Rabbi Shaya's Thoughts

How Would You Act?

Thursday, June 27, 2019 - 9:24 AM

Here is the dilemma: You are asked to do something as part of a group but some members of the group corrupt the mission. If you go along with the group, it could be perceived that you agree with them so you don’t want to participate. Conversely, if you call it quits, then you are definitely not doing the requested job. Should you go along, knowing – in your heart - that you are doing the right thing, or should you not go along, since it could be perceived that you are doing the wrong thing?

We could pose the question another way: what is more important, the action or the intention? If all you had to do was get the “action” done: Then even though the action is performed by others, albeit in a corrupt way, and you don’t have anything to do with it (since its “intention” is corrupted), you are staying far away. However, if it is all about the “intention:” then is it possible for you to “think” good intentions, even while the wrong “action” is being perpetrated?

This was exactly the dilemma of Joshua and Calev when they went as spies to investigate the Land of Israel. Moses had asked them to “bring back fruit from the promised land.” Yet, when they saw that other spies where planning to come back and misuse the fruit (as a prop) to enter Israel, they didn’t want to have anything to do with that plan. However, if Moses asked them to bring back the fruit, shouldn’t they have listened? This was their dilemma. Should they have listened or not? We know that they didn’t bring anything back. But why?

In general, it is the action that counts so long as we have good intentions. However, in this specific case, when the spies’ emphasis was on teaching the Jews that we can serve G-d by thought and speech and putting less emphasis on action, Joshua and Calev wanted to emphasize the importance of action--to the point that it is all about the action, going so far as to defy Moses’s request to bring back the fruit, simply to teach the Jewish people the lesson that serving G-d comes from our actions.

Yes, we need good intentions, but good intentions, without anchoring them in good actions, is not going to work.

Mazel Tov!

Wednesday, June 19, 2019 - 4:57 PM

Over the past few weeks we have celebrated many a graduation, from kindergarten to elementary school and from high school to college. In addition to the age difference between those graduating, there is a huge difference between graduating from college and graduating from lower level school. Going to college is optional, so when a young adult finishes their schooling, it is something to celebrate. However, one must ask (purely from an intellectual perspective): What is the big deal of finishing kindergarten, 8th grade, or 12th grade? Doesn’t that happen on its own, automatically? What else was that kid going to do–drop out?

This question is deeper than you may think. It is actually addressed in this week’s Torah portion, which discusses the Menorah. The instruction to craft the Menorah is the same as all other components of the Mishkan, the Tabernacle. G-d gives very detailed instructions as to exactly how He wants every item to look. However, when it comes to the Menorah, Moses is confounded about how to actually make it, since there is one detail that G-d throws in there that makes it improbable to do: that “it should be made from one piece of gold.” Now, we all know that a Menorah has six branches and a middle candle (the Shamash) in addition to the legs. Creating all the intrinsic details (flowers, cups, balls, etc.) is a challenge in its own right for a talented goldsmith to form. How in the world can someone make it out of one piece of gold?

G-d tells Moses: No problem; throw the gold into the fire, and I will form it for you. Moses does as he is told and out comes a Menorah.

Yet, until Aaron kindles the Menorah, the Menorah is not considered complete! One may ask, why? What is Aaron contributing? The heavy lifting was done by G-d himself. Just adding some oil and a wick? Anyone can do that. Or to put it another way, it would “happen anyway.” What else happens with a Menorah once it is completed if not to be kindled? Why the big “celebration” once it was lit, a celebration so great that we are told it was Aaron’s act that brought G-d’s presence into the Tabernacle?

From here we see that nothing “just happens;” even G-d’s act is related to our own. G-d didn’t just throw some gold into a fire, Moses did. G-d formed the gold that Moses threw in the fire. And Aaron kindled the Menorah. It was a partnership, Moses, Aaron, and G-d.

It is the same with graduation. It may be true that a little child graduating from preschool is not the same as a young adult graduating from college, when you compare the “free choice” involved in the process. However, if you think about the great effort the child put into learning, the participation of the teachers and parents into the child’s intellectual growth, and the effort that the little kid put into themselves to turn into a little “mensch,” it is no small feat. The little kid also deserves a graduation. Each level of success deserves a party according to its achievement—preschool, 8th grade, 12th grade, college, etc.

