Mapping the Wilderness: Numbers.24

Mapping the Wilderness: Numbers.24

By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman

June 7, 2024

I have to admit—my interest in math dropped precipitously in 10th grade, when advanced algebra, trigonometry and calculus became the focus of the curriculum. My pursuits at the time were directed elsewhere, and honestly, I don’t regret my choices.

For many people, however, mathematics means more than balancing one’s checkbook or figuring out how much tip to leave. It’s a way of understanding the universe around us, a method for building bridges across time or place.  

Since the dawn of humanity, people have always loved numbers. They loved to play with them and learned to build with them. But in addition to helping us calculate and measure, numbers were given additional, metaphysical meanings. So, for example, in Judaism, the number 7 is especially meaningful, so much so that it embodies holiness. And in fact the Passover song Echad Mi Yode’a, (“Who knows One?”) connects numbers with important Jewish concepts and beliefs.

Numbers measure not only the physical world, but also unquantifiable values: In Psalm 90:12 we read, “Teach us to number our days.” We measure our lifetime with meaningful benchmarks: from birth to death, through holidays and anniversaries, birthdays and other life-cycle events.

The Mishna tractate Pirkei Avot (“The Chapters of the Fathers”) has this lesson for us:

   “[Rabbi Yehuda ben Teima] used to say: At five years of age [a child is ready to begin] the study of         Scripture; at ten, the Mishnah. At thirteen, he [or she] is subject to the commandments; at fifteen the        study of Talmud. At eighteen one can enter the bridal canopy; at twenty the pursuit [of livelihood].         At thirty, one reaches the peak of strength; at forty, wisdom. At fifty they give counsel. At sixty they        reach old age; at seventy, the fullness of years. At eighty, power; at ninety, a bent body. At one                 hundred, one is counted as good as dead and gone completely out of the world” [Pirkei Avot 5:21].

The Torah’s fourth book, Bamidbar (In the Wilderness), which we begin studying this week, is also known by its English title “Numbers.” That is because it begins with God commanding Moses to conduct a census of the Israelites at this point in their wanderings. But this title can be misleading, as there is so much more than just counting that happens in the story. 

While in the Talmud this book is sometimes referred to as Chumash Ha-Pekudim, “The Book of Counting,” its title in the Torah, Bamidbar, refers to the wider scope the book has: In the Wilderness. Having left Egypt, received the Torah and constructed the Tabernacle, the Israelites are now at the start of the longest part of their journey to the Promised Land. The wilderness is a region that is unmapped and unknown. It can be beautiful and inspirational (it is, after all, where Moses first encountered God and where the Israelites received the Torah). But it can also be deceivingly dangerous. That’s why the first thing Moses must do at this point is to measure the size and strength of his people. This knowledge will lead to the next step, organizing and directing them to specific functions and purposes. Some will serve in the military; others will become kohanim (priests) or Levites, whose tasks will involve the service of God in the Tabernacle.

To be fair, however, the English title of the book, “Numbers,” too carries more than just literal meaning. As in Psalm 90:12, to number also means to search for, and find, value and meaning.

In the end, both titles encompass more than meets the eye. Both stand for mapping unknown regions, including the many paths we take in life. More than only a geographical place on a map, the wilderness represents a state of being bound by the two landmarks of birth and death; it forms a bridge from ignorance to knowledge, from innocence to wisdom.

It would be a mistake to think that the Sinai Wilderness—the geographical setting of this part of our history—was unpopulated. Then as now, it has always been the bridge between two continents, on which material goods, culture and ideas went back and forth. Mystics and wanderers; outlaws and marauders; refugees and trade caravans from all corners of the world crossed paths in the Sinai Wilderness. The Israelites’ journey through it will test the people physically and spiritually. Their experiences here, the many lessons taught and learned, the encounters with different cultures and tribes, will define and strengthen them along their path. 

The ultimate teaching of this book of the Torah is that we can find purpose and meaning everywhere and at every moment. Each step we take counts. Every choice we make will carry consequences, leading us—hopefully—to the desired result. God has given us a goal: The Promised Land. Now it is up to us to chart the course.

© 2024 by Boaz D. Heilman

How Do You Solve a Problem Like Netanyahu

How Do You Solve a Problem Like Netanyahu

By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman

May 31, 2024

He is politically ruthless. He is willing to align with extreme (some call them fanatic) right-wing politicians regardless of their unsavory characters (and sometimes prior criminal convictions) while pushing out anyone who might pose an actual threat to his hold on power. In many people’s eyes he is dictatorial, while according to others he is powerless to bring order to a country and people riven by a multitude of cultures and opinions. Not to mention ineffective in the face of his wife’s demands and authority to hire and fire at will, and unable (or unwanting) to shut down his son Yair’s controversial polemics on social media.

Without question, however, Benjamin (“Bibi”) Netanyahu’s grasp on power in Israeli politics is unmatched. He is well into his 16th year as Prime Minister, well outspanning David Ben Gurion’s stretch of 13 years and Golda Meir’s 5 years. Like many other powerful leaders, he is a populist—while others see him as an elitist. He has promised the kibbutzim and towns in the region enveloping the Gaza Strip peace and security—only to sustain seventeen years of relentless rockets and terror attacks. He has promised security and a quick return home to tens of thousands of evacuated residents of the Galilee region—a promise unfulfilled for more than seven months now as Hezbollah continues ceaselessly to shell the region and set fires to fields, orchards and homes.

