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Sharing in the Pain, Sharing in the Joy

By Rabbi Daniel Korobkin Bamidbar is also known as the book of Numbers (חומש הפקודים), because it contains several counts taken of the Jewish people. In taking the mandated census, Moshe was commanded to have not only his brother Aharon with him, but to also invite twelve leaders, one from each tribe, to stand with him when he would take the census (1:4). The Torah then enumerates the names of each of these twelve men (1:5-15): Elitzur ben Shedeur, Shelumiel ben Tzurishaddai, Nachshon ben Amminadav, etc. We discover in next week’s parsha, Naso, that these are the exact same twelve men who inaugurated the Altar in the Mishkan by bringing special korbanos at the very beginning of the Mishkan’s operation (7:2).

Connecting the dots

Why were these twelve men chosen, and why did Hashem see fit to enumerate their names? Rashi (to 7:2) quotes a Midrash which states that these men were already leaders while the Jews were still in Egypt. But their leadership was anything but honorific. In fact, it was quite painful and abasing to represent the Jewish slaves, especially when, as is recorded at the end of Parshas Shemos, the Jews were expected to meet their brick quota while being denied the essential ingredient of straw in order to manufacture the bricks (Ex. ch. 5). There, the Torah states that the Jewish representatives to Pharaoh’s slave operation bore the brunt of the punishment when the Jews could not meet their quota (5:14): וַיֻּכּוּ שֹׁטְרֵי בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל אֲשֶׁר־שָׂמוּ עֲלֵהֶם נֹגְשֵׂי פַרְעֹה לֵאמֹר מַדּוּעַ לֹא כִלִּיתֶם חָקְכֶם לִלְבֹּן כִּתְמוֹל שִׁלְשֹׁם גַּם־תְּמוֹל גַּם־הַיּוֹם The Jewish officers who were appointed by Pharaoh’s taskmasters were beaten, because of the argument: “Why haven’t you fulfilled the quota as you had been doing previously?” These men went to Pharaoh’s palace and begged for mercy, but to no avail. The Torah writes (5:19) that they found themselves in the terrible situation of requiring an impossible quota from their brethren. Instead of forcing their fellow Jews to overwork and be broken, they absorbed the painful beatings from the Egyptian taskmasters.

Rewarded for Being Punished

We may even find a slight allusion to this Midrash in the words of our parsha, which states, somewhat bizarrely that (1:17) “וַיִּקַּח מֹשֶׁה וְאַהֲרֹן אֵת הָאֲנָשִׁים הָאֵלֶּה אֲשֶׁר נִקְּבוּ בְּשֵׁמֹת:” – “Moshe and Aharon took these men, whose names were specified.” The phrase “אֲשֶׁר נִקְּבוּ בְּשֵׁמֹת” – “whose names were specified” is completely superfluous, and it’s also worded strangely. But perhaps it can also be translated as: “who were weakened / injured (since “נִקְּב֖וּ” can also be translated as punctured or weakened) in the book of Shemos.”  Because they took a beating for their brethren, they were rewarded with rising to greatness after the Exodus. But it’s also quite apropos for their greatness to be manifest in these two incidents, both in our parsha, in joining Moshe and Aharon as census takers, and in next week’s parsha as offering inaugural sacrifices for their respective tribes. In order to properly take a census, one must have care, concern, and affection for each individual who is being counted, since each and every person counts. This is why the Torah uses the word “שא” when commanding the census. It doesn’t just mean “to count”, but also “to lift up” or hold in high regard. Imagine these twelve men, looking into the eyes of each person who passed before them for the census, thinking only about their connection to and feelings of love for each person for whom they had taken another blow of the club or whip back in Egypt.

