english EMOR 2013

SHABBAT –  A DIFFERENT WORLD

Not long after the Beit Halevi, the Rav of Brisk came home from Shabbat morning prayers, loud knocking was heard on his door. The Rav opened the door and found one of the community members there, completely out of breath , with a face reflecting anguish and extreme stress. “How can I help you?”  “ My daughter has already been in labor for three days… The doctors say that both mother and child are at risk… life and death…Please, pray for them!”

The Rav just looked at him calmly. “Did you make Kiddush yet?” “No, I have no appetite” the man answered.  “First, let us make Kiddush.” After Kiddush, the Rav turned to this unexpected guest: “Now, you must not have eaten your Shabbat meal yet. Come and join us for a Shabbat meal.” The man did not ask any questions. With faith in his rabbi, he obeyed. At the end of the meal, the Rav asked, “So, did you enjoy your meal?” “Yes, I enjoyed the meal.“ “Fine, now it is time to say Birkat Hamazon.”  After they had finished their blessings, the Rav sent the man to go and see how his daughter was faring. The man came back an hour later to thank the Rav. Everything was in order; she had given birth to a baby boy! “But, I do not understand why the Rav did not just pray for her? Why was it so important to the Rav that I had my Shabbat meal? “ The Rav answered him quoting the passuk והתענג על ה’ ויתן לך משאלות לבך…  and when you rejoice in your connection with G-d, He will fulfill all your heart’s requests…  Our rabbis learn from this passuk that you are supposed to enjoy your relationship with G-d by making a Shabbat meal. And then G-d will fulfill all your heart’s requests… “We do not have to make our requests to G-d verbally on Shabbat through prayer. We just need to enjoy the Shabbat meals. He knows what we want in our hearts, and He will take care of our needs.”

In line with this, the Rav explained the Talmud that says) Shabbat 118b) כל המענג את השבת נותנין לו משאלות לבו A person who delights in the Shabbat, he is granted the requests of his heart. It does not say the requests of his mouth, for on Shabbat, one is forbidden to talk about his weekday, physical needs that involve doing Melacha (forbidden acts which are considered work) on Shabbat. We learn this from the words ודבר דבר . However, on Shabbat, one is allowed to think about his weekday physical needs.הרהורים מותרים. (כמוצא שלל רב (ברכת המזון וזמירות שבת )עמ’ שכ”ב)

On Friday night, we change the נוסח of our prayers. All week long we say שומר את עמו ישראל לעד …He who watches His nation Israel forever– on Friday night we say instead הפורס סוכת שלום עלינו  …He who spreads over us a Sukkah of peace. The switch is because on Shabbat, we get close to Hashem in such a way that we do not need to ask for a שמירה , a protection. We are so close that we are automatically being protected. It would be silly for a person talking to the king in his palace to ask him to watch over him.. On Shabbat, as well, we do not have to ask for protection. We are just so close.

When we study Jewish history, we will learn that in all the places in exile where the Jewish communities kept Shabbat, the rate of intermarriage was very low. In all the places where the Jews did not keep Shabbat, intermarriage was so strong that Jewish identity faded, and the Jewish community disappeared. There is a saying attributed to one of the founders of Zionism, “אחד העם” : יותר ממה שהיהודים שמרו את השבת, השבת שמרה את היהודים More than the Jews kept Shabbat , the Shabbat kept(protected) the Jews.

A study was done in Globus, the economy newspaper in Israel, to find out the number one, most common “superstition” of the fifty most successful business owners in Israel.  The non observant business owners will not, under any circumstance, sign a business contract on Shabbat. Those Shabbat deals all went bad. On Shabbat, Hashem shows the world how things are supposed to be. G-d does not need us to work in order to give us sustenance. All the other creatures of the universe do not need to work, Hashem is זן ומפרנס לכל מביצי כינים ועד קרני ראמים , “…sustains everything, from the eggs of lice to the huge horns of the Reem,” ananimal of gigantic proportions. Only humans need to work: it is a קנס, a punishment for Adam for eating from the Eitz Hadaat.  A Jew who works, or even talks about business on Shabbat, nothing good will come out of it.  To remind us that G-d made the universe in six days, and He does not need us to work for a living. The Zohar says וביום השביעי שבת וינפש  that G-d gave Shabbat a soul. G-d put into Creation only enough power to last for six days. The battery does not last more than that. After that, the battery is dead. On Shabbat, G-d recharges the world with a new soul, that lasts for another six days.  It is a day of recharge, not a day of work. G-d is our Manufacturer, and this is what it says in his instruction manual.  On Shabbat, we realize that G-d runs the world in a way different from how it appears to us. Work is a punishment. Not what G-d needs from us in order to sustain us.