He is too strong.

He is too weak.

He will stay but won’t listen to what you say.

Netanyahu succeeded in developing Israel’s economy to unprecedented levels, securing Israel’s position internationally through agricultural, medical, technological and other endeavors.

Yet, under his watch, the bloodiest and most tragic terror attack on Israel and the Jewish People since the Holocaust took place on October 7.

He has engaged Israel in one of the longest wars it has had to fight since the War of Independence (1947-1949) and the War of Attrition (1967-1970). In the process, Israel has become isolated, condemned and reviled internationally. 

Throughout the enlightened world, it isn’t Israel that is blamed for the current “situation.” It’s Netanyahu.

Never mind that the current war was started by Hamas, supported by its evil sisters, Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen, all funded, trained and equipped by the Iranian ayatollahs and their regime that has sworn to wipe Israel off the map.

Never mind that 125 of the 240 or more hostages taken into captivity in Gaza by Hamas terrorists on that cursed day in October are still not home (God alone knows if any of them are still alive) and have not yet been seen by Red Cross or other “humanitarian” organizations that have been surprisingly (?) quick to blame Israel. Never mind the ongoing indiscriminate attacks against civilian population centers in Israel—it is Israel (read: Netanyahu) that’s condemned in the United Nations and the international kangaroo courts that this august body of hypocrisy has set up for the sole purpose of isolating Israel as the only perpetrator of war crimes and crimes against humanity in the world.

Never mind the antisemitism that has once again become the approved social norm rather than the vilest form of hatred, prejudice and racism that for almost a century now has been restricted to the scum-filled fringe of society, but which now has found new, vibrant life behind the façade of anti-Zionism, anti-Israelism (and in its most refined version, anti-Netanyahuism).

Never mind that Israel is fighting a war for its existence and for its right to defend itself. Never mind that Hamas is an offshoot of the Muslim Brothers, the target of Egypt’s hatred (and expulsion), of Syrian mass murder and extermination (anywhere between 10 and 40 THOUSAND between 1976 and 1982) and expulsion from Jordan and other Muslim countries. Never mind all that. It’s Israel that’s accused of genocide—and most nauseatingly, compared to Nazism.

As the war continues without an end in sight, it's Netanyahu who is blamed for “indecision” regarding “the day after.” The very people who accuse him of unbound dictatorial powers seem to believe that determining the fate of Gaza is up to him alone (as did a recent article in Haaretz, Israel’s staunch Labor mouthpiece and anti-Likud newspaper, claiming: “… the Israeli government, by which we really mean Benjamin Netanyahu, won’t make a decision”). You mean the Arab nations will not participate in this decision-making process? Or other international powers, all of whom—Iran, Turkey, Russia, France, Britain and of course the United States—claim a stake in the Middle East? Is it Netanyahu who has to make the final decision on who will run Gaza once the war is over? As though Hamas or any other extremist Islamic group, of which there are at least a dozen, will agree to any settlement that will stop them from their ultimate goal of destroying Israel, of perpetrating the October 7 massacre “seven times, ten times, a million times” over again.

But is Netanyahu “the Israel government?” 

How quickly put aside is the fact that Israel is one of the strongest democracies in the world—let alone the ONLY democracy in the entire Middle East. Never mind that Netanyahu’s election—widely protested by his left-wing opponents—was freely and transparently conducted, and that the coalition he was able to assemble represents the majority of Israelis, a fact that the Left in Israel and the rest of the world refuses to accept. Never mind that a recent poll has shown that the majority of Israelis STILL see Netanyahu as the most capable among all his opponents to conduct the war and bring it to conclusion.

Antisemitism is scorned by the refined, enlightened world (facts notwithstanding). It’s unpleasant and distasteful. But it’s OK to accuse Israel, the country, the people; it’s OK, from the White House on down, to accuse Netanyahu of being a bloody tyrant, to isolate him as the target of Jew-hatred, to make HIM the problem.

Netanyahu has become the poster boy—the whipping boy, if you will—for the strong Jew, something the world fears more than anything else. Calls for his removal actually mean telling Jews to return to their prior position in the world, victims to be pitied rather than fighters and survivors who refuse to be led to slaughter, second-class citizens in eternal exile rather than an independent nation free to defend itself within its own borders, free to define its own identity and determine its own destiny and course in history.

And so a world-wide opposition movement has formed to remove Netanyahu, to arrest him and accuse him of unspeakable crimes.

But the ugly and naked truth is that it isn’t Netanyahu that is the problem here. The real problem has become more and more evident even as the events of October 7—along with their moral, historical and cultural implications—recede into the past and out of memory (does anyone still mention or remember Yahya Sinwar or Muhammad Deif, the masterminds and perpetrators of the massacre?). 

If Netanyahu is removed from power, it must and will be done by and within Israel, through a democratic and/or legal process. As captain of the ship that floundered, as head of a government that criminally neglected, failed to foresee and respond in a timely manner the October 7 attack, responsibility falls squarely on Netanyahu’s shoulders, as well as on the entire leadership level of IDF, the Israel Defense Force. An investigation will definitely take place to determine the whys and hows of that disastrous failure. It’s likely that the results of the inquiry will call for Netanyahu to step down—willingly or not. But that’s none of the world’s concern or business. It’s Israel that needs to make that decision; no amount of pressure from outside powers must force, or even play a part in, that decision. 

