Parashat Tzav

Parashat Tzav

Nissan 12, 5773 ~ March 23, 2013

by Rabbi Akiva Naiman

Money Matters

 

As part of the inauguration of the Mishkan, Moshe poured the blood of an offering on the Mizbeach “to atone for it.” What atonement was necessary? Rashi explains that the meaning is “to invest it with the power to provide atonement.” Sifra, however takes the stance that there was a literal atonement necessary here. Sifra explains that there might have been people who were guilted into contributing money for the Mishkan, who didn’t really want to give. If so, the money they handed over was not given freely, and in some small way could be considered stolen. Moshe pouted the blood to atone for any such “theft.”

Isn’t that incredible? Think about it. They had only recently stood at Har Sinai, where they had all heard Hashem’s voice. They had all screamed “We will do and we will listen!” They were all clear that their whole purpose was to be tied up in their relationship with Hashem. Yet there was a good chance that some people could not bring themselves to contribute freely to build a home for the Shechinah. What happened to the prophetic inspiration they all experienced at the Sea? Where was the willingness to contribute that led to the Golden Calf being completed before Moshe returned?

It would appear that there is a special yetzer hara to be tightfisted when it comes to doing mitzvos. The Gemara points out that the reason we say in Shema that “you must love Hashem, your G-d, with all your heart, all your soul, and all your means,” is because there are people who feel that their money is more valuable than their lives. So when it comes to a Golden Calf, you will always find plenty of donors. But try to open a Yeshivah or collect money for starving families, and all of a sudden, everyone is “having a little trouble right now.”

I used to say that you could tell which institutions are accomplishing real good by how strapped for cash they are. There are exceptions, of course, where Hashem feels something is so important that He gives them a grant, so to speak, but in general the best places have the least money.

I once saw a sefer that put it quite bluntly: around the time of Yom Kippur, everyone wants merits. We know how to get them, too. “Repentance, prayer, and charity can wipe away the evil decree.” Jews all over the world, he said, start praying with such devotion, and they repent with broken hearts. But somehow, when it comes to charity, “The voice (of prayer) is the voice of Yaakov, but the hands (of the giving) are the hands of Eisav.” Ouch.

 

Even more frightening is that as far as the Mishkan was concerned, money we give out of feelings of guilt doesn’t really count. It’s considered like we didn’t actually relinquish ownership.

I always tell people that even if you can’t give to a collector, a warm smile and a brachah that he succeed cost you nothing. But that is true only if you can’t actually give something. If someone spends all his money on his personal version of the Golden Calf, his sympathy and friendship are hypocritical. The fact is that a starving person can’t eat smiles, and a Yeshivah can’t run on goodwill (although they often try). During World War II, Zeirei Agudas Yisrael in America was one of the most active organizations to help the refuges from Europe. Their slogan: “Sympathy won’t help them – money will.”

I don’t usually rant about money, but it seemed a good time. Everyone knows how tough things are around Pesach time. Think about how people feel who can’t really make it during the rest of the year. They can easily be crushed. That’s why there is an age-old minhag that everyone must contribute to the poor before Pesach. Just a thought.

Have a wonderful Shabbos.

Parashat Vayakheil / Pekudei

Parashat Vayakheil / Pekudei

Adar 27, 5773 ~ March 9, 2013
by Alex Hart

Here in Vayakheil, there’s deliberate singling out individuals for their unique skill: לב חכם (35:10), translated as ‘naturally talented individual’. These individuals would be building the tabernacle itself and everything it contained. It doesn’t sound like there’ll be a great deal of teamwork. But then the Torah describes the throngs of volunteers both men and women. Now, everyone alike is spinning and donating, offering sacrifices; all become a multitude, no one person receives especial mention. This is the very first time we see the Bnei Yisrael working together and we can almost feel the camaraderie. Beautiful items are brought as donations and now, whereas these parshiyot follow directly on the heels of the sin of the Golden Calf, idol worship, the tangible is now being celebrated, all for the glory of G-d.

Considering the tangible, if we think back to the beginning of Shemot, In (4:1) we see that Moshe disagreed with G-d as to the appropriate manner of leadership. Moshe had maintained that the people, collectively, would only believe what they could see, i.e. leading them to faith by virtue of visual evidence. Here, gold and ornaments, tangible objects, are happily provided for a different purpose.  The emphasis on all of this pomp and splendor is not for idolatry but to enhance the serving of G-d, the Omnipresent but invisible.

Each person is a part of this new kehilla but each interprets his worship of G-d in his own way. It’s reminiscent of the manner in which we live for gratification; we’re governed by experiential learning and an era of ‘1000 Places to See Before You Die’. These too are experiences that are most personal: one man’s appreciation of an experience is not the same as another’s; they are difficult to share or articulate. Through the provision of the tangible it appears that there’s enormous hope that will be the medium through which to enhance deveikut, devotion to G-d.

I work to eradicate anti-Semitism each day. Even in an environment devoid of Jews, the irrational hatred pervades. A recent publication by Professor David Nirenberg ‘Anti-Judaism: The Western Tradition’ may yet prove to be a seminal work defining this abhorrence of our nation. Anti-Semitism is directed against a person, yet if there’s still hatred in a space in which there are no Jews; it boils down to a hatred of Judaism, the idea.  Others are frightened by that that has no earthly representation and I’m rapidly coming to it the conclusion that it’s simply because Jews worship an invisible G-d.

Here in these parshiyot, is the very first presentation of the same. We see talented individuals morph into a team and furthermore, they are working with one mindset, to serve G-d. For those on the outside looking in, it seems incomprehensible, cultish, the incongruous donation of precious objects into a wooden structure.

