Repentance and Forgiveness Parsha Shoftim

 

There’s a beautiful Hasidic teaching that says there are five most important mitzvot in the entire Jewish tradition. The first is actually from this week’s portion:

Tamim tihiyeh. Be wholehearted with God. (Deuteronomy 18:13)

Shiviti Adonai. Always place God before you. (Psalms 16:8)

V’ahavta l’reiecha kamocha. Love your neighbor as yourself. (Leviticus 19:18)

B’chol drachecha da’eihu. Wherever you go, recognize God. (Proverbs 3:6)

Hatzneia lechet im Elohecha. Walk humbly with God. (Micah 6:8)

The first letter of each of those teachings — Tov, Shin, Vav, Vet, Heh — spell the Hebrew word, T’shuva, the Jewish concept of Return or Repentance.

This week we begin the month of Elul , the month in which we practice behaviors urging us to return to our holiest selves.

T’shuvah is a step-by-step process of re-engaging with our highest selves, of turning away from negative and destructive tendencies. T’shuvah means embracing that which is good in our nature. T’shuvah is a turning to the virtues of humility, gratitude, generosity, compassion, and loving-kindness.

 The T’shuvah process often begins with a sense of despair, hopelessness, and sadness.  In those moments we feel that we’re forever stuck  and are unable to change the nature, character, or direction of our lives. The story is told of a young Jewish man named Meir, who had strayed from the Jewish faith. He came before Rabbi Israel of Ryzhyn. Rabbi Israel helped him to return to Judaism. A short time later Meir visited with the Rabbi. Rabbi Israel noticed he seemed dejected. “Meir,” my son, “What is troubling you?” asked Rabbi Israel. “If it is your past sins that are bothering you, remember that your repentance made up for everything.” 

Meir replied, “Why should I not be troubled? I keep returning to my old ways over and over. How can I believe that G-d still loves me?” 

Rabbi Israel touched his arm gently and said, “Just as it is our compulsion to sin again and again, so it is G-d’s way and divine compulsion to forgive and pardon again and again.” 

T’shuvah is never easy. It calls for us to be strong of mind, heart, and soul, it calls for us to be willing to suffer failure. We fall, but have the courage to rise and recommit to our struggle -- step-by-step, patiently, one day at a time, one hour at a time, and  one moment at a time. Judaism rejects stagnation, pessimism, and cynicism. Our tradition urges us to overcome those impediments that prevent our personal transformation and the creation of a more hopeful future.

 When successful, T’shuvah enables us to return to our truest selves and overcome the past for the sake of a better future. T’shuvah heals our state of fragmentation and returns us to the person G-d wants us to be. 

 Our parsha for this week contains commandments about our conduct in war. In Deuteronomy 20:19  we read, “When in your war against a city you have to besiege it for a long time to capture it, you must not destroy its trees, for are trees of the field human to withdraw before you into the besieged city?” 

The 13th-century biblical commentator Ibn Ezra interpreted this verse not as a question, but as a statement: “For the human being is a tree of the field.” Which begs the question, “How is a human being like a tree of the field?” What does Ibn Ezra mean? 

 A gardener removes the excess wood from a tree in order to give the tree space, form and light. This strengthens the flow of nourishment to the central branches and gives the tree balance and beauty.

The process of teshuvah works the same way. T’shuvah is about removing the layers that distract, that entangle and that  confuse us. T’shuvah is about getting rid of those aspects that block out the light of our true Self. T’shuvah is about creating harmony, wholeness and peace within the whole of our being.

