Rabbi Zeitlin

Celebrating attitudes such as דן כל אדם בכף זכות (Dan kol adam b’kaf zechut), “consider everyone to be worthy”, i.e. the presumption of innocence, as “evidence” of Judaism’s inherent idealism and liberalism only discloses one’s total lack of understanding and context. Likewise, our total acceptance of one who does tshuvah is not based on wishful thinking or pollyana-ism, but rather it reflects a very deep Torah-based truth.

Raish Lakish, in Gemara Sota 3a, ריש לקיש אמר: אין אדם עובר עבירה אא”כ נכנס בו רוח שטות, teaches that a Jew sins only when his spirit, רוח (ruach) is invaded with שטות (shtut) folly of stupidity. This implies that what we assume to be “common sense” among our people prevents sin. Of course, this “common sense” is the awareness that among the infinite list of God’s ‘activities’ is monitoring our every action and presenting us with its consequences. In other words, the ‘folly of stupidity’ that enables sin is thinking you can get away with it, not some sort of ‘inherent good instincts’ we might enjoy as an accident of genetics.

תשובה (Tshuvah), badly translated as “repentance”, but, as we can see now means a “return” to our senses, goes far beyond admission of sin and resolve to change–although they are certainly necessary elements to perform tshuvah. Rather, it’s a return to our “natural” realization that we’re not going to “slip a fast one past The Creator”, but, rather, are certain to be caught out and punished. This is called deterrence. It’s also one aspect of what we call יראת ה׳ (Yirat HaShem), the fear of God.

When we look at our own tradition through the lenses of a culture that first developed in hatred for and opposition to our tradition, labeling The Creator as the “Old Testament God of Vengeance”, we lose the point of swift and certain punishment and become ashamed of it. Of course, swift punishment can be motivated by revenge–not an action we’re authorized for by Torah— but eliminating all punishment also eliminates deterrence. This means that there is no longer any disincentive for the strong to exploit-at-will the weak.

The world of halacha also reflects this insight into human nature. Although not accepted by all, Rav Moshe Feinstein‘s famous ruling to allow חלב סתם (chalav stam), ‘regular milk’, issued in 1954, is based on the concept that the deterrences of violating USDA regulations (which include insuring that milk, unless clearly marked on the label, must be only cows’ milk,) are much more severe (fines along with completely closing down the plant) than from violating kosher supervision (i.e., losing only that tiny segment of the market that is kosher-observant). Sure, it’s nice to trust, but since all people are prone to taking advantage if they think they can get away with things, deterrence, whether in the hands of secular authorities or God Himself, is a necessary element.

This is why we can accept a Jew’s tshuvah while not necessarily relying on a mere statement of contrition, either from a non-Jew or a Jew. (Of course, everyone can undergo ‘rehabilitation’ and not only Jews can be relied upon, although I have my doubts with atheists, no matter how much they proclaim some sort of ‘humanist ethics’.)  As the Psalm (111:10) says, ראשית חכמה יראת ה׳ (Reishit Chachma Yirat HaShem), The beginning of wisdom is awareness (including fear–יראה, “Yirah” encompasses both awareness/seeing and fear) of God. The Tur expands on this idea in his very first halacha (Orach Chayim 1:1) informing us to begin each day with this realization. As the cliché goes, “Trust…..but verify”.

Thus we’re enabled to dan kol adam b’kaf zechut, relying on the assumption that they are motivated by the exact same deterrence that we are. It’s not racial, nor is it genetic. Rather, it’s a cultural consensus of values based on the knowledge that God, indeed, exists and that He pays attention.

I’m writing this essay under protest. No that these events aren’t of crucial importance to Jews in Israel and everywhere, but that the entire situation is a distraction from our very real and urgent mission in this world of bringing God’s Ohr Ein Sof, Infinite Light, into the material world. As a rabbi, I’d be seriously negligent if, passing this over in silence, I appeared complacent.

When it became clear that Jews, indeed, carried out the murder of Mohammad Khdeir several years ago, the entire Jewish people rose up as one to condemn the murder and to repudiate the murderers, even though they were Jewish. If it becomes clear, which at this moment it is anything but, that Jews carried out the savage firebombing murders in Duma several months ago, the entire Jewish people will, once again, rise up as one and condemn the act and repudiate the perpetrators. That’s who we are and what we do.

