Seems a Common Way To Go (Robert Hunter & Jerry Garcia - "Row Jimmy)

Well, it finally looks like spring in Toronto. For the past nine years, springtime in Toronto usually meant that people emerged from hibernation, began yard work projects, and sports fans  followed the Toronto Blue Jays. Well, so far, this spring has been a bit different. For the first time in nine years,  Toronto's secular religion, playoff hockey, has returned to Toronto. As an American,  hockey is not the same type of secular religion as baseball. However, our son has been listening to the kids in school and has actually come home talking about the hockey playoffs. Honestly, I don’t gave know the difference between a blue line and a red line except the color, but I am always intrigued by professional sports teams and playoffs. I like the intensity, I like the buzz that a city has when their team is in the playoffs, and I enjoy watching individuals sacrificing their individual glory for one common objective: winning.  When I watch the Hockey playoffs, or what is more personally more appealing to me, the New York Knicks actually in the Basketball playoffs, I am reminded of the  powerful, age-old, sports adage: “There is no ‘I’ in TEAM”. The adage means that the individual must forsake his/her ego for the good of the team. Everyone on the team has a role. If that role is not executed with efficiency and excellence, then the team’s effectiveness is compromised and the risk of losing games increases.

This week’s Parshah is Bemidbar. Bemidbar marks the start of the fourth Book of the Torah, Sefer Bemidbar (the Book of Numbers).  If the Book of Leviticus focused upon all the ritual and ethical behavior a community must observe in order for “God to dwell among it”, The Book of Numbers focuses upon something quite different. Sefer Bamidbar consists of lists, lists of names, numbers and places. The Book begins and ends with a census. The Book begins with B’nai Yisroel still wandering from place to place as they completed their first year free from captivity. As they begin their second year, there will be more narrative, and more events. The Book of Numbers concludes with B’nai Yisroel’s temporarily dwelling in one spot for the next 38 years, overlooking the Promised Land.

Parshah Bemidbar begins with God commanding Moshe to count the people. Then God commands Moshe to organize the people according to tribal formation around the Mishkan. Three tribes are in each of the four directions: three in the North, three in the South, three in the East and three in the West.  The tribe of Levi, (the priest) was not counted in this census because it occupied the center of the camp. Instead of the first born from other tribes serving in the Mishkan, the Levites became the designated tribe to serve God in the Mishkan. Counting the Levites was the second census. In Parshah Bamidbar, we also read a list of names. These are the designated leaders of each tribe. Every tribe has a place within the camp, every tribe has a flag, and every tribe has a leader. The Parshah concludes with another census, this time it is limited to a particular family within the tribe of Levi.

Every tribe had a role. Every tribe had a place. Every tribe had a function. The Midrash explains that when God suggested the arrangements and roles for the tribes, Moshe questioned the idea. “ Now there will be disputes between the tribes.” Moshe reasoned that by assigning certain tribes to certain places, other tribes would become envious and grow disenchanted with their place within the camp, relative to the Mishkan. God explained that there was no need to worry. Each tribe’s designated spot was based upon Jacob’s sons’ positioning around Jacob’s coffin. Each tribe had a clear and proper place within the greater community. There was neither fighting, bickering, nor disenchantment. VaYa’Asu B’nai Yisroel kChol Asher Tzivah Adonai et Moshe, Kein Asu – “The Children of Israel did everything  that God commanded Moshe, so did they do”  (Num.1:54). Knowing their role or their place had a positive effect. Each tribe had a defined space and specific function that insured the welfare of the community.

            So, what can we learn from Parsha Bemidbar? First we learn that every individual counts, and every individual has value. We only count that which has a perceived value, such as: money, cd’s, cars, and whatever we have collected over the years. God ordered two censuses. B’nai Yisroel mattered to God; each individual must have had value. Otherwise, God would not have counted. From this we learn that a community’s strength is only as great as the individuals that comprise that community. Second, we learn that everyone must have a role, or a function within that community. Each individual must have a means to contribute to the community. By reaching out to the individual, recognizing how each contributes to the whole, and each individual’s contribution, a family can achieve holiness, community can achieve holiness, and a nation can achieve holiness.

