By The Power Invested In Us: Tzav.19

By The Power Invested In Us

Shabbat Tzav, March 22, 2019

By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman

They say that you can’t judge a book by its cover. It’s true, and yet the first thing we look at when we buy or borrow a book, is its cover. Along with the title and the author’s name, we notice the colors, the picture and the layout.  A dull cover, no matter how glowing the reviews printed on the back, will more often than not cause us to put the book right back on the shelf.

In the same way, our clothes say a lot about us. People often judge us by how we dress. An officer’s uniform, a king’s robe, even those outrageous outfits pop stars like to appear in—these tell us much about the role we play in life. 

It’s true, of course, that on the inside, the content may be quite different from the outward appearance.  The private individual is rarely as obvious as our public persona.  But for the world-at-large, the masks we put on, the clothing we wear, identify, if not who we are, then at least, what we are and the function we hold.

Problems arise, however, when we confuse what we do with who we are; when we offer as merchandise not our craft, but rather our public image; when we allow our popularity to propel us through life, rather than our skills and services.  Because when we let our status go to our heads, when we lose sight of our identity and our personal boundaries, then we run the risk of becoming a liability rather than an asset to society.

Endurance and survival depend as much on what we do for one another as on what we do for ourselves.

A few years ago, when the movie “A Beautiful Mind,” based on the life of Nobel laureate John Nash, came out, I was as impressed by the movie itself as I was by Game Theory, the mathematical application of social behavior that won Nash his prize. In his 28-page dissertation, what Nash proved was that success depends not only on one’s own talent and work, but also on the sacrifices made by others. Using math, Nash proved what every sports fan has always known: that if everyone contributes just a little bit, gives up just a little of themselves and their ego, then the entire team is much more likely to be the winner. 

If only the Nobel prizes existed in the time of Moses! For that is exactly the theory that Moses spells out in the Torah, and specifically in its third book, Leviticus. 

Leviticus lists, in minute detail, the various sacrifices that people can offer. There are sacrifices during war and peace.  There’s a sacrifice you can offer when you want to say “I’m sorry;” a sacrifice to show gratitude, and one for when you pray, want or wish for something to happen. But that in itself isn’t what would have won Moses the special prize. Offering sacrifices is as ancient a ritual as humanity itself; nothing new there. Moses’s revolutionary theory, the one that would have won him the Nobel had that exited then, was that we really don’t have to offer God any presents—no food, no wine, and no gold. After all, God can create all those for himself with just a snap of His Divine fingers, just with a simple word: y’hi, “let there be!” God doesn’t need a sumptuous palace; God doesn’t have to wait for us to feed him. Moses’s great teaching is that the gifts we bring to God should rather be used for the public good: to feed the hungry, to heal the sick, to build schools and hospitals, and shelters from the storms of life. 

Humanity is better served not by what we do for God, nor even by what we do for ourselves.  Humanity is best served by what we do for one another.

I thought of this principle recently as the media reported on several new as well as not-so-new scandals: the ongoing crises of sexual abuse and human trafficking, and of course, the latest: the college admissions scandal. 

Hearing about fabulously rich people faking entrance exams, photoshopping pictures, and paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to guarantee that their children be admitted to top-rated schools is yet another reminder of the unfairness of life. Buying an otherwise undeserved spot in our educational system prevents another, possibly more deserving candidate, from what they truly are entitled to. But there’s yet another aspect to this cheating scandal, one that takes us back to Moses’s—and John Nash’s—theory of how best to succeed in life. Rather than giving back, this is all about taking more than you deserve. It’s a power grab, an injustice that verges on idolatry.

Because the colleges that some people are so desperate to have their children attend don’t necessarily offer the best education and training. What they do offer is the best cover. An Ivy-league education supposedly guarantees success. Just as clothes make the man, so does a diploma from a top-rated school impressively tells the world that you are smarter than everyone else and are therefore more worthy of top job choices and selective breeding. It is Social Darwinism at its best, no more than idolatry, a false image that stands in stark negation to everything that we hold as true and valuable.

And that’s why we read, re-read, and strive to live by the lessons of the Torah.

In the first half of this week’s portion, Tzav (“Command,” Leviticus 6:1—8:36), we learn about sacrifices and the manner in which they are to be prepared and offered. The second half, however, focuses on the preparation of the High Priest for his role and office. The priest, we are told, is to be clothed in the splendid robes and crown that had been meticulously prepared for him. Made of the most luxurious and expensive materials, these clothes were woven of the finest linen, intertwined with threads of gold and silver, dyed with the most exclusive dyes available in the ancient world. As such, the priest’s clothes certainly identified him and made him stand out from everyone else.

