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Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai gave the following example to impress upon his students the importance of every individual's action and how each person's deeds affect everyone else. A boat filled with people was sailing on the ocean. One of the passengers took a sharp tool and began to bore a hole under his seat. The other passengers shouted, "What are you doing? Stop!"
The man replied, "What business is it of yours? I paid for this seat. I'm boring a hole under my seat!"
"Fool! Don't you realize that by boring a hole under your seat, you will flood the boat and we will all drown!"
"Similarly," says Rabbi Shimon, "a person must remember that we are all riding in the same life-boat. Every good deed we do affects everyone and every sin we commit affects not only us but the entire world!"
Before his passing, Rabbi Shimon told his students to observe the day when his soul reunited with its Maker as a day of celebration. Rabbi Shimon returned his soul to His maker in the midst of teaching the most secret parts of the Torah. He passed away as he uttered his final word "Chayim" - "life". And as I taught, that day is Lag B'Omer, this past Monday eve, and Tuesday day, May 11-12, 2009.
May all of your spirituality increase like a bon fire in Merion, Safad, Israel on Lag B'Omer.
Shabbat Shalom:
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Numbers
Parasha Ba-Midbar: Numbers 01:01-04:20
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"One Is the Loneliest Number"
This Torah portion brings us to the fourth of the "Five Books of Moses," which we call 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
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
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
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 says that God offered the Torah to other nations before us, but they rejected it. We chose God. We need to continue to choose God through our daily behavior. 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.
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 relationships 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 (develikut b' Torah), as Rabbi Yehudah Loewe, known as the Maharal, of sixteenth-century
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 adult.
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 the Torah with love."
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 who survived the plague. About 1,900 years ago he defied the Romans' ruling against Torah study. A death sentence was pronounced against him, and he went into hiding. Rabbi Shimon and his son Elazer fled to a cave in the
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 and saw some Jewish farmers working. Rabbi Shimon was shocked that they were free, but 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. RABBI ARTHUR SEGAL:JEWISH SPIRITUAL RENEWAL:JEWISH RENEWAL:LAG B'OMER:BAR YOCHAI
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
In Pirkei Avot 4:17, which we read during the omer counting season between Pesach and Shavuot, Rabbi Shimon taught, "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 between Passover and Shavuot is the time to prepare for the Revelation by taking a good hard look at ourselves.
Rabbi ibn Paquda of eleventh-century
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
God gave us life 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 should we treat our relationships with each other in this fashion. They must be continually nurtured. The question, "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 meaning, '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, is an undeserved gift 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 earlier, 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
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 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
Shabbat Shalom:
Rabbi Arthur Segal
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