I primarily do two kinds of teaching: teaching Torah classes in a wide range of areas within my extended congregational community and teaching California Civil Procedure and Advanced Torts at law school. As the terms winds down, my law students often ask whether I would mind devoting time in our last class of the term to reviewing material we have studied. And that is the way of teaching. One begins by explaining where she is going with her message or class, one teaches or writes accordingly, and one concludes by reviewing for her students or readers what she has taught.
In Parshat D’varim we begin a new book, Deuteronomy, the fifth and final volume of the “Five Books of Moses” or the Pentateuch. In Hebrew, we call it the Chumash or the Torah. Christians call it the Old Testament. Each of these names implicitly perceives the Book of D’varim as part-and-parcel of an integrated package.
Primarily in the late19th century – only a bit more than a century ago – Julius Wellhausen, a German scholar who undertook to analyze the Pentatuech, emerged with his “Documentary Hypothesis,” arguing that the Torah was not the revealed word of the Creator to the Jewish People but instead had been authored individually by several different contributors. One of those authors, he submitted, was the Deuteronomist, the supposed human author of the Book of D’varim. Wellhausen posited that the presence within Deuteronomy of so much text that recounts and repeats the substance of earlier Chumash volumes proves a separate human author.
Interestingly, many non-observant Jewish historians and theologians see in Wellhausen’s writings an unmistakable reflection of the intense anti-Semitism that pervaded German academia in the late 19th century. It was incomprehensible for so many Germans, including intellectuals, to fathom that the Master of the Universe would have chosen the Jewish People, as among all nations on earth, to have received the Torah in their millions amid thunder and lightning, dramatic Shofar sounding and the glory of the Divine revelation at Mount Sinai. It was easier to posit that a bunch of individuals had written book parts. The school of literary provided an angle.
For those of us who believe with absolute intellectual certitude that the entire Chumash is the exact Word of the Creator, down to each letter – Divinely revealed in Ten Pronouncements to the Nation at Mount Sinai and further Divinely revealed in 613 laws orally taught to Moses atop the mountain and thereafter in text that Moses transcribed by direct dictation from Hashem’s “mouth” during the peregrinations through Sinai – the repetition in D’varim is not redundancy but review. If Moses was anything, he was Moshe Rabbeinu – Moses our Teacher. And, just as a trial attorney sums up for a jury in an elegantly woven fabric everything they have heard and experienced in bits and pieces during days or weeks of a trial, so Moses begins his summation before dying, reminding the nation what they have seen and experienced in bits and pieces, heard and learned over forty years and two generations, weaving the strands into a coherent fabric.
They will not be preparing to take a written final or to sit for a bar exam, as the teacher weaves together a term’s lectures. But they will, as we all ultimately will, encounter a final test. In preparing for that test, there is no better starting point than to study carefully the words of the Book of D’varim that will be read at your temple this year in nine weekly installments between August 9 and October 4. Our greatest teacher is summing up the lessons of a lifetime. Get out your notebooks and pens, your laptops. Start writing and typing notes right after Shabbat each week.
And share the Word.
Showing posts with label Parsha. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Parsha. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Parsha - B'ha'a'lot'kha
Not many people – yet – among Irvine’s pedestrians and shoppers wear yarmulkas. The city’s Orthodox Jewish community indeed has expanded in recent years to four Orthodox congregations – including our own Young Israel, two Chabad congregations, and a fourth where I previously served – as well as an Eruv and a forthcoming Community Mikvah. Even so, not many of us wear yarmulkas outdoors. Therefore, wherever I meander, people assume that I am a rabbi – a pretty good guess.
The thing about wearing a yarmulka is that you not only become the involuntary emissary of the Jewish people (as, for example, when someone at the supermarket asks: “Excuse me, are you a rabbi – and, if so, do you know where I can find borscht?”). More curiously, you become a prize candidate to be converted. It seems there are “extra points” to be garnered in certain circles for “witnessing the Good News” to a guy with a kippah. Recently, while sipping at a Coffee Bean – if only they sold sandwiches here! – two women approached and asked whether I was open to accept their Messiah into my heart. I demurred politely, but they continued: “Don’t you see that you never can get forgiveness from God without a Temple sacrifice? Prayer is not enough. G-d does not forgive unless there is blood, a sacrifice at the Temple. And that is why He sent his only . . . .”