And while we can’t deny that there are some Jews who have gone ’round the bend, fallen into madness and evil–trying to whitewash this reality works against us as well as being a violation of Torah–expressing hate and celebrating the murders, as a recent video seems to show, is not the same as carrying out the murders. These people shame us and weaken us, but we also need to keep in mind that they are but a percentage of a percentage of one percent of our people. We don’t, and never will, erect statues and monuments to them, we won’t glorify them in any way.

The main problem that I see right now, slightly past noon, PDT, on the 24th of December 2015 (it’s important to time and date this because actual facts, rather than innuendo, could come to light or it could be demonstrated that there are no actual facts) is the Israeli government’s and defense establishment’s secrecy. If there is, indeed, evidence that the people currently in “administrative detention” are guilty of the crime, disclosing that evidence will go a tremendous distance in healing the growing, festering rift between right and left in Israel and will allow us to come together in reality. Disclosure won’t disrupt investigations into actual Palestinian terror plans, so I’m baffled by the refusal to bring the facts to light. If there is no factual evidence, admit as such and free these people, even if their opinions are repugnant to many people.

Jewish tradition, based as it is on Torah, is unique among all world religions because our seminal event of divine revelation, Matan Torah, was not an unseen God whispering secrets to a chosen prophet, but a public display to every single Jew. In fact, we’re taught that not only were the Jews alive at that moment present at Sinai, but so were all Jews ever to be borne. Torah Sh’b’al Peh, the oral explanation and expansion of Torah is not hidden away, available to only an elite, but published and republished generation after generation. The incredible historical literacy rate among our people through the centuries was fostered specifically to make all aspects of Torah available to every Jew. Even our mystical, Kabbalistic wisdom appears in regularly published books. Secrecy does not become the Jewish People. Additionally, we don’t claim perfection and purity, even for our greatest, most inspiring teachers and leaders. Tanach is filled with the faults and failings of Avraham, Yitzchak, Yaakov, Moshe, Aharon, David and more! Not only can we take being imperfect, we can take admitting, and learning from it, too.

But there is an unbridgeable gap between facts and innuendo, truth and accusations. Of course we will always have a small number of deviants as we’ve been forced to see in the obscene wedding “celebration” video released by Israel’s Intelligence services. (The charge that they “plot” to exchange the current government for a king is one that every traditional Jew prays for three times every day, although most of us realize that at this time we have no idea what a restored Davidic kingship really means, but that the path will never be one of violence against our own!) But until we admit their existence how can we condemn and repudiate this behavior and label it as deviant? Denial will lead to acceptance which, Chas V’Shalom, can lead to admiration and glorification, which is what the Palestinian Arab’s savage establishment, the PA/PLO does with their terrorists. Just as the Israeli government needs to fully disclose the facts they have and the fact of the facts they don’t have, we of the Torah-observant world need to fully disclose our own deviants. Truth and honesty is universally a Jewish obligation.

Daylight disinfects.

Now time to get back to work, helping folks understand Torah.

When Rashi (Shemot 4:19), based on Nedarim 72:, declares והעני חשוב כמת (v’ha-oni chashuv k’meyt), that a pauper is considered as if dead, he’s not expressing contempt for the poor, but rather empathizing with their sense of powerlessness which comes from lacking all assets. Even before the Jewish People become slaves in Eqypt, the environment is prepared to make Egypt one where slavery for all is the norm rather than the exception.

In the years of famine, after the Egyptian people no longer had money with which to buy food, they first gave up their assets, including their working cattle, later their land and, eventually, themselves in exchange for food. (Bereishit 47:14-25). At this point, no Egyptian retained any assets or any means of productivity and was, from that time on, completely dependent on Pharaoh for all of his needs.