Mazel Tov to all graduates!

A Private Conversation

Friday, June 14, 2019 - 10:04 AM

When do you take a public conversation private? On the one hand, if you want people to trust you, shouldn’t the conversation continue in the presence of others? Perhaps not. Sometimes, the right thing to do is to make the conversation private because there is more to gain in private.

I am thinking about a topic that is discussed in this week’s Torah portion. The Torah tells us that when G-d wanted to talk to Moses, He would appear at the tent of meeting and His voice would be heard by Moses only – even Aaron could not hear His voice, if he were present. The commentators point out that this was in fact a miracle.

The question that jumps right out at us is: Why the need for the miracle? Wouldn’t it have been better if “the voice of G-d” could have continued for all to hear? OK, maybe not for everyone to hear, as that might have been too much to handle, but at least for Aaron and the seventy elders. After all, wouldn’t that have helped support that all of the Torah came from G-d and that Moses didn’t “make it up?” The truth is that after the revelation at Sinai the Jews trusted Moses, so they were not concerned … but many years later, we Jews can be skeptical about the authorship of the Torah; after all, if G-d’s voice would have been heard by more people, wouldn’t it be more convincing?

Let’s take a moment and think about what happened at Sinai. Did G-d’s voice stop there, or did it continue on and on, ad infinitum? In reality, it had to have been stopped—since G-d is infinite, so his voice has to be infinite, so it has to be limited to time and space. Hence, even at Mount Sinai, there was a miracle to “limit” the voice of G-d so that the voice could be heard.

In essence, nothing new happened at the tent of meeting. The only thing that changed was who was able to hear the voice, but not that it was limited.

So why didn’t G-d want anyone to hear His voice other than Moses?

You may ask, if we all “hear” G-d's voice, would we have free choice to listen or not? No way! Of course we would listen! We would have no free choice. G-d however, wants us to have free choice. This is one of the cardinal principles in Judaism. Nothing gets in the way of free choice, to the point that G-d would rather us question whether or not He spoke to Moses, showing us that we have free choice, than convince us that he did speak to Moses, and then we don’t have free choice.

This principle has to come down to the simplest levels as well. We are curious people. We like to know what others are talking about, but is it good for us to know? Not always, because then we wouldn’t have free choice on how to act.

In today’s world of social media, it is hard for us to fathom, but that doesn’t change the reality that in order to have free choice, it is better not to be influenced by outside forces – if they are too overwhelming.

Learn, yes. Be inspired, of course! However, to have G-d reveal himself to us is a bit too much.

Building Momentum

Thursday, June 6, 2019 - 9:07 AM

Back in the day when the Jews were in the desert, they were getting ready to receive the Torah from G-d at Mount Sinai. They had no idea exactly what to expect. So, Moses prepared them by daily ascending the mountain, asking G-d for instructions and guiding the Jews in their preparations. However, on the day before the giving of the Torah, Moses did not climb up; instead he busied himself by setting up an altar made of twelve stones, representing the twelve tribes of Israel. So one must ask the question: Since Mount Sinai was not that tall, couldn’t he find some time in the day to climb the mountain and see if there were any new instructions for the Jewish people? Why stay at the bottom of the mountain?

Perhaps there is a hidden message here.

Moses was teaching the Jewish people a lesson; he was taking concrete steps for us to learn what it means to receive the Torah at Mount Sinai. What transpired at Sinai is that from that moment on, we, the people who are down here in this physical world, the ones who cannot just “climb the mountain,” can make a difference by our physical actions. Moses demonstrated this by building an altar out of stones, taking an animal (representing our physical pleasures) and bringing it as an offering (showing that we are willing to let it go) to illustrate that we can elevate this world to a higher, spiritual, plane. If he had gone up the mountain on that final day, then this message would have been lost. The people would have thought that the only way to get close to G-d is to leave this world behind. Moses wanted to be with the Jews, so that they could internalize this lesson.

We too must know that it is in our hands to change this world, specifically from where we stand!

It is in this spirit that we decided that for this year’s Tikun Leil Shavuot – late night learning – for Shavuot eve, on Saturday night, June 8, at 10:00 p.m., we will have community members talk about several “unsung heroes of the Torah,” people who have transformed their world, and made it a better place. See below for more information.

Shabbat Shalom and Happy Shavuot!