Spark of Jewish Experience

There is a section in this week’s Torah reading, Parshat Bechokotai, where they are many curses. Yes, you heard me correctly, big time nasty curses. G-d warns us ‘if you do not go in my ways then I will punish you’. My father z”l instructed my bar mitzvah teacher that I not read that portion, citing it is not appropriate that a wet behind the ears bar mitzvah boy, who is introduced to G-d’s commandments for the first time, read such negativities; after all, a bar mitzvah is a happy occasion. It’s a custom that the Rabbi or chazan get an aliya (called up to the Torah) for both the curses as well as the brachot (the Ten Commandments, Az Yashir etc.), and avoid any uneasiness on the gabai to pick people for the undesirable aliya. The negative portion is read in a lower tone than usual.

In the Torah (26:18), G-d warns us ‘If, in despite, you do not listen to me, then I will punish you seven ways for your sins.’ According to our sages, punishment is meant to wake us up and correct our mistakes and become better people. However, Rav Henoch Leibowitz, z”l points out ‘there are those who do not take criticism very well and it’s counter productive to rebuke them.’ How easy it is today to get depressed when we encounter negativity. We live in a very pressurized society where the stress level is beyond normal. The amount of responsibilities is enormous; just paying bills is overwhelming; we are billed for everything; if opportunity strikes they’d bill us for breathing. There’s the headache of finding the right mate and the difficulty of trying to conceive. It seems like when one takes a breath of fresh air, new problems arise; therefore we are susceptible to be ‘down and out’. So how are we able to cope with our problems?

To shed some light on this question, I’d have to go back to this past Shabbat where I would take my customary walk after Rabbi Olbaum’s shiur, with my friend Ophir Haimov. Ophir reminded me of a gemarah that fits this d’var Torah perfectly. He said, ‘We all know King David wrote psalms, which happens to be one of the greatest dedications to G-d. However, believe it or not, it was almost surpassed by the psalms of none other then, the egotistical maniac, Nevuchanetzar.’ Nevuchanetzar was the king of Babylon who destroyed the first temple approximately 2500 years ago. This king of Babylon was a very complex character. On one hand, he was notoriously known for his cruelty towards humanity and also having the audacity to proclaim himself G-d. However, shockingly, there was a glimpse of strong appreciation and acknowledgement of G-d. He reached the heights of holiness and the depths of evil on a daily basis.

The gemara continues, ‘G-d sent an angel to knock his pen down and Nevuchanetzar never wrote again’. The commentaries explain the difference between the two; King David went through so many knocks but he never put down his pen. He was labeled an illegitimate son where he was ostracized by his father and brothers after beating Goliath. Instead of being embraced by King Shaul and given his daughter for marriage, Shaul tried to kill him. His own son rebelled and tried to kill him and in turn was killed against David’s wishes. But through these painful adventures, David never put his pen down and even proclaimed, ‘I feel closer to you then ever’. On the contrary, Nevuchanetzar never recovered from his ordeals and denounced G-d.

Similarly, we find Joseph, one of the twelve sons of Jacob, who was hated and sold by his brothers to a strange land. Joseph had to go through one of the biggest tests of all time; his boss’s wife was trying to seduce him for approximately a year; this was especially difficult being seventeen. Could the guys reading this dare to believe they cannot sin in that situation? One would figure after passing the test, G-d would reward him handsomely. Not so – he was put in jail for a lengthy time. Throughout his difficulties, we never heard Joseph complain. On the contrary, every conversation he had, Joseph praised G-d.

David and Joseph were able to persevere and reach the heights of being leaders of Israel because, of what Rav Leibowitz describes, people of their character have an ability to believe that whatever negativity they experienced, is inflicted by G-d himself for the direct results of their sins. As David writes in Tehillim, ‘I know that whatever happens, G-d will never leave me’. They were able to learn and become better, stronger people from their experience; there is always room for improvement. They didn’t say, “I’m just going to take a vacation and turn myself off from life until this bad time goes away.”

Before Ophir and I departed to our respective synagogues, he offered a great example. ‘It’s like poker; you don’t need a good hand to be a winner.’