So how do you solve a problem like Netanyahu? First, by recognizing that it isn’t Netanyahu, but rather the world’s most ancient hatred that’s the real problem here, the one that needs to be recognized and resolved first, before anything else. The real problem is the desire, born of fear and prejudice, to keep Israel—and the Jews—in their place, to keep Jews submissive and docile, willing to endure whatever comes to them.

To stand up and oppose this view with force and strength as Netanyahu (read: Israel) is doing right now, takes real chutzpah. And if that’s what it takes, then that’s what needs to happen.

The world may seem to suffer from short memory; Israel and the Jewish People do not. And for once, for the first time in more than 2000 years, Israel has the power and resolve to prove it.

Only once the world recognizes this fact will the “problem” called Netanyahu be solved. 

© 2024 by Boaz D. Heilman

Survivors All: Yom Ha-Shoah.24

Survivors All: Yom Ha-Shoah.24

May 6, 2024

By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman

I used to think of myself as a 2nd Generation survivor.  What that meant to me was that my parents and the only two grandparents I was blessed to know had lived through and seen terrible things—which I did not, but only learned about through their stories, habits, high-strung emotions and even nightmares. Growing up in Israel in the 1950’s meant that every adult around me was a survivor. With one exception: a neighbor who as a child escaped the Arab massacre of Jews in Hebron in 1929. But that’s another story. Or is it.

There is a difference between 2nd generation survivors and those who have followed us. We grew up with our parents’ memories implanted in our minds, tattooed in our souls. My children, on the other hand, grew up with memorabilia: Tattered letters, photographs hidden deep inside drawers, artifacts that were later donated to Holocaust museums. Some survivors wrote books, always short like novellas—for how could anyone who lived through the most horrific experiences express all the horrors they had seen, all the emotions, the heroic escapes, the frightening times when they hid in barns, forests, and sewers. On occasion, as a late afternoon would slip into dusk, my mother recalled those times when she would wonder where she would be sleeping that night. My mother gave testimony to Yad Va-Shem. It’s more than 3 hours long. She remembered almost everything. Her memories lived on within her—or should I say, she lived in her memories. 

Somewhere I read that we Jews forgive quickly but never forget.

That is true. We learn to live with our previous hunters. For his whole life, my father, who lost his entire family in the Shoah, refused to buy anything German-made. In the mid-1950’s, when Israelis were urged by then-Prime Minister David Ben Gurion to accept reparations from Germany, my father refused. Later, he became very unhappy when he realized that some parts of the car he owned were made in Germany (a Volvo, it was supposedly made in Sweden, but by then globalization changed everything, and you couldn’t buy hardly anything that didn’t contain parts made in Germany).

Reality dictates many of our choices, and we can either accept that or make life miserable for ourselves and those around us. And so we learn to forgive. 

However, what we never, ever, do is forget. We live with our memories, two universes that coexist and often collide. We remember people long gone, and we commemorate events that happened hundreds or even thousands of years ago. To forget the past is to lose a part of our humanity.

But lessons learned from history teach us much more than just how to avoid repeating mistakes. We learn how to do things not only differently, but better. Our experience as slaves in Egypt taught us to abhor tyranny and oppression; our suffering through the ages has taught us compassion and empathy.

It’s been proposed that the Shoah—the Holocaust—led to the creation of the modern State of Israel. That is inaccurate. Zionism—the return to our national homeland and the rebuilding of Jerusalem—has always been part of Judaism. It became a political reality in the 19th century, long before the Shoah. However, our history and theology taught us to try to make Israel a “light unto the nations.” Israel has never kept to itself the many technological, medical, agricultural and other innovations that it is known for. Instead, it shared them freely with other people—often third-world countries that have benefitted greatly from this close cooperation. Tikkun olam—repair of the world—has long been a Jewish value, and the world is a better place for that.

We Jews have learned much from our past. Yet one thing we did not learn—or at least failed to internalize—until recently: that the Shoah was not the end of antisemitism. Though we have always been aware of its presence on the fringes of society, we did not for a moment imagine that it would become mainstream again, that calls for Judenrein would become current again; that screams for the destruction of Israel, effectively meaning genocide, would resonate from campuses all over the United States and elsewhere in the world. Somehow we allowed ourselves to believe that we were living in a sort of pre-Messianic era, at the dawning of an age which would lead to a loving embrace of all people, including Jews.

What we’ve learned since October 7 however, is how wrong we were. The horrors we saw on that day, are not new. The pogrom that took place—not by coincidence—on the Jewish holiday of Simchat Torah, carries a clear message. Past horrors are no longer just a receding memory. October 7 is here-and-now, part of a continuum that goes back millennia. The Ukrainian and Polish pogroms, the Inquisition, forced conversions, expulsions and ghettoes are all links in a chain of events going back to ancient Egypt.