Peace,

Rav Yitz

Got Two Good Eyes But We Still Don't See ( Robert Hunter & Jerry Garcia - "Casey Jones")

          As parents, our son experienced bullying and it raises a difficult lesson.  Certainly there is no excuse for bullying to occur in a school. Every child should be able to walk into a school building and feel safe.  However I am also a realist. There will always be bullies and I want all my children to have the tools to deal with bullies. Among the more difficult concepts for our son to grasp, in large part because he is only 8, falls in the realm of verbal bullying. We teach all of our children that one can only fall victim to verbal bullying if one actually pays attention to the verbal bullying and if the listener cares what is being said and who is saying it.  As a result, we spend a lot of time on self image and self respect with our children. For our son, this is not so easy. Since he is so physically oriented, like most boys his age, our son always feels bullied by kids who are physically larger and in fact the boys that tend to bully him are the bigger kids in the class. Of course when our son comes home from school, he laments that he is the shortest and smallest boy in the class. He laments that because of his small physical stature, he thinks he is a target. When he sits with us and does this it reminds me of how I felt exactly the same way when I was his age.  As parents we want to make the problem go away and ease his life. On the other hand, we know that he must learn how to fight his own battles if he ever hopes to grow up into a mentsch. As he complains about his stature I ask how he puts on his pants.  “One leg at a time”, he says. I ask if one leg must remain on the floor while he puts on his pants. Astutely, he responds, “yes”. I ask him if the big kid who bully’s him needs to keep a foot on the ground while he puts on his pants. Again, our wise son responds with “yes”.  I ask him to look in the mirror and describe what he sees.  Interestingly enough, the first words out of his mouth are not “short” or “weak”.  Those negative words come later. 

            This week’s torah portion is Parsha Shelach Lecha. The Torah portion begins with the narrative of Moshe gathering up twelve spies, one corresponding to each of the twelve tribes, and giving them the mission. The spies are told to investigate the quality of the land – fertile or barren, its inhabitants - warlike or peaceful, the nature of cities –fortified or open? The spies go and investigate and return. Ten spies offer a negative report and two, Caleb and Joshua, offer a positive report. Bnai Yisroel listen to the ten spies with the negative report and fell utterly overwhelmed at the prospect of entering into the land that Hashem promised them.  Hysterical, the people beg to return to Egypt. Hashem wants to wipe them all out immediately but Moshe defends the people just like he did after the Golden Calf. So rather than wiping out an entire people Hashem punishes Bnai Yisroel by prohibiting this generation from entering into the land. Eventually, when the slave generation has died out, the generations born in freedom will enter Eretz Canaan.  The people hear the punishment and decide they are ready to enter the land. Moshe explains that it is too late since entry into Canaan is ultimately premised upon faith.  Then Moshe begin teaching Bnai Yisroel laws specific and premised upon settlement in the Canaan.  First Moshe teaches the Libation Offering as well as Challah. Next, Moshe teaches the laws of public atonement of unintentional idolatry, individual unintentional idolatry, intentional idolatry, a reminder about violating Shabbat and finally the laws of Tzitzit. 

            The ten spies whom Bnai Yisroel chose to believe did not really bring such a negative report. They explained that the land was fruitful and fertile, there were trees and that it was really quite beautiful.  The problem with the report was that it revealed more about the spies and Bnai Yisroel than the land itself. When seeing some of the inhabitants and the physical size of some of those inhabitants.  The Ten spies said Vanhi V’Eineinu Ka’CHaGaVim V’Chain Hayinu B’Eineihem – we were like grasshoppers in our eyes and so we were in their eyes. (Num. 13:33) How do the ten spies know how the Nefilim (the Giants) perceive them? Did they ask the Nefilim? The answer to both questions is “No”. No they don’t know how the Nefilim perceive the Ten Spies and “No”, the Ten Spies did not ask the Nefilim. The spies feel small because from their own perspective and self image, they are small. When they look in a mirror, they see slaves. They don’t see people who stood at Sinai and received the Torah. They don’t see a people who carry a Mishkan with Hashem protecting them and scattering their enemies. They don’t see a people worthy of Hashem’s daily miracles of Manna, and water.  Instead they carry with them the burden of two centuries of slavery and being slightly less than human rather than being slightly less than angels.  Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Kotzk  (The Kotzker Rebbe ) explained that this was the root of the spies as well as Bnai Yisroel’s sin. They had no right to consider how others viewed them, nor should they have been at all concerned.  They should have all been spiritually strong enough to realize and accept that they were “priests to the nations” and “chosen by God”. The fact that such spiritual awareness was still lacking even after all the miracles and promises that God made; meant that problem lay with Bnai Yisroel. These former slaves were not ready for the responsibility of land and people hood.

            As our son has grown both physical and spiritually this year, he has started to learn the valuable lesson that the generation of slaves could not learn in the Wilderness.  He realizes that the first thing he sees in the mirror is not something small and insignificant.  Yes he is short, now he realizes that at his age, it does not exclude him from being competitive.  Yes he's slight, but he looks at pictures of his father at the same age and sees himself.  He has started to understand that he needn’t worry about what bullies say since the comments have no bearing on his reality and his self image. Rather he should worry about what he can control, his schoolwork, his progress in Karate, baseball, his reading,  piano playing, and growing up to be a mentsch.  As a result, he has started to learn that the first step in dealing with bullying is dealing with oneself.

Peace,

Rav Yitz