Shabbat Shalom

 

 

 

 

The Ox and the Donkey Parsha Ki Tetze

 

There are many reasons we have difficulty relating  to the mitzvot that are given in the Torah. Simply put, most of us grew up in urban areas whereas the mitzvot in the Torah were given to people who lived on farms and worked the land. We city dwellers are quite detached from the source of our food. The farmer gets his eggs from the nest and his milk from the barn. He harvests his wheat, and grinds it into flour from which he makes bread. We buy our milk and eggs from the dairy case and our bread comes packaged on the supermarket shelf. I for one have not had personal experiences with agriculture and therefore find the mitzvot related to agriculture in the Torah often difficult to understand. For example, in this week’s parsha we are told that we are prohibited from yoking together a mule and an ox. Do you know what an “ox” is, and how it differs from a cow, a bull or a steer?  I needed to go to the internet to learn that an ox is any cattle over four years old that is trained to do work. An ox can be a cow or a bull, that is, a female or a male, but most often they are “steer”, which is a castrated bull. Farmers castrate the male cattle to make him less aggressive and more amenable to training. I also learned that the farmer needs to teach the ox how to pull a plow and that oxen work in teams. They are trained by a “teamster” who teaches them to follow five verbal commands.  Did you know oxen can learn to follow basic verbal commands? I surely did not know this.  I also learned that  several teams of oxen are used to pull one plow. And that “oxen” not “oxes” is the plural form of ox.

 

That still leaves open the question -- what is wrong with yoking an ox and a mule together? Why would the Torah prohibit that? Having no personal experience in this area I turned to our Biblical commentators. They offer a number of reasons why the Torah prohibits the yoking together of an ox and a mule. 

 

The anonymous  author of Sefer HaChinuh a   the 13th century book, which systematically discusses the 613 commandments, notes that the ox, an animal that chews its cud and has a cloven hoof, is a kosher animal and the donkey, an animal that does not chew its cud and does not have a split hoof, is not a kosher animal. Therefore, G-d does not want these animals, the “pure” and “the impure” working together. 

 

Sefer Chinuch also points out  that the ox is a stronger animal than the donkey, and better suited to the task of plowing. G-d therefore takes pity on these animals, who both might suffer from being yoked together to pull a plow. The ox, having to share the burden of work with the weaker creature, would have to work harder than were he to be joined by a fellow ox. And the donkey, having to work with his far stronger companion, would exhaust himself trying to keep up. 

 

Sefer Chinuch then delves into more psychological reasons for not plowing with an ox and a mule. The author says that animals prefer their own kind. It is not only “birds of a feather that flock together” but all animals prefer to be with their own species. He goes on to extend this insight to human beings. Two people, he says, who are far apart in their temperaments and opinions should never be appointed to perform a task together. It is simply too difficult to get along, to cooperate, to collaborate,   in completing the job at hand.  Sefer Chinuch writes, “If the Torah was strict about the suffering caused for two different species of animal working together that do not have a thinking mind, the same is certainly true for people, who have a thinking soul with which to understand their Creator."

 

A third reason for this prohibition is the sensitivity we need to show animals. Have you ever noticed that when you see a cow it always seems to be chewing something? The reason is that cows must chew their food twice in order to digest it properly. Cows spend nearly eight hours out of every day chewing their cud. (I did not know that either, having never spent 8 hours around a cow).

 

The farmer would of course feed both animals before they went out to work. But the ox would be chewing all the time, which would lead the donkey to think that the ox got more food than he did, or, alternatively, that the ox was always eating on the job! The donkey would think that this was unfair, that the ox was being treated better than he was, and this would demoralize the donkey.

 

There are 74 commandments in this week’s Torah portion, more than any other week in the year. And there are so many commandments in the Torah as a whole that it can be overwhelming. So it is understandable that we focus on the mitzvot that we can relate to: Love your neighbor as yourself, return a lost object when you find it, pay your worker before the sun sets, help the poor and the needy, for example. We therefore tend to ignore or pass over the mitzvot that we cannot relate to, as the one prohibiting plowing with an ox and a donkey together. It is easy to dismiss them or to think they are irrelevant since tractors have long replaced animals for plowing. Or to think they only apply to farmers and not to us suburbanites. But what we find when we study them is that they do relate to us. This mitzvah teaches us about G-d’s compassion for animals and their feelings. This teaches us that even as we need to be sensitive to the needs and feelings of animals, how much more so do we need to be sensitive and compassionate to the needs and feelings of our fellow human beings. 