So what lessons will we take going forward today? First, that we are no longer 2nd or 3rd generation survivors. With our own eyes and ears we have become first-hand witnesses to terror and evil, and from now on we must see ourselves—in the words of the Haggadah, “as though we ourselves had been freed from Egypt”—eternal, all-generation survivors. Today there is no talk of forgiveness. Yet. But without a doubt, if not in five then in 50 years, that will happen, and Israel will be glad to participate in the rebuilding of Gaza. Hope for peace will revive, and we Jews will do everything in our power to turn that possibility into reality. 

The next few years will give us answers to questions we are only now beginning to ask: How shall we rebuild our relationships with our neighbors, with colleagues at work, with fellow students at schools and colleges, with causes and groups we once were proud to be part of but find ourselves excluded from today? 

What we make of these lessons will determine our identity as Jews. We can, of course, disappear. God forbid. Or we can become even stronger than before—ethically, spiritually yes; but also and no less—physically as well. Judaism isn’t only about being good. It’s about being strong. Am Yisrael Chai, we are told; the People of Israel yet lives. it’s a line we repeat over and over again, in complete amazement at the sheer miracle that it truly is.

But it’s even more than that. It’s not only the divine hand of God that has wrought this miracle. It’s our own stiff-necked determination to stay Jewish, to remain loyal to our Covenant with our God and our ancestors.

Never Again became a slogan after the Shoah. One of the most important steps we must take now is to inscribe this watchword in our minds and upon our hearts, to etch these words deep into our doorposts, and live by them.

We are Jews—a people with a history that is as rich, creative and unbelievable as any story ever told, with a difference that this story is true. How we became that is our history. The future—the continuity of the Jewish People—is now in our hands.  We must not let the past—or the future—down.

Adonai oz l’amo yitein, Adonai y’varech at amo bashlom—may God give us strength, may God bless us with peace.

 

© 2024 by Boaz D. Heilman

In Every Generation: The Passover Protests of 2024

In Every Generation: The Passover Protests of 2024

By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman

April 26, 2024

In the late 1960’s and early ‘70’s I participated in anti-Vietnam-war protests. Granted, UCLA and SMU weren’t exactly the political hotbeds that Stanford and Berkeley were. But still, it was a heady feeling to be part of this movement. At UCLA I remember forming a “penny lane” along one of the main walks that led to the Student Center, holding placards and staffing tables with information that we took at face value—the number of American soldiers killed, the number of Vietnamese civilians killed, and the amount of money that went into what we saw as an unjust and brutal war.

Nationwide however, as the protests evolved, they became more violent. As I recall it, the terrible climax came with the killing of four students at Kent State University. After that, the song “Ohio” by, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young became the theme song that united us. I was a student at SMU at the time, and as I left of one of my classes, I walked right into the middle of a protest on the quad in front of the iconic rotunda. It was a symbolic funeral for the four students, and I somehow found myself one of the pallbearers, helping to hold up an improvised black-painted, cardboard casket.  It was a powerful moment that left me feeling dazed, sensing unification with everything and everyone around me, all of us part of a huge movement to make the world better, to accept and love one another despite our color or race, the shape of our eyes, or the faith we professed.

The protests of the 60’s and 70’s weren’t only against the war, however, and they didn’t only happen on college campuses. After the Stonewall Inn riots in June 1969, gay men and women mobilized to lay the foundation for what is today the LGBTQIA+ Community. Native-Americans rallied to reclaim their stolen identity. The Women’s Lib Movement—mocked probably more than any other group at the time and still so to this day—took its first steps towards gender equality (it was only in 1974 that women were first granted the right to open credit cards in their own name, not in their husband’s name).

There was no Jewish-lib movement that I was aware of. There didn’t seem to be a need for one. Jews—myself included—were involved in everything that took place. A full half of the Freedom Riders—Americans who took part in the Mississippi Freedom Summer of 1964, who marched alongside Rev. Martin Luther King, and who traveled to Southern states, to help Black men and women claim their voting rights—were Jewish. Jews were active in every liberation movement, visionaries and trailblazers who often rose to leadership positions—like Harvey Milk in San Francisco and Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel in Selma.  

How different is all that from what I see today: the anti-Israel “tent encampments” at Harvard, Columbia, USC, the University of Texas at Austin, George Washington University and elsewhere. 

And what’s different about this so-called protest movement, what’s so frightening and maddening, is that it isn’t inclusive, as ours was. It doesn’t aim to unite, but to divide. It isn’t driven by love, but by intolerance and hate. Today’s protests don’t embrace—they reject. What’s so shocking today—and maybe shouldn’t be—is that these protests are directed against one group, one which until now saw itself as an equal and integral part of the larger whole: Jews. In fact, the “tent encampments” are singularly and specifically aimed against Jews, meant to violently exclude Jews from any part of our society and culture. Of all Americans, the one group that’s been most active in liberation and inclusion movements; who more than most others have stepped up to free the oppressed, paying with their blood, time and money; the group that has contributed immeasurably to the advancement of art and music, science, education, health and lifestyle in America, particularly considering our number (less than 3% of the general population): the Jews. 

When the protesters today call for globalized intifada—what they actually mean is the murder of Jews all over the world. 

The naïveté and ignorance of these protesters is astounding. They don’t even mention—or when they do, then it’s with excuses and even support—the worst atrocity committed against Jews since the Holocaust, when Hamas terrorists broke the ceasefire on the morning of October 7 and butchered over 1000 civilians—men, women and infants—and took more than 200 others hostage. Instead, what they rail against is Israel’s reaction and its rightful determination to defend itself. 

