Parasha VaYikra -- March 16, 2013

A Call to Leadership

March 17 marks an important anniversary in Jewish history of the 20^th century.  March 17 is the 21rst anniversary of the bombing of the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The attack killed 29 people and injured 250 others. Among the victims were Israeli diplomats, children, clergy from the church located across the street, and passers-by. The state Supreme Court investigated the incident, but it was not vigorously pursued and no action was taken. Inaction has its consequences. Two years later, on July 18, 1994, the Jewish Community Center in Buenos Aires was bombed. This time, 87 people were killed and over 100 injured. That attack ranked as one of the deadliest anti-Semitic incidents anywhere in the world since World War ll. Yet, the investigation into who was responsible was marred by incompetence, obfuscation, and outright cover-up. Despite evidence that Iran was directly involved in this act of terrorism, all Argentina's government did was expel Iranian diplomats from the country in 1998. A formal investigation into the attack was never pursued. Last week it was announced that a joint Argentine - Iranian commission would be set up to bring people to justice. With all due respect, that is like Elliot Ness inviting Al Capone to participate in a joint investigation of the St. Valentine's Day Massacre.

This Shabbat Jews all around the world begin the reading of the Book of Leviticus. In Hebrew it is named "Vayikra" which means, "And He called." G-d calls Moses into the Tabernacle to meet with him. Of course, another religious leader has been called to service this week in our own time. Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio has been called by G-d to lead the Catholic Church. And we wonder, "What would Moses think?" If Moses were to examine Cardinal Bergoglio's record with the Jewish people, I believe he would approve of what he discovered. One place where Moses would surely want to look was Cardinal Bergoglio's response to the above mentioned terrorism that was directed at the Jewish community of Buenos Aires in the early nineties. Reports are that he stood in solidarity with the Jewish community during those dark times. In 2005, Bergoglio was the first public figure to sign a petition for justice in the Jewish Community Center bombing case. He also was one of the signatories on a document called "85 victims, 85 signatures" as part of the bombing's 11th anniversary. In June 2010, he visited the rebuilt Jewish Community Center building to talk with Jewish leaders.  Just this past November the good Father hosted a special memorial for Kristallnacht at the Buenos Aires Metropolitan Cathedral. He wrote an introduction to a book published recently by an Argentinean Rabbi, Sergio Bergman, referring to him as "one of my teachers." In a visit to a Buenos Aires synagogue he said he came to examine his heart, "like a pilgrim, together with you, my elder brothers."

When we look at the Torah this week, we see something curious about the first word of the Book of Leviticus -- VaYikrah. The final letter of the word, the alef, is smaller than the other letters. Our rabbis understood this to teach us that even though Moses was a great leader and was privileged to be called by G-d, he never lost his humility. He never let his exalted position in the community go to his head. By all accounts, the new Pope follows that model of religious leadership. Israel Singer, former head of the World Jewish Congress worked with the Father in a joint Jewish-Catholic program to aid the poor in Buenos Aires. "We went out to the barrios where Jews and Catholics were suffering together," reported Singer. "If everyone sat in chairs with arms, he would sit in the one without. He was always looking to be more modest. He's going to find it hard to wear all these uniforms."

As Singer implies, in order to become an effective Pope, Francis I must overcome his humility to some extent.  To wear all fancy clothing that the Pope wears might indeed be difficult for a man of great humility. To assume all the trappings of power and prestige while maintaining ones humility can be a challenge.  Yet, it is possible. That is why Moses had to be "called" by G-d. That is why we in the clergy are said to have "a calling". The idea of "a calling" implies a certain reluctance to serve, and understanding that we are unworthy of so noble a role as representing G-d in the community.  The story is told of one of Rabbi Israel Salanter's disciples. "Rabbi," he said to his teacher, "I am in serious financial trouble because I do not have a job."

"Why not become a rabbi?" asked Rabbi Israel.

"Rabbi, I am afraid that I might give an incorrect ruling."

"Who then should become a Rabbi?" said Rabbi Israel. "One who is not afraid of ruling incorrectly?"

In other words, someone's got to do the job.  Better a humble person who is not sure of his worthiness than a supremely confident one who feels he was born for the moment.