Our sages describe unearned benefits as נהמא דכיסופא (nehama d’kisufa) or לחם של בושה (lechem shel busha) “bread of shame” (respectively in Aramaic and Hebrew) because our Torah understands and endorses the satisfaction and sense of self-value that comes when we provide for ourselves. A normal phase of human development is when the child begins to differentiate from the parent and insists on doing it “by myself”. Nothing is as demoralizing as being condemned to eternal childishness (even though our contemporary entertainment and advertising culture tries to convince us otherwise in its glamorization of the “youth culture”).

The Ramchal most clearly describes God’s Will to create a being in order for that being to receive the greatest good possible. Defining that “good” as God Himself, the goal is for Man to most closely connect himself to God (דבקות–Devekut). Since distance in spiritual terms is not geometric but, rather, a product of resemblance, we achieve that connection by closely resembling God (as much as is possible for a created, material being). One of the few things we can positively say about God is that His Essence is to not be dependent on any other being. Man, then, can most closely resemble Him along this parameter, thus attaching ourselves to Him (דבקות–Devekut), by reducing our dependence on others to the bare minimum, meaning we become self-sufficient, productive earners rather than passive recipients.

Indeed, Yaakov and his family enter Egypt as honored and privileged guests, the family of Yosef whose insights saved Egypt from its own destruction in the near-universal famine years. However, it’s impossible to remain in an environment where human slavery is taken for granted without soon also becoming slaves. And even though this particular enslavement was a necessary step along the way for Bnei Yisrael (the Children of Israel) to become Am Yisrael (the Nation of Israel), slavery and dependence is no state for any human being to be condemned to or even allowed to passively descend to.

Shabbat Shalom.

Every mitzva a Jew performs brings light to the world. This happens whether or not he “believes” in what he’s doing, whether or not he has “kavannah“, whether or not he has learned deep meanings about this mitzva. This is also independent of whether he has any realistic grasp at all of what is meant by “bringing light to the world”–can anyone really understand/define Ohr Eyn Sof, the Infinite Light which energizes and vitalizes all existence?

Even if Chanukah is reduced to children’s songs and parties and over-eating, this Infinite Light is still drawn into our world. Even if it is so trivialized that the allegory of adding candle light into the darkest of days of winter becomes the central concept, Ohr Eyn Sof is increased. When it becomes a self-parody of universalism and denying the unique mission Israel has in the world, as long as one lights נר חנוכה (Ner Chanukah), the Chanukah candle, simply by performing a mitzva, this light still blazes into our world.

It’s  increasingly a challenge amid all the noise of commercialization, assimilation and denial, not to mention all the other distractions of daily life, to slow down and allow oneself the opening to sense even a tiny glimmer (and, really, for all of us, תלמידים חכמים (talmidim chachamim), great Torah scholars and עם ארצים (am aratzim), those completely ignorant of any Torah concepts, this tiny glimmer, הארת אור (ha’arat ohr), slightly better or slightly less understood, is all we can truly experience) of this great, ever-renewing light. Nonetheless, even without our feeling anything at all, with the simple lighting of candles by Jews around the world, spanning each extreme of knowledge and belief, this light floods into our world in an irresistible torrent.

The question each of us faces is how can we take the next step, to transform and direct this great light, in other words, for us to fulfill our mission (certainly not our only one, but a very important one, indeed) of being אור לגוים (Ohr l’Goyim), a Light to the Nations? Our weekly Havdalah ritual provides a hint when holding our hands towards the special havdalah candle we focus on the areas of light and shadow that appear on our palms. We then make a bracha which is “sealed” with the phrase המבדיל בין קודש לחול (HaMavdil beyn kodesh l’chol), “Who distinguishes between the holy and the mundane”. Light, modulated and utilized properly doesn’t wipe out differences but, rather, highlights them, allowing us to work with great precision. Pure light allows us to see our unique selves. Not only in terms of our private spiritual journeys and our communal obligations do we need to reinforce the pure and excise the evil, by example we both provide the “light” itself of absolute transcendental values of life, love, morality and responsibility as well as modeling (if we do, indeed, live according to our ideals and obligations) how to utilize this light to refine ourselves, our family, our community, our nation and our world (always working outward, beginning from the innermost).