The Ego

Similarly, in order for one’s korban to be effective for one’s entire tribe and to truly be considered a communal sacrifice, one must be able to completely lose one’s own ego and sense of self and think only of one’s tribesmen when offering the flour and animal on the Altar. We can certainly appreciate how each of these twelve men, who had demonstrated this kind of selflessness in the past, was able to put himself aside and think only of his people. This is reminiscent of a Midrash that directly pertains to our upcoming festival of Shavuos. We read of Yitro’s visit to his son-in-law, Moshe, in the book of Shemot immediately before the Jews stand at Mount Sinai to hear the Ten Commandments and accept the Torah. There’s a verse that acts as a bridge between these two narratives and reads (18:27): “וַיְשַׁלַּח מֹשֶׁה אֶת־חֹתְנוֹ וַיֵּלֶךְ לוֹ אֶל־אַרְצוֹ:” – Moshe sent his father-in-law away, and he returned to his land. Why did Moshe feel it necessary to send Yitro back home, especially at this most crucial historical juncture when Bnei Israel were about to receive the Torah? The Midrash answers using a verse from Proverbs (14:10): “לֵב יוֹדֵעַ מָרַּת נַפְשׁוֹ וּבְשִׂמְחָתוֹ לֹא־יִתְעָרַב זָר:” – “The heart knows its own bitterness; and during its happiness, no stranger may mix in.” If Yitro was at home, safe and secure, when Bnei Israel were entrenched in hard labor, he was oblivious to their bitterness. It would not be appropriate for him to enjoy their success at Mount Sinai. Only someone who truly suffers with the Jewish people can enjoy their sweet victories, the most important being the acceptance of the Torah. Only these twelve men, who truly tasted the bitterest rod of affliction on behalf of their brethren, could enjoy Israel’s greatest moments of success during their glorious census and the inauguration of their holy place. How can we emulate them?

Being Counted Amongst the Jews of Eretz Yisrael

Today, Bnei Israel living in the Land of Israel faces danger and travail. We trust, hope, and pray that this danger is fleeting, and that Israel’s enemies come to their senses and realize that violence is never the pathway to peace. But it seems that Israel is alone in its suffering. The heart of Israel knows its own bitterness, but the rest of the world watches on with apathy and defends violence by creating moral equivalencies and media distortions of the facts on the ground. It is so important, especially today, to share in the burden of that pain, the pain of the millions of Jews in Israel. We share the pain of the death, damage, and trauma to our family in Eretz Israel. If we are to participate in the simcha of our brethren, we must also participate in their bitterness. If we wish to celebrate and be counted with the Jewish people in Eretz Israel, to receive the Torah with them, to enjoy the successes of the modern State of Israel, and eventually to see the rebuilding of our Temple and our Altar, we must first share in the sadness and trauma. We can do so even from afar, through our prayers and good deeds on behalf of our loved ones in Israel. As the Psalmist writes (126:5), “הַזֹּרְעִים בְּדִמְעָה בְּרִנָּה יִקְצֹרוּ:” – Those who plant with tears, will reap with joy. Not only did these twelve men merit to be part of the census and the Mishkan’s inaugural; they were also each identified by name TWICE in the Torah. This was a special gesture of appreciation shown to them for their valor and sacrifice on behalf of the rest of Klal Yisrael. When Mashiach comes, wouldn’t it be great if your name appears in the list of people who cared, prayed, and sacrificed for our brethren? We have that opportunity today and every day. Let’s make sure that our names are counted as well. Take this Shabbat and this Shavuot as a time not only of reaccepting the Torah, but also of reaccepting your brothers and sisters throughout the world. Let us stand “כאיש אחד בלב אחד” and feel for each other. May our efforts trigger the ultimate Redemption so that we can all return to Eretz Israel swiftly, bb”a.

By Rabbi Daniel Korobkin

Divine Judgment

We all know that Rosh Hashanah is the Day of Judgment, when man’s fate is decided for the coming year. It would follow, then, that Hashem had decided this past High Holidays all that would transpire over this year. But it’s not that simple. Let’s study a Mishnah together on the topic of Divine judgment (Rosh Hashanah 1:2):

בארבעה פרקים העולם נידון: בפסח על התבואה בעצרת על פירות האילן בראש השנה כל באי העולם עוברין לפניו כבני מרון שנאמר (תהלים ל"ג) היוצר יחד לבם המבין אל כל מעשיהם ובחג נידונין על המים

The world is judged at four intervals during the year: On Pesach, judgment is made for grain. On Shavuot, judgment is made for tree produce. On Rosh Hashanah, all mankind passes before Him single file… On Sukkot, judgment is made for water.

The Mishnah acknowledges that agricultural success depends upon Divine judgment, and that the judgment for seasonal farming – water during rainy season, crops during harvest season, etc. –takes place immediately before that particular season begins. The beginnings of the rainy season, the grain harvest season, and the tree fruit harvest season are Sukkot, Pesach, and Shavuot, respectively.

