Wednesday, May 11, 2016

She Always Tries To Play By The Golden Rule (Robert Hunter & Jerry Garcia - "West L.A. Fadeaway")



          Because my wife is from San Francisco, my children have adopted several San Francisco teams as their favorite. Being an east coast New  York fan, one might think that this would cause an undo strain upon our children choice of sports team. In the world of professional basketball my children cheer for the Golden State Warriors without any concern to my New York sensibilities. I will say that as a New York Knick fan, even I have had no issues about cheering for the Golden State Warrior. I just imagine that I am watching the Knicks of early 70's. In particular we cheer for and are drawn to the NBA's  MVP Steph Curry. Whenever my children watch Steph Curry, they immediately will go outside and try to emulate Steph Curry; albeit without range of his jump shot. As I watch them, I am reminded, not so long ago, well maybe it was so long ago, about 15 -20 years ago where every little kid wanted to “be like Mike”, Michael Jordan that is. There was even a Gatorade commercial filmed by Spike Lee that featured a 10 year old boy trying to “be like Mike”. Actually it is quite common for young kids to try to mimic their sports heroes either in the way they throw, run, swing a bat, swing a golf club, or jog around the bases after a home run. It turns out, as little kids, we frequently mimic as a way to demonstrate our desire to be like something other than what we are.
This Shabbat we read from Parsha Kedoshim. Kedoshim is the plural form of the adjective Kodesh, which means holy.  In this particular case the antecedent for Kedoshim is Kol Adat B’nai Yisroelthe Entire Assembly of the Children of Israel. All of Israel is Holy, why? As we will read over and over again in a mantra-like fashion, Ki Kadosh Ani Adonai EloheichemBecause Holy am I the Lord your God. We are holy because of our sacred relationship to God. Interestingly, the rest of the Parsha does NOT concentrate on the relationship between God and humanity. Instead, the Parsha outlines the moral and ethical behavior that we are commanded to display towards our fellow human being. Keeping in mind that we are all created B’Tzelem Elokimthe Image of God; we are urged to imitate God. Instead of being urged to “be like Mike”; we are urged to “be like God”.  We are reminded to treat others as we would treat God.
The plethora of ethical behaviors outlined includes “do not place a stumbling block before the blind”, or “a workers wage shall not remain with you overnight until morning”. Even the Golden Rule, urging us to treat others as we hope to be treated is part of Kedoshim. The great Talmudic Sage Rabbi Hillel, explained to an individual who wanted to learn Torah while standing on one leg that this one rule embodies the essence of Torah “the rest are the detail” (Shabbat 31a). V’Ahavta L’Rei’echa K’MochaYou shall love your fellow human being as yourself (Lev 19:18).  Rabbi Akiva, another Talmudic Sage, explain that this is the fundamental rule of the Torah (Jerusalem Talmud Nedarim 9:4). Rabbi Avraham Yehoshua Heschel explained that this commandment does not mean to love saintly and righteous people – it is impossible NOT to love such people. Rather God commands us to love even people whom it is hard to love. However we do not “love” to our detriment.  After each of these ethical reminders God provides the mantra Ki Kadosh Ani Adonai EloheichemBecause Holy am I the Lord your God. Did Bnai Yisroel suddenly forget who they were? Did Bnai Yisroel suddenly forget who God was? So soon after standing at Sinai, receiving the Aseret Dibrot, making the regrettable decision to worship the Egel Zahav, engaging in national tshuva, and constructing a mishkan , did Bnai Yisroel really forget that they are part of a sacred relationship? Perhaps these ethical statements and the re-iteration of many of the commandments are put into the context of human relationship because it is much easier to see the immediacy and relevance of these commandments in human terms. At the same time we need to be reminded that we follow these commandments for two reasons: 1) because I said so and 2) because we have it in us to be holy, to be Godly.  
As Shabbat begins this week, we will have completed three weeks of counting the Omer. With the counting of each day, we take a moment to work on a different shortcoming in our spiritual development so that when we receive the Torah on Shavuot, we are as spiritually pure as possible. That is to say we aspire to be as spiritually pure as God. No we can never truly attain such a level of purity and holiness. However by aspiring to such great spiritual heights, we are better off than aspiring to a level of spiritual mediocrity. Striving to this higher level, “being like God” begins with a very small and simple step V’Ahavta L’Rei’echa K’Mocha - You shall love your fellow human being as yourself.

Peace,

Rav Yitz

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