"Humility," writes Frank Crane, "is the wish to be great and the dread of being called great. It is the wish to help and the dread of thanks. It is the love of service and the distaste of rule. It is trying to be good and blushing when caught at it."  The Pope has been called to lead our Catholic brothers and sisters of the world, just as Moses was called to lead the people of Israel, just as all clergy need to feel called to the service of the divine.  We pray that he leads with wisdom and with humility. May his pontificate further the cause of peace and brotherhood for all humanity.  So may it be for us all.           

 

 

 

 

 

 

Parasha VaYakhel Pekudei

A preacher went into his church and he was praying to God. While he was praying, he asked God, "How long is 10 million years to you?"

G-d replied, "1 second."

The next day the preacher asked God, "God, how much is 10 million dollars to you?"

And G-d replied, "A penny."

Then finally the next day the preacher asked God, "God, can I have one of your pennies?"

And God replied, "Just wait a sec."

We all know the familiar proverb, "Time is money."  But in many ways, time is not like money at all -- it is much more precious. One cannot accumulate time; one cannot borrow time; and one can never tell how much more time one has left in the Bank of Life. Time can certainly be wasted, as can money. But time well spent can yield returns far greater and more lasting than anything that money can buy. One might say that time is the most precious thing we have in life. One poet called time "the ummanufactured tissue of the universe of life" (Arnold Bennett)

In his book The Sabbath, Abraham Joshua Heschel compared the ancient pagans' glorification and sanctification of space, with Judaism's elevation and sanctification of time. The Sabbath, he writes, that most distinctive creation of the Jewish spirit, creates a "palace in time." Through observing the Sabbath the Jew feels transported and uniquely connected to the divine.

Heschel was only partly right. Our Torah reading this week reflects the preciousness of space as well as time. It opens with Moses gathering the people together. As the curtain goes up we are expecting that he will tell them the instructions that he has received to build the Tabernacle -- the holy place. Instead, he opens with the words about the holiness of time, "Six days work may be done, but on the seventh you shall have a Sabbath of complete rest." Only then does Moses go on to detail how the Tabernacle should be constructed. Earlier on, in Parasha Ki Tissa, when G-d instructs Moses on how to build the Tabernacle, G-d immediately follows these instructions with the injunction to observe the Sabbath. "Whoever does work on the Sabbath," says Moses, "shall be cut off from his kin." Notice that the Torah does not define "work". So what behaviors, exactly, are we to abstain from on the Sabbath? What constitutes "work"? From the two fold juxtaposition of the commandment to work on the Tabernacle with the commandment to rest on the Sabbath, the rabbis derived the very definition of "work". "Work" meant any of the 39 categories of labor associated with building the Tabernacle-- from sewing and weaving to hammering and joining.

All work on the Tabernacle, reasoned the rabbis, must be suspended on the Shabbat -- not only while the work of building the Tabernacle was going on, but for all Sabbaths thereafter.  This teaches us an important lesson. The Tabernacle is a holy space. The Shabbat is holy time. However, when there is a conflict between the holiness of space and the holiness of time, the holiness of time takes precedence.

The Torah tells us that G-d created the world in six days. G-d declares the Sabbath, the seventh day of the week, holy. G-d created time and space together, but time is the only one of the two that G-d blesses and makes holy. What does it mean to be holy, to be blessed, to be sanctified? It means to be set apart as special. It means to have the potential to partake of a higher spiritual worth. Yet, it is only a potential. If we, you and I, do not also sanctify time, then the time becomes just another day of the week for us. It is only Saturday if we do not make it Shabbat. The Sabbath is a portal in time that we may enter that will bring us closer to G-d, but we need to take the initiative to take the first steps through it.  

 

Shabbat Shalom

Parasha Ki Tissa

 On Wednesday morning, I woke up, opened my email, and my heart sank. There it was, a message   I did not want to see -- Pages and pages with the words, "Mailer-Daemon Failure Notice." My email had been hacked yet again. My privacy had been violated.  A message that I had not sent had been disseminated to everyone in my address book.   Then the messages from friends, colleagues, family began to arrive... "I think your email has been hacked." "Thank you very much," I wrote back, "I am taking care of it. Sorry." It is not like I am not vigilant in protecting my computer. But apparently there are viruses, malware, spybots, Trojans and cookies that can evade all our best attempts to protect our privacy. 