Global Judgment and Individual Judgment

But what about Rosh Hashanah? As many of the commentaries observe, if man is judged for the totality of his wellbeing on Rosh Hashanah, including his livelihood, would not that judgment also include how much water and harvest he’ll receive from his farms for the coming year? So what actually happens during those other intervals – hasn’t everything already been decide on Rosh Hashanah?! This is a complex theological topic that cannot be treated properly in a short d’var Torah. But for our purposes, we cite R’ Yom Tov Lipman Heller (16th cent.), the author of the Tosafos Yom Tov commentary to the Mishnah. Rav Heller distinguishes between individual judgment and global judgment. Regarding global events, such as rainfall levels to the world, fruitful crops to whole regions, and so forth, God decides before each seasonal event how and in what measure that event will take place. These Divine decisions affect entire populations. But how the individual will be affected by those global decisions does not take place until Rosh Hashnah. On Rosh Hashanah, all mankind pass before Him in single file, and each individual’s fate as an individual is determined. For example, it may have been predetermined on Pesach that the farmland in a particular region would yield a million tons of wheat. But to what degree the individual Farmer John will be the beneficiary of that blessed yield is determined on Rosh Hashanah.

Curses Before The New Years

This insight allows us to understand another cryptic Talmudic passage (from TB Megillah 31b): When the prophet Ezra instituted weekly Torah readings, he made sure that we would read the curses in Parshat Ki Tavo before Rosh Hashanah. He did so “כדי שתכלה השנה וקללותיה” – so that the curses would be behind us before starting the New Year, and we can start the New Year with a clean slate. He also instituted that the reading of the curses in Parshat Bechukotai would always fall out before Shavuot, “so that we could have the curses behind us before the New Year of Shavuot begins.” What does that mean - since when is Shavuot a New Year? The Talmud answers that Shavuot is also a day of judgment in that on Shavuot, God passes judgment on how the trees will produce their harvests. I believe the deeper meaning of this passage is based on the above. One of the differences between the curses that appear in Leviticus and the curses in Deuteronomy is that the curses in Leviticus address the Jewish people in the plural: “לפניכם”, “לכם”, “אתכם”, etc., whereas the curses in Devarim address each Jew as an individual: “עליך”, “לך”, “אתה”, etc. This is in recognition that we wish to put an end to the curses that befall an individual before Rosh Hashanah, and so the Torah speaks to the individual’s curses. By contrast, before Shavuot, which represents global judgment, we wish to address the curses affecting the nation as a whole, and therefore the Torah speaks to the plurality of the Jewish nation. We put those global curses behind us before Shavuot arrives.

Shavuot & Global Judgment?

But why did Ezra choose Shavuot as the symbol of global judgment? What about Pesach, when the world is judged for wheat, and Sukkot, when the world is judged for water? Here, too, we need to penetrate deeper into the symbolism of this Talmudic passage. Shavuot isn’t just the beginning of the tree harvest season. It’s also the time when Bnei Israel accepted the Torah. As the Talmud states (TB Shabbos 88a), the fate of the world hung in the balance when the Jews came to Mt. Sinai. If they had not accepted the Torah, God was prepared to destroy the world and return it to “chaos and void.” The most global of all judgements, therefore, takes place every Shavuot, when God looks to the Jewish people to see if we’re prepared to accept the Torah once again. And every year since those 3300 years ago, we’ve kept the world running by our annual reacceptance of the Torah. In having us read the curses before Shavuot, Ezra was signaling that the global decisions affecting the entire world are triggered to some degree or another by the Jewish people’s commitment to their God and to His mitzvoth, which is what we do every year when we reaccept the Torah. If we wish to put the curses of the past year behind us, we’ll need to reaccept the Torah fully, so that the “chaos and void” of last year does not carry over into the future. Instead, our commitment to serve Hashem faithfully will bring peace and tranquility to this chaotic world. Shavuot thus represents a new year of sorts, and provides us an opportunity for new beginnings and second chances. Let’s take advantage of the role we play for the world. Let’s reaccept the Torah, and use its teachings to make the world a better place. We can do this metaphysically as we’ve mentioned, by affecting God’s choices to reinvigorate the world with His blessings for creation. But we can also do this on a very simple level any time we make a Kiddush Hashem as we interact with our fellow human beings and share good examples of our humanity that are informed by the Torah. May the world be healed and recreated as a result, bringing us to the ultimate redemption, bb”a.

