The Importance of Remembering

The Importance of Remembering
D’var Torah for Shabbat Zachor—March 18, 2011
Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman

Every year around Yom Ha-Shoah—Holocaust Memorial Day—my father, z”l (may his memory be a blessing) used to send me a post card with a short message inscribed in his inimitable, stylized Hebrew handwriting: zachor et asher asa l’cha Amalek—“Remember that which Amalek did to you.” The phrase, taken from Deuteronomy 25:17, the reading that is done immediately following the regular weekly portion, refers to a vicious tribe of people that attacked the Israelites soon after their exodus from Egypt. The attack, carried out at night and by stealth—was aimed at the rear of the camp, where the weak and discouraged, the sick and injured were struggling to keep pace. In the Torah, Amalek becomes the archetype of all that is evil within human nature.

It is no coincidence that this passage gives its name to the Shabbat immediately preceding Purim: Shabbat Zachor. The evil Haman, the very mention of whose name we try to obliterate, is said to be a descendant of Amalek. His comeuppance (he was hanged alongside his 10 sons) symbolizes the fulfillment of the commandment to eradicate the memory of Amalek from this earth: zachor et asher asa l’cha Amalek, “Remember that which Amalek did to you.”

If only we could.

Evil is impossible to eradicate, least of all in our memory. No one today is able to, or may, eradicate the memory of Auschwitz, its stamp upon our bodies, souls and minds.

The urge to make the wrong choice—yetzer ha-ra—is embedded in the human psyche, part of the freedom to choose that is part of our humanity. From the very start, we are warned by God and the Torah to choose good, to choose life. “Sin is crouching at the door,” God warns Cain before the latter makes his wrong choice and kills his brother, Abel.

“Choose life that you and your children might live,” reminds us the Deuteronomist (Deut. 30:19).

But it is no easy task. Yetzer ha-ra—the evil urge within us—is sometimes very powerful. It seduces us, overwhelms us with easy answers and simple, but wrong, solutions.

Mitzvot—the commanded deeds of loving kindness—aren’t there only to help us create a better and holier world. Rather, they are part of a regimen, an exercise routine whose purpose is to strengthen us, to enhance our moral resolve so that when temptations do come up—as they constantly do—we find ourselves strengthened and better able to resist them.

The verb zachor (the command form of “remember”) is used in context of yet one more mitzvah in the Torah: Zachor et yom ha-Shabbat, “Remember and observe the Sabbath day.” Shabbat is the symbol of holiness in this world. A sign of the covenant between God and Israel, Shabbat represents the handshake, the partnership, the share of holiness that is the image of God in each of us.

And the role of this strange holiday of Purim?

One of the commandments associated with Purim is the mitzvah to become inebriated. To get so drunk that you can’t tell the difference between Mordechai and Haman, between good and evil. Drink after drink, one must search in one’s heart and see whether the difference is still clear, only to realize that it still is.

For the memory of Amalek must never be forgotten.

Long gone from history, Amalek remains a symbol of the human potential for cruelty and savagery. We don’t have to dig far in the annals of history for examples. The picture side of the post cards my father used to send me was invariably of miniature models of Nazi concentration camps, constructed and preserved in the Ghetto Fighters’ Kibbutz near Haifa, or of Anne Frank’s house in Amsterdam. Not-so-subtle reminders of the persistent and horrific nature of evil in this world.

On Purim—which will be celebrated around the world this coming Saturday night and Sunday—a vital question is asked: Behind the carnival atmosphere, when you strip away the masks, underneath all the pretense, who are you? Inside each of us lies a beast, crouching at the door, just waiting for the slightest opening. Simultaneously, however, in each of us there is also a good angel. And that yetzer, that sweet surge within us toward care, compassion and kindness, is also waiting for just the slightest gesture, the simplest invitation.

Purim represents not only the ultimate triumph of good over bad, but also of the victory within each of us of Holy over Evil. And that, indeed, is a good reason to celebrate with great joy.

A happy Purim to all, and Shabbat shalom.

©2011 by Boaz D. Heilman

Pekudei: An Ending and a New Beginning

Pekudei: An Ending and a New Beginning
D’var Torah for Parashat Pekudei (Exodus 38:21—40:38)
By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman

With this week’s parasha, the second book of the Torah, Exodus, comes to its fulfilling conclusion.

Pekudei—“accountings”—is the final checklist of the quantities and components that went into the building of the Tent of Meeting, the portable temple that the Israelites carried with them throughout their wanderings in the Wilderness.

The exact specifications are repeated several times in this book. Now, with the conclusion of the work, we review them all one last time, just to be sure everything is there. After all, the Tabernacle—and with it, Judaism, the religion of Israel—is about to be launched. I always imagine the pilots of a jet about to take off, going over their checklist yet one more time, just to be sure. It’s a weighty responsibility, on which not only the lives of all the passengers of this specific journey depend, but also the entire history of the Jewish People. Not a piece may be overlooked or misplaced.