One of the emails I received was from a former congregant in Springfield, Massachusetts, Larry. Larry is owner and operator of Computer Care. He very kindly volunteered to rid my computer of whatever was causing the unpleasant problem.   I figured this would require many hours on the telephone with Larry. But no, by downloading a program on the internet, I was able to give Larry a code with which he was able, remotely, to gain access to my computer.  As I sat at my computer screen, my cursor mysteriously moved around my computer, clicking on various programs, opening some and shutting down others. It was like a ghost had taken over the keyboard.  He downloaded a program which searched out all of the foreign bodies that had taken up residence on my computer, essentially spying on me. At the end of the process, which took a couple of hours, Larry checked my computer again, pronounced it healthy, and left me a nice note, written on my Wordpad, instructing me how to avoid such infiltrations in the future.  He was even so kind as to print it out for me – on my own printer!

Now Larry needed a special password to gain access to my computer from Massachusetts, and that password expires after every use, so there is no danger of him searching out my computer when I do not want him to. I just want to reassure everyone, just in case you are wondering...  He would never do that anyway. But there are apparently many ways for companies to do this without our knowing.  For example, Google has a computer go through every email we send to one another, searching for keywords with which to target us with ads. Your cable provider knows exactly what programs you watch and for how long.  Facebook can track on-line activity even after you have logged off of Facebook. At work, your browsing history is probably logged by members of your IT department.  "Supercookies" are unknowingly downloaded from websites we visit, then they collect information about our activities across multiple websites. 

It is also possible to violate your own privacy with shocking results. Ashley Payne, as 24 year old English teacher in Georgia went on a European vacation in 2009 and posted over 700 pictures to her Facebook page. Ten of those had Ashley holding alcohol. She also posted that she was heading out to play a popular game at a local restaurant. The game had a profane word in it. An anonymous person, identifying themselves only as the parent of a student, emailed the principal with the pictures and complained about Ashley. The principal called her into the office and told her that she would either have to resign or she would be suspended. She resigned. She was mystified as to how these pictures made their way into the hands of a parent at her school. She had set her "privacy settings" on Facebook so that only her closest friends were able to see these pictures.  Her students had no access to them.  Apparently, that was not enough for her private life to be used against her.

Now, what does Judaism have to say about privacy? It turns out, a great deal. I will give three examples. The first example deals with privacy from intrusion. Last week we learned that the robe of the High Priest was adorned with 72 silver bells on its hem. This meant that when the High Priest walked, he jingled!  The sages teach that this was to warn people when he approached, so that he could not sneak up on them. If they heard the High Priest coming, they had a warning. If they were doing anything about which the High Priest might disapprove, they could stop. In other words, the High Priest could not suddenly walk in and disturb their privacy.  The rabbis extended this to teach that one should knock on a door before one entered a room.  Even if it the door of one's own home, they said, one should knock first before entering.

The second example deals with visual privacy. In the Book of Numbers, the pagan prophet Balaam was sent by the King, Balak, to curse the Israelites. Balaam stands on a mountain overlooking the encampment of the Jewish people in the desert. He is unable to curse them. Instead, he recites the words that the sages later chose to open our services on Shabbat morning. "How goodly are your tents, O Jacob, your dwelling places, O Israel." The Talmud asks – what did Balaam notice about the Israelite encampment that caused him to bless it in this way?  The answer --He saw that their tent openings did not face each other." The Israelites respected the privacy of one another. Balaam said, "These people are worthy to have G-d's presence dwell among them."

The final example concerns privacy of one's private mail. In around 1000 CE Rabeinu Gershom of Mainz on the River Rheine issued a series of rulings known as Takanot.  Rebeinu Gershom was the greatest rabbi of his generation, known as the "Light of the Exile". In one ruling he decreed that a person could not read the mail of one's neighbor without his permission. He extended this to privacy in commercial communications as well. Failure to abide by this ruling would result in a person's excommunication from the Jewish people.