In short, we most certainly can, through various techniques including study and kavvanot (intentions), enhance and refine the light we bring into the world which each mitzva we perform, but to bring the light itself, the primary goal itself, all we need is to start. The Chanukah candles we just lit are a good opening for those who have become distanced from our unique opportunities, but the next available mitzva is a good place to start, even for those of us already actively engaged.

May we join those who יֵלְכוּ מֵחַיִל אֶל־חָיִל (Yeylchu mey’chayil l’chayil) go from strength the strength.

Often considered dogmatic, much thought has been given over the millennia to the idea and inherent paradoxes and implications of God’s quality of omnipotence, כל יכול (kol yachol). We ask in Avot (5:1) why God took ten sentences to create the world since He could just have easily accomplished this with a single utterance. While the Mishna gives a rather cryptic answer about reward to the worthy and punishment for the wicked, the idea I want to explore is the assumption that God could have created any situation He might choose but has created things just the way they are.

Rather than looking backwards and attempting to second-guess The Creator, a task we’ll always fail at, the real opportunity comes when we realize that our life-situation, at every single moment, is essentially determined so we can ask, “What do we do now?”. “How did I get here?” and “What did I do wrong?” are largely unproductive narcissistic rhapsodies, tempting as they are for many of us. The real questions are, “What does God want me to learn here? What opportunities to draw closer to Him and to perform my unique duties are now available to me?”

God rarely speaks to us in linguistic terms, but He is always speaking to us through the experiences of our lives.

It’s worth remarking that the word מקץ (Miketz), the name of this week’s parsha (and it always falls on Chanukah) means “at the end”. Ironically, Ramchal (Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzatto) speaks of this parsha as the beginning of the Geula, Redemption (Otzrot Ramchal: Miketz) although at first reading it appears to lead directly to the Jewish People’s descent into the most abject of slavery in Egypt.

Ramchal talks about the drawing down of the Infinite Light through Da’at, Knowledge (which Yosef applied to Egypt when interpreting Pharaoh’s dreams) which is the combination of Chochmah and Bina (Wisdom/Insight and Analysis), which, themselves reach almost to Keter, the sefirotic realm beyond our comprehension, into Malchut (Kingship, but also refers to our world of action), almost to its very essence (Yosef, remember, rose only to the level of second to Pharoah). With Geula “activated” by the ultimate union of Keter and Malchut, we can, indeed, see these beneath-the-surface energies and influences leading from the very beginning of slavery to the ultimate freedom we experience in Pesach.

The symbolism of the connection to Chanukah should be obvious. As we find ourselves in the darkest days of the year we respond by adding light. In fact, we start to add light even before the very darkest day, paralleling the wisdom of our tradition that God sends the רפואה (Refuah) cure before he sends the מכה (Makah) the disease. We should note that the Refuah always involves our direct action and involvement (in this case, lighting the candles).

The part of reality that is already pretty much resolved to its highest potential doesn’t present much of a challenge. The real work is when we have to get down-and-dirty in the worst muck and clean that out. It isn’t fun, it’s often terribly unsatisfying and unfulfilling, but it’s absolutely necessary to bring the world to the state it has always been intended it should be. Ramchal sees our ancestors’ descent all the way to the 49th (out of 50) level of corruption as our opportunity to begin the Tikkun Olam that begins to manifest at Pesach and should have finally culminated in Matan Torah on Shavuot, had we not broken what we were supposed to repair and preserve, falling off the very peak of holiness back to the corruption of Avoda Zara, Idol Worship at the חטא העגל (Chet HaEgel), the golden calf.

It seems so often that when we think the end is in sight we suffer another fall, another descent into yet another realm requiring our work. Just as Rabbi Akiva, as related in Makkot 24b, responded to the ruins of our Holy Temple with seemingly inappropriate laughter because he saw, underlying the tragedy, the ultimate renewal, may we be empowered to understand that each setback, especially those which are most heart-breaking and difficult, is really an opportunity to further make the necessary repairs to the fabric of reality and to keep the vision of Geula, Ultimate Redemption, always in our vision.