I’m inclined to believe that it’s this unswerving attachment to G-d, our central tenet, that leads to a universal wonderment ‘How could a whole nation be motivated in such a manner?’

‘Our age is the age of criticism, to which everything must be subjected. The sacredness of religion, and the authority of legislation, are by many regarded as grounds of exemption from the examination of this tribunal. But, if they are exempted, they become the subject of just suspicion, and cannot lay claim to sincere respect, which reason accords only to that which has stood the test of a free public examination.’ (Kant, Critique of Pure Reason)

Others are scared of that which can’t be seen, they need the tangible.

Bnei Yisrael are human too but in their joint donation of their precious items for the Mishkan and the work behind the scenes to produce it, there’s achdut, such a shared experience promoting stability and adding a quality to the entire nature of that being built, that it becomes something ethereal.

The repetition is most apparent on reading these parshiyot. The details describing the building of the mishkan, down to the minutiae that appear in perek 37, parallel those in chapter 25:10 – 40. Nachmanides (יא,ס רבה בראשית) tells us that these details are actually repeated 5 times throughout the Torah. This is quite astonishing if, as we’re told, every word, every letter, has meaning in the Torah.  No matter which way it’s cut, the details, in all their glory, are very much a case of repetition.

However, the repetition has a message. Each time that an element was dutifully completed, we note Moshe’s response: משה את ה צוה כאשר – as HaShem had commanded Moshe. There was teamwork after all and the beauty in working together in unison garnered a blessing from Moshe. The work done required repetition because, as Ramban says, it was deserving of recognition. Bnei Yisrael had for the first time tackled a program with the one mindset, the talent came from the לב חכם to deliver the end product, a place for G-d’s presence to reside. As if a symphony, each note, each item added, rises to its full potential in what is being represented in the outer product, without ego. A symphony so beautiful, it bears repetition. As Heschel would advise, the majesty and awe in a sunrise remind us that ‘we do not create the ineffable, we encounter it’.

Parashat Ki Tisa

Parashat Ki Tisa

Adar 20, 5773 ~ March 2, 2013
by Steve Astrachan

 

Parsha Ki Sisa begins with the story of a census, a counting of the Jewish People.  The process involves the payment of a half-sheckel by everyone involved.  The Torah here is quite descriptive:

          This shall they give – everyone who passes through the census- a half sheckel of       the sacred sheckel, the sheckel is twenty geras, half a sheckel as a portion to      Hashem.  Everyone who passes through the census, from twenty years of age and     up, shall give the portion of Hashem.  The wealthy shall not increase and the     destitute shall not decrease from half a sheckel – to give the portion of Hashem, to       atone for your souls.  (Ex, 30: 13-15)

The verses speak to two important concepts in Torah and Tanach, equality and atonement.  In this case the equality derives from the atonement.  It is as in Yom Kippur when we desist from wearing leather shoes as a symbol of our equality before Ha Shem. However the concept of equality goes beyond this derivation and appears elsewhere in Tanach as pointed out by Rabbi Ovadia Sforno:

          That respecteth not the persons of the princes,

          Nor regardeth the rich more than the poor.

          For they are all the work of His hands.

          (Job, 34:19)

However the equality of status in giving the half shekel in atonement and membership in the Jewish People does not mean that all are expected to contribute equally regardless of their relative means or abilities. Quite the contrary we are all judged equal when we contribute in accordance with our individual means and abilities.  Rav Hirsh deals with this duality in his commentary on Exodus 30:15 (above):

          Just in this equality, the symbolic nature of the fixed gift of half a shekel is    expressed.  As long as the rich man and the poor man give, each all that he can, does the whole of what he can do, then, as far as G-d and his sanctuary are concerned, the pounds of the rich weigh no more then the pennies and shillings of the poor, and the pennies and shillings of the poor are quite equal to the pounds of the rich.  The rich man can do no more, and the poor shall do no less, that the half a whole shekel, G-d and the Sanctuary weigh not the actual, but the relative size of the contribution, they value what is given and what is done in relation to the fortune and abilities of the givers.  Every one who uses the full powers of the   fortune and the abilities with which he had been graced, in the service of G-d, in furthering the aims of the Sanctuary, lays thereby his “half-shekel” as his “symbolism” on the Altar of G-d.

Finally there is the issue of atonement or more specifically what are we atoning for in giving the half shekel.  Here I have always been moved by the commentary of a more contemporary scholar Rabbi, Dr. J. H. Hertz, who pointed out that the term kfer or ransom applies to the taking of human life when the act is not homicide.  He then concluded that the half shekel was thus for those who have to go to war:

          …The soldier is to be impressed with the fact that, high as the aims for which he goes to battle may be, war remains a necessary evil.  The ransom is, therefore, to be paid at the time of the mustering, long before the actual fighting begins.

The Torah is teaching us that war by necessity has an immoral aspect. It may be justified and necessary, but it can never be fully a moral exercise. 

In this regard the parsha puts us in line with others who have had to grapple with the issue of war.  Benjamin Franklin served the country with distinction both during and after the Revolution.  But it was he who said, “There is no such thing as a good war or a bad peace.”  Moving forward Gary Willis in his “Lincoln at Gettysburg” made the point that while Abraham Lincoln always admired the “generation of 76” he never extolled the Revolution itself because it was a war.  Certainly President Lincoln was no pacifist, leading the nation through the Civil War with its 620,000 dead.  He knew whereof he spoke in the Second Inaugural with “this mighty scourge of war.”  Both of these men were extremely knowledgeable, worldly-wise, and, particularly in the case of Mr. Lincoln, steeped in the Bible.  Whether the Biblical aspect of their backgrounds affected these views, we cannot say. However, they certainly understood the inner meaning of Parsha Ki Thissa as Rabbi Hertz later explained it.