By Rabbi Daniel Korobkin Using our Material Gifts to Sanctify the World

The 8th Day of an Animal's Life

Parshat Emor should be familiar to us, because we read a section of it twice over Sukkos and once over Pesach. We do so because the parsha contains a discussion of the Mo’adim, the Jewish festivals. The paragraph that precedes the Mo’adim (22:26-33) tells us a series of laws having to do with bringing animal sacrifices. It begins by telling us that when a newborn animal is born, it must first be seven days with its mother. Only from the 8th day of its life may it be brought as a korban. The next sentence teaches that two animals that are parent and child may not be slaughtered on the same day. The paragraph concludes by teaching that abiding by these and other sacrificial limitations will help to avoid a Chillul (desecration of) Hashem and will create a Kiddush (sanctification of) Hashem. Why is it necessary to wait until the 8th day of a calf’s or lamb’s life before bringing it as a korban? How does obeying this mitzvah create a Kiddush Hashem? And why is this the prefatory paragraph to the Mo’adim?

Compassion For All Creatures

The Midrash and the Zohar debate as to why one must wait until the 8th day. The Midrash (Devarim Rabbah 6:1) compares this law to the mitzvah of sending away the mother bird before taking its eggs (Kan Tzipor). Hashem is compassionate to all creatures, and wants a calf to have its strength before subjecting it to traumatic slaughter. Similarly, Hashem is compassionate to a newborn infant boy and wants us to wait until the baby’s 8th day before his bris, so that the child will have sufficient strength to endure the procedure. In short, the Midrash portrays this mitzvah as one of compassion that Hashem has upon His creations. As Rav Meir Simcha of Dvinsk explains (in Meshekh Chochmah to 22:26), the entirety of the Torah is designed to engender within man a sense of compassion and kindness, unlike some of the ancient idolatrous rites, which called upon its adherents to act cruelly and violently when offering both animal and human sacrifice. The commandments of waiting until the 8th day of an animal’s life, as well as the commandment to not slaughter a parent and child on the same day, help man become more sensitive to all of God’s creatures. This in itself creates a “Kiddush Hashem,” in that the world sees that the adherents to Hashem’s Torah are compassionate and kind, just like the Torah’s author.

Embracing Spirituality Through Physicality

The Zohar (Emor 91a-b), however, sees it differently. The mitzvah of waiting until the 8th day, both for an animal being brought as a korban, and a child having his bris, is based on the requirement that both the animal and the infant experience a Shabbat before being brought for Divine service.  Apparently, a full weekly cycle imbues the newborn with some kind of spiritual endowment that primes the animal for its sacrifice and primes the baby for his bris. Here’s one way of understanding the Zohar: The objective of the Torah is to connect heaven and earth, the transcendent with the physical. We are meant to view the physical objects of our existence as tools to spiritually elevate ourselves and everything around us. This is not an obvious point; Plato and his followers viewed the spiritual and physical realms as being in perpetual opposition to each other. This dualist view, that the soul is the ideal state of man, and that his body is forever pulling him away from that ideal state, also finds support in some Jewish writings which discuss the need for man to eschew “gashmiyut” (physicality) and embrace only “ruchniyut” (spirituality). And yet, the very means of embracing spirituality in Judaism is through physical acts, which involve using the very same material world that Plato rejected. Ultimately, by placing us in this physical world, Hashem indicates to us that we’re not supposed to try to escape the physical realm, but rather to elevate it. Instead of living as hermits and ascetics, we’re meant to embrace the amenities and comforts of the material world, and utilize those items as a means of showing gratitude and love to the Giver of those amenities.

Being “of” This World

This is the message of the Zohar. In order for an animal to be usable as a korban, it must first be “of” this world. It has to go through a full weekly cycle, including a day of Shabbat, so that it can live through and absorb the essence of the physical world. It needs to go through a Shabbat in particular, because Shabbat is demonstrative of how time, which is the fourth dimension of our physical existence, can be sanctified. Similarly, in order for a male child to undergo a circumcision, which represents his spiritual elevation, he must first become a part of the essence of the physical realm before having his physicality “elevated” through his bris. This is how we sanctify God, or make a Kiddush Hashem. By taking the objects that are already a part of this world, and elevating them through their use in spiritual rites, we confirm Hashem’s objective in creating us as part of this physical realm. The world understands through our observance of the mitzvos what Hashem wishes for all of humanity: instead of rejecting one’s physical aspect, instead of fasting and self-flagellation, Hashem wants us to enjoy the physical life He gave us so that we may appreciate our lives and our Sustainer. Every time we make a bracha on a piece of food, every time we make a Shehechiyanu on a new garment, we affirm this Divine plan.