Unlike past protests, today it isn’t Israel’s “disproportionate” reaction that’s being denounced. The chants, the signs, the violence, the forced segregation of Jews from public, open spaces, are all aimed against Israel’s right to exist in the first place. The “tent encampments,” the slogans and speeches, aren’t for anyone. Rather, they only advocate exclusion, hatred and violence. What they protest is the Jewish People’s legitimate right to define and defend itself, to live in peace and safety just like any other nation and country in the world. 

The campus protests broke out like a plague in the middle of Pesach 2024. But they were anything but spontaneous. They were actually preceded by decades of multi-million-dollar donations to universities, made by oil-rich, antisemitic countries. It was money that went to hire—and grant tenure to—those professors who towed the line, who mocked or punished Jewish students, who taught only the Arab-endorsed, revisionist and antisemitic narrative, without any reference to what really happened. 

For decades now, pro-Arabist activists infiltrated academia and liberal causes. It’s easy, they found, to brainwash students, naïve, ignorant, with hearts of gold. It’s easy, they discovered, to activate long-dormant prejudices and use them for their own vile purposes. 

If, as Shakespeare wrote, “all the world is a stage,” then from now on we need to be extra watchful about who the playwright is, who the director, and who finances the production. 

Year after year we read in the Passover Haggadah, “In every generation [they] rise up to destroy us.” For most of us, it’s been little more than a line from an ancient play, written at a different time, for a different generation. This Passover, however, this reminder is poignant, epic and current.

We Jews are awfully good at forgiving. But we never forget. Passover 2024 will remain in our collective memories forever. It will be years before we are able to look at former friends and colleagues without suspicion. We will remain wary of groups we once were proud to be part of. Trust is hard to rebuild.

For our sake as a people and as a nation, we pray: May healing come soon. May we learn to embrace one another as we once did and look forward with love, not hate. May we once again see not what divides us, but rather look for what we have in common. 

May God give us strength, may God bless us with peace.

© 2024 by Boaz D. Heilman

Passover 2024: Night of Broken Matzahs

Night of Broken Matzahs: Passover 2024

By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman

Approximately 3,250 years ago a new people was born. They emerged from physical and spiritual bondage and set out toward a future they knew nothing about. They called themselves Israel, after one of their ancestors, holding deep in their hearts faith in a power stronger than any human being, king or emperor, and the belief that this power would lead them to a better place, a promised land.

It would prove a long and difficult journey. With little more to unite them other than their identity, they agreed to follow an aged leader who would often disappear for days at a time, yet who constantly pointed up and forward, towards God and the rising sun. 

Ever since then, we’ve celebrated Passover to remind us of that moment in our history and of the journey we undertook and are still on. But unlike our ancient ancestors, today we have a roadmap. Today we know where that promised land lies, and we know how to get there. And, once a year—twice for those of us who follow the tradition of repeating the Seder on the second night of the holiday—we review the map. We call it the Haggadah.

The Haggadah was created by the early Rabbis who had seen the destruction of the Second Temple and the subsequent dispersal of the Jewish People to all corners of the earth. Containing 15 steps, the Haggadah—our narration—begins with the earliest days of our past, long before we became slaves, when our third Patriarch, Jacob, who later became Israel, was fleeing from Laban. (How often in our history it seems that we have been fleeing from oppressors!). We read passages from the Torah that relate the miracle of our escape from Pharaoh—the hard labor, the drowning of male newborns, the ten plagues, the parting of the Red Sea. And we discuss, along with the Rabbis of old, the timing and manner in which our Redemption took place—in the midst of the terrible darkness that seemed to swallow the entire world.

And then, of course, we eat. We eat symbolic foods—items that remind us of the tears of bitterness, of the mortar we used in building those vast storehouses for Pharaoh, and of course matzah, the bread of poverty, that recalls the hurry with which we left Egypt. 

Over time, our foods became part of this roadmap. Every region of the world where our path took us is represented in the menu. There’s the Iraqi version of charoset, made with date honey and walnuts; and Ashkenazi charoset—apples, walnuts, cinnamon and sweet wine. There’s Persian charoset, and Indian; Moroccan, Italian and Mexican. Matzah balls and gefilte fish represent eastern Europe—the recipe changing just slightly from one region to another. Today of course, we have fusion cuisine, but there are also families that hold on with almost fanatic tenacity to the traditions they have always followed, from generation to generation.

The Passover Haggadah comes in more editions and translations than any other book in the world, yet all follow the same order, the same 15 steps. Seder, after all, means order, and by following it we express our deep-seated belief that in our sometimes-chaotic world, order still exists. There is a beginning and a goal, and a road that leads us there. In some households, the Seder can last for hours, though most rabbis recommend that it not go past midnight. Children are encouraged to stay awake for the entire thing. There are songs, games and puzzles that help.

Why the children? Partially to observe the commandment, “And when your children ask you, ‘what do you mean by this service?’ you shall say, ‘It is the Passover sacrifice to Adonai, who passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt when smiting the Egyptians, but saved our houses” (Ex. 12:26-27).

But why only the children? Isn’t the Seder there to remind all of us of that miracle of our existence and survival?