Shabbat Shalom 

 

Tonight I want to tell you the tale of two disputes. The first is a famous dispute between the conductor Leonard Bernstein and the pianist Glenn Gould. The second is a dispute related in this week’s Torah portion between Moses and Korah.

 

On the evening of  Friday, April 6, 1962, Leonard Bernstein was to conduct the New York Philharmonic in a performance of Brahms D minor Concerto. The guest soloist was Glenn Gould, one of the most celebrated classical pianists of the 20th century. Before the concert began, Mr. Bernstein turned to the audience and spoke to them, something he rarely did.He told the audience that they were about to hear an “unorthodox performance” of Brahms D Minor Concerto, a performance unlike he had ever heard, or even dreamt of. Mr. Gould was going to play the concerto in a way that departed significantly from the way it had traditionally been performed, a way that was incompatible with Mr. Berstein’s own understanding of how it should sound. Sometimes, he explained, a soloist and a conductor have different ideas about how a musical composition is supposed to be performed. But they almost always manage, through persuasion, or charm, or even threats, to achieve a unified performance. This time, however, Mr. Bernstein said, he was forced to submit to Mr. Gould’s wholly new concept of Brahms D Minor Concerto.

 

Why, Leonard Berstein asked, would he have gone along with this? He could, after all, have caused a minor scandal by getting a substitute soloist, or, letting another person conduct! Instead he shared with the audience three reasons for his decision.  First, he said, Glenn Gould was such an accomplished and serious artist that he ought to take anything he conceives in good faith. Second, he found moments in the pianist’s performance that emerged with astonishing freshness and conviction. Third, Glenn Gould brought to music a curiosity, a sense of adventure and a willingness to experiment which Mr. Bernstein admired. Maestro Bernstein felt that everyone in the audience  could  learn something from hearing the concerto as performed by Glenn Gould. With that introduction, Mr. Bernstein went on to conduct Brahms Concerto in D Minor with Glenn Gould as the piano soloist, doing it Mr. Gould’s way.

 

The second story is in this week’s parasha which  relates the dispute between Moses and Korah. Korah, Moses' first cousin, is jealous that Aaron has been appointed High Priest.  To compound the issue, another cousin, Elitzafan, has been chosen as the head of the clan to which Korah belongs. Korah incites a revolt that challenges Moses’ leadership. Moses tries to reason with Korah and his followers, but they refuse to talk to him. The episode ends in tragedy, as Korah and his followers are swallowed up by the earth.

 

 These two stories raise the question of how we deal with disagreements, both personal and societal. Does one side have to win, and the other be destroyed, as in the Biblical story of Korah and his rebellion? Or is there a way to listen to one another with respect and understanding, even though, in the end, there is still no room for compromise, as in the story of Bernstein and Gould. The Maestro, after all, ended up performing the piece precisely Glenn Gould’s way. Yet no one was destroyed, their relationship endured, the audience was treated to an original  interpretation  of the Concerto and both parties went on to illustrious careers. 

 

Here we can learn something from the philosopher Sir Isaiah Berlin. He rejects “relativism”, the idea that every side to a dispute has equal truth and equal validity. The relativist claims that there is no “absolute truth” -- every opinion is equally true. The relativist claims that there is no “true” and “false” when it comes to beliefs and opinions. Rather, Isaiah Berlin favors a way of viewing disputes that he calls “pluralism”. A pluralistic understanding of disputes is that honest people, through their reasoning can attain  many different understandings of the” truth.” I can maintain that my view is “the truth” yet still respect those who have come to a different idea of “the truth”  arrived at through a sincere and thoughtful process. They may not share my understanding of the truth, but I can still respect them and be friendly with them. I do not need to destroy them, insult them, or delegitimize them. They are my fellow disputants, not my mortal enemies. I may even learn a thing or two from them! 

