Parshas Shemini: Mourning a Loss

Sadly, our congregation has suffered two losses this week.  Our hearts and prayers are with the mourners; they should be consoled amongst the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem.

How fitting, then, that this week’s parsha also features two sad deaths.  Two of Aaron’s four sons, Nadav and Avihu, bring an unbidden incense offering to G-d in the Tabernacle.  G-d sends down a fire to consume the offerings, but that fire consumes the men also, and they die.

Who can ever contemplate the pain suffered by a parent upon the loss of a child?  This is suffering none of us wants even to imagine.  Just the thought of losing a loved one causes us to catch our breath in our throats. Our hearts skip a beat.  And the feeling of utter devastation when we do actually experience a loss defies words.  The loss is total and complete.

This is why we sit shiva.  Judaism in all its beauty and wisdom acknowledges that pain.  We are permitted for seven days after the funeral (excepting Shabbos) to mourn as deeply as we need to.  Friends, acquaintances, and even caring strangers may come to visit the shiva house because pain is easier to bear when the house is full than when it is empty.  And at the end of that week, we rise from our shiva but we do not resume our normal life.  We continue an abridged mourning ritual for the first month, and a lighter form still during the first year.  In this way, mourning follows a natural progression.

But poor Aaron who lost his sons! He was not permitted to sit shiva.  They were the only priests in the entire Jewish nation.  There was nobody to take over from them while they mourned, so they had to set aside their mourning and continue in their duties.

Moses tries to comfort Aaron, telling him that G-d has brought Nadav and Avihu close to him as sacrifices out of His great love for them.  Perhaps Aaron thought his sons were killed as a punishment for bringing the unbidden sacrifice.  ‘No,’ Moses tells him, ‘they were killed because they were on a higher level than the two of us put together!’  But Aaron is silent in the face of his brother’s attempt to comfort him.

Perhaps this is a lesson for all of us when we visit someone in mourning.  Trite words and platitudes cannot help someone who is hurting so much.  To say, “he’s in a better place now” or, “G-d loved her so much He called her back to Him” do not really make a person feel better when they are deep in their mourning.  Sometimes fond memories of the lost beloved one help remind the mourner of the lives he or she touched. Yet, sometimes words, even well-intended, cannot do a thing to make someone feel better.  Sometimes all the mourner really needs is a hug, a shoulder to cry on, and an ear to listen.

Baruch dayan ha’emes; blessed is the True Judge, for we cannot understand His ways.  May the mourners be comforted among all the Jews of Zion and Jerusalem.

Shabbat shalom!

Parsha Pekudei: We Are All Important

This week a letter was published from a woman who wrote to Rabbi Chalkowski, the rosh yeshiva of Neve Yerushalayim, where I studied.  She married and moved away from her community, making a new life with her husband far from home.  However, she maintained contact with her best friend who remained behind.  She watched as her friend remained popular in the community and met with great success in her career. Yet, she was in a new community where she had a hard time making friends and her career – in the same field as her friend – remained stagnant. She wrote to the rabbi because she felt disappointed with her life, especially in comparison to her friend.

Haven’t we all felt this way at some point or another?    It is so easy to look at another person and think their life is better, that it is the one you want.  He got a promotion. She got rich. He is popular. She is famous. Why him? Why her? Why not me?

Such comparisons might leave us feeling down at times.  There is always the temptation to think we have not achieved as much, even if we have tried our hardest.

In this week’s parsha, the precious metals and gemstones donated for the mishkan (tabernacle) are accounted and then assembled.  As to be expected, gold is the most precious.  There is more silver and much more copper than gold.  It seems like the gold must be the most important and the one G-d likes the best.  If metals had feelings, how would the silver and copper feel?

The gold is used to cover the ark, which means it is pretty important. However, the gold could not do its job covering the ark if the silver and copper were not part of the surrounding mishkan that protected the ark.  Although it seems like the gold is the most important, the mishkan could not have been built without all the metals contributed.  If only gold was given, there would be no mishkan.