One answer of course is that they may yet not know or understand our history and its implications for their lives. But there is another answer too. Our journey does not stop with the past; it runs through our own lives and then, into the unforeseeable future. 

So what exactly do we teach our children? Certainly not just another miracle story, just another example of “they tried to kill us, they failed, let’s eat!”

If there is a common theme that runs through all our Passover traditions, it is hope. Our history is often bright and fun, filled with delicious foods and meaningful customs. But it is also marked by dark nights, by times when we had every reason to give up—but didn’t.

One of the songs we sing during the Seder is Dayeinu, “It would have been enough.” Though today at most tables, only four or five of its stanzas are sung, the song actually consists of 15 sections, just like our Haggadah. This piyyut, or religious poem, goes back some two thousand years, listing a series of blessings that begin with our Redemption from Egypt and end with the building of the Temple in Jerusalem. Each stanza, each blessing, reminds us of a need we experienced, and the gift we received from God. Each step leads us forward, to a higher spiritual level than ever before. What Dayeinu is really about, is never losing hope, even—and especially—when all hope seems lost. 

A story is told  about an incident that took place in a concentration camp during the Shoah—the Holocaust—the darkest time in recent Jewish history. A rabbi bribed a guard into allowing a certain amount of flour to be smuggled in. “We’re not asking for extra food,” he explained. “We just want to be able to fulfill our Passover duties.” Amazingly, the guard permitted it, and a small amount of flour was procured and handed over to the rabbi. Not to lose a moment, the internees hurried to build a makeshift oven—for no one knew when their endeavor might be discovered and foiled! They followed the traditions: the whole process of mixing the flour with water and then baking it into matzahs had to take no more than 18 minutes. The result however was disappointing—just a few meager matzahs for the hundreds of hungry, despairing Jews. For some time they discussed who should get the matzahs, but finally it was decided: the children. So that they should know not only the taste of the bread of poverty and misery, but also of hope and redemption.

So too today, when we break the middle matzah during the Seder, we hide the larger part of it—the afikomen—and let the children find it towards the end of the evening. There is a lesson in this that they will need to understand and then teach to their children in their own time. Hope is never lost, as long as we keep our memories of the past alive, as long as we hold on to our faith, and, like Moses and our ancestors of long ago, look up to heaven and forward towards the rising sun.

This year, even as we remember those whose lives were so horribly taken from them on October 7; even as we think of the war still going on between Israel and its enemies, and the terrible toll it continues to exact; even as we pray for the safety and health—and, God willing, the safe return to their families—of the men, women and children who are still held hostage by terrorists in Gaza; we must keep in mind that brighter days are yet ahead, days when we will yet dance again, praise God again, and sing Dayeinu in joyous harmony. Like our ancient ancestors, we hold on to our faith and hope. Like them we know that the most important thing is not to be afraid, not to despair, but to stay on the path, step by step, until we get there.

© 2024 by Boaz D. Heilman

Unholy Fires: Shemini.24

Unholy Fires: Shemini

By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman

April 5, 2024

In this week’s Torah portion, Shemini (“On the Eighth Day,” Leviticus 9:1—11:47) a disastrous event is described: the sudden death of two of Aaron’s sons, Nadav and Avihu.

The cause of their death is as mysterious as what led up to it.  The Torah sums it up in two verses: the two brothers offered “strange fire before the Lord, which He commanded them not. And fire came out from the presence of the Lord and consumed them, and they died before the Lord” (Lev. 10:1-2, NIV).  

There are many rabbinic commentaries on this disturbing yet puzzling event. Some Rabbis say that it was simply overzealousness that drove Nadav and Avihu to disobey. They were over-eager and took a few shortcuts around some rules. Other rabbis focus instead on the “strange” fire that the brothers brought, and propose various theories as to what that might have been. 

In any case, the Torah offers this story as an example of the wrong ways to offer sacrifices, when there is, of course, only one right way, exemplified by another set of two brothers: Moses and Aaron. In the world of the Torah, there is no room for moral relativism. Right is always right, and wrong is always wrong. 

Of course, we know that in reality life isn’t always black and white. Sometimes we need to bend the rules a bit and deviate from norms that, under other circumstances, we would never even question. Towards the end of World War Two, some Jewish survivors of the Shoah formed a group called in Hebrew Ha-Nokmim, “the avengers,” with the purpose of exacting vengeance on Nazis and their partners. At the time, their deeds may have seemed justified in light of their suffering, as well as the immense suffering of the Jewish People as a whole. Yet toward the end of their lives, most expressed remorse for their actions. Taking a life invariably diminishes our own humanity. We can never again regain the innocence that had characterized our lives previously. Wrong is wrong, no matter the circumstances. The consequences can be sudden, as was the fire that burst out and consumed Nadav and Avihu, or appear much later, when we have had time to reflect on our lives.

That’s why the passage from our Torah portion is so purposefully vague: not only to make us stop and ponder about what might have happened 3000 or more years ago, but also to make us think about the many choices that we have to make every day, lest we, like Nadav and Avihu, bring “strange” fire to our efforts, no matter how well-intentioned these might be.

