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A Storm is Coming

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Facing the stormThat day when evening came, he said to his disciples, “Let us go over to the other side.” Leaving the crowd behind, they took him along, just as he was, in the boat. There were also other boats with him. A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped. Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?”

He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Quiet! Be still!” Then the wind died down and it was completely calm. He said to his disciples, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?”

They were terrified and asked each other, “Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!” –Mark 4:35-41

“Serenity is not freedom from the storm, but peace amid the storm.” -Unknown

I remember reading a story about a Jewish Chasid who went to his Rebbe and complained of terrible problems. He had various difficulties in his life, including matters of finance and was distracted all of the time. He begged the Rebbe to help him find peace of mind, so he could return to his Yeshiva studies.

The Rebbe instead became angry and said something like, “All you have been doing is telling me about your problems and how you want peace of mind. What about all you could be doing to help others?”

I can’t recall the source of the parable, so I’m reconstructing it from memory, but I think I’ve captured its essence. The Chasid wanted what we all want at times; peace of mind and relief from the struggles of day-to-day life. He wanted to return to a state where he could calmly, quietly contemplate the things of God and allow his spirit to ascend the heights of the courts of Heaven. Instead his Rebbe, the man who he felt was close enough to God to understand his concerns, completely sidestepped his worries, turned him around, pointed him at the problems of other people, and told him to go out there and be a solution.

Wasn’t that kind of heartless?

Not really.

For the past couple of mornings, I’ve been chronicling the personal struggles we all face in confronting sins, desiring to repent, the roadblocks of despair, depression, and discouragement, and how it seems that hitting the reset button on life during the Jewish High Holidays is more fantasy and wishful thinking than practical reality. After all, how is it possible to rid ourselves of our human frailties and grow closer to God when life will not stop long enough to give us a break? How can we enjoy the sunshine and the gentle breezes of an early fall when the raging storms of winter will absolutely not let up for a second?

“Serenity is not freedom from the storm, but peace amid the storm.” -Unknown

Easier said than done.

The disciples woke him and said to him, “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?”

He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Quiet! Be still!” Then the wind died down and it was completely calm.

He said to his disciples, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?”

Was Jesus being unreasonable with his disciples? Who wouldn’t have been terrified? Where was his compassion?

We are not passive observers of this universe, but rather partners in its creation. We are the ones who assign each thing its meaning, who bring definition and resolution to an otherwise ambiguous world.

In fact, we are legal witnesses who determine a matter of life or death: For each thing we hold, each event that enters our life, our word declares whether it breathes with G-dly life or simply idles itself into oblivion.

-Rabbi Tzvi Freeman
“Defining Your World”
Based on letters and talks of the Rebbe
Rabbi M. M. Schneerson
Chabad.org

LionBut where is God amid the storm? Does God hear the screams of the countless victims of the rape gangs in the Congo? Where is God when the persecuted Christians in China and Afghanistan cry out? Where is God six months after the Japan earthquake and tsunami when the victims still face the long struggle to rebuild their nation and their lives (and now one million Japanese must flee a typhoon)?

While the storm in your life and mine may not be so devastating, where is God when we struggle and sometimes fail? Where is He in the storm?

The LORD said, “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the LORD, for the LORD is about to pass by.”

Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave. –1 Kings 19:11-13

I don’t have the answers. I can’t tell you why people suffer horribly. I can’t tell you why some people suffer horribly and yet retain an almost mystical trust in God.

Though he slay me, yet will I hope in him;
I will surely defend my ways to his face. –Job 13:15

Most of us aren’t Job. But what choice do we have? If we give up and abandon our faith in the face of our sins and as the storm clouds approach, how are we better off? But how can God give us serenity in the midst of the storm? Paul knew:

I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through him who gives me strength. –Philippians 4:11-13

Most of us aren’t Paul. But what choice do we have? The answer is there somewhere, beyond the simplistic platitudes of “you just need to have more faith”. Somehow it’s possible. Somehow, it’s even practical to be able to trust God to the degree that it defies all reasonable expectations. God won’t send away the storm. We must learn how to rely on Him strongly enough to be able to endure the wind and the rain and the chaos.

Somehow.

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Dark Descent

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Dark DescentQuestion:

Everyone else has a great time celebrating their New Year’s Day. Why do we take ours so seriously? What’s this whole judgment deal? Why all the prayers? Can’t we just party?

Response:

If you would know the drama that’s going on, you would zip out of the wildest party to be there. Imagine the entire universe in reboot. Imagine a mega-surge of creative energy, enough to power the whole of reality for an entire year. Imagine a system loading parameters for every galaxy, star, planet, organism, cell, protein, molecule and atom over a 48-hour period, and you’re starting to get the idea. And you? You are adjusting the input at every step.

-Rabbi Tzvi Freeman
“Why No Wild Party on Rosh Hashanah?”
The High Holidays: Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur
Chabad.org

That sounds encouraging but there’s catch. As part of the “reboot” process, we must face our past, confront all of the mistakes and errors we’ve committed over the past twelve months and, to the best of our ability, first make amends with everyone we have injured and only after that has been accomplished, make amends with God. That’s what the month of Elul is all about, and our time is almost gone. Elul ends at sundown on Wednesday, September 28th and Rosh Hashanah begins.