Entrusted with immense powers, how easy it was for the Priest to let it all go to his head—which it often did. Perhaps that is why the final step in the process, the ritual, that elevated this individual to the highest position among his people, consisted of splattering his fine, luxurious and sumptuous robes with oil and blood.

Nothing like a dash of reality to remind you of what’s really important in life.

The lesson we can take from the Torah’s Ritual of Ordination is that the power entrusted to any leader ultimately isn’t about him or her, but rather about their role and function. It isn’t the accident of birth or status that make a person worthy of disdain or admiration, but rather what he or she gives back to society and the world. What truly defines us in the end isn’t what we take from life, but rather the sacrifices we make.

Royal robes are meaningless if the king uses his powers only to please and gratify himself. Priestly robes—or for that matter, diplomas from Harvard or Princeton—are pointless in themselves. The purpose of a good education is more than just to fill a student’s head with facts and numbers. Rather, it’s about learning to think for oneself; to realize that there is something we can do for others that no one else can; that each of us has a role to play, a gift only we can offer, towards the noble goal of making life better for the entire community.

Ultimately, it isn’t the clothes we wear, or the diplomas that decorate our walls, that matter.  Rather, it’s the little acts of charity and humanity that best describe who and what we are. 

© 2019 by Boaz D. Heilman

Celebrating Survival: Purim and Passover.19

Celebrating Survival: Purim and Passover

By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman

Shabbat Pekudei, March 8, 2019

As we enter the spring months, we also set out on a journey of Jewish holidays rich with historical and spiritual meaning.  Last month, in the midst of some of the coldest temperatures of the year, we celebrated the holiday of Tu Bishvat—The New Year of the Trees—a reminder that even though spring may seem a long way off, it really is on its way. One of the lessons of Tu Bishvat is that our actions and behavior have bearing on the world around us. We can make deserts bloom, or we can make forests disappear, and rivers run dry. Both are in our power. The choice is ours.

Purim and Passover carry this idea onward, but now applied not to the world at large, the world around us; but rather to us, ourselves:  Us as Jews, members of one of the oldest, most luminous and vibrant civilizations still extant today, the Jewish People.

The message of our spring holidays is that we can either let ourselves fade and disappear, or we can reaffirm our identity, and go on turning into reality the visions and purposes entrusted to us more than three thousand years ago.  

It’s always been up to us: To be—or disappear.  

And yet, as a people we’ve always chosen to persist.  At Sinai our ancestors proclaimed—even before they had heard even one of God’s Commandments—Na’aseh v’nishma! “We shall do, and we shall hear.” 

In Persia, a thousand years later, led by a woman named Esther, the Jews stood up yet again to affirm and defend their identity. 

The wonders and miracles we celebrate at Passover were God-made. In contrast, the story of Purim leaves out any mention of God at all, as if to remind us of the power of our own deeds. 

Rather than yet another story relating God’s wonders and miracles, Purim pivots on the courage and selfless heroism of its human protagonists, Esther and Mordechai.

Just as there are differences between Passover and Purim, so there are also some pretty clear parallels. For one thing, both celebrate a narrow escape from extinction.  Words spoken both by Pharaoh and the evil Haman resonate as though coming from one mouthpiece. They both express hatred and fear; they both propose the same hateful conclusion—that exterminating the Jews was the only way to rid the world of what they saw as excessive Jewish power and influence.

Whether through divine or human intervention, both times, the plot against the Jews failed.

But that has not stopped others from trying to reach the same goal.

Today, less than even one lifetime after the Holocaust, we see yet again a steep rise in anti-Semitism. The statistics are frightening: In France, the government reported a 70% rise in anti-Jewish acts as compared to last year. In Germany, 60%. Assaults against Jewish groups and individuals have intensified. Jewish cemeteries, synagogues and businesses have been defaced.  

In Ukraine, a huge Nazi flag was unfurled in the middle of a central mall in the capital city of Kiev. 

Anti-Semitism has become normative in Britain’s “progressive” Labour Party.

In the United States, long a safe haven for the Jewish People, even after the Pittsburgh shooting that left 11 Sabbath worshippers dead, anti-Semitic tropes can be heard openly in speeches not only of sworn anti-Semites like Louis Farrakhan, but also in snide, hate-filled remarks made by newly elected members of the United States Congress such as Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib. 

After claiming in January that Israel has “hypnotized” the world, Congresswoman Omar continued her attacks last month by saying, “It’s all about the Benjamins, baby.” Benjamins as in Franklin, the face on 100-dollar bills. The not so subtle reference was to money that AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobby, supposedly pays U.S. Senators and members of Congress for their support of the State of Israel. 

Hush money, power and influence wielded by Jews behind the scenes is a known and vicious anti-Semitic trope.