 

The Talmud is full of disputes like this. The Talmud records all  the opinions of the Rabbis on various sides of a dispute for posterity. The most famous of these are the disputes between the School of Hillel and the School of Shammai. In exploring the Bible to determine how G-d wants us to live our lives, they often come to diametrically opposite conclusions. In other words, two opposing “truths' '!  Most of the time, we live our lives according to the opinions of Hillel. But, say the rabbis, that does not mean that the opinions of Shammai are not to be respected. They are to be preserved. One day, the opinions of Hillel may be put aside and we will govern our lives according to the opinions of Shammai. The opinions of Hillel may  be true only for our time! 

 

Both Hillel and Shammai and Bernstein and Gould model what we can call “healthy controversy”. This can take place only when we approach a dispute or debate with intellectual honesty and a desire to truly listen, with understanding, to the “truth” of others. A healthy controversy can only take place when we refrain from denigrating or insulting one another. It can only take place when we are motivated by a true desire to engage the other, and not with the goal to devalue, demean,  embarrass or overpower the other with our” brilliance” and rhetorical mastery. The rabbis call these healthy controversies “disputes for the sake of heaven”. May all of our controversies be …..”For the Sake of Heaven”.

Shabbat Shalom

Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash

 

Half Empty or Half Full?

I have heard it said that a pessimistic person thinks that the glass is half empty. The optimistic person says that the glass is half full. And the hopeful person says, “You may be using  the wrong glass!”

In this week’s parasha the Israelites are poised to enter the Land of Canaan. Although it is popularly believed that the Israelites wandered in the desert for 40 years, this is not the whole story. After leaving Egypt the Israelite camped at Mt. Sinai for about one year where they received the Torah and assembled the Mishkah. Then, they pulled up camp and, just a few months later, they were prepared to enter Canaan. Moses sends 12 spies to reconnoiter the land. They have two missions. The first is to assess the strength of the Canaanites who inhabited the land. The second is to investigate the geography and fertility of the land itself. After 40 days the spies return with their report. I imagine that when the spies met with Moses  the conversation went something like this:

Spies:  “Well, Moses, we have some good news and some bad news,” said ten of the spies, who we will call “the pessimists.”

“Mainly good news,” interrupted Joshua and Caleb, the optimists.

“Which would you like first?” said the pessimists.

“Give me the good news,” said Moses hopefully.

“The land is indeed ‘flowing with milk and honey’. It is a good land. It is fertile. It can easily sustain our population for generations to come. There is plenty of room to grow and prosper”.

“And the bad news?” asked Moses warily.

“There is no bad news,” said the optimists.

“The bad news,“  continued the pessimists, “is that the Canaanites who live there are very powerful. They live in walled cities. They are well practiced in the art of war. We don’t have a chance against them.”

“It is true that they are powerful and well-defended,” countered the optimists. But we can overcome them. We must enter the land now, and defeat them!”

As we know, the pessimists carried the day. Word got out about their dire assessment, and the People of Israel began to panic. The Israelites threatened to rebel against Moses and appoint new leaders who would guide them back to the safety of Egypt. In their fear, they forgot what slavery was like.

Moses had a crisis on his hands. So Moses did what Moses does when he confronts a crisis. He consults G-d. Moses had never seen G-d so frustrated. In fact, G-d was in the process of scrapping his old plans and drawing up new ones, which He was quite eager to share with Moses. G-d’s new plan was to rip up the covenant with the Jewish people, send pestilence in their midst, wipe them out to a man, and make a new covenant with Moses and his descendants.  It might take a little longer, but G-d was determined to fulfill His promise to Abraham and Sarah that the Land of Canaan would belong to the Jewish people.

Moses, the man of hope, countered. G-d had traveled too far down this path with the People of Israel to turn back now. To destroy them at this point in the game and start all over with Moses’ descendants would irreparably damage G-d’s reputation among the nations of the world who had heard of the Exodus from Egypt.  People would say, argued Moses, that the same G-d who performed signs and wonders and brought the People out of Egypt was powerless to bring them into the Land of Canaan!  Moreover, Moses reminds G-d of something that apparently G-d Himself had forgotten. Remember, G-d, You Yourself said You were “slow to anger”. You yourself said you were “abounding in kindness”.  You yourself said you were “forgiving”!  “G-d,” I imagine Moses saying, “I can hardly recognize You!”