Elul does many things but one of its functions is to act as a gateway into a long descent. The descent is into who we are and how we have performed as servants of the Most High God. You might think of it as your annual review at work, for instance, where your performance, for good or for ill, is examined and the consequences of your behavior are laid out in front of you. This is the preparation for Rosh Hashanah and then, ten days later, Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, the most holy day on the Jewish religious calendar. The day when you make the final descent into your soul, bring before the King all of who you are in humility and prayer, in fasting and repentance, and then rise and prepare for the coming year, dedicated to bringing better “fruits” to the altar of God.

But first things first.

“Rebbe, I am a sinner. I would like to return, to do teshuvah!” Rabbi Israel of Ryzhin looked at the man before him. He did not understand what the man wanted. “So why don’t you do teshuvah?”

“Rebbe, I do not know how!”

R. Israel retorted: “How did you know to sin?”

The remorseful sinner answered simply. “I acted, and then I realized that I had sinned.” “Well,” said the Rebbe, “the same applies to teshuvah, repent and the rest will follow of itself!”

-by J. Immanuel Schochet
“The Dynamics of Teshuvah”
The High Holidays: Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur
Chabad.org

Sounds pretty simple, but as I mentioned in yesterday’s blog Failure to Escape, it’s not always easy to play the “get out of jail free” card. I wonder sometimes if it’s always possible.

People who have been abandoned or abused by a parent or spouse sometimes suffer with anxiety about their relationship with God. They might project their hurts and fears from human relationships onto their relationship with God. They fear that He will withdraw His love from them. Such a view of God makes a true faith relationship almost impossible. God wants His people to know that He will not fail us, nor will He abandon us.

The Weekly eDrash
Commentary on Torah Portion Nitzavim
“I Will Never Leave You”
First Fruits of Zion (FFOZ)

There are other reasons besides these that can damage a person’s ability to trust and to form intimate relationships, but the result can certainly be the same. People of faith tend to model their connection with God on their connections with other people. If a person has learned to trust other important relationships, chances are, that person will trust their relationship with God. If, for whatever reason, real or perceived, their trust is stunted and unhealthy, then their ability to trust God will be likewise.

Being able to walk willingly down into the abyss of your sin, your human frailty, and your woeful imperfections is extremely dependent on your ability to trust God to pull you back out again, rather than believing He will leave you to drown hopelessly in the dark.

How did you know how to sin? I just acted and then at some point, realized it was sin. How do I know how to make teshuvah? First, I must go to where my sin lives within me and face its ugliness. I must turn my back on it, as I would turn my back on a dangerous and violent animal. Then I must trust God to rescue me from who I am, who I have become before I’m torn apart, and to pull me back out into the light and into the frail possibility of being someone better than I was in the pit.

That part of Elul, the High Holidays, and Yom Kippur isn’t advertised prominently. I suspect that many people don’t even think about it in those terms. However, when you get to be a certain age, you start to review the past more carefully. You see the annual patterns of life. You see what changes year by year and what does not change. You see in which direction those things that do change travel. Depending on the view, you find reason for encouragement…or not.

DrowningIn Christianity, there isn’t any set of events that directly corresponds with the Jewish High Holidays. Forgiveness of sins is a one-time event. The price was paid with the death of Christ and you accept this “free gift” upon your profession of faith in the Savior and becoming “saved”. Why bother going through the ceremony year after year?

Except you don’t stop sinning after you become a Christian. Sometimes becoming “saved” is just the first step in a long, arduous process of cleaning up your life. Sometimes the process never ends. There are always flaws, always mistakes, always regrets. There is always an abyss into which you must descend if you ever expect to have a hope of being redeemed. Both Christianity and Judaism are very optimistic that you’ll always return unscathed thanks to Jesus (Christianity) or God (Judaism).

But there is always the inmate who chooses to stay in jail. There is always the prince who learns to assimilate into the peasants. There is always the danger of going down and not being able to get back up.

Someone, some circumstance, something will knock you down sooner or later. It always happens. And you get back up. And you get knocked down. And you get back up. And you get knocked down. And you…

As for the wicked man, if he should return from all his sins that he committed and guard all my decrees, and do justice and righteousness, he shall surely live, he shall not die. All his transgressions which he committed will not be remembered against him….Do I then desire the death of the wicked, says G-d, the Eternal G-d, is it not rather his return from his ways, that he may live? –Ezekiel 18:21-23

That’s what’s at stake. Life itself.

Each one of us is both the sun and the moon.

The sun is constant—every day the same fiery ball rises in the sky. But the moon cycles through constant change—one day it is whole, then it wanes until it has disappeared altogether. Yet, then it is renewed, reborn out of nothingness.

-Rabbi Tzvi Freeman
Based on letters and talks of the Rebbe, Rabbi M. M. Schneerson
“Sun and Moon”
Chabad.org

That’s the problem. God is constant and unchangeable. People are not. Any constancy we may possess for the good must come from God. It is not within us as people to do so.