One of the most spiritual and exhilarating times of my life occurred on lag ba’omer (the 33rd day from the 2nd day of Passover), five years ago. On that day, my family and I were in Miron, Israel; the site of the gravesite of Rebbi Shimon Bar Yochai, (also referred to as Rashby), the founder of Kabbalah (zohar), commemorating his yartzeit. It’s a custom not to cut the hair of young boys until they reach their third birthday. The cutting of the hair ceremony is called upsherin or kalacha. At the gravesite in Miron, there are many little boys awaiting haircuts. One of them was my son, as well as yours truly, when I was three, many years ago – well, not that long ago. It’s not your ordinary gravesite and we weren’t the only ones there. There are approximately 600,000 people visiting the site where bands play music, food stands are put up and various foods are distributed for free. I’ve never experienced a place where people are so friendly and polite to each other then lag ba’omer in Miron. It is Jews at their best and one experiencing this can really feel proud of being Jewish.

Why the custom of celebration on his yartzeit? Why the cutting of the hair? In fact, there is a strong Bukharian tradition of commemorating the yartzeit of a loved one by reading the portion of the zohar, which describes the death of Rebbi Shimon Bar Yochai. Why is the connection between his death and others emphasized? Also, why do Bukharians celebrate with a meal?

There is an emphasis in the zohar that Rashby died in peace, which in Hebrew is pronounced ‘shalom’. The root of the word shalom is shalem – complete. Therefore we learn that Rashby passed away in a perfect state, complete. The idea of kabbalah is to be completely infused with Torah in order to connect with it on every possible level, or worlds. The knowledge of Torah, through kabbalah, enables us to change frequencies, similar to changing channels on a radio dial. One hears different sounds when changing the dial even though he’s situated in the same spot.

Another example of different views of reality is the status of a woman accepting a wedding ring presented by her chattan, after he says ‘you are betrothed to me with this ring’. In the process, her status changes. Although the woman’s appearance is noticeably the same as before but on a different frequency, one can apparently notice the change of her being branded her husband’s name and the status of a married woman; so one must be careful and realize how powerful words, or any act for that matter, can be. When one makes a bracha on an apple, he doesn’t notice, but in other worlds (there are three) the apple changes status. Good and evil are more apparently noticed in other frequencies. Rashby’s philosophy was that material and physical are the skin that hides the holiness of the soul. The light has to come out. That is the reason haircuts are given on lag ba’omer. Hair represents materialism in its highest sense. Presumably, that is one of the reasons married women wear shaitels (wigs). Ask any person what is one of the main features of beauty in a woman. One of the leading answers would be the hair. Women take tremendous pride in beautifying the hair. It’s a tremendous self-sacrifice to cover one of their pride and joys. No matter how nice the wig is, any woman would still like to show her own hair. In essence, what a woman is saying to G-d, “I’m giving this up because of your commandment.” This is one of the biggest tests of faith the daughters of Israel have.

Rashby died achieving peace and completeness. Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan writes ‘one has to be at peace with himself in order to attain peace with others, and only then he can achieve great heights’; this is hinted in the zohar. The yartzeit was the one important part of Judaism in which Bukharians practiced in public back in Russia; it united people, and unity is the result of peace. Incidentally, ever wonder why one tradition at a yartzeit dinner are that there are no knives? Because that would go against Rashby’s message of shalom and shalem (peace and complete). Knives represent strife and war.

We also try to connect this zohar that we read to when one passes away. It describes how Rashby died complete and we try to symbolically connect the deceased to Rashby through the concept of ‘he died complete with peace.’ This is the reason why we read that particular passage in the zohar. We hope that with the read, G-d will have mercy and guide the soul with that of Rashby. Also, the passage describes a fire that came out of Rashby and into his disciples; this symbolizes the transformation of the Torah to the next generation. Here too is a transformation from one generation to the next.

There is a passage that says ‘G-d makes peace in the heavens by putting together fire and water, then He can surely make peace here on earth’. One reader asked a great question pertaining to last week’s article referring to opposites, which cannot exist in the spiritual world. So then how can fire and water co-exist together?  Opposites are usually at odds with each other! G-d made a miracle not only enabling fire and water to co-exist with each other, but He made peace (shalom and made them shalem) between them, wedging them together through the common denominator, G-d; now they have similarity.

Seeing my son smile while I gave him his first haircut as the music was blasting the song ‘Bar Yochai’ which is one of the favorite songs that was sung by Pop, z'”l, and I, at the Friday night Shabbat table, made that moment an extremely happy occasion. Rashby said, “I want People to celebrate my yartzeit with tremendous joy”. Well, I sure did.