|
 Friday
night. The sun has long since set, dark clouds hide
the stars, and the wind is howling off the Shouf mountain
range in central Lebanon .
I
had managed to quietly sing the Kabbalat Shabbat service,
while en-route to the ambush site, and even pray the
evening service while in the staging ground, before
giving my men a final inspection, but I had no idea
what to do about Kiddush. In such situations we usually
ate from our packs, one or two at a time, and we had
a system to ensure that we didn't make much noise, but
I had never happened to find myself in this particular
situation on a Friday night. I had not thought it through
in advance, so I had no wine with which to make Kiddush,
and a wave of depression fell over me as I realized
how far I was from where I really wished to be on a
Friday night. Having come straight from a patrol to
lay down this ambush, (intelligence had indicated that
terrorists might be coming through this valley on this
particular night...) there were no candles lit, no beautiful
Shabbat table laden with freshly baked Challot and wine,
and certainly, in the cold Lebanon night, no-one was
singing Shabbat songs.
My
first sergeant, a Yemenite Jew, crawled over to me and
I noticed a strange smile on his face; not the normal
expression of a soldier lying in the bitter cold in
the middle of the night in Lebanon...
“Achi!”
‘My brother', he whispered,
“Mah kara?” (‘What's up?'),
“Atah Nir'eh Kol Kach Atzuv, mah zeh tzarich le'hiyot?”
‘You look so down, what's the matter with you?'
“You
know”, he continued, we're not ready to lay down this
ambush; we haven't finished all the preparations (known
in the army as “Hachanot”...) I was somewhat surprised,
thinking I had been pretty thorough, but you learn pretty
quickly to listen to your men, especially your first
sergeant, who had been around...
“B'li
Kiddush, lo Zazim!”, ‘How can we move without making
Kiddush?' he said with a smile. (It had become the custom
in the battalion that every Friday night, before we
ate, I would make Kiddush for the whole battalion, and
all the guys would always kid me about it...).
It
was only then I noticed he had crawled over with a canteen
in his hand... and unscrewing the cap on the canteen,
he told me he had no Kiddush cup, but promised me the
Kiddush wine this week would be worth it. And together
with seven other men in Israeli Army uniform, on a wind-swept
hill in the middle of the night in Lebanon , we made
Kiddush.
I
had never seen him with a Kippah on his head, nor had
I ever caught him with a pair of Tefillin on his arm,
but at that moment, for me, Moshe Biton was the holiest
man in the world. And that Friday night Kiddush was
absolutely one of the highest experiences of my life.
Kiddush
is all about sanctifying the moment. It's about elevating
the mundane to a different place, and about how we can
transform the ordinary every day to something incredible;
something really special. But that also raises one of
the most challenging questions we face as Jews.
The
climax, perhaps even the apex, of the Friday night Kiddush
has us say:
“
Ki Vanu Vacharta Mikol Ha'Amim”
“Because You (Hashem) have chosen us from amongst all
the nations”.
We
are called the chosen people; indeed we say this every
day. Every morning when we wake up, we say the blessing:
“Asher
Bachar Banu Mikol Ha'Amim, Ve'natan Lanu Et Torato”
“Hashem has Chosen us from amongst all the Nations,
and given us His Torah...”
What
does this mean? Do we think we are better than every-one
else? Are we an elitist society? Is this what Judaism
is all about?
Given
that there are Jews from every racial background on
the face of the earth, and that a walk through any street
in Israel will see Jews from every nationality in the
world speaking the same language, one would be hard-pressed
to imagine that this idea is racist. Anyone who wants
to be a Jew can join the club. (Though what that entails
is far from simple, and involves at the very least defining
what it means to be a Jew in the first place)
But
something doesn't seem to sit right about the idea that
we consider ourselves to be chosen above all the other
peoples of the world. In fact, if we think we are so
great, one wonders what it is we are chosen for. I remember
thinking, on that hill in Lebanon , and in many similar
situations in the army and out, do I/we really want
to be chosen? If this is what I am chosen for, to be
in green pajamas, playing war games in the night, then
thanks, but no thanks!!
In
fact, the sources make very clear that any person, who
lives an ethical life regardless of whether they are
or are not Jewish, has a portion in the world to come
(Tosefta Sanhedrin 13), and that anyone can cause the
Divine Presence of G-d to reside in them.
So
what does it mean to be chosen? And what does this chosen-ness
have to do with Shabbat? Why is that one of the major
themes of Shabbat, is found, not only in the Kiddush,
but also in the special prayers for Shabbat, culminating
with the statement in the Shabbat afternoon service:
“Atah
Echad, Ve'Shimcha Echad, U'Mi Ke'amcha Yisrael, Goy
Echad Ba'Aretz.”
