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RABBI ARTHUR SEGAL:BA-MIDBAR:JEWISH RENEWAL:JEWISH SPIRITUAL RENEWAL:HUMILITY
RABBI ARTHUR SEGAL:NUMBERS 01:01-04:20:PARASHA BA-MIDBAR:One, Loneliest Number
PARASHA BA-MIDBAR
NUMBERS 01:01 TO 04:20
RABBI ARTHUR SEGAL
"One Is the Loneliest Number"
This week's Torah portion brings us to the fourth book of the "Five Books
of Moses," known as the Chumash. This book takes its English name
(Numbers) from the Greek and Latin translations, as the first chapters
deal with the census of the twelve tribes and their encampment in Sinai.
In Hebrew, the name of this book and its first chapter is Ba-midbar. This
means "in the wilderness."
Shavuot usually falls around the time this parasha is read.
This holiday commemorates the giving of the Torah
to Moses on Mt. Sinai. Some 3,320 years ago, by traditional accounting,
our people stood in the wilderness of Sinai in front of a small,
humble-looking mountain. On this mountain, Moses, who the Torah calls
"the most humble man who ever lived" (Numbers 12:03), was given the Law.
We are taught in the Chumash that we accepted the Torah by saying "we
will do and we will listen." Traditionally, this means we accepted the
Torah before we knew what it required of us. However, the Talmud Bavli in
Tractate Shabbat 82A tells us that at Sinai "the mountain was poised over
the Jews like a barrel." In other words, we Jews were forced into
acceptance.
The Midrash tells us another allegory. When God was preparing to give the
Torah, all the mountains stepped forward and declared why they thought
the Torah should be given on them. One said he was the highest. Another
said he was the steepest. In the end, God choose Mt. Sinai because it was
the most humble. To quote Rabbi Shragas Simmons, humility to Jews is
"living with the reality that nothing matters except doing the right
thing."
Our Jewish religion, to paraphrase Herman Melville's view of
freedom, is only good as a means; it is no end in itself. As Jews, our
humility means that we are not dependent on the opinions of others.
Sometimes doing the right thing is popular. Many times it is not. The
humble Jew will set aside his ego and consistently strive for
righteousness. Let us not confuse humility with arrogance. An arrogant
man declares that he is all that matters. A humble man believes that what
is greater than he is what counts.
Rabbi Simcha Bunim of Pshischa in nineteenth-century Europe always
carried two slips of paper. One he placed in his right pocket, the other in his left.
One piece had a quote from Talmud Bavli Tractate Sanhedrin 38A . "The entire world was
created just for me." On the other slip of paper was a quote of Abraham
in Genesis 18:27. "I am but dust and ashes." A humble man knows when to
act and when to be silent. A humble man knows when to lead and when to
follow. A truly humble person says upon awakening "Modeh Ani...Thank you
God for returning my soul for yet another day."
We were in the wilderness of Sinai when we received the Torah. We
received the Law there because a desert is empty. Also it belongs to no
nation. In order to receive God's word, we had to be in a place that had
room for it.
Every day we need to open our hearts and let God inside.
Every day needs to be a Shavuot for us as individuals. We were not
chosen by God, as the Midrash also says that God offered the Torah to
other nations before us who rejected it. We chose God. We need to continue to
choose God through our daily behaviors. The beginning of learning humility, willingness and the acceptance of God are the pre-requisites for Jewish Spiritual Renewal.
Not everyone at every time can achieve a higher level of contact with God
through personal search. Nor will God reveal himself to every generation. But He does reveal Himself to us continually throughout the day if we learn to listen and quiet ourselves.
As Martin Buber wrote, we need to develop an I-Thou relationship with God
on our own. We begin this by developing I-Thou relationships with those
around us. We cannot have object relations with our friends and loved
ones. We cannot relate to others in I-It scenarios during the week and
expect miraculously to have a spiritual I-Thou relationship with God on
Shabbat or in times of personal crisis.
While the Torah indeed was given to us on Shavuot, we must learn to
cling daily to the Torah (develikus b' Torah), as Rabbi Yehudah Loewe,
known as the Maharal, of sixteenth-century Prague has written.
The Talmud also teaches that each child is taught the whole of Torah
while in his mother's womb. An angel comes prior to birth and sucks that
knowledge out of him, causing the mark we each find above our upper lip.