There was once a man, a religious Jew, on a boat trip for business. He was asked by another traveler on the boat, a friendly gentile, to tell a little bit about his religion and his G-d. The Jew started to say that his G-d is all-powerful and sustains all the living creatures, and his G-d is the King of the Universe who isמפרנס מקרני ראמים עד ביצי כינים…. He can sustain anyone, anytime, anywhere,. .. The gentile asked the Jew, “If you believe that your G-d can give you sustenance anywhere, why are you out on this business trip? Why did you not trust Him that He can give you livelihood near home?” The Jew realized this, and returned home on the next boat. He tried harder to make an “in-town business”. (Chovot Halevavot)

Just because we believe something, we may not be living by it. On Shabbat, we live on a different level. I heard something interesting last Shabbat at the Shabbat table. The words מקבל שבת mean “accept Shabbat”. We not only start Shabbat mode ore welcome Shabbat. Shabbat is a present from G-d. We accept this present of perspective. We accept this present of closeness.

THE RESPONSIBLE PARENT

One bad way to parent children is to ignore them. Another bad way to parent children is to be over obsessive about them. There is a long list of what not to do. But there is no one right way to be a parent. The reason for this is, as King Solomon said,חנוך לנער על פי דרכו  Bring up a child according to his way (his nature). The right way to parent varies with each and every child and the strengths and weaknesses of each and every parent.  It is also dependent upon  significant factors in each particular situation. People are not machines, programmed for standard behavior.  Just as it is hard for us to figure ourselves out, it is hard for us to figure out how our children perceive us; however, we must invest effort in doing so and guide them accordingly.

Even after doing their very best at bringing up their children, many parents are beside themselves when the child does not develop as they had expected. Although we can easily understand and sympathize with such parents, there is, nevertheless, a grave mistake in their way of thinking. A parent has the responsibility to do his best – the best he can at a given time with his given abilities. That’s it.

I have spent time talking with more than a few teens who did not like the “way” of their parents. They felt either their parent (or parents) ignored them or was (were) too obsessive about them. So instead, they found their “own way”.

This “new way” upon which the child has set out causes parents to become self-critical or even to assume a self-defeating attitude toward themselves. It’s sad to see parents accusing themselves and blaming themselves for their children’s failures and mistakes. This is one of the greatest causes for depression: taking responsibility for another person’s negative behavior when you actually have no control over it. After spending time with children “at risk” and getting to know them well, I often have parents ask me, guiltily, – “So, what was it that I did wrong?”

I hate that question. It puts me on the spot. And the truth is – how can I know? There are so many factors causing the child to want to be distanced from his parents at this age: a desire for independence, teenage syndrome, not having the greatest of friends, wanting to find his own way, social immaturity, peak of hormonal changes, etcetera, etc. More often than not, this is just a passing phase. The child can be given guidance by someone he/she chooses, when he/she is open to counseling. The right person can help him/her navigate through this unsettling time and come out of it successfully. There is no way any human can judge whether parents were good or not. Many times, what was right for one child is not suitable for another. So instead of taking responsibility for a question I can’t possibly answer, I turn the tables and ask the parents, “What do you think?” And then they pause and they answer me, “I hate that question.”

The Torah solves the issue for us this week. It tells us how a parent can know if a problem was connected to bad parenting, or if it was something that developed over time, due to circumstances. It can even pinpoint the inception of the problem for us.

ובת איש כהן כי תחל לזנות את אביה היא מחללת באש תשרף  “The daughter of a Kohen who started to behave like a harlot – she disgraces her father, she shall be burnt in fire.” (21 – 9) Rashi comments that this girl was engaged or married. She causes disgrace to her father.  Because of her, people now say about him “Cursed is he for giving birth to such (a person). Cursed is he who brought up such (a person).”  (Rashi learns the word תחל   as disgracing herself. This is not the same explanation as that of many other commentators, as brought down by the Ibn Ezra. The word תחל   means start, and the word תחלל means disgrace. Rashi did not want to interpret the word as “start”, because this can imply that only if she is at the beginning stage of harlotry can she get punished. And this is not the case. So Rashi, and many others, interprets it to mean disgrace, despite the missing ל.  Either way, the passuk in its simple form is sending us a message.) Harlotry at the start of her married life is what causes her father’s name to be disgraced; that puts the blame on him. How and why?

