Being Prepared For Fires
Sermon on Shabbat Acharei Mot, May 3, 2019
By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman
There is a lesson of sorts in the series of coincidences that came together this week. The weekly Torah portion—Acharei Mot (“Following the Death,” Leviticus 16:1—18:30) describes the aftermath of the disaster of the death of two of Aaron’s sons, Nadav and Avihu. Additionally this week, we also observe and commemorate Yom Ha-Shoah v’hag’vurah—Holocaust and Heroism Remembrance Day. And by a sad, strange and frightening quirk of life, this week we are also mourning the loss of life and innocence in a Chabad synagogue near San Diego, California.
In each of these instances, Jews die because they are Jewish; because they insist on remaining true to their tradition and heritage; and because they persist in maintaining an intensely personal—and therefore dangerous—relationship with God.
Yet, despite the outward similarities, each of these tragedies is also unique. Each has its own story and trajectory, its own heroes, and its own repercussions.
In the Torah’s story, Nadav and Avihu, sons of the High Priest and priests themselves, are said to have offered a “strange fire,” an improper sacrifice to God. Unbidden, perhaps drunk, perhaps in open rebellion against Moses and Aaron, whatever their sin was, Nadav and Avihu were instantly killed by a “fire that blazed forth from before God.” The disaster resulted in rethinking and restructuring the way that, from that point on, the Priest must prepare himself before drawing near to God. Holy fire is dangerous fire. It must be approached with proper care and preparation.
Three thousand years later, another sort of fire broke out, not in the Sinai Wilderness, but rather in civilized, modern Europe. It happened on the first day of Passover, in 1943. As the Nazis prepared to liquidate the Warsaw Ghetto, an uprising shattered the orderly evacuation the Nazis were expecting. A handful of Jews with a few rusty handguns and primitive Molotov cocktails held off the entire Nazi army for an entire month.
Famed historian, author and scholar Elie Wiesel famously said that no lesson must be drawn from the Shoah. The Holocaust, Weisel stated, must remain forever unique, an unparalleled, monumental and iconic testament to the immeasurable depravity and cruelty that the human race had fallen to. And yet, like the tragedy of Nadav and Avihu, the Shoah gave birth to many lessons and conclusions, not least being the creation of the State of Israel. For while some will—correctly—state that Zionism and Israel actually stem from the two thousand year history of European anti-Semitism, the truth is that the world’s acceptance of the modern State of Israel came right on the heels of the Holocaust, as a direct product of the shame and guilt that the world sensed when they realized what they had done, the extent of the evil they had unleashed upon the Jewish people.
Anti-Semitism is one of the oldest and most pernicious evils in the history of humanity. Though at times it seems to subside, it never really goes away. Sadly, today we are witnessing a resurgence of this evil. In its latest manifestation, it has caused the death of Lori Gilbert-Kaye, of blessed memory, a loving wife and mother who came to worship and celebrate Passover in the Chabad synagogue of Poway, near San Diego, California.
What lessons can we learn from this latest outburst of fire?
It is easy to call this tragic death “senseless,” but that would not be correct. A straight and direct line runs from Biblical times down to our own day. The death by gunfire of Lori Kaye is no different from the genocide of the Jews in ancient Egypt, in the days of Pharaoh and Moses. It is the same hatred which also caused the massacre of entire Jewish communities during the Crusades, the pogroms of Eastern Europe, and, of course, the Shoah, the Holocaust. Last Shabbat’s shooting, coming exactly six months after the mass murder of eleven Sabbath worshippers in a synagogue in Pittsburgh, PA, is no different. However, what makes Pittsburgh and San Diego stand out—at least for us, modern-day Americans—is that they both took place right here, in the United States. Somehow, we who grew up in post-world-war America were lulled into thinking that anti-Semitism did not cross the ocean with the Pilgrims; that the ancient hatred was left as so much unwanted baggage in “the Old World.”
But we were wrong.
The first lesson, then, that we must draw from Pittsburgh and Poway would be the recognition of our mistaken thinking.
In this week’s Torah portion, we read how the death of Nadav and Avihu brought about a rethinking of the way in which we approach God. What lessons have we drawn from the Holocaust? In his book With God In Hell, Rabbi Eliezer Berkovitz draws one important moral, writing: “We were unprepared. Not because of cowardliness, but because we did not see clearly the moral implication of self-defense; we never understood how wrong it was to tolerate evil when it was directed towards ourselves. We were insufficiently prepared to reconcile the Jewish teachings of anti-militarism and respect for all life with the resistance to evil demanded by the circumstances….”
Perhaps that should be our next lesson, in the aftermath of the shooting at the Poway Chabad. Evil must be resisted by all possible means.
Going forward, then, how do we prepare for the latest emergence of the ancient hatred? How do we rise to defend ourselves?
While I see Israel and the Israel Defense Force as legitimate and proper response to the Shoah, I do not propose that American Jews on the whole take up arms. Here we do not live surrounded by enemy states. Nor is this Czarist Russia, where, following the 1903 Kishinev pogrom, Jewish youth formed self-defense groups. I am also not suggesting that we revive the JDL, the Jewish Defense League. American Jews are protected by the Constitution, a social and legal covenant which grants us the right to live as Jews, to pray and celebrate as Jews. Within that framework, and for as long as it holds, we do everything in our power—short of vigilante justice—to protect ourselves. We lock and secure our homes and gates. We install security cameras. We make sure that police and other officials and agencies are aware of our concerns and are ready to respond as needed.
But there is yet more that we can and must do.
First—we must never show fear. Anti-Semites would like nothing better than for us to hide and disappear. We must not allow that to happen. We must demonstrate our presence en masse—in synagogues and community centers, as well as on the streets and city-hall plazas.
Secondly: We Jews are great idealists. We believe in tikkun ‘olam, the repair of the world. Many of us engage in social action that strives to bring freedom to the oppressed and justice to the persecuted. While not discontinuing this, we must now examine our relationships with individuals or groups that have formerly welcomed us, but which now encourage and support anti-Semites and anti-Semitism. We can’t just automatically vote for a political party without examining its associations. If an elected official or journalist spouts anti-Semitic hate speech, we must not turn a blind eye or deaf ear to them. On university campuses where Jews are excluded—simply by virtue of being Jewish—from participating in public discourse, we must protest, withhold donations, and loudly demand safe space and full rights for Jewish students.
We must continue supporting a strong Israel; and additionally we must offer whatever help we can to American organizations such as AIPAC, the ADL and the American Jewish Congress. We have come a long way since the days when we faced discrimination, exclusion and quotas on a daily basis. We fought hard to earn our rights, and we must not be afraid to demand and defend them now.
For years, our motto has been NEVER AGAIN! Now we must examine what these words really mean. Have they become hollow and meaningless? In the next few weeks and months we will have to ask ourselves difficult questions and come up with some good answers.
Otherwise the fires will continue to consume us, and we will continue to feel unprotected and unprepared. And that must never again be the case.
May peace—shalom—always be the goal towards which we reach; but may strength always be at our side as we do so.
© 2019 by Boaz D. Heilman
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