Moses, the man of hope, carried the day. G-d relented, forgave, and developed a new plan that would delay the Israelite entrance into the Land of Canaan for another 38 years. By then, reasoned G-d, the people would be ready to see the glass half full. 

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, of blessed memory, discerns another difference between a person who is optimistic and a person who has hope. He writes, “One of the most important distinctions I have learned in the course of reflection on Jewish history is the difference between optimism and hope. Optimism is the belief that things will get better. Hope is the belief that, together, we can make things better. Optimism is a passive virtue, hope an active one. It takes no courage to be an optimist, but it takes a great deal of courage to have hope. Knowing what we do of our past, no Jew can be an optimist. But Jews have never – despite a history of sometimes awesome suffering – {Jews have never]  given up hope”.

To that we can all say, AMEN! 

Photo by manu schwendener on Unsplash

 

Time to Move Forward

Silver trumpets from King
Tut's tomb. 1326BCE

This week’s Torah portion introduces us to two objects that were of great importance  to the Israelites as they  traveled through the wilderness. Both are made of precious metals, the first of gold, the second of silver. Both were to be made by hammering, a process of shaping metals into forms. The first of these objects is the Menorah. It was to be made of hammered gold. The second were two trumpets. They were to be made of hammered silver.

What is the connection between the menorah and the two trumpets? The 16th century Kabbalist, Rabbi Isaac Luria, suggests that the three branches on either side of the stalk of the menorah represent scientific and academic knowledge, whereas the stalk in the center represents the light of the Torah. This teaches us that science and religion are not rivals. They are both gifts of G-d. They shed light on one another and together illuminate our world. Thus, the menorah is the physical representation of the Divine light, as when we say, in the priestly blessing, “May G-d shine His light upon you..” In this blessing, we are asking G-d to guide us by illuminating our path through life. We might stumble in our steps moving forward without G-d’s guidance. 

The two silver trumpets represent another way of moving forward. When both trumpets are blown in long blasts, the entire community is to gather at the Tent of Meeting. When only one is blown, it is a signal for only the leaders to assemble. But if both are blown in short blasts, the entire People of Israel are to move forward.

But the trumpets are not only used to rouse the people. They are used to arouse G-d as well!  In wartime, the trumpets are sounded to alert G-d that Israel is in trouble, and on festivals the trumpets are sounded to remind G-d that the Jewish people are faithfully observing the holidays. 

So there we have it! The menorah is used to remind the Jewish people of G-d’s presence, whereas the trumpets are used to remind G-d of our presence!  The light of the Menorah is a reminder that G-d’s light is always with us. This is the light, as I said earlier, of friendship and love,  of knowledge and wisdom. It is the light of justice, truth and peace. Whereas we see the light, G-d hears the trumpets.  When G-d hears the trumpets G-d will know we are in danger and come to our aid. When we sound the trumpets on our festivals, it is a reminder to G-d that we are standing before our Sovereign, and that G-d should take notice.  

While the light of the menorah reminds us of the Presence of G-d in our lives, the blast of the trumpet signifies that we must take action and move forward in accordance with that light. The trumpet represents human agency, the need to move, to act decisively when summoned by the times. We need both the Presence of G-d in our lives as well as our own strength to meet the challenges of our times. When the Covid 19 crisis arose, many saw it as  “the defining moment of our generation” -- an enormous, disruptive event that will shape our lives for years to come. As we emerge from this crisis, we, as a Jewish community, will have to find our way forward. Jewish leaders all around the world are asking how this pandemic  will affect our communities, for better and for worse, in the coming years.