 Judaism values privacy very highly because it protects, maintains and honors the dignity of each human being. It is important to reflect on what our Jewish tradition teaches us about the limits of intrusion into the lives of others.  Our tradition has much to offer as our society grapples with the new challenges to privacy that come with living in the digital age.       

Shabbat Shalom

Parasha Tetsaveh

Last week Pope Benedict shocked the world by announcing his retirement.  As you know, he will become the first Pope in some 600 years who does not die in office. Since that time, there have been many articles analyzing this decision and the legacy that Pope Benedict would leave. One such article in the Chicago Tribune caught my attention earlier this week.  The article was by Charlotte Allen and it was titled, "The Best Dressed Pope Ever".  So perfectly has Pope Benedict been garbed that she described him as "The Duke of Windsor of Popes" in her article.  She goes on to give us some examples of the Pope's sartorial splendor:

 "Benedict saying Mass in 2008 at Washington Nationals Park in a billowing scarlet satin chasuble (a priest's outermost liturgical garment) trimmed with crimson velvet and delicate gold piping. Benedict greeting worshipers in Rome, his chasuble this time woven of emerald-green watered silk with a pattern of golden stars. Benedict on Oct. 21 canonizing Kateri Tekakwitha, a 17th-century Mohawk woman, while attired in a fanon, a gold-and-white striped shoulder covering, dating to the 8th century, that only popes may wear."

 She compares Benedict's "fancy dressing" to the more sedate wear of his predecessors, particularly his immediate predecessor Pope John Paul ll, who, she says, a little snarkily, "had little interest in clothes, tending to wear whatever was handed to him."

 When I read this, I couldn't help but wonder whether the papal vestments had been modeled after the priestly garments worn at the Temple in Jerusalem, and which are described in detail in our Torah portion for this week.  After all, the Church understood itself as being the successor to Judaism.  However, according to the Catholic Encyclopedia, the Pope's vestments are derived not from the priestly dress of the Hebrew Scriptures at all, all, but rather from the secular dress of the Greco-Roman world in which the early Church developed.

 So if the Church did not borrow the vestments of the Priests of Jerusalem for its own rituals, with the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE the priestly garments of the ancient Jewish world passed out of existence, right? Since there were no more priests serving in the Temple in Jerusalem, the garments of the priests described in our Torah portion are out of sight and therefore out of mind.  If you thought that, you would be very wrong.  Because if you go to any synagogue on any Sabbath morning, the memory, sight, and even sound of the priests in the Temple in Jerusalem are right before our eyes, if only we knew what we were looking at.

 Our Parasha this week speaks of six vestments that the Priest will wear in performing his duties.  These are the Breastplate, the Ephod, the Robe, the Tunic, the Turban and a Sash.  The face of the breastplate was filled with 12 gemstones, representing the tribes of Israel.

 Where in our service do we see the clothing of the priests?  Why, on the Torah!  The Torah mantle, or covering, represents the Robe or Tunic that the priest wore as the outer garment.  This mantle is decorated in various ways. Sometimes biblical verses are embroidered in the fabric of the mantle. Or, gemstones can be represented that recall the gems of the breastplate of the High Priest.

 The sash, or belt, with which we bind the Torah recalls the sash worn by the Priest.  The breastplate worn by the priest, with its twelve gemstones representing all of Israel, is recalled by the breastplate that is often placed in the Torah, over the mantle.  This too symbolizes that the Torah is the possession of all of the people of Israel, not just its leaders.

 Finally, we place a crown on the top of the Torah, over the handles.  This represents the Turban that the priests in the Temple wore when performing their duties.  Often, instead of a crown, a congregation will place two finials, or, in Hebrew, "rimonim" over each protruding handle of the Torah scroll.  These rimonim are often decorated with small bells that jingle as the Torah is carried through the congregation. Thus, we not only recall the sight of the vestments of the Priest, but the sound of the priest walking as well.  For the Torah tells us that around the hem of the Priest's robe were sewn 72 bells, which, of course, jingled as the Priest walked, announcing his presence to all.