The Talmud says that if we had not first known the Torah as a fetus,
albeit to later forget it, we would not be able to relate to it later as
an adults.
The Talmud Bavli in Tractate Shavuot 39A further states that all
Jewish souls past, present and future were at Sinai. The memory of Sinai
deep within each of us drives our continual search for God and meaning in
our lives. Perhaps this is why we ask in our daily prayers to be guided
"to know and understand, learn and teach, observe and uphold with love"
the Torah.
I think the authors of the Chumash knew life well enough to know that we
would always be "ba-midbar."
Some of us are in a wilderness of our own
making. Others find themselves in a desert caused by situations out of
their control.
The Talmud Bavli in Tractate Shabbat 33b tells us of two men who
endured both types of situations. Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai was a student
of Rabbi Akiva.
He was one of five students that survived the plague. About 1,900 years
ago he defied the Romans' ruling against study of Torah. A death
sentence was pronounced against him, and he went into hiding. Rabbi Shimon and his
son Elazer fled to a cave in the Galilee. It is said that a carob tree
and a well miraculously appeared in the cave to provide them sustenance.
Since they had only one set of clothes, they removed them so that the
garments would not wear out, and they buried themselves in the sand except for
their heads. They studied Torah all day and did not wish to be immodest while
engaged in "God's words."
Rabbi Shimon and Elazer studied and lived in this cave for twelve years.
One day Elijah the prophet appeared to tell them that Caesar had died and
the death sentence had been lifted. They left the cave but saw Jewish
farmers working. Rabbi Shimon was shocked that they were free yet were
not studying Torah. He gave them the look of the "evil eye," and the
farmers vaporized. God was upset at this and told the rabbi that His
"world is not to be destroyed and to return" to his cave.
A year later, when Rabbi Shimon and his son emerged they again saw Jews
involved in mundane worldly pursuits. He then realized that Torah study
and religious pursuits were not enough in life, but that we need to
balance them with worldly goals while still maintaining holiness. Rabbi
Shimon went on to reveal the Zohar, a Kabbalistic text showing us how to
"transform our material daily world into transcendent energy."
Zohar literally means "shining light." His death is celebrated on Lag ba Omer,
which occurs between Passover and Shavuot during the 7 weeks of counting the Omer.
My wife Ellen and I had the occasion to visit Rabbi Shimon's tomb in Meiron, Israel, in the Galilee.
Can our humility and our justice-seeking help us through the
daily wilderness encounters in our own lives? Certainly by walking humbly
with God, as Micha suggests, will help us to avoid deserts of our own making.
In Pirkei Avot 4:17, which we read during the omer-counting season between Pesach and
Shavuot, Rabbi Shimon taught that "there are three crowns---the crowns of
Torah, royalty and priesthood, but the crown of a good name is above them
all."
While it is wonderful to study Torah and read about doing
mitzvoth, it is the actual doing of these good deeds that will lead us out of the
wilderness.
As the Tchortkover Rebbe, Nachum Friedman, wrote, "all of
the Torah, royalty, and priestliness in the world are worthless, if their
owner does not earn a good name as well."
Rabbi Elazer taught in Pirkei Avot 3:21 that one whose wisdom exceeds his
good deeds "shall be like an isolated tree in an arid land, dwelling on
parched soil in the wilderness." As I wrote in a previous d'var Torah,
the fifty-day period in which we are now is the time to prepare for the
Revelation by taking a good hard look at ourselves.
Rabbi ibn Paquda of eleventh-century Spain writes in his Duties of the
Heart: "Are you to accept Jewish ideals on the authority of those rabbis
learned in Torah and tradition and exclusively rely on their traditions?
On the contrary! The Torah expressly bids you to reflect and exercise
your intellect on such themes. 'Know this day and lay it on your heart,
that the Lord, He is God' [Deut. 4:39]. This admonition refers to
everything in which rational methods of investigation can be used."
We are obliged to study and to question. We are to each seek paths to "make
our lives a blessing." We are not to waste life on the trivialities of a
modern wasteland. Regardless of what we are doing, we need to clarify our
spiritual relationship with God. Every day needs to be our Shavuot.
"Man is the creature created for the purpose of being drawn close to
God," wrote the RaMChaL, Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto of eighteenth-century
Italy. As King David wrote in Psalm 6:4: "Save me if you love me God, for
in death there is no remembrance of You." "What do You gain by my death,
as I go down to the pit? Can the dust praise you or proclaim your
faithfulness?" (Ps. 30:09). David also penned in Psalm 115:17: "The
dead cannot praise God, they have gone down to silence."
