes us. Do we want to give those who have hurt us that kind of power over us?
Lewis Smedes, a professor of theology and ethics, wrote a book, Forgive & Forget, which deals with how to respond to the hurts that we don’t deserve and how to heal those hurts. He hits the nail right on the head when he wrote: “Forgiving is love’s toughest work, and love’s biggest risk…Few of us have the heart for forgiving while we are dangling from one end of a bond broken by somebody else’s cruelty.” However, Smedes reminds us, “People do forgive—ordinary people, not saints—and they do heal themselves of terrible pain.”
Dr. Smede illustrates with the following legend:
In a small village, there lived a baker who seemed to be so upright, so righteous, so good. He was so upright that he seemed to spray righteousness from his thin lips over everyone who came near him, so the people of the village preferred to keep their distance from him. His wife did not keep people at bay with righteousness. Instead, she seemed to invite people to get close to her. The baker’s wife respected her righteous husband and loved him, as much as he allowed her to love him. But her heart ached for something more than his worthy righteousness….
One morning, having worked since dawn to knead the dough for his ovens, the baker came home [early] and found a stranger in his [home]…with his wife. [Rumours of] adultery soon became the talk of the…town. Everyone assumed that the righteous baker would throw his wife out of the house, but he kept her as his wife, saying that he forgave her as the Good Book said he should.
But in his heart of hearts, he could never forgive her for bringing shame to his name. When the baker thought of his wife, he thought angry thoughts. Though he kept her as his wife and in his home, he hated her for betraying him. He only pretended to forgive her so that he could punish her with his righteous mercy.
But in heaven the baker’s duplicity was recognized. Each time he would feel a secret hate for his wife, an angel came to him and dropped a small pebble…into the baker’s heart. And each time a pebble was dropped, the baker felt a stab of pain…And so he hated her even more. His hate brought him pain and his pain made him hate.
The pebbles multiplied, and the baker’s heart grew heavy with the weight of those pebbles. His heart grew so heavy that the top half of his body bent forward and he had to strain his neck upward to see straight ahead. Weary with hurt, he wished he were dead.
One night the angel with the pebbles told the baker how he could be healed of his heart. The remedy was the miracle of the “magic eyes.” He would need eyes that could look back to the beginning of his hurt, and to see his wife, not as a woman who betrayed him, but as a weak woman who needed him. Only a new way of looking at things through the magic eyes could he heal the hurt flowing from the wounds of yesterday.
The baker protested. “Nothing can change the past. She is guilty, not even an angel can change that.”
The angel responded to the baker that he was right. “You can’t change the past. You can only heal the hurt that comes to you from the past. And you can only heal it with the vision of the magic eyes.”
The baker asked how he could get the magic eyes. “Just ask,” said the angel, “and they will be given to you, and each time you see your wife through the new eyes, one pebble will be lifted from your aching heart.”
It took the baker some time to ask because he had grown to love his hatred. But his pain finally drove him to look for the magic eyes. He asked and the angel gave. And soon the baker’s wife began to change in front of the baker’s eyes. He began to see her as a woman in need, as a woman who loved him rather than a wicked woman who betrayed him.
The angel kept the promise. One by one the pebbles were lifted from the baker’s heart; though it took a long time to take them all away. Gradually the baker’s heart grew lighter and he began to stand straight again. He invited his wife to come into his heart again, and together they began a journey into their 2nd season of humble joy.
Isn’t this a powerful story? Don’t we all need those magic eyes? Do we want to live our lives as victims? Yes, you may be right in feeling that you were wronged, but only when we forgive can we begin to heal. How do we forgive? Like the baker, we must find a way to separate the deed from the doer. Yes, we have arrows in our hearts that hurt. But those who have put those arrows there also have arrows in their hearts that may have caused them to behave that way. When we don’t forgive, our hearts grow heavy with pebbles, making those arrows much harder to remove.
Here’s the secret of forgiveness. When you try to understand the wounds of those that have hurt you…when you try to understand what in their life brought them to behave that way…then the pebbles begin to fall away and only then can you begin to remove the arrows from your heart. Unless we want to continue to feel pain, we need to work at forgiving—not for the sake of the one who hurt us, but for our own sake.
It’s not easy to forgive. I know that. How do you let go of a grudge? How do you find the courage to look beyond your pain into the pain of the one who has hurt you? It’s easier said than done. Let me offer you one suggestion from our tradition. The Ari, Rabbi Isaac Luria—16th century founder of most of today’s Kabbalistic thought—lived for less than 40 years, but in that brief lifetime, he transformed Judaism. Among the many things he did was to create a new Siddur, one that is used to this day by Chassidim and others.
The Evening Maariv Service begins with the verse from the Psalms (78:38): V’hu rachum y’chapeyr avon v’lo yashchit, “May Gd, in His mercy, forgive sin and not destroy.” The Ari felt that he could not in good conscience ask Gd to forgive him until and unless he was willing to forgive others. And so he prefaced that verse with this additional sentence: Hareyni mocheyl l’chol adam shechata negdi hayom, “I hereby forgive whoever has hurt me today.”
The Torah (Leviticus 19:17) warns us: Lo tisna et achicha bilvavecha, “You shall not hate your brother in your heart.” If you’ve ever carried around anger, you know how truly wise this Torah teaching is. Let me suggest that you say these simple words, “I hereby forgive whoever has hurt me this day,” at the end of every single day—not because the person who has hurt you deserves to be forgiven. Maybe he/she does and maybe he/she doesn’t…But because that person who has hurt you does not deserve the power to make you bitter and angry. It’s not good for the “liver” in both senses of the word—the one who lives, and that part of the body! And so this Shabbos, as we read the amazing story of Joseph’s forgiveness, let us all say: “I hereby forgive whoever has hurt me this day.” Amen!
Rabbi Mark Hillel Kunis
1/7/12
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