Shabbat Shalom Weekly (draft)

Torah Portion:  Naso

Joining Up With the Jewish People
by Rabbi Yehuda Appel

A few years ago, Vitaly, a Russian Jew living in Minsk, faced the difficult decision of whether or not to undergo a circumcision. After expressing his fear to some American friends, they tried to reassure him by saying that after a couple of days the pain would subside.

Vitaly looked at them askance — because it wasn’t the physical pain that had given him pause. Rather, he said, becoming circumcised was putting his life at risk. “You see,” he explained, “it was a circumcision that identified my grandfather as being Jewish — and the Nazis shot him on the spot. Given the uncertain circumstances in Russia today, I may well be putting my life at risk if I undergo a circumcision.”

Vitaly’s friends were shaken by his reply, and asked him why did he not simply leave Russia? Vitaly replied, “Because of my attachment to family and friends.”

Vitaly’s willingness to risk physical danger in order to remain with family and friends has been echoed countless times in Jewish history. As well, this idea is illustrated in this week’s Torah portion, Be’halot’cha.

A major figure in the Parsha is Yitro, the father-in-law of Moses. Prior to his association with Moses, Yitro had served as High Priest for the nation of Midian. Then Yitro heard about the many miracles God had performed for the Israelites in coming out of Egypt. So he journeyed with the Israelite encampment, became an advisor to Moses, and reached such a position of prominence that the Torah portion which recounts the giving of the Torah ­– Parshat Yitro — is named after him.

Yet despite all of these factors, there came a time when Yitro decided to return home. “I want to go to my land, to my birthplace,” he told Moses (Numbers 10:30). This decision appears shocking, given that Yitro knew the truth of the Living God and had seen many miracles. How could Yitro abandon the Israelite camp and return home?!

Most commentaries explain that Yitro only wanted to take a physical – not a moral – leave of the Jewish People. Yitro had converted to Judaism and his intention was to return home and convert his family and fellow Midianites to Judaism before returning to the Israelite encampment. Buttressing this view is some later scriptural evidence that Yitro’s offspring did in fact become Jewish and actually became prominent leaders among the Israelites.

Some commentaries, however, say that Yitro intended to permanently leave the Israelites. These sources offer three different reasons for Yitro‘s motives:

The first says that just as love of family and friends will convince people nowadays to stay in situations of danger, so too Yitro’s love of family drew him back to the spiritual danger of life in Midian. (We saw this illustrated earlier with Vitaly, the Russian Jew.)

A second view says it was Yitro’s desire for wealth and honor that motivated him to return home. In the Israelite camp, his importance would always be overshadowed by Moses, his son-in-law. The tangible riches that he possessed at home were more attractive than the ill-defined prospects he might receive with the Israelites.

A third view takes an entirely different perspective. This view says that given the Israelites constant complaining in the desert — and the revolts against Moses — Yitro questioned the value of staying with the Israelites. Just how much patience could the Almighty have with such a people? Yitro desired to distance himself from this swarming beehive.

Perhaps this final lesson is most applicable today, when Jews are too-often arguing with each other – both in Israel and elsewhere. By doing so, aren’t we showing young Jews the negative side of Judaism and pushing them away? If this is Judaism, they say, then I don’t want any part of it!

Let us learn a lesson from Yitro, and undertake to realize that peace amongst Jews is a vital condition for the health and preservation of our people.

 

Consistency and Faithfulness
by Rabbi Zev Leff

“When the Ark would travel, Moses would say, ‘Arise God, and let Your foes be scattered, let those who hate You flee from before You.’ And when it rested, he would say, ‘Return, God, to the myriad thousands of Israel.’ ” (Numbers 10:35-36)

According to one opinion in the Talmud (Shabbos 116a), these two verses are set off by inverted nun letters, to constitute a break between three episodes in which the Jewish people sinned.

The first of the three episodes (according to Tosafos and Nachmanides) was when the Jewish people left Mount Sinai “as children who flee from school,” i.e., relieved that they would receive no more mitzvot. Later, after traveling without stop for three days, the people complained and bemoaned the frantic pace at which God was driving them. The third of their sins was complaining about the manna and demanding meat.

Since a threefold repetition constitutes a pattern in Jewish law, the Torah did not record these three events in succession, without a break in between. Still to be explained, however, is why the division falls between the first two episodes and not between the second and the third.

To answer this last question, we must understand the importance of consistency in our service of God. When Joseph revealed himself to his brothers with the words, “I am Joseph; is my father still alive?” the brothers were so overwhelmed that they could not answer him. The Midrash comments, “Woe to us from the Day of Judgment and the day of reproof, for if the brothers could not answer the rebuke of Joseph, their younger brother, how much more so will we be overwhelmed by God’s reproof when He in the future rebukes each one according to his deeds.”