From Rabbi Schochet again:

“This mitzvah which I command you this day is not beyond your reach nor is it far off…” Generally, this verse refers to the entire Torah. In context with the preceding passage it is also interpreted to refer specifically to the principle of teshuvah. “Even if your outcasts be in the outermost parts of Heaven” and you are under the power of the nations, you can yet return unto G-d and do “according to all that I command you this day.” For teshuvah “is not beyond reach nor is it far off,” but “it is exceedingly near to you, in your mouth and in your heart to do it.”

And yet there are times when the Torah, teshuvah, and trusting in God regardless of the “vicissitudes of life”, seem as if they are beyond imagination, even though they may only be lying barely out of reach.

The road

The road is long and often, we travel in the dark.

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Failure to Escape

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PrisonRabbeinu Yonah, zt”l, teaches a lesson of teshuvah from a statement on today’s daf. “One who repeats one sin ten times has transgressed ten sins. We learn this from a nazir. A nazir gets a separate spate of lashes for every time he drank wine if the witnesses warned him before each drink.

“Even for a person who keeps the entire Torah, there is often at least one sin that he violates without much inhibition. He acts as though this sin is no sin at all. Even if this lax attitude extended to only one sin that would be serious enough. But most people have many areas that they do not take seriously. Some say the Name of heaven in vain. Others are not careful that their hands or the place they are in be clean before they say God’s Name. Some turn a blind eye to the poor, or one’s weakness may be slander, baseless hatred or arrogance. Or it may that he gazes at the forbidden. And laxness in the hardest mitzvah to fulfill properly is all too common: Torah study which counts like the entire Torah.

“It is therefore proper for every ba’al teshuvah to write down his flaws and mistakes and read this book every day. In that manner he will surely repent.”

Rabbeinu Yonah provides a famous parable on the importance of teshuvah. “This is likened to people who were jailed and managed to dig a tunnel out of their cell. Everyone escaped except one man. When the jailor noticed the tunnel and that everyone had escaped he began beating the man. ‘You fool! Why didn’t you take the opportunity and escape like everyone else?’”

When the Chiddushei HaRim, zt”l, quoted this Rabbeinuu Yonah he taught a brilliant lesson. “We see that failing to do teshuvah is worse than sinning in the first place!”

Daf Yomi Digest
Stories off the Daf
“Get Out of Jail”
Chullin 82

How interesting. If sin is putting yourself in jail, then teshuvah, the process of turning from sin back to God, is escaping from jail. We don’t normally consider a jailbreak in a positive, moral light, but think about it. If you are put in jail as the consequence of committing a crime, you wait passively. There is little or nothing you can do to secure your release except to wait for time to pass and your sentence to be up. You do not participate in your redemption in any way.

On the other hand, a jailbreak is an active process. It requires planning, gathering the right tools and, in some cases, organizing the different roles required for the escape with other people. You aren’t simply going to be released just because you’re waiting around. You actually have to do something about it. So it is with the process of repentence. So it is with the activity of making teshuvah. It won’t happen unless you take an active part.

But as in Rabbeinu Yonah’s parable, there will always be those people who, for whatever reason, continue to allow themselves to be imprisoned when they could have escaped and become free again. Failure to make amends, to repent, to turn from sin, and return to God is worse than the sin that landed you in jail in the first place.

But there’s more.

Both Passover and bringing of the first fruits are times when we must recognize our blessings and their origin. They say “there are no atheists in foxholes,” but foxholes are a lousy place to get religion! The Torah wants us to develop a connection with happiness and love, rather than fear. The curses found in this week’s reading only come about “because you did not serve HaShem your G-d with joy and a good heart, from an abundance of all.” [Deuteronomy 28:47]

-Rabbi Yaakov Menkin
Director, Project Genesis
Torah.org

This isn’t the first time I’ve blogged about the mystery of “joy”. About six months ago, I wrote something called Failing Joy 101. By nature, I’m not a continuously happy or joyous person. I don’t walk around with a smile on my face all the time. I don’t always approach the day with boundless enthusiasm. I even sometimes find people who really are cheerful all the time as kind of annoying. And yet we have this. Not only are we to stage a jailbreak when we are incarcerated within sin, but essentially, we’re to do so with a song of joy in our hearts.

And if we don’t, it’s a sin. It’s sin that gets us in jail in the first place. It’s sin that keeps us in jail when we could escape. And it’s sin, even when we escape, if we don’t do so joyfully.

I think I’m getting a headache.

Joyous enthusiasm is the child of inspiration. It is the emotional elixir that galvanizes, energizes, electrifies our lives. It empowers us to move mountains and make impossible dreams come true. Without joy, we plod mechanically toward our goals, seeking relief rather than fulfillment, but with joy we soar toward glittering mountaintops.

Clearly then, joy is a critical factor in our service of the Creator. It infuses every observance, every prayer, every moment of study with a divine energy that brings us that much closer to our Father in Heaven. One of the Chassidic masters once said, “Joy is not a commandment, but no commandment can accomplish what joy can.”

But what if a person cannot achieve joy? What if a person is overwhelmed by the vicissitudes of life and is unable to free his spirit and let it soar? Surely, he does not deserve to be condemned and chastised for this failure. Surely, he should continue to serve the Creator to the best of his ability even if his efforts are less than inspired.