 In her article about the Pope's vestments, Charlotte Allen wonders about the message that the Pope Benedict is hoping to convey by his choice of dress.  She conjectures that by using beautiful traditional clothing he is reminding people that despite the ugliness of the Church scandals of the past decades, there is much that is beautiful and timeless about the faith that he professes.  When we gaze upon the Torah scroll, when we reach out to touch it and to kiss it, may we likewise be reminded of our ancient tradition and the beauty and eternity of the Jewish faith.

Shabbat Shalom

 

 

 

 

--

Rabbi Marc D. Rudolph

Congregation Beth Shalom

Naperville, Illinois

Parasha Bo

Crossing Over to Idolatry

Two events stunned the world of sports this week, both off the playing field. This week Lance Armstrong, in an interview with Oprah Winfrey, admitted to what he had adamantly denied over the course of his illustrious career -- that he was a user of performance enhancing drugs while he was winning seven Tour de France cycling events. He also acknowledged that he sued others for defamation of character when he knew they were in fact telling the truth about his performance enhancing drug use. The second event from the world of sports was that of Notre Dame football star and Heisman Trophy candidate Manti Te'o. His story of falling in love with a young Stanford Student who died of lukemia at the beginning of this season was revealed this week as a hoax. We are waiting now to see whether he was the victim of a hoax, as he claims, or the perpetrator of a hoax.  Time will tell. What we do know is that Notre Dame knew of the hoax on December 26 but said nothing to the media about it as the media continued to write and talk about the courage of Manti Te'o in the run-up to the national title game.

What does Judaism have to say about this?  In our Thursday morning study group we are studying the prophets. The prophets of ancient Israel are always inveighing against idolatry. We have had some interesting discussions about idolatry and what it is. We usually associate idolatry with pagans making images of their gods that they then worship. The prophets ridicule these heathens. Their ridicule is captured in Psalm 115. Our, (Jewish) G-d is in heaven, governing the universe, while

Their idols are silver and gold, made by human hands.

They have a mouth and cannot speak, eyes and cannot see.

They have ears and cannot hear.

A nose that cannot smell.

They have hands that cannot feel,

Feet than cannot walk.......

As we discussed in our class, the idolatry isn't only about the images that people made that represented their gods. They surely did not mistake the image for the real thing. The idol, after all, only represented the powerful god. They knew it was not the powerful god itself. Idolatry is also found in the values that those gods represented.  As we can see in the sorry episodes of Lance Armstrong and Manti Te'o, idolatry continues to be alive and well in our own culture.

For idolatry means putting our values above the values the Torah teaches. The danger of idolatry in our society lies in our worship of winning at any cost, worship of the money that comes with winning, the fame, the power, the admiration and the influence that comes with being recognized as a winner in our culture. When Lance Armstrong and Notre Dame placed winning above truth, above honesty, we could say they were engaging in idolatrous behavior, just as surely as were the Canaanites who sacrificed their children to Molech in the Vally of Gehinnom in Biblical times. 

There was another story in the world of sports this week, one that did not get nearly the coverage of the Armstrong or Te'o stories.  Eleven year old Estee Ackerman, ranked fourth in the United States in her age bracket in ping pong, was disqualified from the 2012 US National Table Tennis Championship finals. Estee was not discovered to have been taking performance enhancing drugs. Estee was not injured. She had not been found cheating in any way. She had trained hard for six months, yet chose not to show for her finals match. The reason? Her match fell on a Friday night, the Shabbas. She told the New York Post, "Ping pong is important to me, but my religion of Judaism is also very important to me."

We can all learn something from Estee Ackerman. We can love what we do, and we can all try to be the very best we can be. We can gain great satisfaction, even honor, and sometimes fame and fortune, in developing our talents to the greatest degree possible.  To work hard toward a goal is an admirable quality to have. But when we are willing to achieve that goal by paying any price; when the cost of achievement is transgressing of the moral values that Judaism teaches, we are trespassing into the area of idol worship. "You shall love the Lord you G-d with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might," says the Torah.  When we love something more than we love pleasing G-d, we are crossing over into idolatry. 