Bais HaLevi explains that the essence of Joseph’s rebuke was pointing out the inconsistency of their actions. Until the moment Joseph revealed himself, Yehudah was pleading with Joseph to take into account the suffering of their aged father and therefore free Benjamin. To this Joseph replied, “I am Joseph. Where was your concern for our father’s pain and sorrow when you sold me and convinced him that I was dead? Is he still alive after that? When it is convenient, you are concerned with our father’s welfare, and when it serves your purposes, you are oblivious.”
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FISHING EXPERTISE

The Midrash (Tana D’vei Eliyahu) records a similar instance of rebuke. Elijah the Prophet found himself mocked by an ignorant boor, who did not even know the aleph-bet. Elijah asked the man if he did not fear for the day the Heavenly Court would ask him why he did not learn Torah.

The man replied that he was not afraid because he was not given the intelligence to learn and therefore could not be blamed. Elijah then asked him to describe how he made his living, and the man commenced an animated description of how he made fishing nets and set them out in the most efficient possible fashion.

At the end of this discussion, Elijah told him, “For fishing you have wisdom, and for Torah, which is even more crucial to life, you do not?” Immediately the man burst into tears at the realization that he had refuted himself.

Elijah concluded by pointing out how rampant is such inconsistency. There are those who will plead before the Heavenly Court that they were not given the means to give tzedakah, charity. They will be shown how for their own personal pleasures the money was somehow found. Others will defend their lack of Torah study on the grounds that they were too busy making a living. They will be shown the time spent doing nothing or in idle chatter. There is no more telling refutation of all our excuses than those we ourselves provide.

RULES OF SCRUTINY

The ideal service of God is described as “all your days” – without interruption, with consistency and constancy (Ibn Ezra to Deut. 19:9). The Talmud (Brachot 6a) says that if someone comes regularly to shul and one day is absent, God inquires as to his absence, and if he has no acceptable excuse, he is punished. The person who never attends shul is not scrutinized in the same manner, for he has never exhibited the capacity to attend regularly.

We can now understand why the Torah separated between the eager departure of the Jewish people from Sinai and their complaints about the swift pace at which they were moving. When the Jewish people ran to avoid a proliferation of additional mitzvot, God observed, “My children, if you have the energy to run from Mount Sinai, let us harness that energy and direct your running to your final destination, Israel.”

Immediately the Jewish people complained that they lacked the strength and stamina to run. That was the ultimate self-condemnation – inconsistency. To run from Torah you have the stamina, and yet to run to Israel you lack that same capacity. To minimize the inconsistency involved, the Torah distinguished between these two episodes.

THE LETTER ‘NUN’

The letter nun represents faithfulness and consistency (Talmud – Shabbos 31a). The inverted nuns, therefore, represent inconsistency and self-contradiction.

The two verses set off by the inverted nuns describe the antidote to that inconsistency. When Moses saw the Cloud of Glory begin to ascend and depart, signaling God’s desire that the Jewish people resume their journey, he proclaimed “Arise, God.” This proclamation was a confirmation of God’s will and an expression of Moses’ desire to subjugate his desires to God’s. Similarly, when the Ark came to rest, Moses again proclaimed, “Return, God….”

Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch comments that this parsha marks the end of one epoch of Jewish history and the beginning of another, leading to the sin of the spies and culminating in the destruction of the Temple and exile. The root of all this misfortune was the inability to be consistent in our service of God.

May we strive to correct this flaw so that the inverted nuns are once more made upright, as they are in the ultimate expression of total devotion. Then we will merit two other words that also begin with “be comforted, My nation,” with the ultimate Divine redemption.

 

Keep Your Distance
by Nesanel Yoel Safran

From This Week’s Torah Portion

Certain things we just know aren’t good for us, but we’re tempted to do them anyhow. Is there any way to keep ourselves in control? This week’s Torah portion teaches a valuable tool to help us succeed.

It tells us about a nazir — a person who decided that it wasn’t good for him to drink any wine and who therefore made a vow not to do it. But once he did so, not only did he avoid wine, but even grape juice, vinegar, or any other grape product. Human nature is such that we can easily slip when we are around something close to what we want to avoid. And this is why the nazir stayed away from any grape drink even though he really only wanted to avoid wine. We can learn from this to make “protective fences” in our own lives to help us live the way we want to and stay away from the things that aren’t good for us.

In our story, two boys learn why it makes sense to keep distance from some things…

Gary and Jon considered themselves a self-appointed spy team. Their mission was to explore every nook and cranny of the “Easy Acres” bungalow colony where they were spending the summer with their family.