-Rabbi Naftali Reich
“The Little Voice”
Commentary on Parshas Ki Savo
Torah.org

DespairIt’s nice to know that I’m not the only one who thinks about these things. Rabbi Reich goes on to say, “Some commentators resolve this perplexing problem homiletically. They read the verse as follows, ‘Because you did not serve Hashem your Lord – with joy.’ It is not the absence of joy which is deserving of punishment but rather the presence of inappropriate joy.’

Let’s go back to the inmate who refused to escape from jail. Why wouldn’t he leave? Why stay in sin…unless he liked it there.

I don’t know if Rabbi Reich is reaching a little too far for a solution, but it is one that we could consider. As the Rabbi says, it’s “one thing to fall short in the service of Hashem, to fall victim to the weakness of the flesh. But it is quite another to revel in sinfulness, to delight in the saccharine juices of forbidden fruit.” So the absence of joy in our acts committed for the service of the Creator may not be desirable, that’s not where our sin lies.

A king was angry with his son for neglecting his princely duties. He decided to discipline him by banishing him incognito to a remote village.

When the prince arrived in the village of his banishment, he was mortified. The place was a collection of rude huts without the most basic comforts and refinements of polite society. There were no books or works of art for miles around. The people were vulgar and ignorant. The stench in the streets was overpowering.

A year passed, and the king began to reconsider his decree of banishment against the young prince. But first he sent spies to see how the prince was faring.

The spies arrived in the village, but it was a while before they located the prince sitting among a group of peasants in a barnyard. The once handsome and elegant young prince was filthy and dressed in vermin-infested rags. He was stuffing his face with half raw meat, the red juices running down his chin. Every few minutes, he would roar with laughter at one or another of the coarse peasant stories that were being bandied about. The spies immediately returned to the palace to report on what they had seen.

When the king heard their report, he wept. “If my son is happy among the peasants, he will never be a prince.”

The parable quoted from Rabbi Reich’s commentary tells the same story as Rabbeinu Yonah’s parable. Two men were sentenced to isolation from the world of faith and hope for a certain time. The intent was to teach them, in their misery, that they should desire to return to their former lives and learn appreciation for what was temporarily denied them. Instead, we find that the opposite happened. Both men learned to become accustomed to their life of depravity and sinfulness. I suspect both men lost hope because without hope, there can never be joy.

I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through him who gives me strength. –Philippians 4:12-13

I suspect that Paul could write these words with sincerity because he had hope in Jesus. It was a hope that transcended circumstances and became interwoven with the very fabric of his being. It is a hope that only true trust and faith in God can create and nurture. Knowing God exists provides a certain amount of comfort. Having absolute trust in Him, regardless of your situation is where one discovers faith, hope, and finally, joy.

While we are expected to somehow just “have” these treasures, they don’t simply lie along the common path, like wildflowers growing out of the gravel. Digging an escape tunnel doesn’t just happen. It takes a lot of effort. So, for at least some of us, does the search for the fruits of the spirit.

If we have no joy in our hearts, we deny the love of God. We should not say, “Our heart is the dwelling place of lust, jealousy, anger; there is no hope for us.” Let us realize that we have another guest in us who desires to give us life and joy, notwithstanding our sin.

-Paul Philip Levertoff
Love and the Messianic Age

There’s another reason why the prisoner might choose not to escape; not due to any attraction to or love of sin, but because of the futility of hoping that any escape would be permanent or even long lived. Perhaps the son of David was right after all.

The road

The road is long and often, we travel in the dark.

divinity

The Death of the Tzaddik

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Torah at SinaiRav Zalman Sorotzkin, zt”l, taught the extent of the oneness of the actions of all Jews from the prohibition of slaughtering a mother animal and her calf on the same day. “The verse states, ‘It and its progeny you shall not slaughter on the same day.’ The word for ‘slaughter’ is plural to teach that if one Jew slaughters the mother and a second Jew slaughters the child, this violates the prohibition. He explained, “We can learn a very important lesson from this.

We see that there is a very special connection between the actions of one Jew and the actions of his fellow. Our mission as a nation is to be a light unto the nations and we can only do this if we are united. Whether we know it or not, every Jew is part of one collective Jewish soul. This explains the unreasonable tendency of the non-Jewish nations to blame all Jews for heinous acts done by unworthy individuals. It is surely strange that they do not judge other nations this way. But when we consider that every Jew is part of a single whole, this begins to make a strange kind of sense, at least on a cosmic level…”

When Rav Chaim Vital, zt”l, noticed the Arizal saying a tearful heartfelt vidui during davening he wondered about this. “Why are you saying vidui? Surely you have never violated any of the heinous sins mentioned.”

The Arizal admitted that he had not violated the sins listed. He said, “Nevertheless, I must at least repent for all of them. Although I have never transgressed, what about my fellow Jews who have?

Daf Yomi Digest
Stories Off the Daf
“Parts of a Whole”
Chullin 81

I sometimes despair over the lack of unity in the body of Christ or in the larger collection of people of faith. We seem so fragmented and disorganized for a group of human beings who supposedly all worship the same God and who all long for the coming of the Messiah (for Christians that’s “second coming”). Despite the lesson we see off the Daf, it seems as if even the Jewish people are not unified in their approach to and understanding of God, the Torah, and even whether or not a Jew must believe in God to be a Jew.

