Please Help Them To Learn As Well As To See (John Barlow & Bob Weir- "Black Throated Wind")

As an American living in Toronto, it is not often that I feel like a minority. With the Winter Olympics about to begin and all the Canadian Olympic Team merchandise on sale; I am reminded that I am an American living in Canada. When Rob Ford drinks too much and makes a fool of himself, I am reminded that I didn’t vote for him because I am not a Canadian citizen.  When I turn on the cable sports channels and find curling, hockey and darts and no college basketball games, I am reminded that I am an American living in Toronto.  Recently I had the opportunity to spend some time Indigo bookstore at the Yorkdale mall. I walked around the store and again, I was reminded that I am an American living in Toronto. The American History section was so small. The Politics section had two shelves dedicated to U.S. politics. In the sports section, there were numerous shelves dedicated to hockey and numerous Canadian teams. As an American, I am used to seeing shelves of baseball, and teams such as the New York Yankees, the Green Bay Packers or major college athletics. Despite feeling like left out of Canadian society while at the bookstore; I was reassured that something remain constant both in an American bookstore and a Canadian bookstore. The largest and most frequented section of the store was the self-help section, exactly like in America. Like the bookstores in the States, this particular bookstore had a variety of self-help topics such as: weight/obesity, divorce, parenting, spirituality, dysfunctional families, addiction, and happiness.  Frankly, I found it very re-assuring that at least from a merchandise perspective, Canadians obsess on the same stuff as Americans. I felt right at home.  Yet, I wondered why Self-Help section was this most frequented section of the store? Maybe it is because we are concerned and even obsessed about relationships. Self-help books are all about relationships: relationships with ourselves, our families of origin, our children, our mates, our bosses, and even God. All these books essentially deal with the same two issues: solving problems in relationships or adding meaning to one’s life and one’s relationships.

             Parshah Mishpatim is all about relationships, solving relationship problems, and adding meaning to one’s life and to those relationships. Following last week’s revelation, and receiving the Aseret Dibrot (Ten Commandments), Moshe and B’nai Israel receive the original self-help manual. It includes how to behave towards slaves, how to behave towards parents, fellow community members and newcomers, how to resolve conflicts, how to make legal decisions, how to take care of the land, and how to thank God for the harvest of the land. Upon hearing all this self-help advice, Bnai Yisroel responds in unison: Na’Aseh V’Nishmah - we will do and we will obey (Ex. 24:7). This is the perfect response for former slaves. Slaves were trained to obey. Free people however, were not trained to obey. Free people need to think and understand. Perhaps, B’nai Yisroel should have responded differently precisely because they were free. As a free people, perhaps B’nai Yisroel should have answered, “We’ll raise our consciousness about it, and then attempt to integrate it into our lives.”

            We can understand B’nai Yisroel’s response in another manner. The issue is the meaning of the word V’Nishmah-(and we will obey). V’Nishmah also means we will listen or we will learn.  We will do and we will listen, or we will do and we will learn is not the typical response for recently released slaves. This is a response of free people seeking self-help. To listen or to learn assumes a greater emphasis on the “self” rather than the help. “To obey” assumes greater emphasis upon the “help” rather than the “self”. To obey is an action that slaves or a king’s subjects engage in. Free people listen and free people learn. If we understand Nishmah as “listen” or “learn”, then B’nai Yisroel seems to have accepted God’s laws on their own accord. As a result, B’nai Yisroel accepts its responsibility as “a kingdom of Priests and a holy nation (Ex. 19:6).  As a designated nation of priests, as a designated holy nation, B’nai Yisroel would lead by example. B’nai Yisroel would integrate behavior into their daily life. Then they could learn it and teach it. After we begin the action, then we can delve into the deeper philosophical meaning of the action. B’nai Yisroel effectively serves as a living example of self-help.

            Parsha Mishpatim’s self help section,  reminds us that “self help” is not only about big ideas and platitudes. The real self help material and information is required for the nitty gritty and details of life. That holds true in our relationships with our husbands and wives, our children and even God. Self help is not confined to the “once in a while” or “the three times a year”. Rather it requires us to work at it every day. So it is no wonder that  Parshah Mishpatim concentrates on the mundane everyday aspects of human relationships. Unlike the numerous self help manuals that encourage us to buy the next installment of the manual or the next book in the series.  Bnai Yisroel’s response in Parsha Mishpatim reminds us that at some point one needs to stop talking and actually do the work, engage in the activity, or refrain from the activity as the case may be. Not until we Na’Aseh, until we “Do”, will the “self-help” ever really help us.

Peace,

Rav Yitz

Just Want to Have a Little Peace to Die ( Hunter & Garcia - Black Peter)

Last Sunday, I conducted a funeral, and my seven year old wanted to join me. Conceptually, I think it is important that children are exposed to these various life cycle events. I explained that I could not bring him this time because: this was a funeral for a person he didn't know, and I wouldn't be able his Abba, I had to be the mourners’ Rabbi. He understood. However I was intrigued by the request nonetheless. For my son, and for all our children, we want them to understand and accept these life cycle types of moments as a way of understanding how to live with the subsequent emotions due to the event. The most important gift my wife and I can provide for our children is the emotional strength to treat life and death as "matter of factly" as possible. That doesn't mean there are no emotions, rather those emotions are part of the process of dealing with these life cycle issues in a matter of fact type of way. In a sense we want them to be whole and complete people. We don't want them being scared of life and death, we don't want them to grow paralyzed by life and death, and we don't want them to become emotional basket cases or emotional zombies in regards to life and death. We don’t want their souls and their beings to remain stuck in the emotional intensity and extremes of life. This is our Brit Shalom - Coven anent of Peace for our children.