Shabbat Shalom and Chag Urim Sameach

The Torah takes it as given that every human being has a unique Neshama (soul). The mandate in Avot (1:6), דָן אֶת כָּל הָאָדָם לְכַף זְכוּת (dan et kol ha-adam l’kaf zechut), “prejudge everyone as innocent”, in other words, initially giving everyone the benefit of the doubt, pointedly uses the phrase כָּל הָאָדָם (kol ha-adam), every person, and not a more restrictive phrase which would limit the application to only every Jew. Thus we’re mandated to consider everyone worthy of dignity. This includes the dignity of being or becoming self-sufficient.

Slavery of any kind, be it the hard variety enforced by brutality or the soft one of addiction and life-long dependence on a “benign” master (oftentimes the government), is in every case to be opposed. Permanent victimhood is just a slightly-disguised form of “soft slavery” and self-victimhood occurs when one is so oppressed as to join in his own enslavement.

The prejudice of lowered expectations, not encouraging and requiring self-responsibility, is yet another form of soft slavery. The dignity of allowing everyone to reach adulthood and to not be trapped in eternal immaturity is a corollary of honoring everyone’s unique Neshama. We help no one but the Pharaohs of the world when either we try to claim victimhood for ourselves or become enablers of other groups or individuals claiming it for themselves. While there is, indeed, a strong moral side to this statement, I’m speaking in practical terms–the only ones with the true ability to provide actual relief from permanent dependence is ourselves and our own (extended) family. Outside assistance, except in very measured and limited ways, will inevitably prolong the slavery, no matter the intentions of the givers.

The parable of giving a man a fishing rod rather than a fish is more than a cute story–it illustrates the wisdom of our Jewish tradition. Obvious truths are often belittled as cliché or impractical. The belittler, if you look closely, is the only one who loses when a person or group becomes their own masters.

Tzedakah, badly translated as “charity”, means doing the right thing. Although it can be motivated by the emotions, the application must be designed by the intellect. At it’s highest form, however, giving true aid is not a matter of pity, but rather has the potential of filling God’s Infinite Will, רצון עליון (Ratzon Elyon), and if performed as a מצוה (mitzva) its benefit transcends a single recipient and embraces all of Creation.

Each unique Neshama was brought into the world by The Creator for a unique task or set of tasks that will not be done unless we support that person’s efforts to fill their obligations.

Lend a hand, indeed, but integrate your head and heart as you do. Don’t allow yourself to be manipulated by either guilt or enthusiasm to unwittingly participate in compounding the problem. Insist on each person’s (including your own) unique dignity. It’s a mitzva.

Although I’m drawn to the abstract/mystical side of our tradition, I’ve been engaged in a passionate love-affair with Gemara since I began sixth grade more than 50 years ago. Over most of these years I’ve spent a significant part of every day engaged in studying it.

As I’ve written and taught extensively, while the Talmud does present us with a treasure trove of facts and information, of a practical/halachic nature as well as an historical/anthropological/sociological nature as well as a literary/mystical nature, preserving and presenting this information is really secondary (I’m not saying unimportant, just not primary). At least for those of us intimately engaged with her, the purpose is not to “generate the rule book”, although most halacha is certainly derived from it, nor is it to provide an ethnic heritage, although it certainly does that as well.

Rather, Gemara provides a Jewish mind an infinitely challenging and engaging “gym” for the mind. And like a gym for the body, it offers endless opportunities to exercise in very precise ways in order to sharpen our minds along multiple specific parameters. It covers so many subjects and embraces so many different facets both to attract our entire people, no matter our specific interests or inclinations, and also to give us practice using and sharpening our analytical and synthesizing skills over the entire range of human experience.

We’re systematically taught, and then repeatedly exercised in order to age and deepen our skills to think both empirically and intuitively, analytically and imaginatively, generally and specifically, systematically and inspirationally, as well as other parameters, all at the same time. The Talmud is also cyclic so we can repeat it over and over again, much as a musician, no matter what their skill level, can practice scales and exercises and compositions over and over and over, striving for virtuosity.

Sounds great, but a major drawback of becoming a good thinker is impatience with bad thinking. Bad thinking, of course, is not defined within a Talmudic context as disagreeing with my opinion. The entire Talmud is based on disagreements and proceeds under the assumption that almost all of the opinions, even those rejected for halacha (i.e. the “all things being equal” consensus decision (and, of course, all things are never equal in the real world)) are correct. Rather, Gemara study teaches us to engage with and appreciate other approaches, but only when they are equally well thought out.

