The Fire Then and Now

Shmini

 Lev. 9:1-11:47

 

Précis:  On the final day of the week-long ordination ceremony, Moses instructs Aaron and his sons on the proper rituals. Aaron makes his offering. Aaron’s sons Nadab and Abihu offer “strange fire” before God. They are slain. Moses tells Aaron that he must not engage in normal mourning rituals. The Priests are prohibited from drinking alcohol while they are engaged in their sacred duties.  Next, God tells Moses and Aaron to instruct the people about the animals they are permitted to eat (part of the laws of kashrut). A general warning to guard against defilement and to be concerned about ritual purity is given.

 

Lev. 10:1-2 “And Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censer, and put fire in them, and laid incense on them, and offered strange fire before Adonai, which He had not commanded them. And there came forth fire from before Adonai, and devoured them…”

 

In this verse, we read about the death of Aaron’s sons by fire. During the past week, we observed Yom HaShoah  – Holocaust Remembrance Day. There is indeed an obvious connection, when so many died by fire (and other means). Nadab and Abihu died for inexplicable reasons, and as I have pointed out in prior years, the Sages are at odds as to the rationale for their deaths.

On the other hand, those who died in the Holocaust were killed for a simple, obvious reason: they were Jews. I wanted to share the following excerpt from Unsettled: An Anthropology of the Jews by Melvin Konner (Viking Compass, 2003), which I first shared almost twenty years ago.

During the Holocaust, he notes that Jews continued to ask their religious leaders questions of appropriate ritual and ethical actions. One authority, Rabbi Ephraim Oshry of Lithuania, buried his notes in tin cans; they were retrieved after the war and published. These pronouncements on Halacha (Jewish Law) reveal the importance of ritual, even from the depths of Hell. They also reveal the pragmatism of religious authority in a time of unbelievable stress. The following are excerpts from his rulings:

He ruled that critically ill patients were forbidden to fast on Yom Kippur.

 

He ruled that a Sukkah could be built with boards stolen from the Germans, and that tzitit could be made from stolen wool.

 

He ruled that garments of martyrs could be worn by survivors.

 

He ruled that contraception and abortion were permissible in the ghetto, since pregnancy was punishable by death.

 

He ruled that under extreme constraint one could eat in the presence of a corpse.

 

He ruled that the daily blessing thanking God ‘for who has not made me a slave’ could be recited by slave laborers because the freedom meant was spiritual, not physical.

 

He ruled that the risk of putting a mezuzah on a doorpost of a ghetto home need not be taken, because the dwellings were temporary.

 

He ruled that a man whose left arm had been cut off for stealing food could have someone else put tefillin on his right arm.

He ruled that a ghetto prisoner could risk death by attempting to join the partisans in the forest.

 

A boy asked if he might be permitted to don tefillin, although his Bar Mitzvah was  three months away, since there was a good chance that the Germans would murder him before that time. ‘Tears gushed from my eyes…I ruled that the precious child who had such a great desire to merit the privilege of fulfilling the mitzvah because he feared that he might not live to fulfill it if he waited to reach 13, certainly had authorization.’

 

The rabbi did in fact survive the war, and afterwards, in another ruling, he stated that it was prohibited for a survivor to remove the camp tattoo, because to do so it would help fulfill the wish of the Nazis that their efforts to exterminate the Jews be forgotten.

           

            When we remember those lost in the Holocaust, we sanctify their memory. When we look at the pragmatic and heart-felt decisions of Rabbi Oshry, we understand that the events which threaten us – be they from other humans or from deadly viruses - must be considered as we engage in the rituals which bind one generation to the next.

 

Crumbles and Perfection

 Shabbat Chol Moed Passover

Ex. 33:12-34:26

 

            On the Shabbat which takes place during Passover, we omit the regular Torah reading and instead chant this particular section from Exodus. To set the stage, the Israelites had danced before the Golden Calf, and Moses had shattered the tablets. He prays for the salvation of the Jewish People, and returns 40 days later with a second set of tablets. As Rabbi Hertz notes in his Chumash, on his return, Moses also brings to the Jewish People the Thirteen Attributes of God, which we all recall from the frequent repetitions on Yom Kippur.

            “… ‘Adonai! Adonai! a God compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in kindness and faithfulness, extending kindness to the thousandth generation, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin—yet not remitting all punishment, but visiting the iniquity of parents upon children and children’s children, upon the third and fourth generations.”  

            Rabbi Plaut in his Chumash notes that while God had previously been shown as a creator, a father of the patriarchs, a protector of Israel, and as jealous of other gods, here we are shown the entire range of God’s attributes.

            As he also notes, the exact meaning and scope of these attributes has been the focus of debate among Jewish scholars and theologians for centuries. Maimonides pointed to the disagreements and proclaimed that the essence of God was truly unknowable.

            Among the enumerated attributes are those we certainly seek to emulate: compassionate sympathy to suffering, helpful concern, slowness to anger, abounding in kindness and truth. These are important in our lives as members of a civil society.

            The final two attributes might be of even more importance to parents: forgiving iniquity and transgression, but not remitting all punishment. There are limits to God’s mercy, and there must be limits to our own, to our children and to those who do wrong in our world.

            Let me make one further note. As noted in Etz Hayim, while the original set of tablets were fashioned by the Hand of God alone, the second set was carved by Moses at God’s direction. This was more of a collaborative effort, and implies an understanding of human weakness.

            One of the lessons of our recently completed Seders is the importance of involving all of those at the Seder table in a way in which they can best contribute. In our families, the lessons of this week’s special reading and of the Seder join to remind us that we all need to collaborate with each other, to work together for common good, to overcome the inherent human weakness which can afflict all of us, and join our unique and individual strengths.

            The second set of tablets was placed in the Ark along with the crumbled remains of the first. Here’s another metaphor: we dream of perfection while we live with the knowledge of our imperfection. We can find peace in the contest between our dream and our reality by acknowledging the need for God’s and our own compassion. I hope your holiday concludes with great joy.