It is time to blast the trumpets once again, as we leave the Covid era behind and move forward into a world that has been greatly changed. Through our awareness of G-d’s presence, symbolized by the menorah, and through our ability to come together and advance as one, symbolized by the trumpets, we will surely meet the challenges of the future successfully.

Shabbat Shalom 

 

Who Counts?

Jewish tradition seems to be very ambivalent about counting. On the one hand, the Psalms teach us to “number our days, so that we may attain a heart of wisdom”. We are currently in a period where we count the number of days between Passover and Shavuot -- the “sefirat ha-omer”. And in this week’s Torah portion, Bamidbar, Moses takes a census of the Jewish people. On the other hand, it is a Jewish custom that when a small number of people show up for a service, and we want to count them to see if we have a minyan, we don’t count them directly. Rather, we go “not one, not two, not three, etc.” Perhaps this is a superstition related to the story told in the Book of Samuel. In that book, King David is directed by G-d to take a census of the people. Something goes terribly wrong, and the result is a plague where, we are told, 70,000 Israelites die! Rabbi Eleazar of the Talmud concludes that whoever counts Israelites directly is violating a Torah commandment. The medieval commentator Rashi maintains that whoever counts Israelites individually triggers the evil eye”. Perhaps they have in mind another way of taking a census. In the Book of Exodus Moses counts the Israelites by having each male contribute a coin to a general fund. Moses then counts the coins. People are counted indirectly. Nobody dies. Everyone is safely counted. 

Counting people, even today, especially today, can be misleading. In the current conflict in Israel, we hear, and will  continue to hear, about  the disproportionate number of casualties on each side. The media, social and otherwise, will portray Israel as using her superior power to inflict disproportionate harm on the civilian population of Gaza . But numbers can be misleading. What you will not hear is that Hamas indiscriminately targets Israeli civilians. For them, each Israeli killed, be it adult or child, is a victory. Israel, on the other hand, goes out of her way to avoid killing civilians. Israel alerts residents to leave their homes before they bomb their buildings. Israeli bombing only targets the Hamas terrorists, their infrastructure and their bomb making facilities.   Not surprisingly the terrorists hide among Gazan civilians, and launch their missiles from apartment buildings and day care centers. Civilians are put in harm’s way by their own rulers. For Israel, each civilian in Gaza that is killed is a tragedy. 

There is another kind of counting that we will be hearing more about in the weeks and months ahead. A new Pew Research Institute study of American Jews counted 7.5 million American Jews -- 5.8 million adults and 1.8 million children. This represents 2.5% of the American population. Among other findings:

75% of Jews said there was more antisemitism in America now than there was 5 years ago.

We are wealthier and better educated than the American population as a whole. Over half of adults have a college or post graduate degree, compared to 30% of Americans overall. 

Intermarriage is common in the Jewish community. Nearly three-quarters of non-Orthodox Jews who married since 2010 wed non-Jews. But well over half of those couples are raising their children with a Jewish identity. 

76% of Jews believe remembering the Holocaust is essential to being Jewish. A similar number said the same of leading an ethical and moral life. But only 33% of those surveyed responded that being part of a Jewish community was essential to being Jewish. 

Counting can be enlightening or misleading. The Pew Research Study gives us a snapshot of today’s American Jewish community and can point to where American Jewry has been successful. The numbers can help Jewish institutions plan for the future if interpreted correctly. 

But numbers can be misleading as well. Although there are those who will tell us differently, simply counting the number of casualties inflicted by the combatants in a conflict tells us very little about the  motivations,  the historical context and the moral principles  of each side. In the coming days the world will undoubtedly focus on the mounting casualties in Gaza. The world will look at the numbers and see that far more Palestinians have died than Israelis. Many will use that number as the sole criterion as to who is the aggressor and who is the victim. 

The most important number is one. Every single innocent Palestinian who dies, every single innocent Israeli who dies, is a tragedy. As the rabbis teach us, no one person’s blood is redder than another.

Let us pray for a speedy end to this conflict. Let us pray for Israelis and Palestinians to find a way forward to a permanent peace. 