Yet if we look at the Sinai event, the Torah wasn’t given to each Israelite individually but to Israel as a single body.

Moses went and repeated to the people all the commands of the Lord and all the rules; and all the people answered as one man with one heart, saying, “All the things that the Lord has commanded we will do!” –Exodus 24:3

Rashi comments that the Egyptians were pursuing the Jews “With one heart, like one person.” This comment is interesting because Rashi makes almost the same exact comment in next week’s parsha, when the Torah describes the Jewish people camping at the foot of Mt Sinai. There too, the Torah used the singular tense to describe the Jewish people, “and Israel encamped there opposite the mountain” (Exodus 19:2). On that verse, Rashi describes the powerful unity the Jews felt as they were about to receive the Torah, that they were “Like one person with one heart.”

-Rabbi Leiby Burnham
Parasha Perspectives
Torah Portion Beshalach – 5769
Partners in Torah

While modern Judaism may not function “like one person with one heart”, at least on the surface, we see that when the nation of Israel was formed and the Torah was given at Sinai, Israel accepted the Law of God “with one heart”. That was God’s intent and I believe that the Jewish people will return to complete unity under God in the days of the Messiah.

But what about Christians? We are sometimes called “the body of Christ”, implying that we are a unified group or collective, but is that really true and was it true from the beginning? Particularly in Western culture, the value of the individual is considered paramount and we tend not to respond well to being treated as a group under the authority of a Pastor, Rabbi, or other governing body. We each demand the right to determine what the Bible says for ourselves, which often results in the Bible saying many different things to many different people.

I won’t quote the various New Testament examples because there are far too many, but Paul’s mission to the Gentiles to preach the Good News of Christ was carried, by necessity, to individual Gentiles, families, or small groups. It would have been impossible to deliver the Gospel message to “the nations” as a unified whole, if only because the world is so big and Gentiles, even in the Second Temple era, were so numerous. There could be no “Sinai event” for us the way there was for the Children of Israel, and maybe that represents a fundamental difference between Jews and Christians.

Even though the various branches of religious Judaism (as well as secular Jews) don’t see eye to eye, when you take away the differences and distill the Jewish people down to their very essence, there is a very basic “Jewishness” that cannot be removed, erased, or diminished beyond a certain point. A Jew will always be a Jew. When push comes to shove, the Jews are a people as established by the will of God.

Not so a Christian.

We are not born, we are made. More accurately, we make a decision; becoming a Christian is a choice. Becoming not a Christian is also a choice. There really is no such thing as an “ex-Jew”. Even for Jews who convert to Christianity, the Jewishness is still there. That isn’t true for Gentile believers. There is a point where you can reduce the Jews down to a common denominator where they are all one (as God is One), but Christians are not “one”, we are many.

I wonder if that’s our problem?

Mount SinaiI can only imagine that, in the end, God will gather the faithful together and we will all be “one new man” (Ephesians 2:15) as, in theory, we are supposed to be right now, but we’re not there yet. In my own little corner of the world, exploring a path rarely traveled by any other Christian, I feel very much alone most of the time. That’s probably by choice as well, although I feel like there’s a bit of wiring and programming inside of me that will not let me seek a different road and will not let me blend in with the masses of the Messiah’s sheep in their Christian sheepfold.

I wonder if that’s my problem?

(Actually, I don’t feel that odd anymore. I just read an article about how Koreans, both in their native country and in the U.S., are fascinated with Talmud and its wisdom. Korean translations of Talmud and books about Talmud are common in Korean bookstores.)

Can we be one? Is Christian unity an illusion? How are we to gather together under the One God and be a unique body, set apart in holiness?

…so Christ also, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time for salvation without reference to sin, to those who eagerly await Him. –Hebrews 9:28

The murder of Rabbi Elazar Abuhatzeira, the “Baba Elazar,” on Thursday night saved the people of Israel from other tragedies, leading rabbis said Friday.

“Harsh punishments were decreed on the people of Israel, and he wanted to nullify them,” said the slain rabbi’s brother, Rabbi Baruch Abuhatzeira, also known as the Baba Baruch, speaking at Rabbi Abuhatzeira’s funeral.

by Maayana Miskin
“Rabbi Abuhatzeira Bore the Burden of Evil Decrees”
IsraelNationalNews.com

God is One and His Name is One. As Christians, we believe that the Son of Man came to die for the sins of many. Although Judaism traditionally does not believe that one person can die for the sins of another, the Kabbalistic perspective states otherwise:

The Bible is clear, and it is consistent. One person cannot die for the sins of another. This means that the guilt from the sins committed by one person cannot be wiped out by the punishment given to another person. First, in Exodus 32:30-35, Moses asks God to punish him for the sin of the Golden Calf, committed by the people. God tells Moses that the person who committed the sin is the person who must receive the punishment. Then, in Deuteronomy 24:16, God simply states this as a basic principle, “Every man shall be put to death for his own sins.” This concept is repeated in the Prophets, in Ezekiel 18 “The soul that sinneth, it shall die… the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him.”