Being Real

There is one caveat, of course: We need to sincerely mean it. Giving lip service to the idea but then indulging for the sake of indulgence accomplishes the opposite of our goal of elevating the physical. Many make a point of purchasing special clothing or special foods for Shabbat and Yom Tov (See Shulchan Aruch 242). I love the phrase that some people say before taking their first spoon of chicken soup Friday night (from the teachings of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Rimanov and others): “L’chavod Shabbat Kodesh!” – “This is in honor of the holy Sabbath.” By making a verbal declaration, we remind ourselves that our enjoyment of Shabbat is to exalt Hashem, not to fill our stomachs. Taken in this light, we might better understand why this paragraph about waiting until the 8th day acts as the preface for the Mo’adim. We are charged with sanctifying holy days on the calendar. We are supposed to take all of our hard-earned bounty from the fields and use those gifts in the service of Hashem. We take unleavened bread and use it for Matzah. We take the first barley harvest and use it for the Omer offering. We take loaves of bread and multiple animals from our livestock and offer them to God on Shavuot. We take four plants from our fields and wave them on Sukkot, while sitting in the Sukkah that is adjacent to our homes. In short, we use the physical gifts of our lives to sanctify the physical world.

The Mo’adim: Indulgence of the Physical

We suggest that this is how the Mo’adim figure into the book of Vayikra, which is all about creating holiness. The commandment to “be holy” is subject to multiple interpretations. Lest one think that being holy requires us to merely remove ourselves from the pleasures of the physical world, the Torah presents us with the Mo’adim as a way of reminding us that sometimes the highest form of holiness is found within the indulgence of the physical. There is truth to both the Midrash and the Zohar. The mitzvot are meant to engender sensitivity and kindness, even to the smallest of God’s creatures, as per the Midrash. As society increasingly recognizes the evils of “factory farming” and the cruelty to animals that takes place in these large egg, milk, and meat producing plants, we should be part of the societal voice that calls for greater compassion in the treatment of animals, even when we can justify using them for food. The mitzvot also remind us that despite the pitfalls of overindulgence, this world is a gift from God, meant for us to harness in making ourselves holier beings. May we appreciate these messages of kindness and holiness as we continue the perpetual effort at arriving at the ultimate Redemption, bb”a.

By Rabbi Daniel Korobkin

Being Holy and Living a Balanced Judaism

In a perfect world, we would expect one’s ethical behavior to be directly linked to one’s religious behavior. Philosophers, scientists, and psychologists have been debating for centuries whether religion and ethics exist independently of each other, or if they are inexorably connected. Can atheists possess a genuine moral and ethical code if there is no absolute bedrock of Divinely revealed law to which they can moor their beliefs? Conversely, what about people of faith who cheat in their financial dealings? These are not easy questions to answer, which is why they are still being debated to this day. If Hashem felt that man is perfectly capable of charting his own moral and ethical destiny, why give us a Torah replete with morals and ethics? We conclude that there is an absolute, Divine moral and ethical code. While it is possible for every individual to arrive at moral boundaries based on logic and reason, the mind is not always a reliable instrument of truth, and someone can easily be deluded into thinking that something unethical or immoral is the opposite.

Mishpatim & Chukim

Despite this, our Sages observe that there are different categories of mitzvot. Some are Mishpatim, or what others call “natural law,” that which man would have arrived at using his own human intellect even if the Torah had not commanded us. Others are Chukim (statutes) and Eidot (testimonies), laws which without a Torah, we would not have necessarily intuited on our own. Because of Chazal’s delineation between the different kinds of mitzvot, we tend to think that there is a strong dividing line – be it psychological or ontological – between the two types. This would certainly explain why some Jews observe one kind of law with more emphasis over the other. Some are very cautious about “halakhah,” and don’t care as much about certain ethical imperatives. Others are more fixated on morals and ethics and deemphasize the more “religious” aspects of Shabbat, Kashrus, and the like. When we look at the verses in Parshat Kedoshim, however, we don’t see any kind of delineation between the two kinds of mitzvot. If anything, it seems like the Torah is deliberately grouping all different kinds of commandments together. After Hashem commands us to be “holy” – “קדושים תהיו” (19:1), He provides different examples of holiness. The Torah starts with what we would normally identify as “religious” laws: revering parents, observing Shabbat, not worshipping idols, and sacrificial laws. But then, in the same breath, the Torah instructs us how to provide for the poor, how to ethically treat our employees and others to whom we owe money by not withholding wages, not cheating, not bearing grudges, and so forth (19:13-18).