It is the same with people.  Although it may seem that someone else has more success, we are each equally important.  Sure, the boss is important in the company, but the company would not function without the lower workers. The boss alone could not make the company run.

The world would not function without each and every one of us to make our contributions.  We may feel that our jobs are unimportant or our success is less than others’ but the truth is that we are all equally important, just in different ways.  Just as the silver and copper had essential roles in the building of the mishkan, so too do we each have an essential role in this world we live in.

Shabbat shalom!

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Parshas Vayakhel: Our Adelaide Kehilla

Community is a very important concept in Judaism.  However, as we see with many words in the English language, “community” is not an adequate translation of the original Hebrew.  In Hebrew, there are three words for the one English word “community.”  And, as former Chief Rabbi Sacks once pointed out, each of them has a different meaning.  Here in Adelaide, which are we?

The first word for community is “edah.”  “Edah” means community, but it comes from the word “eid,” which means “witness.”  So an edah is a community that has witnessed something – together.  Together, the Jews stood at Sinai and witnessed G-d speaking.  They then became an edah, of one mind.  They became a homogenous community.  But this does not seem to fit the description of our Adelaide community.  Although we may all be Jewish, we all have differing ideas of what that means to us.  Some of us keep kosher, others don’t. Some keep Shabbat, others don’t.  And we are all very different people with diverse interests and personalities.

The second word for community is “tzibbur,” from the Hebrew “tz-b-r,” which means “to heap” or “pile up.”  A tzibbur is what happens when a bunch of random people are thrown together in one place.  When you show up at the Kotel to daven with a group of people, you are a tzibbur.  You will likely never see those people again, but you’ve come together temporarily out of a common interest (praying).  Adelaide, although a community composed of many and varied people, is not a tzibbur.  We are too small for that.  We all know one another and see each other time and again.

The third and final word for community is “kehilla.”  A kehilla is something of the best of both worlds.  It is a gathering of diverse people who intentionally come together to accomplish a goal.  This can be good or bad.  The Jews at the golden calf were a kehilla.  So were the Jews in this week’s parsha who came together to make donations to the mishkan.  Ah, so this is the Adelaide Jewish community: we are all very different individuals, but we come together to make things happen, hopefully for the good!

And there are many opportunities to be a part of the kehilla in Adelaide.  Like the Jews in this week’s parsha, we can come together to give tzedaka or to build things like sukkot.   We can come together weekly for Shabbat services, to help make a minyan.  We can come together to do mitzvot, like visiting the sick or cheering the elderly.  We can come together to celebrate the holidays, like Purim, which is coming up, or Pesach, which is not long after.

I doubt Adelaide will ever become an edah, nor would we want it to.  We love the diversity and individuality of our members too much.  And we don’t want to see it become a tzibbur, with the members coming together so infrequently that they don’t even know one another.  We love our little kehilla and hope it stays this way: diverse and strong.  So come be a part of the kehilla! We look forward to seeing you!

Shabbat shalom!

Read more on Parshas Vayakhel-Pekudei: Finding Our Mission in Life
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Parshas Ki Tisa: More Than Just a Number

We each have numbers that “represent” us.  There are Social Security Numbers and Tax ID numbers.  There are Personal Identification Numbers and Student ID numbers.  We have driver’s license numbers and passport numbers.  And, sadly, many Holocaust survivors have numbers tattooed on their arms.

Assigning people numbers to identify them is an easy way for schools, governments, and other large organizations to keep track of them.  We no longer live in small villages, as we did hundreds of years ago, and it is now harder to keep track of all the people.  Yet we still refer to ourselves by our names, not our “numbers.”  To be referred to by numbers alone seems somehow degrading.

And perhaps even these numbers are not strictly necessary.  When Moses takes the census in this week’s parsha, there are surely too many Jews for him to know all of them, and yet he deliberately does not count them.  Rather than take a census by counting, he collects half a coin from each person and counts those.  Then he is able to know how many Jews there are.