-Rabbi Stuart Federow
“Jews believe that one person cannot die for the sins of another person”
What Jews Believe

“… suffering and pain may be imposed on a tzaddik as an atonement for his entire generation. This tzaddik must then accept this suffering with love for the benefit of his generation, just as he accepts the suffering imposed upon him for his own sake. In doing so, he benefits his generation by atoning for it, and at the same time is himself elevated to a very great degree … In addition, there is a special, higher type of suffering that comes to a tzaddik who is even greater and more highly perfected than the ones discussed above. This suffering comes to provide the help necessary to bring about the chain of events leading to the ultimate perfection of mankind as a whole.”

Derech Hashem (The Way of God)
Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto
As translated and annotated by Aryeh Kaplan
Feldheim Publishers
Jerusalem, 1997, p. 122.
Quoted from Yashanet.com

It’s with a certain amount of irony that I find the only “reasonable” explanation for how a person, a tzaddik, can give his life to avert the “evil decrees” of an entire people (without admitting that God accepts human sacrifice), is within the confines of Jewish mysticism (you’ll find Judah Himango struggling with the issue of Leviticus 27 and human sacrifice at Kineti L’Tziyon).

If Christianity can be said to have a “Sinai event” it is the crucifixion (or can we also include the resurrection?). Not that we were all there. In fact, the vast majority of people who were in the general vicinity were Jews, who came from every corner of Israel and the diaspora for the festival of Passover.

On the other hand, every Jew, even today, is to consider himself or herself as having stood personally at the foot of Sinai to receive the Torah. Why not (and this is just my imagination speaking) consider every Christian and every disciple of the “great Rebbe of Nazaret”, the most righteous tzaddik of all generations; why not consider us all as having stood at the foot of his execution stake personally, each of us as a witness to his bloody, sacrificial death on our behalf?

The Death of the MasterWe sometimes call Jesus our “living Torah” since he embodied the lifestyle of one who was fully human yet fully obedient to God and without sin. If the giving of the Torah at Sinai to the Jewish people unites them as one, does not the giving of the blood of the living Torah at Golgotha, the place of the skull, unite the disciples of Christ?

There’s a problem of two separate people groups under God and two separate events. Do the Jews have Moses and the Gentiles have Jesus? Are there two “Messiahs”? Not ultimately, for we all spring from a single root (Romans 11) and we are all branches on the same tree. More than that, Jesus came for the lost sheep of Israel and Paul went first to the Jew and then to the Gentile. The Jewish Moshiach came for the Jews and also came to unite all of humanity under God.

But every year, when they sound the shofar at Rosh HaShana it is revealed, a new revelation of infinite life is drawn to the world, beginning with the Land of Israel (see Tanya, pg. 239).

That is why the Torah says G-d’s eyes are on the Land of Israel from the beginning of the year to the end; it is referring to this new flow of life begun each Rosh HaShana.

And why will the Patriarchs be revived in Israel? Because as the ultimate Jews they will link and reveal the holiness of the people of Israel to the Land of Israel.

But this will only happen through our efforts to transform the entire world into holiness NOW — that is, to make Israel everywhere and prepare the world for Moshiach.

Because ONLY Moshiach will bring the Jews to Israel when the Great Shofar will be sounded by HaShem Himself.

We just have to do all we can in thought, speech, and action to bring . . .

Moshiach NOW!

-Rabbi Tuvia Bolton
Commentary on Parashat Eikev (5766)
Ohr Tmimim

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign for ever and ever. –Revelation 22:1-5

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Ki Tavo: Blessings of the Soul

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BikkurimOne of the major thrusts in Judaism is hakaras hatov, appreciation of the good which G-d constantly bestows upon us. And as with appreciation of our fellow man, the emphasis is on appreciating not only the material dimension of G-d’s kindness, but also the love and care which He showers on every person.

In this vein, we can understand the sequence of our Torah reading, Parshas Ki Savo. The reading begins by describing the mitzvah of bikkurim (Deuteronomy 26:1-11), the first fruits which the Jews would bring to the Beis HaMikdash, and shortly afterwards speaks of a covenant concerning the entire Torah (Deuteronomy 26:16)

What is the connection between these subjects?

The mitzvah of bikkurim was instituted to show that our gratitude for the good G-d has granted us (Rashi, gloss to Deuteronomy 26:3), and to display our appreciation to Him for “granting us all the blessings of this world.” (Sefer HaChinuch, mitzvah 606) And this appreciation is not expressed merely by words of thanks, but through deed.

-Rabbi Eli Touger
Ki Savo commentary: “Entering Deeper and Deeper”
In the Garden of Torah
Chabad.org

There’s a tendency among people of faith to separate their lives into the holy and the mundane. It is holy to pray in the morning before work, and it is mundane to commute to work. It is holy to worship in church or synagogue, but it is mundane and ordinary to have a meeting at work, have dinner with your family, volunteer at the food bank, and to give to charity. Yet we see in the example set in this week’s Torah Portion Ki Tavo that in the process of the bikkurim, there is an intimate connection between appreciating the gifts of the physical world and the loving providence of God.