Wholly holy

That in itself is an important lesson: “Holiness” is a holistic principle that does not allow for compartmentalization of one’s religious persona. For an individual to be truly “holy,” one’s fealty to both Hashem’s laws and the image of God with which we were created must be comprehensive and not consigned to one area of life over another. That is, to be “holy,” one must be “wholly” committed. Rav Yaakov Leiner (in Beit Yaakov) observed that if we look at some of the laws cited above, we will see that in reality there is a common, unitary theme shared by all the mitzvot, and that the divisions between the different kinds of mitzvot are largely artificial. Let’s take two mitzvot which appear at the very beginning (19:3): We are commanded to revere our parents and to observe the Sabbath. When looked at more deeply, our relationship with our parents is a metaphor for our relationship with Hashem. Our parents gave birth to us; they raised us and provided us with the necessary tutelage as we grew and matured.

Independently Unaware

Often, parents of small children, out of a desire to give them a sense of independence, will conceal from them just how much in control they are. Imagine the parent of a toddler who is just learning to walk, standing behind the child ready to catch them as they wobble unsteadily with their first steps. The child may feel that he or she is walking independently and is unaware that the parent is walking closely behind, directing them where to go, and ready to catch them if they fall. Such is the relationship between God and every human being. Hashem grants us the illusory sense of independence and autonomy. The commandment to “revere” our parents is thus not only a mitzvah to treat our parents with respect, but also to retain in our minds that despite our personal autonomy, we are still all dependents of Hashem, and are powerless to do anything without His tutelage. This mitzvah corresponds to the commandment forbidding the withholding of payment from someone to whom we are indebted (19:13). Just as we cannot deny what we owe a benefactor, we can also not deny that Hashem is truly in control of our lives. The truly “holy” person sees no difference in these mitzvot because they are rooted in the same reality of paying those to whom we owe their due.

Shabbat & Ethics

The mitzvah of Shabbat observance has a similar correspondence to ethical behavior. Our Sages teach that Shabbat is “מעין עולם הבא”, a semblance of the World to Come (TB Berachos 57b). Hashem chose to give us a taste of our future “wages” with the weekly gratification of the beautiful spiritual ambience of Shabbat. While Hashem could have reserved all of our rewards for the future, He wanted us to feel a sense of immediate satisfaction without having to defer all of the fruits of our efforts to the afterlife. According to the Arizal, the mitzvah of Shabbat thus corresponds to the mitzvah of paying our employees on time, immediately upon the completion of their job. This mitzvah is also part of the mandate to be holy, and thus appears shortly after the mitzvah of Shabbat (in 19:13). Rav Lainer continues on this holistic path in explaining the other mitzvot of our parsha. Overall, a pattern emerges that holiness is really about seeing the bigger picture of trying to make the world a better place by living the mitzvot holistically. We can only accomplish this through our ritual observance as well as emulating God’s behavior as a benevolent and caring being who takes care of every creature in His universe. All the mitzvot flow to the same outlet and to the same common theme.

Judaism as a Fitted Sheet

A rebbe of mine once explained that observing Judaism is like trying to make a bed with a fitted sheet that is just a tad too small to fit over all the corners properly. You pull one end of the sheet over one corner, and then the opposite corner pops up. When it comes to our religious commitments, we all have strengths and weaknesses, and mitzvot that we choose to emphasize while deemphasizing others. The important thing is to recognize this and to try and be respectful of those who are coming from the opposite direction. We all augment each other’s deficiencies with our own contributions to the spiritual fabric of our world. The irony is that we sometimes have such tunnel-vision in identifying what we consider to be true Judaism using our own particularized lens with self-defined parameters. Anything outside of those parameters is either “treif” or “fanaticism.” We’d do well to remember the definition of holiness, as a holistic embrace of all the commandments, since they all have one unitary theme from the same unitary God. The person who strives for holiness sees value in all the approaches to reach Hashem, even those which run contrary to one’s own chosen path. May we succeed all together in our aspirations toward holiness and achieve a sense of balance that will lead to the Redemption, bb”a.