Among the meanings the early rabbis assign to this story, there are at least four theories about what might have happened. Rabbi Akiva taught that the fire was brought in from the kitchen, not the sanctioned source that had to be used for rituals and sacrifices. Another rabbi suggests that the brothers were drunk. Yet a third—that they sought to unseat and replace Moses and Aaron themselves. And a fourth, that they did not consult one another; each tried to outdo the other, each tried to prove himself superior to the other. 

Unlike Moses and Aaron, whose relationship the Torah presents as the example of doing things right, it was Nadav and Avihu’s pride and arrogance that led to their downfall.

Now, fomenting rebellion against recognized and approved authority is always inherently dangerous. If that was Nadav and Avihu’s purpose, they definitely had their punishment coming to them. But bringing fire from the kitchen? Why would Rabbi Akiva see that as wrong? Is it because the kitchen is where life is taken and blood is spilled? Yet, in this respect the kitchen is not unlike the sacred altar, where countless animals were slaughtered on a daily basis. And isn’t the hearth also often the heart within our homes, the place where families and friends gather to celebrate and share life and love? What makes the kitchen profane and the altar holy?

Perhaps it’s that the rules for sacrificing at the altar were strictly prescribed and observed by the priests, while the kitchen is more commonly a place where improvisation takes over, where temptations can lead us astray—taste this, lick that, try a new recipe, or a different spice. Or as my cardiologist said to me just the other day after reviewing my lab numbers, “If it tastes good, it’s bad for you.” In the kitchen you aim for what tastes and looks good, not what is inherently good for you. In the kitchen, it’s easy to forget what’s kosher and what isn’t.

Despite the Torah’s injunction against entering the Tent of Meeting drunk, the idea that Aaron’s two sons were inebriated is also a matter of debate among rabbis. Some actually see spiritual elevation as a positive result of this state. Yet there is no doubt in anyone’s mind that alcohol hampers us physically and mentally. A person can see themselves as completely bright and competent, yet the confusion that accompanies intoxication can lead them to a totally wrong conclusion and outcome. This might have been the case on the night of October 6, just prior to the most traumatic event to befall the Jewish People since the Holocaust. There is no doubt about the absolute evil that was perpetrated by the Hamas terrorists. Yet prior intelligence reports did indicate that the terror organization was planning something big. But what followed was miscalculation and wrong analysis of the signs. Maybe it was sheer carelessness, or that dizzying feeling of carefree lightness, a form of intoxication. In any event, the intelligence reports were ignored, and the disastrous results were quick to follow.

The Torah admonishes us against the dangers posed by arrogance, confusion and miscalculation. 

Torah doesn’t just tell tales. It teaches. The story of Nadav and Avihu teaches us that there is no such thing as moral relativism. A deep and wide gulf lies between right and wrong, sacred and profane, holy and evil.

Ultimately, “strange fire” may be our first impulse to cut corners as we strive for greatness and success. But in the end, without a doubt, it will consume us. It’s an unholy composite of arrogance and selfishness, ignorance and bigotry. These are the danger signs we have to watch out for within ourselves and in society around us. 

What we should aim for instead is to follow the teachings of the prophet Micah, who wrote that all that God wants of us, all that holiness really is, is “To act justly and love mercy and walk humbly with our God” (Micah 6:8). That is the difference between the “strange” fire which Nadav and Avihu brought to the sacrifice, and the sacred fire which we try to bring into our lives and to the life of the world around us, the light of holiness and God.

We must not—and may we never—forget this difference.

© 2024 by Boaz D. Heilman

The Imperative of Staying Alive: Purim 2024

 The Imperative of Staying Alive: Purim 2024

By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman

The contributions of the Jewish People to civilization, throughout our history, have been immeasurable. From literature and literacy to music, art and entertainment; from philosophy and theology to business and law; from science and math to medicine, technology and the general betterment of humanity and all life—these are but some of the fields we have excelled in. The world today is unthinkable without past and present Jewish involvement and impact.

Through the centuries, when new lands and territories were opened, Jews were invited to play a part in their development. In the 9th century, Charlemagne brought Jewish merchants and scholars from Egypt and Iraq and settled them in France and Germany. Five hundred years later, King Casimir III of Poland, known as “the Great,” opened the eastern borderlands to “western” influence, enabling his kingdom to flourish from its interactions with Jews, who in turn found safe haven there from the Crusades, massacres and expulsions that were their fate in Western Europe.

On the heels of the Spanish Inquisition, Jews opened trade routes to the Far East and the New World, establishing important and thriving Jewish communities in Curacao and Cuba, as well as in Goa and Sumatra.

The number of Jewish Nobel Prize winners, representing the highest achievement in their chosen fields, is almost matched by the number of military heroes—from King David and Judah the Maccabee to Bar Kochba, general of a Jewish army that withstood the largest and most powerful army of the ancient world—the Romans—for three long years. After the destruction of Judea, Jewish fighters continued to reach officer ranks in other countries. In the 1300’s, a Jew, Samuel ibn Naghrilla, aka Shmuel Ha-Nagid, led the Muslim army of Grenada for 17 years. Alfred Dreyfuss, the French-Jewish officer at the heart of the antisemitic scandal that inspired Herzl to found modern Zionism, was only one of thousands of Jews who, in the mid-1800’s, served their countries as a sign of national, cultural and political allegiance.

But for more than 2000 years, one calling was always forbidden the Jews—self-defense. We could help defend others, but not ourselves.