‘You are One, Your name is One, and who is like unto
Your Nation Israel : One nation in the World.”
Are
we really ‘the one, the only one'?
And
why, in introducing this idea that we are chosen, every
day, do we link this to the fact that Hashem gave us
the Torah?
It
would seem, that the ideal place to look, in order to
make sense of this idea would be that point in Jewish
history where Hashem actually chose us as his people.
And that, according to Jewish tradition, is this week's
portion, Yitro.
3,200
years ago, G-d chose to give us this special set of
books that we call the Torah. Beginning with the Ten
Commandments the entire Jewish people received and with
them the revelation that encapsulates the one to one
relationship that we had with G-d, beneath that little
mountain, somewhere in the Sinai desert. Arguably, this
is the single most significant experience in Jewish
history. It forms the basis for who we are, and all
that we have to share with the world. All of which raises
a rather interesting question.
If
this experience, which is clearly the central piece
of this week's portion, is so significant, why is the
portion named after Yitro, who is described in the opening
remarks of the portion to be a “ Kohen Midyan”,
a Priest of Midyan?
Why
isn't the portion named after Moshe, who received the
Torah to begin with? (In fact, there is no portion anywhere
in the Torah named after Moshe, nor for that matter
after Avraham, Yitzchak or Yaakov, either!)
Even
more challenging is how this portion begins: One would
have expected the story this week to begin with chapter
19 (of Exodus), which describes the arrival of the Jewish
people at Sinai, in preparation for the giving of the
Torah. Instead, we are treated to the arrival of Yitro,
Moshe's father in law. Tthe exchange that takes place
between Yitro and Moshe and the results of that conversation
are even stranger.
Yitro
notices that Moshe is sitting all day long holding court
for the Jewish community. So he advises Moshe to set
up a system of courts and judges, with lower courts
and appellate courts, and even Supreme courts, all finally
reporting to Moshe in the event that a problem cannot
be solved. Amazingly, Moshe thinks this to be a great
idea, and this forms the basis for the Jewish judiciary,
which of course is the foundation of any, and in this
case the Jewish, ethical system. This is nothing short
of incredible!
Imagine
you meet a friend who is about to go into a private
meeting with the Lubavitcher Rebbe (Z”TL), to try and
resolve a difficult Halachic question. And although
you know he is five minutes away from an answer from
the Rebbe, you decide to give him some advice and tell
him what you think is the best solution, and he actually
listens to you, and decides to do what you are suggesting!
And he calls his wife to tell her the answer, and how
to deal with it, and then off he goes to his meeting
with the Rebbe! That would be beyond chutzpah, it would
be ridiculous! How could you imagine giving advice to
someone who is going to see a world authority, and why
on earth would he be so presumptuous as to listen to
you, and all this before even seeing what the Rebbe
has to say! How could Yitro have the audacity to suggest
a system, when Moshe, and for that matter the entire
Jewish people, is about to have a tete a'tete with G-d?
And
why are we listening to this priest of idolatry in the
first place, much less naming one of the most important
portions of the Torah in his honor?
(Granted
that Yitro may have left the Idolatry of Midyan, to
embrace Judaism, but if that were the point, one would
expect to see that a bit more clearly expressed in the
text, which it clearly is not. In fact, a contextual
reading of this story has Yitro returning to Midyan
and not even waiting for the experience of Sinai! (See
18:27)
One
wonders if this may be precisely the point.
There
are really two pieces to the idea of chosen- ness.
The
first is, did G-d choose us, or did we choose G-d?
The second, which is far more crucial, is: What exactly
are we chosen for ?
Often,
when considering this question, people point out that
before G-d chose us, we chose G-d. Abraham, alone in
a world of pagan idolatry and immorality, was the first
to consider the possibility that G-d wasn't a part of
the world; the world was a part of G-d. Historians are
generally intrigued, and have no explanation for how
one people came to the idea that G-d is an unseen, all-giving,
loving entity, that is the source and the totality of
all reality. Especially given that this was a complete
departure from everything anyone had ever considered
to this point.
There
is even the oft-quoted Midrash (Oral traditional
teaching) that has G-d offering the Torah to all the
nations of the world, with each of them finding some
problem in its content that make it untenable to their
way of life. Each nation asks, what is in this Torah,
and to one G-d says ‘Thou shalt not kill', to another
‘Thou shalt not steal...' and each nation cannot imagine
life without theft, or without cheeseburgers, or without
hunting as a sport...
Yet,
says the Midrash, the Jews simply say we will live it,
whatever it says... ( next week's discussion ...).
But
is this really a fair expression of the idea that we
chose G-d? What if G-d had told us a little more of
what was in this book? I sometimes wonder what would
have happened if G-d had told us that the Torah says
‘thou shalt not gossip' (even in the back of the Synagogue!),
we might well have looked for another book!