 

Shabbat Shalom

 

 

 

                        

 

Parasha Vaera

Turning Points

 

When it comes to forgiveness from G-d, is there a point of no return?

We are taught repeatedly in Judaism that G-d wants our repentance.  We read that the gates of forgiveness by G-d are always open.  That even if a person repents the day before their death, that repentance is accepted.

This idea is comforting to some, but makes others angry.  What about Hitler? If Hitler repented, if Hitler asked forgiveness from G-d, would G-d have accepted his repentance?  Would G-d accept Osama Bin Laden's repentance, had he repented while still alive?  What about the perpetrator of the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School?  Can we forgive him?  Should G-d? 

One answer to this question is contained in our Parasha for this week.  It is in the account of the ten plagues.  After each of the first five plagues, the Torah states that Pharaoh "hardened his heart and Pharaoh would not let the people go."  From that time on, after each plague the Torah states, "G-d hardened Pharaoh's heart, and Pharaoh would not let the people go."  The objection is then raised – if G-d hardened Pharaoh's heart, how can it be fair that G-d punished him?  If G-d, as it were, deprived Pharaoh of his free will to make decisions, is it just that Pharaoh be punished?  By the last five plagues, it seems that G-d was not allowing Pharaoh to change his mind, to soften his stubbornness, to return to G-d in full repentance for what he had done.  What's going on?

Maimonides, in his "Laws of Teshuvah" gives us his answer. He says that is it possible that a person sins so greatly and so often that G-d decides to lock the gates of repentance to that person.  In this way, the person is punished and is must suffer from the consequences of the wickedness that he has done here on earth.  G-d gave Pharaoh five opportunities to repent, and each time Pharaoh hardened his own heart.  Those five chances would be the only ones Pharaoh gets.  After that, G-d makes it impossible for him to change, and Pharaoh's free will is actually taken from him.  The midrash states, "Because the Holy Blessed One saw that Pharaoh did not repent after each of the first five plagues, G-d decreed, 'From now on even if he wants to repent I am hardening his heart, in order that he may be punished for every injustice he has committed.'"  For Pharaoh there is no forgiveness, no mercy. He has forfeited the right to turn back from his evil ways. 

Entire societies can also forfeit their ability to turn back and repent.  When the prophet Isaiah is commissioned by G-d in the middle of the 8^th century BCE to speak to the people of the Northern Kingdom of Israel, he is given a curious task:

Dull that people's mind/ stop its ears/ and seal its eyes

Lest seeing with its eyes/ and hearing with its ears/ It also grasps with its mind/and repent and heal itself.

In other words, Isaiah is supposed to fail. He is not to help the people understand the danger to which their behavior is leading them!  G-d does not desire their repentance – at least not now. The Book of Chronicles explains this. G-d tried to get the Jewish people to change their ways. "G-d had sent word to them through his messengers daily without fail, for He had pity on His people……But they mocked the messengers of G-d and disdained His words and taunted the prophets until the anger of G-d grew beyond remedy."  (Chronicles 36:15-16)

I know what you are asking: Why would G-d want to send a prophet to the people only to hope that the prophet would not succeed?  Why does Moses go to Pharaoh with the last five plagues when it is already pre-determined that Pharaoh is beyond listening to him?  Maimonides says that this is to teach us that there is a point of no return.  There is a point when we must suffer the full consequences of our behavior, with no mercy from an otherwise merciful G-d. That contrary to what we may believe, G-d's patience is not infinite -- we do not have all the time in the world to mend our ways.

I was thinking about this when it comes to some of our societal issues.  Apparently it is widely felt that Sandy Hook represented a "turning point" in our nation's response to gun violence.  Did it represent, instead, a point of no return?  Have things gotten so out of hand in our society, have we failed to address this problem for so many years, after so many warnings, that we have forfeited the ability to turn back as a society. That we cannot change, we cannot put the genie back in the bottle, so to speak. I hope not – time will tell. The same is true of so many issues –wars, torture, poverty, pollution, state and national debt, to name a few – that are the plagues of our time.  How long can we go on ignoring them before there is no turning back?  I think the Torah is telling us – don't think that G-d will save us from our own folly. Heed the warnings before it is too late.  Where are the prophets of today? Perhaps they are among the scientists, the economists, the teachers, the writers and the thinkers whose words and warnings we choose to ignore.