The story of Jewish self-defense ends with the Romans in the year 135. 

After that, even the Hanukkah story of the military victory of Judah the Maccabee over the Greeks, was minimized. Relegated to the status of a “minor” holiday, Hanukkah was reduced to a child’s tale about a small can of oil that miraculously lasted for eight nights. Out of caution and fear, the ancient rabbis eliminated from their retold tales the story of the fierce battles that Judah and his brothers led, leaving in only the personal sacrifices they had to make in an effort to remain Jewish and keep Judaism alive.

The story of how Jewish privateers helped defend first Portuguese, then Dutch and British merchant and naval fleets, is not one we learn about in public or Jewish schools, yet is an important factor in modern European and early American history. Their stories have been popularized only recently, in the charmingly titled book by Edward Kritzler, Jewish Pirates of the Caribbean, described condescendingly on the Amazon website as “the tale of an unlikely group of swashbuckling Jews who ransacked the high seas.” Yet it’s a story that we should all be made aware of. 

Of course, in modern times there are many stories of Jewish heroes and heroism. Jewish soldiers distinguished themselves in many battles and wars all over the world, including the Civil War here in America. 

Yet the heroism of the Jewish soldiers who have fought for the right of the State of Israel to exist and thrive, is mostly silenced—except to their families and nation. Israel’s wars against terror and aggression have all too quickly turned into blood-libel accusations of genocide and massacres. “Certainly Israel has the right to defend [itself], but not to revenge,” is the latest statement from the European Union’s foreign policy chief with regards to the war against the terror organization Hamas. Meanwhile Canada has declared an embargo on selling weapons to Israel—though evidently buying military equipment from Israel, as it has, massively, in recent years, is OK. Next week’s edition of The Economist will feature on its cover the flag of Israel and the headline “Israel Alone,” highlighting Israel’s isolation from the rest of the world’s “civilized” nations.

Never mind that it isn’t Israel, but Hamas, that broke the ceasefire that held until October 6; never mind that Hamas calls specifically for the destruction of Israel. Never mind that immediately following the atrocities it committed on October 7, Hamas has vowed to repeat it "7 times, 10 times, a million times" over. And never mind that every bullet fired by an Israeli soldier is reviewed by a special court, and every bombing from the air is previewed by a special unit whose responsibility it is to ensure there are no children in a playground nearby.

The moral dilemma that every Israeli—soldier and civilian alike—faces every morning, day and night, is the painful and tragic knowledge that there are innocent victims in this war. And that is the opposite of genocide. Israel’s army strictly adheres to international laws of conventional warfare. We know of course that accidents happen, because the context of all war is chaos and bloodshed. There have always been, and always will be, innocent victims. But that is not genocide, especially knowing that Hamas uses its own population as human shields; shoots rockets from mosques, apartment buildings, kindergartens, schools and even cemeteries, and burrows its headquarters under hospitals, in the cynical knowledge that Israel would be reluctant to raid or bomb these. Because one thing that characterizes Jews in general and the State of Israel in particular is that we sanctify life, not death. 

What we have here actually is a modern-day Persian empire—Iran—its power swaying with the winds, exercising tyranny over—who else—the Jews, with a Haman—Yahya Sinwar—as a saber-wielding puppet on a string, along with Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen flailing their limp arms and chanting “Death to the Big Satan, death to the Little Satan.”

It’s funny, but with all our annual purimspiels and carnivals, with all our telling and retelling of “the whole Megillah”—the Scroll of Esther—we always leave out one little detail: The aftermath. In our hurry to get to chapter 9, where Mordechai and Esther mandate that Purim be an annual observance, we skip Chapter 8 almost wholly. What we leave out is the self-defense part. The part where, over two days, the Jews stand up and fight back. We barely mention, in an undertone as it were, the number of murderers, rapists and pillagers still intent on killing the Jews and seizing our property, whose fate is turned around on those very days and who are instead killed by Jews standing up for themselves in defiance and self-defense—510 on the first day, 75,300 on the second (and being scrupulous about taking no loot).

It's as though we are ashamed of what we had done, of what had to be done to stay alive. 

Or perhaps that we know better. The world doesn’t like powerful Jews. It ostracizes and isolates us; it BDS’s us and condemns us in the marble halls of the UN and the EU, on college campuses, in “progressive” guilds and raucous, hate-filled social media.

What we as well as the rest of the world need to remember is that Jews haven’t always been victims. That may be the way the world would prefer to see us. But sometimes, just sometimes, we fight back. And this year is one of those times.

The world at large may not like that, but sooner rather than later it will forget all that, because as much as the world likes to pity us, it needs us. It needs the advancements to humanity that Israel and the Jews offer. It needs our business and resourcefulness. It needs our constant reminders about true justice and just morality. It needs us and our constant commitment to life, health and well-being.

Much more than it needs the chaos, destruction and suffering that Hamas and its allies advocate.

And that’s worth fighting for. 

In the end, Purim isn’t only a holiday set aside for miracles and rejoicing. It’s about staying alive; it’s about strengthening and deepening our Jewish identity; it’s about standing up for our basic human right to live in safety and peace, free from bigotry and persecution. May we always remember that. May this Purim find us more united, more determined and more dedicated to the all-important cause of keeping Judaism alive.

© 2024 by Boaz D. Heilman