Impatience with bad thinking and weak reasoning is almost impossible to avoid, but intolerance is no virtue even if it seems, at times, a superhuman challenge to resist it. Confidence in the thinking ability you’ve earned through hard work is not arrogance and it also, as part of this same thinking ability, does not imply the assumption that your opinion is always best. Yo-Yo Ma’s interpretations of Bach’s Cello Suites do not in any way invalidate Pablo Casal’s interpretations of the very same facts (notes). But when one has spent years refining a performance of music it’s hard to take a mistake-laden performance very seriously.

The prevalence of a 24-hour news cycle, the ascendency of social media and the politicizing of every damn thing in this world tends to grant a legitimacy to every opinion, thought-out or no. There is a great leveling which might be valuable for self-esteem (I’m not so sure that’s a very good goal–it’s impossible to grow if one finds no deficiencies in oneself) but seems to make most problems impossible to solve because it’s impossible to choose between a good policy and a bad one.

As I said, the downside to Talmud-study is impatience. Perhaps that’s just to inspire me to work harder on tolerance.

The opening pages of our 2,000 year-old and ongoing collective masterpiece, the Talmud, repeatedly mentions the imperative, כדי שיסמוך גאולה לתפלה (K’dey She’Yismoch Geula L’Tefila), “in order to join Redemption to Prayer”. Within the context of the discussion, Geula refers to the bracha that ends גואל ישראל (Go-ahl Yisrael) “…Who redeems Yisrael“, the bracha linked to the קריאת שמע (K’riyat Shema), the twice-daily recital of the affirmation, commonly tranlated “Hear O’ Israel, the Lord is God the Lord is One”, considered the keystone of Jewish faith. The mitzva of reciting it actually includes saying the two brachot which precede it and the either one or two (one in the morning, two at night) which follow it. The bracha which follows it (the only one in the morning, the first of two in the evening) is גואל ישראל  (Go-ahl Yisrael) and is referred to as גואלה (Geula). תפלה (Tefila), which generically means prayer, specifically refers to the thrice-daily Amida, the Standing Prayer, also known as the Sh’mona Esrei, the 18.

Reciting the Shema twice daily is a mitzva d’oreita, a Torah-mandated mitzva (Devarim 6:7). Likewise, so is Tefila (Shemot 23:25 and Devarim 6:13). Not only is it impossible to do both at the same time, it’s unnecessary. We’re also guided by the principle עוסק במצוה פטור מן המצוה (Osek b’mitzva patur min hamitzva), one who is engaged in (one) mitzva is excused (literally, has discharged their obligation) from another mitzva.

The Rashab, Rabbi Shalom Dov Ber Schneersohn, the fifth Lubavitcher Rebbe, takes this principle much deeper. In essence, he explains that when one is so fully engaged in performing a mitzva, with all of one’s heart and with the devotion of קבלת עול מלכות שמים (Kabbalat Ohl Malchut Shamayim), which literally translated to accepting the “yoke” of God’s Majesty, but, while untranslatable fully, points to single-minded/hearted dedication to bring the knowledge and essence of God’s presence into the material world, one can draw into our world not merely the אור אין סוף (Ohr Eyn Sof) the Infinite Light/Energy of that particular mitzva, but, indeed, the Light of the mitzva that one isn’t performing as well. Not only that, but by extension, each mitzva we perform with that sort of whole-heartedness brings both its own Light as well as all the Light of all the Mitzvot. (My own attempt the begin to understand what that really means might employ visualize and 248-sided (the number of positive mitzvot) “ball”, connecting to the plane of our world, and thus allowing the flow of the entirety, but with a particular facet of this ball in prime, forward contact, one-at-a-time, as we perform that mitzva–Remember, this is merely an attempt to understand, given my personal intellectual orientation and should not be taken as literal in any manner whatsoever!)