We learn from this week's parasha the sobering message that it can be too late to change -- That there is a point of no return.  Who knows when that point may be?  The opportunity for change should never be taken for granted.  Who knows the exact moment when we will not be able to turn back, when the die is cast and the door is closed forever.

 

Shabbbat Shalom

 

 

 

Parasha Shemot

To Your Own Self Be True

There was once a king who ruled his kingdom with wisdom and compassion. As he approached the end of his days, everyone in the kingdom wondered who would be the next ruler. Would it be one of his children? An adviser? A general?

As the king lay on his deathbed, he announced who he had chosen to be the next king.  It was, he announced, the court Jester.

The Jester? Everyone in the kingdom thought this must be a joke. The King's advisors tried to talk him out of it. But the King was firm in his decision. When the King died, the Jester was crowned the new King.

No one knew, of course, how this would work out. But over time it turned out to have been a brilliant choice. The jester was every bit as wise, as compassionate, and as insightful as the old king had been. Everyone in the kingdom came to love him.

There was a mystery surrounding the new King, however. Every so often he would retreat to a distant room in the palace, a room to which only he had the key. For a few hours he would lock himself in that room. And then he would return to the throne and resume his duties. What was he doing in that room- Praying, meditating, thinking?  No one knew.

Once an ambassador came from a far-off land. The ambassador spent many hours with the king. He grew to appreciate the king's wisdom and his kindness.

When the ambassador noticed that the king occasionally disappeared into his distant room, he too wondered, "What does the king do in that locked room?" So one day when the king retreated to his room, the ambassador secretly followed behind. When the king closed the door, the ambassador crouched down and peered through the keyhole. There he took in the king's great secret.

In the privacy of the room, the king took off his crown and his royal robes and put on the costume of a jester. Around and around the room he danced the jester's dance, making funny faces and singing the silly songs of a jester. Then he stood before a great mirror and recited to himself: "Never forget who you are. You may look and sound and act like the king, but you are only the jester. You are only the jester pretending to be the king. Never forget who you are."

Now the ambassador understood it all. He understood the source of the king's deep wisdom, kindness, and humility. He vowed his everlasting loyalty to the king. And he vowed to keep the king's secret.

Over the years the king and the ambassador grew close. One day when they were alone, the ambassador confessed what he had done and what he had seen. "I promise you on my life that I will never reveal your secret," he declared. "But there is one thing I have never been able to figure out: Of all the people in the royal court whom the old king could have chosen to succeed him, why did he choose you? Why did he choose the jester?"

The king smiled at his friend and replied, "And who do you think he was before he became king?"

I first heard that story told by Rabbi Ed Feinstein.[1] I remembered it this week as we begin the Book of Exodus and read about Moses' birth and upbringing. Like the Jester in the story, Moses never forgot who he was, and where he came from. Moses was the son of a Hebrew man and woman, the Torah tells us, who was raised in the palace of the Pharaoh from infancy as the son of the Pharaoh's daughter, who drew him out of the waters of the Nile.  How was it possible, growing up in the palace as he did, the grandson of the Pharaoh that he did not identify as an Egyptian?  According to the Torah, his mother, Jocheved, was his nursemaid.  The rabbis speculate that Jocheved must have spent enough time with him in his formative years that she inculcated him with Jewish beliefs and a Jewish identity.  She imbued him with a love and loyalty for his people, so that he never became an Egyptian prince, but remained, at his core, a loyal Jew.

Such is the importance of our education of our children.  Our goal in educating our children is to inculcate in them such a firm sense of who they are that no matter what they become when they grow up – a doctor, a lawyer, a writer, a dancer, a teacher, an architect or engineer, a factory worker or a mechanic – they will never forget that they are Jewish. They will be, at their core, Jewish men and women.  

Shabbat Shalom

 

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[1] It is retold in his book Capturing the Moon: Classic and Modern Jewish Tales Behrman House 2009 from which this story, with modification, is taken.