The answer given by the Imrei Shefer is preceded with the words of our Sages. “The way of the Evil Inclination is that today, he tells you do this small sin. Then, tomorrow, he tells you do a different little sin. Finally, he gets you to a level where he tells you- Go and serve idols!”. On the basis of these comments, we can make the following observation: if a child rebels gradually, stage by stage, we can attribute the cause to the child’s evil inclination, not to some deficiency or mistake made by the parents.  Gradual changes are usually an expression of the child’s free choice. However, if the unacceptable behavior was something sudden, it was a result of something deeply rooted in the child’s past, dating back to the time and way he was parented.

The fact that the daughter of the Kohen suddenly started to do something so grave as being with another man during her own marriage, without any prior sign of gradual spiritual decline or other examples of extroverted behavior, points the finger of blame at the parents. Had her actions been due to her evil inclination, such behavior would have come about more gradually.

And still, believe it or not, even when the father is pointed at for faulty parenting or for having been a bad example, the Torah holds the daughter of the Kohen responsible for her actions. She is to be burnt, while the parents stand by and watch. I hate these sad endings, but it all points to and exposes the anti – Torah psychological approach that children are not responsible for the way they act if they were brought up with mistakes. The Torah tells us that the child is still responsible.

We see this at the end of our parasha as well. The Ben Mitzri – the son of an Egyptian father and Jewish mother – failed in his attempt to integrate into his mother’s tribe of Dan. Since tribal affiliation is established through the father, Moshe’s court ruled that this son of an Egyptian father could not qualify for membership in any tribe. Out of frustration, the rejected fellow committed the grave sin of cursing the Name of G-d (which he had heard at Mt. Sinai). For this, he was sentenced to stoning. His executioners were to be the very people who heard him utter the curse.

The Talmud (Sanhedrin 45b) states that one who curses G-d is considered a kofer (heretic). In light of this, Rabbi Chaim Shmuelevitz asks the following thought-provoking question: How could a Jew who witnessed G-d’s revelation at Mt. Sinai, the splitting of the Red Sea, and the miraculous redemption from Egypt, suddenly fall from such a high level and act in a manner befitting an atheist?

To understand how the Ben Mizri fell so far and so fast, we must examine the factors which coincided, bringing him to his demise. First, since he had an Egyptian father, the Ben Mitzri inherited a tendency to belittle G-d. We find this tendency in the terminology used by Pharaoh in his exchanges with Moshe (See Baalei Hatosofot). From his mother, he picked up another tendency which contributed to his undoing. Indeed, her name – Shlomit bat Divri – vividly reflected her actions. Shlomit: She would say Shalom to all passers-by, including unfamiliar men. Bat Divri: she was always chattering, and thereby projecting a flirtatious image of herself. Through her unconventional behavior, she called attention to herself, and the Egyptians perceived her as a harlot. Shlomit’s extroverted behavior must have been a reflection of a deep thirst for social recognition and acceptance. This tendency or trait was picked up by her son who, like his mother, felt a strong need to connect and “belong” – not being able to “stand on his own two feet.” Upon hearing the verdict of Moshe’s court, he now felt rejected and dejected as never before.

Putting this all together, Rav Chaim Shmuelevitz explains the abrupt fall to the lowest of low. When the Ben Mitzri felt rejected by society – he lost himself and acted upon his deep-seated tendency to belittle G-d. This grave sin was not excused in light of his upbringing and circumstances. Quite the contrary, he was to be reminded before being stoned to death: “You are liable for your actions!” (Rashi).

This concept is more applicable on a personal level than on a parenting one. Although many of us go through life convinced that our negative traits and tendencies are not in our control – that is actually a subconscious decision we made or a belief that was drummed into us. Indeed, this faulty perception is nothing less than any other mistake that the Merciful G-d holds us accountable for, because He gave us a way to overcome our deficiencies. The key is to use the tool of bechira chofsheet (freedom of choice) which He entrusted to us. A Tzelem Elokim – one created in G-d’s image – is never doomed to be a victim if he exercises his freedom of choice. Is there a more empowering concept than this? Ignorance of it may well be the biggest blunder of our generation.