The bikkurim is an illustration of the Jewish expression of appreciation to God for the gift of the Land of Israel and its bounty, but how else can such appreciation be expressed and experienced?

Our Sages teach (Bava Basra 9b): “A person who gives a coin to a poor person is granted six blessings; one who gratifies him is blessed elevenfold.” Now, gratifying does not necessarily mean giving more money. It means giving a positive feeling, showing the recipient that you care about him, and that he means something to you. When one so invests himself in another person, putting enough of himself into the stranger that the person feels appreciated, he has given something far greater than money. And so he receives a more ample blessing from G-d.

Our own sage, the “Maggid of Nazaret” teaches a similar lesson:

Jesus sat down opposite the place where the offerings were put and watched the crowd putting their money into the temple treasury. Many rich people threw in large amounts. But a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins, worth only a few cents.

Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything—all she had to live on.” –Mark 12:41-44

What is “value” in the eyes of God and “worth” in the economy of Heaven? It isn’t our ability to pay or to provide for others or even to God, but our intent, willingness, and expression in helping the unfortunate. A poor widow can donate a a very small amount (although it is great to her since it is all she has to live on) and have it be worth more than all of the gifts of the wealthy, even though what they give can feed multitudes of the impoverished.

To continue quoting from Rabbi Touger:

This leads to a deeper concept: Appreciation stems from involvement; the deeper the relationship between people, the more one appreciates the uniqueness of the other. When a person appreciates a colleague, he is motivated to do whatever he can for that other person.

These concepts apply, not only to our relationships with our fellow man, but also to our relationship with G-d.

What we do for others relates directly back to how we express our appreciation for all God has done for us. In fact, there is probably a closer connection between acts of charity to others and our appreciation of God than we might imagine:

“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’ –Matthew 25:37-40

HomelessIn Judaism, the first blessing offered to God, the Modeh Ani, is given before the person even gets out of bed, but it is performed while the person is not quite awake. Later in the day, observant Jews recite the Modim blessing of the Shemoneh Esreh, and offer a more complete expression of thanks, yet this is only part of offering our hearts to God. The physical acts of kindness to others and the illustration of the bikkurim are both tangible and concrete, yet representative of traveling into the greater depths of spiritual dimensions where prayers and blessings alone cannot take us. So even in giving to others as an expression of appreciating the life God gives to us, we also get something back; the opportunity to serve the table of the King.

Once the Chasam Sofer, zt”l, was riding in the same carriage as his rebbe, Rav Nosson Adler, zt”l. It was a very cold day and the Eastern European roads were filled with snow and slush. One wrong turn could land a person into a sticky quagmire from which he would not easily get out. During the first leg of the trip, the wagon driver managed to extricate them each time
the horses got stuck. Eventually, however, the horses enter a muddy pit from which they could not budge. Although they tried, they lacked the physical strength to get that wagon out of the mud.

After coaxing the team for an extended time, the wagon driver understood that his efforts were futile and that he needed help. He unhitched one of the horses and rode to a nearby town. After some time the wagon driver returned with reinforcements to remove the wagon. When Rav Nosson Adler saw them coming he left the wagon. He rushed out so quickly that he didn’t even put on his boots. In his silk socks he jumped down from the wagon and then—to the surprise of the Chasam Sofer—he began to dance. His face shone with a holy fire and he was obviously overjoyed.

The Chasam Sofer wondered what it was that had made his rebbe so happy that he spontaneously began to dance. “You know I spend most of my day in the beis midrash. I do as many mitzvos as I can, but there are many mitzvos which are virtually impossible for me to fulfill. One of these unusual mitzvos is to avoid kil’ayim.

“But now don’t you see? The wagon driver brought a team of oxen to help pull his wagon out of the mud. As a non-Jew, this is his right, but we are forbidden from sitting in the wagon while it is being towed out by a mixed team. If we would have sat in the wagon we would have violated the prohibition of kil’ayim. Now that I have finally merited to fulfill this rare mitzvah I feel filled with joy and cannot stop myself from dancing!”

Daf Yomi Digest
Stories Off the Daf
“A Mixed Team”
Chullin 79

While this example of gratitude and appreciation may seem obscure and even nonsensical to someone without the benefit of a traditional Jewish religious education, if you take a moment to think about it, this is a story of a rare opportunity. Bringing the illustration back to the present, those opportunities that God gives us to serve others, even when they significantly interrupt our otherwise orderly and scheduled lives, are really opportunities for our benefit. Helping someone else not only benefits the other person, and it not only lets us bless God for all He has done for us, it is also the act of God blessing us by letting us be of further service to Him. In committing even the smallest act of repairing the world, God is giving us His loving compassion by repairing us, for there is no difference between helping another person, honoring God, and receiving God’s blessings on our soul.

In every person, there lie all souls that ever were and will be.

After all, humanShabbat candles consciousness began in a single being, with a single breath of G‑d within that being.

And so, just as every cell of the human being contains the blueprint of every other cell and of the entire person from the synapses of his brain to the swirls of his fingerprints, so every single person contains the entire humankind.

In this way, our Creator has rendered each of us the master of human destiny. In the liberation of any one of us lies the liberation of us all.