In the end, as with the builders of some magnificent edifice—a building, a bridge, even a nation—a single individual gets all the credit. It is the father of our nation, or else the city mayor, the architect or the designer who get their name embossed on the golden plaque. So here, too, certainly one could expect Moses to be given all the credit. Yet the Torah does the extraordinary, going the extra mile to give credit not only to Moses, but also to the entire people: “All the work of the Tabernacle of the Tent of Meeting was completed; the Children of Israel had done [it]” (Ex. 39:32).

It was, after all, their work. Without that, Moses could have accomplished nothing. Under the guidance of Bezalel and Oholiab, every Israelite who could and would, donated time, effort or valuables. Only so could the work have progressed. In the end, not a piece was missing, not one of the thousands of hooks, beams, clasps or pegs, not an inch from the hundreds of yards of linen, wool and yarn. It was nothing less than perfect.

And Moses? He gets the final credit: He is the one who puts it all together. “He set up the courtyard all around the Tabernacle and the altar, and he put up the screen at the entrance to the courtyard; and Moses completed the work” (Ex. 40:33). Now remember, Moses at this point is 81 years old! Yet he is to one who sets up the tent, moves all its furnishings to the right spot, spreads the coverings over the whole compound, puts up the enclosures and divisions, lights the gold Menorah for the first time and offers the very first sacrifice. And all in one day. “Body by Fisher,” boasted a fancy brass plate on every General Motors car that came out until between 1908 and 1996. “Built by Moses” must have been the writing proudly inscribed on the dedication plaque of the Tent of Meeting.

Of course, it may be that Moses was imbued with superhuman powers on that day, the first New Year’s Day after the Exodus from Egypt. He did, after all, part the Red Sea with only his staff (OK—God’s eastern wind had something to do with it too). Miracles abound in the Torah. Why not just add one more to the list and move on?

Or perhaps there is more than meets the eye here. Perhaps “Built by Moses” does not signify only Moses’s huge accomplishment in setting up the Tabernacle, but rather something even greater than that.

The whole thing revolves around a Hebrew word which occurs twice in this parasha, once in each of the verses quoted above. The word is “completed,” vateichel in 39:32 and vayeichal in 40:33. Despite the grammatical difference between the two forms of the word, the root of the word is the same: Ch.L.H. There are, of course, other words the Torah could have used here. Why the repetition of this particular verb?

Because it brings us back nearly two books, to Genesis, where the word first appears in context of the story of Creation (Gen. 2:1): “Thus the heavens and the earth were completed [va-ye-chu-lu] in all their vast array.” This is no coincidence. By using the same word in each of the three verses, the Torah parallels the construction and setup of the Tabernacle by Moses and Israel to the creation of the world by God.

Though the Tabernacle in which the Israelites worshipped during their wanderings in the wilderness is no more, and though the two Temples in Jerusalem that were built to replace it are also gone, the Sacred Service is still ongoing. We are still engaged in worshipping God in the way Moses had taught us. We still study the dimensions of the original house of worship in loving—and repetitive—detail. We still build temples modeled after that original design, constructing dwelling places for God’s sanctity among our communities throughout our wanderings. We dress the Torah in much the same manner the Priests used to be dressed and we place each scroll of the Torah in a Holy Ark, separated from the rest of the more ordinary world by richly embroidered and colorful curtains.

We are still engaged in the same tasks we took upon ourselves over three thousand years ago, tasks that the Torah says are on the same plane as the Creation of the World by God. It is thus—through the study of Torah, through prayers and through the fulfillment of mitzvot (the Commandments)—that we maintain our eternal partnership with God.

The greatness of Moses is not merely that he stood up to Pharaoh, nor even that he stood up to God and argued with God. It isn’t even that somehow Moses found the superhuman strength to erect the Tent of Meeting all by himself on that one amazing New Year’s Day in the desert. His real greatness is that he set an entire people on a path that we have not veered from in more than three thousand years.

With the help of Aaron his brother and Miriam their sister, Moses took a run-down, humbled, worn-out rabble and he gave them a purpose and a goal. He made of them a Nation and set them on a course parallel to—or perhaps corresponding to—Eternity. Compared to that, setting up a tent is child’s play, even at 81. That one day, to the applause of all humanity, Moses bowed his head humbly and accepted the accolades. It was his day of triumph, a day we recount every year, still shaking our heads in disbelief yet knowing it must be so.

The Spirit of God truly strengthens us, invigorates us, enlivens us, moves us, one and all, to ever greater triumphs. That is why, as we conclude reading a book in the Torah—as we will tomorrow in all our houses of worships, in all our temples, shuls and synagogues “before the eyes of the entire House of Israel in all their journeys” (Ex. 40:38)—we all rise and recite a simple formula:

Chazak chazak v’nit-cha-zek: Be strong, be strong and we shall all be strengthened.

Amen.

©2011 by Boaz D. Heilman