Why do we not count Jews? In this week’s parsha, Moses is told, “When you take the sum of the children of Israel according to their numbers, let each one give to G‑d an atonement for his soul when they are counted, then there will be no plague among them when they are counted.”  Later, King David also counts the Jews, but this time the conventional way – and a plague strikes.

This is because counting individuals singles them out for judgment.  As a community, we hope to have enough merits to avert any negative judgment.  However, as individuals, many of us may have too many sins for our current merits to overcome.

Additionally, viewing a community as a whole entity, rather than as a collection of individuals, brings blessing to the community.  The Talmud teaches that blessing is not found “in something that has been weighed, nor in something that has been measured, nor in something that has been counted,” so that if we want blessings we should not count.  In other words, when we Jews are united, we all receive blessings, but we when we divide ourselves up into individual units, we invite individual judgments.

Thus, if we want to receive blessings and help our fellow Jews to receive blessings, we must be united.  Rather than counting ourselves and dividing ourselves up, we must join together.  Shabbat is an excellent time to practice this by coming to Shabbat services, where you can spend time with a nice group of other Jews.  You can also join us for our upcoming Purim gathering.  We are looking forward to having so many people that we could not count them all even if we tried!

Shabbat shalom!

Read more on Parshas Ki Tisa: Parshas Parah: Taking the Bull by the Horns

Parshas Tetzaveh – The Nose Knows

Studies show that of all our senses, our memory for smells is the strongest.  Indeed, most people will agree that certain smells bring them back to earlier times and experiences, even if they no longer remember what those experiences looked, sounded, or felt like.  One smell will remind you of your grandparents’ house, which you last visited when you were three years old.  Another smell will forever remind you of the day your first child was born.  Smells are very powerful.

Our sense of smell is also our most G-dly sense.  Indeed, when he comes, Moshiach will judge not by sight or by hearing, but by smell. (Sanhedrin 93b)

When Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden, the sense of smell was the only one of the five senses that did not participate.  Hearing listened to the snake (and Eve).  Sight saw the apple.  Touch gripped the apple. Taste tasted the apple. But at no point did Adam or Eve stop to smell the apple.  The sense of smell did not participate in this, the first sin of humanity.  So the sense of smell retains a level of spirituality and holiness.

So when it comes to the building of the tabernacle, it makes sense (pun intended!) that the instructions for its construction should “save the best for last.”  So we see that after the rest of the tabernacle is built, only then do we receive the instructions regarding the incense.

But leaving the incense for last also teaches us something about human nature.  We are building a “house” for G-d, who is Himself not tangible.  Can G-d, who cannot be contained even by the heavens above, be contained in a little dwelling here on earth?  As humans, we are inherently limited.  We cannot possibly fathom something so intangible as G-d.  Because we are unable to rise to His level, we have to bring G-d down to ours.  So we build him a house, a physical tabernacle, in which He can “dwell.”

Yet, just having a physical place with trappings fit for the King of kings is still not enough.  We have to be able to feel G-d’s presence there.  Otherwise, it would be like walking into a king’s palace only to find it empty.  This is when the incense comes in.  The sweet, heady smell of the incense taps into our purest and most spiritual sense.  This intangible smell helps transport us, helps us enter the right frame of mind to perceive our intangible G-d.

This is why the instructions for the incense altar are left until last, even though it is placed inside the mishkan with the other altars and vessels.  Because as humans we first need to build and see the physical, then we can more easily tap into the spiritual.

We hope you will join us soon at our own house for G-d, where you too can better access your spirituality.  And invite G-d into your own home, where Shabbat is the perfect time to fill your house with the smells of mitzvot: fresh-baked challah on a Friday night, cholent on Saturday, and besamim on Saturday night.

Shabbat shalom!

Read more on Parshas Tetzaveh: What You Wear IS Important