Though she was criticized for her words, and though she backtracked somewhat, Rep. Omar persisted, intimating that American Jews had split or dual loyalty—a charge as old as the Exodus story in the Bible, and one that has often led to violence against Jews.

They are only words, and words are protected by the First Amendment.  Yet there is no mistaking the sentiment behind these words. There is a name for it.

In political activism on the campuses of American colleges and universities, of all the issues that the world urgently needs to address, the focal point today is Israeli Settlements in Judea and Samaria, the so-called West Bank, and the supposed oppression of the Palestinian Arabs. It’s a political discussion, one that should be open to all.  This is, after all, America, still a democracy last I checked.  

And yet, just because they are Jewish and therefore possibly, potentially, pro Israel, Jewish students find themselves—as a group—ostracized, silenced and excluded from these discussions. 

BDS—the boycott, divest and sanction Israel movement—claims to target Israel’s government, yet its supporters are deafeningly silent about gross human rights abuse in—among others—Myanmar, Lebanon and Syria, not to mention China, Russia and, not least, in Iran, where they hang gays or throw them off rooftops.

When only Jews are demonized as a group, there is no mistaking the motive. 

When only Israel is targeted—Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East; the only country in the world that is a member state of the United Nations, and yet whose very legitimacy is questioned; Israel, whose existence is under daily threat and attack—then this isn’t only about Israel. It’s about Jews and the only Jewish State in the world.

And all this regardless of the obvious lies that these attacks embrace and embody.

But back to our spring holidays: Purim and Passover.

On Passover, we speak of the might of God’s arm. Purim, on the other hand, reminds us of our own power and strength. As far back as 400 BCE, in the Biblical Scroll of Esther, Mordechai tells his niece, Esther, that hiding is not only pointless, but also that it only serves to strengthen the enemy. 

The Purim miracle of Jewish survival was made possible by people who chose to rise, affirm their identity, and defend themselves.

In America, thankfully we don’t need to take up arms to defend ourselves. The Constitution is here to protect all citizens, regardless of race, gender or religion. 

The Constitution also protects our freedoms of speech and assembly, including the freedom to say hateful things.  As long as words don’t turn into actions.  

But we know too well the power of words. Words of hate can easily ignite and turn into violence. Only a fine line separates between words and actions, and it’s a line we all have to watch very carefully. 

To view the holidays of Purim and Passover as merely “religious” in context is short-sighted. Yes, they are about the fast bonds that exist between us and God.  But they are also about us the people, and the ties that connect us to one another.  As much as Purim and Passover are feasts of thanksgiving, so do they also tell us much about our identity as Jews, members of an ancient and proud people, often under attack yet somehow able to withstand and flourish nevertheless.  Being Jewish has always been more than just about prayer and services: it’s about what we do. Through family, business, education, medicine, art and culture, our goal is, and always has been, making the desert bloom. 

Our purpose has always been to create a better, safer environment for all the world’s inhabitants. 

At the same time, however, the holidays have lessons to teach us about survival in a world filled with—infested with—ignorance, fear and hate.  

Jewish survival, we are reminded, is as much up to God, as it is our duty to ourselves and to one another.

We witness and we support the good works that Jews and the Jewish State, Israel, do around the world. This kind of work is not limited to medicine and high tech, two areas Israel is well-known for. Natural disasters such as earthquakes, hurricanes and floods result in an immediate spike in money donations—much of it from Jewish benefactors. But it isn’t even only about the money (“the Benjamins, baby”). It’s evident in the volunteers, in the field hospitals and caretakers that Israel sends to help the injured.  It’s in the agricultural, water conservation, and green energy assistance given to developing countries. It’s in the political and legal work we do to bring freedom and justice to the impoverished, to those who are discriminated against, to those who are falsely accused and unjustly imprisoned. The list goes on and on.

The common saying, repeated in all good fun, is that Jewish history is all about “They tried to kill us, they failed, let’s eat.” The truth, of course, is more complicated than that. “They” didn’t fail just like that. It took a lot of effort and sacrifice. Sometimes survival was due to miracles brought about by God; but at other times it was due to our own deeds: Through Jews rising to the tasks of affirmation and self-defense, through law, diplomacy, and—as Israel has had to do on all-too-many occasions—also in battle.

We’ve been doing that for more than three thousand years now, and the proof of our success is that we’re still here.  And after all of that, we realize now that all it ever took was faith, strength and courage, as well as fantastic, unbelievable determination to keep it all going.

And that’s what our spring holidays are really all about. Good food and celebration—yes! But they are also about affirming what it means to be Jewish, and what it takes to remainJewish, despite all odds. 

May we be inspired by our spring holidays to continue upholding our Covenant with God, and to carry on our sacred duties to our people and to the world around us.

May God grant us all strength, and may God bless all good people with peace.  

© 2019 by Boaz D. Heilman