They discovered old tucked away stacks of lounge-chairs, a huge lost-and-found pile that seemed to have been started 20 years earlier, and countless other hidden treasures on the various “spy operations.”

Their dad seemed amused by their “missions,” but he warned them not to get into anything dangerous.

One morning the boys stumbled upon their greatest discovery of the summer. While playing ping-pong in the recreation hall, Gary spotted what looked like a doorway tucked behind a group of stacked up tables. With a conspiratorial look he signaled to his brother and pointed. Jon got the message right away and then when no one was looking the boys snuck into the corner. They tested the door, found that it was unlocked, and discovered pay dirt.

It was an unknown secret entrance to the colony’s indoor swimming pool! It was right in the middle of the “No Swimming” hours and not a soul was around. The boys made their way into the dimly lit complex when Jon tapped his brother on the shoulder. “Okay, let’s get out of here,” he said.

“Why?” asked Gary, eyeing the huge pool. “We’ve only begun to spy!” he smiled.

“I’m serious,” said Jon. “There are signs all over the place that say no one’s allowed in this area during “No Swimming” hours. What about what dad said? We could get in trouble, or worse.”

But Gary wouldn’t relent. “All they care about is that nobody goes into the pool, and we’re not, are we?” Jon shrugged. “So why should we have to stay out of the whole area? Maybe the pool is dangerous but the area around it isn’t. What’s wrong if we just spy around a bit? Hey, come see this diving board, it looks brand new!”

The boys climbed out onto the board. Sure enough it was new, so new that it hadn’t been properly fastened onto the pool yet.

SPLASH!

The weight of the boys caused it to tip them right into the pool. Fortunately they were both good swimmers and they scrambled out of the pool, scared but okay.

Without bothering to check if the coast was clear, they ran back out the “secret” door they had come in through. But to the boys’ dismay they practically ran smack into a group of adults, including their father and the lifeguard who had just come in to the recreation hall.

Sure enough, the “spies” were caught and sentenced to a week of no swimming.

That week ended up being the hottest of the summer. As they sat outside the pool area and heard the sounds of their friends having some nice cool fun, they learned a big lesson in how to read the signs.

Discussion Questions

Ages 3-5

Q. How did Gary feel when his brother told him that they should leave the swimming pool area?
A. He didn’t want to leave. He felt since only the pool itself was dangerous, there wasn’t any reason to leave the whole area.

Q. Is it okay just to get near something we know is dangerous?
A. No. We should keep our distance to be sure we don’t get hurt.

Ages 6-9

Q. Imagine that if in our story the boys hadn’t fallen into the pool and had snuck out safely without anyone noticing them. Do you think that would have proven that the rule of keeping out of the pool area was unreasonable? Why or why not?
A. Those who made the rule didn’t assume that everyone who disobeyed was going to fall into the pool and get hurt. In fact, they realized that most people probably wouldn’t. But since the risk was high and the potential consequences were so serious, they reasonably decided to make the rule as a protective fence to keep their campers safe.

Q. When we are considering doing something risky, how can we decide whether it is worth taking the chance or not?
A. In situations such as these, we can ask ourselves “What do I have to gain and what do I have to lose?” Often it becomes very clear whether the risk is worth it or not. Had the boys in the story asked themselves this question when deciding whether to spy out the pool area they would likely have decided not to since there was little to gain and much to lose.

Q. Can you think of anything important enough to you that you protect with a fence?

Ages 10 and Up

Q. The nazir chose to abstain from certain things in order to reach a higher spiritual level which would bring him greater pleasure. How can it be that restrictions are able to bring pleasure?
A. We all have goals — things we know will give us the greatest pleasure and satisfaction. However, along the way, there are often temptations that can sidetrack us. It can be that if we give in to these, we will never reach our real goal. So we wisely choose to restrict ourselves and abstain from these temptations as a way to reach the greater pleasure of our genuine goal.

Q. Why would a person who wanted to abstain from wine have to give up eating grapes which aren’t even alcoholic?
A. The human psyche can work in some very interesting ways. When there is something we clearly want to avoid, then even harmless things that are associated with it can draw us into doing that which we don’t want to. It is not farfetched for a person’s psyche to tell himself after eating a grape, “So what if I have some grape juice, they’re just crushed grapes?” And then a while later, “Isn’t wine just grape juice which has sat around and fermented?” And before he knows it, he’s done exactly what he didn’t want to. For this reason, the Torah asks us to “make fences” to help us to live the way we truly want to.

Q. Can you think of anything important enough to you that you protect with a fence?

 

Quote of the Week

“People often avoid making decisions out of fear of making a mistake. Actually the failure to make decisions is one of life’s biggest mistakes” – Rabbi Noah Weinberg