God gave life to us humans so that we can sing His praises and work toward Tikun Olam
(repair of the world). God needs us, in other words, to complete His plans for
the world. We have to seek God continually. God is not something you find
once and then stick in a drawer. Nor are our relationships with each
other meant to be handled in this fashion. They must be continually
nurtured. The question of "what have you done for me lately?" is a valid
one.
Martin Buber in his "Instructions in Intercourse with God" quotes
the Bal Shem Tov as asking that we "Pray continually for God's Glory,
that it may be redeemed from its exile." In doing Tikun Olam, we must
also repair the face of God. We need to be Sha'ar Elohim (portals of
God). We need to find daily ways to do "shikrur Elohim," actually
liberate God. David asks us in Psalm 105:04 to "seek God's face
untiringly."
This d'var's title is "One Is the Loneliest Number." As Jews believing in
God, we are never truly alone. Our name comes from Yehudah and means "he
will give thanks." We are Yehudim because we always thank God for all of
our blessings. He has given us more than we could ever
deserve. Everything we have, including life itself, are undeserved gifts
from God.
Who would wish human companionship when no human could compare
to God's benevolence? Yet God Himself declared in Genesis 2:18 that it is
"not good (lo tov) for man to be alone." This is the first thing in the
universe that God created that was not "tov." It was "lo tov" to be
alone.
The Oneness of God is crucial to our understanding of God. We declare
God's Oneness multiple times each day in our "Shema" prayer. Maimonides
wrote that the highest level of wisdom that a human can attain is to comprehend
God's Oneness. By doing so, we then know that everything is God. This
includes all of humankind and even both good and evil.
The yetzer ha ra is our
self-destructive inclination to move away from God and goodness.
God gave us free will. And God gave us the yetzer ha ra. It is our task
to harness this energy and use it for goodness. Luzzatto, quoted above,
says in his Path of the Just that creation's purpose is to earn us
pleasure. He writes that the ultimate pleasure is attaching to God. So
although the evil inclination (yetzer ha ra) seems to be leading us away
from God, it provides us opportunities to come closer to God.
We get pleasure and satisfaction when we do not give in to our "bad" impulses.
There is joy in not trapping ourselves in our self-made wildernesses.
Yet we as humans can feel isolated when we are not in relationships with
others. We are not meant to live in a cave like Rabbi Shimon and his son.
On Shabbat in the Mincha service, we traditionally praise God by
saying , "You are One, Your Name is One, and who is like your people Israel." We
are not only blessing God, but in the same breath blessing ourselves as a
people. This prayer is part of the Menuchat Shalom (total peace). It
implies that while we need to be one with God, we are not supposed to be
one, solitary, like a lonely number.
Rabbi Tzadok taught in chapter 4, Mishna 7, "Do not separate yourself
from the community." We are taught to seek out loving, friendly
relationships with others. In the Talmud Bavli Tractate Ta'anit 22A, the
story is told of Rabbi Beroka who would visit the market in Bei Lefet. He
would often have visions of the prophet Eliyahu. Once the rabbi said to
the prophet, "Is there anyone in the marketplace who is destined to the
World to Come?" Eliyahu pointed to two men. The rabbi asked them what
they did. They replied that they were comedians and cheered up those who
were depressed. They also said that whenever they saw two people involved
in a quarrel, they strove hard to make peace between them. Rabbi Hillel
said, "Be among the disciples of Aaron, loving peace and pursuing peace,
loving people and bringing them closer to Torah" (Pirkei Avot 1:12).
In ending this d'var Torah on this week's parasha, I will quote from its
Haftarah from Hosea 2:21-22. This prophet gives us a broad clue on
surviving wildernesses that we get trapped in along life's path. He
describes God speaking to Israel. It is also a formula for us to speak to
God and to each other in our relationships. "I shall marry you to me
forever. I shall marry you to me with righteousness, and with justice,
and with kindness, and with mercy. I shall marry you to me with
fidelity." Certainly if we allowed ourselves to work toward
relationships with our spouses, families, friends and also with God within this
framework, we would never be a lonely number Ba-midbar.
Shabbat Shalom,
RABBI ARTHUR SEGAL
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