If
the Torah makes the point of sharing this story of Yitro
with us right before receiving the Torah, and if Jewish
tradition even calls the portion Yitro, in his honor,
then there must be an idea, which is crucial to our
relationship with G-d, and our being chosen by G-d to
receive the Torah.
You
see, just because I am chosen does not mean that anyone
else is not chosen. In fact, we are all, every
one of us, chosen, in some special way.
Imagine
that I come home and tell our children that after a
long day, whoever gets into pajamas, brushes their teeth,
and gets into bed all on their own, will get an extra
story before bed-time. And imagine our son Yair does
exactly that, and gets ready for bed all on his own,
and with no cajoling whatsoever is all ready for a story.
But Adi, our daughter still resists and wants more help
with pajamas and teeth, and being ‘eased' into bed.
So of course, Yair gets an extra story, and Adi doesn't.
But then Adi yells: “favorites!” “It's not fair...!”
(You know the rest of the script...) So that's ridiculous.
I'm not favoring Yair; no one child is my favorite,
because they are all my favorites, always. My relationship
with Yair has changed in that moment because of how
he behaved, and the efforts he made, but that will never
cause me to favor him more.
Hashem
created each and every one of us. And just as all individuals
were created by G-d, so were all the Nations of the
world. And to the best of my knowledge, you will not
find, in any Jewish source, that just because I am chosen,
that someone else isn't, or that the fact that I am
chosen implies that I am somehow better than anybody
else.
In
fact, one of the most challenging aspects of parenting
is to be able to show your children that each one of
them is chosen, and special, while showing them that
none of them is more special...
And
maybe this is what this strange story of Yitro is doing
here. Before we begin our very special chosen relationship
with Hashem, remember, that just because the Torah is
truth, does not mean that truth is not to be found anywhere
else.
To
be chosen is a gift; the gift that Hashem gives me.
Some of us are chosen to be musical, some artistic,
some to be methodical, and some brilliant. My challenge
as an individual is to decide how I think Hashem chose
me. What is my gift? What do I really have
to give the world? And of course, a gift is meaningful
when I can give it purpose. To be chosen also means
I have a purpose. And if I take the gifts Hashem has
given me (which is how G-d chooses me) and transform
into a gift I give back to the world (How I choose G-d),
then I am no longer a created object, I am a partner
in creation.
And
if this is true for individuals, it is equally true
for us as nations of the world. We are all given our
special gifts, and each of us, Buddhists and Muslims,
Catholics and Jews, French and English; have to figure
out as a people, how we are chosen (what special
gifts we have been given) and what we are chosen
for.
What
are we, as a people chosen for? What, indeed, is our
mission? It is interesting that Judaism has been caught
between the extremes of religious fanaticism on the
one hand, and secular humanism on the other. The religious
fanatic believes, essentially, that G-d supersedes man,
and that human beings are insignificant before G-d,
therefore, in the name of G- d, there is no limit to
what we can do to man. As long as G-d lives, it does
not matter if man dies.
The
secular humanist, on the other hand, believes that G-d
is dead. And if we are not created in the image of G-d,
then we are in the end, created in the image of matter.
And if we are matter, and random, then how long does
it take before a man can become a bar of soap, or a
lampshade.
Judaism
offers the world the idea that man cannot be insignificant
before G-d, because man comes from G- d, and is even
an extension of G-d. Ultimately, Judaism suggests that
the first place to look for G-d is in the person sitting
next to me. Only when I realize that every person is
created in the image of G- d, and that every human being
is chosen, in his or her own special way, am I ready
to realize that we each, all of us, have a purpose.
And then I am ready to tackle the meaning of being chosen.
I am ready to discover the gifts I have been given (how
G-d chose me), and the way I can use them to give back
to G- d (the choices I make.)
This
is why chosen-ness is such a central part of Shabbat;
because on Shabbat I take the time in my week to consider
what all the running around is all about. Shabbat is
the island in time that allows me to consider who I
really am, and why I am really here. It is also the
reason Shabbat is so connected to the idea of Jewish
community, because together, our challenge is to re-discover
what we as a people are doing here, and how we can use
the special gifts we are given, to make the world a
better place.
And
the key to discovering just what we, as a people, have
been given is to explore the book that gives us the
formula for what those gifts, and that purpose really
is.
Three
thousand years ago Yitro, a Midianite Priest, taught
us that truth is truth, and that we all have our gifts,
and each one of us is ‘the one, the only one', in our
own special way. And that allowed us to begin the journey
of discovery to what our one-ness is all about.
Maybe
if we all, as Jews, learn to respect the one-ness and
chosen-ness of others, we will be ready to appreciate
the one-ness and chosen-ness we already have.
Shabbat
Shalom,
Rav
Binny Freedman
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