By Rabbi Daniel Korobkin

Finding Spiritual Greatness in Unusual Places

Allow me to share a story about an ancient king of Israel named Yerovam. Not the famous Yerovam ben Nevat, who was the first king of the northern Israelite kingdom and who introduced idolatry to that region. Rather, several generations later, another Yerovam reigned over the northern kingdom. His name was Yerovam ben Yoash, and scripture describes him as being deeply steeped in the idolatry of his time (II Kings 14:24). Yerovam b. Yoash reigned at a time when the Jews’ enemies were all around, and the Jews had no friends or allies. Despite Yerovam’s personal evil, Scripture states that he was an extremely successful king, and that Hashem enabled him to expand the boundaries of Israel to an unprecedented degree (ibid. 25-27). The Midrash (Tanna D’Vei Eliyahu Zuta 7) is perplexed: If Yerovam was such an evil person, why did Hashem enable him to be so successful and such a savior for the Jewish people? The Midrash answers based on another passage in Tanakh. The prophet Amos lived during this time in the town of Beit-El, which was in the kingdom of Judea. The local Kohen, Amatziah, would regularly get annoyed with Amos, because he wanted to be the only holy man in town. He had heard Amos prophesy about some impending doom that would befall the Kingdom of Israel. He therefore told King Yerovam that Amos was conspiring to get him killed (this is all recorded in Amos ch. 7).

An Idolater with Derekh Eretz

According to the Midrash, Yerovam’s response was to harshly rebuke Amatziah for accusing Amos. “I don’t believe he prophesied as you say. And even if he did, it was from Hashem, not of his own volition”: The Midrash concludes that despite the fact that the entire nation at the time was idolatrous, and that Yerovam himself was an ardent idolater, Hashem enabled Yerovam to expand the borders of Eretz Israel. Why? Because Yerovam possessed the virtue of not accepting Lashon Hara against a good person. The Midrash concludes: “We see from this story that Hashem causes good things to happen via good people.” It’s ironic for the Midrash to depict Yerovam as a good man, because if we were to characterize Yerovam based on Scripture’s depiction of him alone, we’d deem him a Rasha! The Midrash says, look deeper: he may have been an idolater, but he had derekh eretz and compassion for his fellow Jew.

The Path Toward Redemption

Rav Yisachar Shlomo Teichtal wrote his landmark work, Eim HaBanim Semeicha, in Europe during the Shoah, while his community was getting deported and murdered on a daily basis. In it (beginning of ch. 2), he wrote about his dramatic theological change of heart. He was a Nitra chasid, and had been previously opposed to Zionism. But after seeing what was happening all around him, he wrote an entire sefer explaining why religious Zionism and a return to Eretz Israel was actually the correct approach. In one chapter, he discussed what redemption would look like in light of so many conflicting reports in the words of Chazal. He concluded that redemption could take place in a number of different ways, either miraculously and overnight, or slowly and progressively, via natural means. If the redemption takes place via natural means in an evolutionary fashion, he wrote, it would happen via righteous and good people who would lead the Jewish people back to Eretz Yisrael. His only caveat is that we have to put on the proper spectacles to make sure that we recognize exactly who is good and who isn’t good. If our idea of a good leader is someone who is shomer mitzvot and has a long beard, then we might not recognize the true redeemers. He pointed to this Midrash about Yerovam ben Yoash. Yerovam wasn’t righteous in the conventional sense, but he did have one saving quality: He cared deeply about his people and was willing to be moser nefesh (make great sacrifice) for them. He was genuinely upset if someone would suggest that a righteous Jew committed wrong, as he demonstrated in his protestations about Amos.

Derekh Eretz Is The Key

Rav Teichtal concluded that just because the leaders of the Zionist movement aren’t religious, does not mean that they aren’t good and worthy of leading our people back to Zion. Just look at Yerovam ben Yoash. We derive the same lesson from the normal Haftarah of Tazria-Metzora (which is preempted because of Rosh Chodesh), about the four Metzoraim, the four lepers. Despite being outcasts from their community, they were the heroes of the story, responsible for ending a siege and famine within the nation. The real key to redemption for Klal Israel is how we speak to each other, how we show proper derekh eretz to each other even when we profoundly disagree, and how we give others the benefit of the doubt and not speak or believe Lashon Hara about others. We should live and let live and recognize the greatness that exists in people regardless of their levels of observance. It’s important to recognize the Yerovam’s of our time and see their greatness for what it is. If we can do that, then we’ll truly usher in the redemption of all our people, may we see it, bb”a.