This Shabbat we read from Parsha Pinchas. The first few Psukim of the Parsha are a direct continuation of the previous Shabbat Parsha Balak. There is no elapse of time in the narrative. Balak concludes with a plague upon Bnai Yisroel for its worship of Moabite/Midianite god, Baal Peor. Aaron’s son Pinchas zealously acts by killing Zimri from the tribe of Shimon and Cozbi the Midyanite woman. God tells Moshe to reward Pinchas for his behavior by giving him the Brit Shalom, the Covenant of Peace. This covenant is only for Pinchas and his descendants. Keeping in mind that B’nai Yisroel has now concluded it 40 years of wandering in the wilderness and are poised upon the eastern bank of the Jordan River; a new census is taken. Just like we needed to know how many left Egypt, we now need to know how many will enter into Eretz Canaan. After the census is taken Moshe must judge a legal case concerning the laws of inheritance when a man has only daughters. This brief narrative is about the “Daughters of Tzelophchad”. Following this narrative, God commands Moshe to teach the new generation the laws for time bound offerings including the Shabbat offering, the Rosh Chodesh offering, the offerings for the Shelosh Regalim (Three Pilgrimage Festivals etc).

Isn't it odd, or perhaps even disturbing, that Pinchas' zealousness, his subsequent spear throwing and impaling his targets is rewarded with a Brit Shalom - a Covenant of Peace and Brit Kehunat Olam - a covenant of an everlasting Priesthood? (Num. 25:12). Through our modernist lens, I imagine that most people consider or at least can understand why some may consider Pinchas act to be nothing more than fanaticism or vigilantism. If we consider Pinchas' behavior to be no different that some fanatic or vigilante; then have a difficult time in understanding Hashem’s rewarding Pinchas. To offer Pinchas Peace and the Priesthood becomes seems incomprehensible. Ibn Ezra (Toledo, Spain 1090 – 1164) explains that God's Brit Shalom was a pledge that Pinchas would be protected from Zimri's kinsmen (the tribe of Shimon) and their desire to kill Pinchas.
The Torah Temima (Rabbi Baruch HaLevi Epstein – Russia 1860-1940) explains that the reward of Peace and the Priesthood was God's way of demonstrating to Moshe, and the rest of the Elders, as well as ChaZaL - Our sages of blessed memory, that such a deed was the result of unadulterated zeal to advance the glory of God. Yet as I read that all I can think of is a terrorist perpetrating a similar act in God's name. The Torah Temimah explains that since we are unable to determine who acts selfishly thereby committing murder and who acts selflessly (advancing the glory of God); the Brit Shalom and the Brit Kehunat L'Olam would only have been given to Pinchas if he indeed acted selflessly. Again, The Torah Temimah's comment makes the assumption that God would never have rewarded someone for committing a heinous act; rather a reward could only have been the result of an act that had been deemed as "good".

However there is another way of looking at this "reward". The Neziv (Rabbi Zvi Yehuda Berlin Poland 1817-1893; the Rosh Yeshiva of the Volozhin Yeshiva) explains that the Brit Shalom is a guarantee of peace from an inner enemy from whatever lurked within Pinchas that caused him to kill another human being without due process. "The Holy One Blessed He blessed him [Pinchas] with the attribute of peace, that he should not be quick tempered or angry. Since it was only natural that such a deed as Pinchas' should leave in his heart an intense emotional unrest afterward, the Divine blessing was designed to cope with this situation and promised peace and tranquility of the soul." We can now begin to make some sense of these covenants. Once Pinchas committed his first act of zealous defense of God's glory, perhaps it becomes easier and easier to commit a second third of forty-eight act of zealous defense of God's glory. At some point, from the Neziv's perspective, the zealot's soul becomes damaged, the zealot's emotions are incapable of feelings, and the zealot's eyes become unseeing except through the lens of their zealousness. The zealot by definition is an extremist and we know that extremism in Judaism is frowned upon and Halachically unacceptable (see the laws of the Nazarite). Precisely because the zealot does not know peace when he/she commits such an act, in Pinchas' case the only gift God could give was that the tumult of his own soul should cease and he should be whole, complete and at peace.

From this perspective, that Brit Shalom was not so much a reward of external gain as it was a reward for internal “normalcy”, the Brit Shalom and the Brit Kehunat L’Olam seem much more appropriate. Isn’t that what we wish for our children? We know that during the course of their lives there will be moments of tumult. We know that they will experience tension between their belief system and the realities of daily life. We know that they will be exposed to extreme emotions of joy, of sadness, of anguish and of anger. Like Pinchas received a Brit Shalom, we offer that same covenant to our children. Indeed when they do experience extreme and intense emotions of life, we want pray that they will be able to return to a state of peace and contentment with themselves and their lives.

Peace,

RavYitz