-Rabbi Tzvi Freeman
“Any Soul”
Based on letters and talks of the Rebbe
Rabbi M. M. Schneerson
Chabad.org

Good Shabbos.

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The Face in the Mirror

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Mirror“Rabbi Mendel of Kotsk was told of a great saint who lived in his time who claimed that during the seven days of the Feast of Booths his eyes would see Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Aaron, and David come to the booth. Said Rabbi Mendel: “I do not see the heavenly guests; I only have faith that they are present in the booth, and to have faith is greater than to see.” (page 118)

-Abraham Joshua Heschel
God in Search of Man: A Philosophy of Judaism

Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” –John 20:29

When Jesus heard this, he was amazed and said to those following him, “Truly I tell you, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith. I say to you that many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.” –Matthew 8:10-11

In the early morning when I drive to the gym for my workout, the sun is not yet risen. There is no cold bite in the air, but I can still tell that the days of summer are all but exhausted and that autumn is finally approaching. We are in the month of Elul which precedes the High Holy Days and after Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, comes Sukkot or the Festival of Booths.

Although I cherish all of God’s appointed times, I must confess that Sukkot is one of my favorites. I enjoy the process of building a temporary structure that can potentially shelter the guests of Heaven, but more tangibly, that will allow my family to pray, take meals, together, and celebrate God’s provision among us. It is a custom in Judaism to invite the poor to share a meal in your sukkah and in my imagination, I picture all of us, rich and poor, great and small, sitting and eating as the Master prophesied, with “Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven” during Sukkot.

During Passover, it is customary to set a place at the meal for Elijah the Prophet and, at one point in the haggadah, a child is sent to the door to see if Elijah is there, for if he is, then the Messiah is coming. During Sukkot, we can set a place for anyone, “Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Aaron, and David”, both in the hope that they may come and share a meal with us, and in anticipation of the time when (again, as the Master teaches) we will all be together as a community of God, sharing and talking and eating and teaching, and everyone “will sit under their own vine and under their own fig tree, and no one will make them afraid…” (Micah 4:4).

However, before our eyes are allowed to witness such a wonderful and miraculous “Sukkot” feast, we must learn to see with the eyes of Rabbi Mendel and the eyes of the Baal Shem Tov.

Do not judge your fellow until you have stood in his place –Pirkei Avot 2:4

Rabbi Israel Baal Shem Tov (the “Besht,” founder of the chassidic movement) taught: “Your fellow is your mirror. If your own face is clean, the image you perceive will also be flawless. But should you look upon your fellow man and see a blemish, it is your own imperfection that you are encountering—you are being shown what it is that you must correct within yourself.”

Quoted from Ethics of Our Fathers commentary:
“The Mirror”
Elul 9, 5771 * September 8, 2011
Chabad.org

The eyes of faith see Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob sitting in our Sukkah sharing a meal with our family. How do the eyes of faith see your neighbors and friends? How do you see those people around you, particularly if you view them with annoyance or scorn?

A few days ago, I wrote a morning meditation about how our thoughts and words affect our relationship with other people and with God. I hadn’t really intended to write a “sequel”, but that’s how it worked out. But if we claim to see the wonders of God through the lens of faith, yet fail to use that same lens when looking at our fellow human being, what “faith” are we really professing?

With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings, who have been made in God’s likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this should not be. Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring? My brothers and sisters, can a fig tree bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water. –James 3:9-12

SuccothI could hardly write these words with any sort of sincerity if I continued to use my own eyes to view my brothers and sisters in a less than complementary light. We are completely perfect but made in God’s image. We are only mortal, but we are capable of touching the infinite. As Rabbi Heschel writes (page 118):

This, indeed, is the greatness of man; to be able to have faith. For faith is an act of freedom, of independence of our own limited faculties, whether of reason or sense-perception. It is an act of spiritual ecstasy, of rising above our own wisdom.

To have faith is not to capitulate but to rise to a higher plane of thinking. To have faith is not to defy human reason but rather to share divine wisdom…Lift up your eyes on high and see: Who created these.

And from the Psalms:

I lift up my eyes to the mountains—
where does my help come from?
My help comes from the LORD,
the Maker of heaven and earth. –Psalm 121:1-2

Heschel states that, “…our faith in Him conveys to us more understanding of Him than either reason or perception is able to grasp”, but what good does that do us if we refuse to even try to see people around us as God sees them; as God sees us all? We may believe we are adoring and serving God but we have failed Him completely if we cannot adore and serve people as well.

One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”

“The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”

“Well said, teacher,” the man replied. “You are right in saying that God is one and there is no other but him. To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.”

When Jesus saw that he had answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” –Mark 12:28-34

As the commentary on Pirkei Avot states:

Rabbi Israel Baal Shem Tov, taught: “Your fellow is your mirror. If your own face is clean, the image you encounter in your fellow will also be flawless. Should you gaze into this `mirror’ and see a blemish, it is your own imperfections that you are seeing.”

“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye. –Matthew 7:3-5

If looking in the mirror which is your brother’s face, you see only imperfection and error, how will you ever see the face of Abraham or the face of Jesus in your Sukkah?

Who is the light in your reflection?