Thus, when we aspire to fulfill the mitzva of reciting the Shema with our fullest commitment, we not only draw into our world the Light/energy associated with the Shema, but also of Tefila/Prayer (from which we are currently פטור, patur (excused). As we move to pray, again as deeply engaged as we can be, we now draw down the Light of Tefila as well as the Light of all other mitzvot we might otherwise be engaged in. (Of course this isn’t a perfect analogy since the principle of “Osek b’mitzva patur min hamitzva” only applies when the two mitzvot can’t be performed at the same time. There are, of course, mitzvot we can and do perform simultaneously with wearing our Tallit and Tefillin both while reciting the morning Shema and saying the morning Tefila, for example.)

If we look at our days as a chain of opportunities to perform mitzvot, we can participate in an almost endless chain of bringing the Divine Shefa into our world almost continuously. Furthermore, the Light each of us individually draws down is specific (a unique “wavelength” might be one way to visualize this) to our unique Neshamot, meaning that no one else has the capability (nor the responsibility, nor the honor) of contributing this exact energy.

Of course, very few, if any, of us will achieve the spiritual skills and elevation to reach this fully at any time, let alone constantly, but what a goal to dream of!

For the most part, I hate attempts to explain tragedies in terms of “God is trying to teach us a lesson”. Ultimately, there is no way we can say why God, as it were, lets terrible things happen in the world and, specifically to עם ישראל (Am Yisrael), the Jewish People. Although many people try to say that Medinat Yisrael, the modern State of Israel, is the outcome of the Shoah (Holocaust), I find that sentiment to, at the very least, border on pornography. The most appropriate response to the question of “Why?” regarding the Shoah was spoken by one of my wonderful mentors, Rabbi Daniel Goldberger z”l, who is said to have replied to that question, “I can’t tell you why, but I can cry together with you.”

Nonetheless, even if we can’t understand why these tragedies occurred, we can, and must, find ways to respond to them in ways that move us, individually and as a people, forward. Rather than obscenely saying (as is the accepted political “wisdom” of the resentful in Europe and also in America) that the Shoah “created” Medinat Yisrael, let’s say that we, Am Yisrael, responded to that horror by founding the State of Israel. Thus, I’m desperately trying to find a way to transform the wave of savage murders and daily multiple attacks against every-day Israelis going on about their lives.

I recently wrote an article about fusion energy. At the time, I was thinking in abstract, kabbalistic concepts of yichudim, uniting ideas and levels of awareness/reality in order to reach the maximal energy state of Unity in/with God. However, there is an obvious phenomenon that, head in the clouds, I overlooked, and that is the drawing of the Jewish People closer together with one another.

Perhaps it requires as much energy to force us together in love and mutual support for each other as it does, allegorically, for two atoms to bond as required for a nuclear, rather than just a chemical, reaction. Under normal circumstances we are, after all, a very fractious people. In both cases, the positive energy yield in enormous.

To say that Jewish unity itself is a מצוה (mitzvah) is redundant. A mitzvah is not only a commandment and/or a good deed, the word itself contains the meaning of binding together. Binding ourselves together with each other, which has proven to take a tremendous amount of energy, allows us to bind ourselves together with The Creator, yielding exponential multiples of the energy expended.

Much of our work in the world consists of transforming evil to good, tragedy into triumph. One approach is to transform the שקר (sheker), the lies and illusions of ideologies that separate us from our fellow Jews into קשר (kesher), connection. Of course, this is a far from effort-free process, but like the technique underlying many of the martial arts, we can turn the force of our attackers against them by coming together, as we are doing, into our own אחדות (Achdut), unity.

I’m not whitewashing the savage terror Israelis face daily. Nor am I implying that we don’t need to do everything we can, including military action and, politically/diplomatically, applying sovereignty to Yehuda and Shomron, on the tachlis, real-world, sense, to combat and stop the terror attacks against us–of course we must do all this and more. I’m also not going to say that these attacks are all part of “God’s secret plan”. But I am definitely saying that since the terror began we find, even on the political level, much more unity among Israelis than we have had in a long time. We’re paying a terrible price for this so it would be an even greater tragedy to waste the potential energetic byproduct. Together and united, there is no limit to our potential to bring the world to fulfillment and welcome the longed-for Geula.

Keyn Yehi Ratzon.