Our cantor will now lead us in our Prayer for Peace.

[photo credit: Manik Roy on unsplash.com]

Reflection on the Lag BaOmer Tragedy in Israel

 

Our Parasha for this week, Emor,  lists all  the festivals we are to observe throughout the year. The Torah first lists Shabbat, then the other festivals -- Passover, Shavuot, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur,Sukkot, and Shemini Atzeret. 

The Torah refers to these times as “Moadim”, the Hebrew word which we translate as “Festivals”. The root of the word “moadim” are the letters “yud” “ayin” “dalet” י-ע-ד which means “to appoint”. The “Moadim” are the “appointed times” for Jews to gather in worship. In Hebrew the three letter root “yud-ayin-dalet'' יעד can be used with reference to either a time,  a place, or the people who gather. Thus, an “edah” עדה, or “congregation” is “a group of people assembled together for an appointment -- that is, a special purpose”. The “ohel moed” אוהל מועד of the Torah is the tabernacle, the tent where Moses has his appointments with G-d. Shabbat and Festivals are also called “moadim מועדים because these are appointed times for the Jewish people to gather. In modern Hebrew a “clubhouse” is called a “moadon”, מועדון a place of gathering. 

In this section of the Torah we are also commanded to count forty nine days starting with the day after Passover. These are the days leading up to Shavuot.  As you know, this counting is referred to as “Sefirat Ha-Omer”. This period is also a time of semi-mourning. According to tradition, an entire generation of Rabbi Akiva’s students died in a pandemic during this time in the 2nd century of the common era. In memory of this, traditional Jews do not cut their hair once Passover starts, and do not attend events with live music or dancing. Nor do we  perform weddings during this time -- all signs of mourning. However, the 33rd day of the counting of the Omer -- Lag Ba-omer -- is a time of rejoicing. That was the day when the pandemic stopped. It is traditional to get a haircut on that day, perform weddings and engage in celebrations. In Israel people all over the country light bonfires and hundreds of thousands make a pilgrimage to Mount Meron in Israel to visit the tomb of the famous Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, who, according to tradition, is the author of the Zohar, the basis of the Jewish mystical tradition called Kaballah. 

As you have by now likely heard, yesterday’s celebration of Lag Ba-omer in Israel turned into a horrific tragedy. Instead of our mourning turning into joy, our joy turned into mourning.  Last year, the celebration of Lag Ba-omer on Mt. Meron was cancelled due to the Coronavirus. This year, with the situation in Israel improving,  tens of thousands of Israelis traveled to Mount Meron finally free to celebrate as they had in the past. The government had deployed thousands of police to ensure safety. Yet, for some reason, still unclear, a panic broke out and in the ensuing stampede 48 people were killed and hundreds injured. It is already being called Israel’s worst peacetime disaster. This evening we mourn the dead and pray for the physical and psychological healing of those who were injured, their families and the entire community. 

As the tragedy in Israel shows us, it is not always going to be “smooth sailing” as we emerge from the Pandemic and try to resume our normal lives. We may experience setbacks, stumbling blocks, a bit of trouble, although heaven forbid, nothing of the magnitude that occurred in Israel. Things may not go as we hope. Perhaps we can learn something about resilience from the catastrophe that befell Rabbi Akiva’s students back in the  2nd century. With the death of so many so far back  there was a grave danger that the Torah would be forgotten among the people of Israel. Yet despite his advanced age at the time, Rabbi Akiva began to teach anew, though he would never again have the 24,000 students he had spent a lifetime cultivating. The Talmud tells us that Rabbi Akiva was able to teach just  five -- Rabbi Meir, Rabbi Yehudah, Rabbi Yosi, Rabbi Shimon and Rabbi Elazar ben Shamuah -- but from these five Torah education was able to rebuild and  flourish once again in the Land of Israel.

As we emerge from this Pandemic may we too rebuild,  may we too reorganize, may we too reset  and once again worship together on the Sabbaths and the Moadim -- our appointed times.

Shabbat Shalom