Which brought that discussion and this week’s Parsha analysis to five words that Moshe Rabbeinu (Moses our Teacher) cried out to the Master of the World after Miriam was smitten with Biblical leprosy for speaking lashon hora (deprecatory speech) about her brother. Miriam had initiated a brief discussion with her other brother, Aaron, concerning Moshe’s relationship with Tziporah, the woman he had married. (Numbers 12:1-3) And then suddenly – not even allowing time for them to purify themselves properly before appearing in the Divine Presence – Hashem came down among them, explaining Moshe’s unique role as His Prophet and as His ever-ready Servant. (12:4-6) “How dare you speak that way about My Servant, about [My] Moshe?” And Miriam was smitten with a Biblical leprosy that compelled her into a humiliating exile outside the Jewish encampment.
The Torah records that Moshe wasted no time, crying out: “Kel, na, R’fa na lah” – “G-d, please, heal her, please” (12:13) In only five words, Moshe pleaded with earth-shaking force for Miriam. There was no sacrifice of animal. No blood. Just the exhorting lips of Moshe, crying out to the Creator: “G-d, please, heal her, please.” And she was healed.
Prayer is a powerful vehicle. Our lips substitute for bulls. (Hosea 14:3) Long before the first Tabernacle was erected, Cain had pleaded to Hashem in prayer that the punishment for murdering his brother was too heavy to bear – and the Creator responded by placing a mark on him to protect him. (Genesis 4:13-15). Avraham prayed for the safety of the righteous who might be residing in Sodom and Gomorra – and Hashem was moved to change His plan. (Gen. 18:23-33) Avraham awoke early in the morning, praying in his usual place, on the day he set forth with Yitzchak for Mount Moriah. (Gen. 22:3) Yitzchak was conversing with Hashem – praying – in his field during late afternoon on the day he met Rivkah. (Gen. 24:63) Yaakov prayed at night. (Gen. 28) When Hashem spoke of wiping a nation out of history, Moshe prayed and pleaded for their forgiveness until He said: “I have forgiven, consonant with your words.” (Numbers 14: 20; cf. Exodus 32:14)
Prayer is powerful. Joshua prayed, and the world’s sun stood still on a Friday afternoon so that Israel’s enemies would be dispatched before the Shabbat. (Joshua 10:12-14) Samson, blind and bound as a spectacle for the Philistines, prayed and was answered. (Judges 16:28-29) As evidenced throughout so much of Psalms, David prayed – as he stood before Goliath, later as he fled from Saul’s pursuers and into Avimelech’s kingdom, and ultimately as King of Israel.
Prayer is not only powerful for Biblical figures. Through 2,000 years of Exile, tens of millions of the meekest and least historically prominent individuals in the Jewish nation prayed three times daily for a return to Jerusalem and the restoration of Zion. They prayed for centuries despite no possible rational basis to believe their prayers would be answered. But prayer is not only about empirical data, and – paradoxically – faith tests one’s faith. Prayer is about submitting oneself to a greater Power, a more omnipresent and omniscient Authority. Prayer tests our resolve – can we continue praying long after our prayers ostensibly have not yet been answered? Prayer forces us to search within and to judge ourselves: can we distinguish between the substantive needs that justify our passions and the vanities that are passing fancies? Prayer directs our hearts and teaches us humbly to acknowledge our own limits.
Prayer teaches us to harmonize with the Creation, to hear His response. When prayer is not answered, sometimes – as the country singer Garth Brooks poetically has observed – one reflects, stunned, and suddenly realizes that some of G-d’s greatest gifts are unanswered prayers. Sometimes, it takes 2,000 years and millions of tear-soaked prayers to receive the beginnings of an answer. And sometimes it only takes five words.
Or, as I explained respectfully to those two lovely women, sometimes the only sacrifice G-d demands of us is not someone else’s tragic death but the service of our hearts, the passion of our lips, and the unabashed exposing of our souls.
The thing about wearing a yarmulka is that you not only become the involuntary emissary of the Jewish people (as, for example, when someone at the supermarket asks: “Excuse me, are you a rabbi – and, if so, do you know where I can find borscht?”). More curiously, you become a prize candidate to be converted. It seems there are “extra points” to be garnered in certain circles for “witnessing the Good News” to a guy with a kippah. Recently, while sipping at a Coffee Bean – if only they sold sandwiches here! – two women approached and asked whether I was open to accept their Messiah into my heart. I demurred politely, but they continued: “Don’t you see that you never can get forgiveness from God without a Temple sacrifice? Prayer is not enough. G-d does not forgive unless there is blood, a sacrifice at the Temple. And that is why He sent his only . . . .”
Which brought that discussion and this week’s Parsha analysis to five words that Moshe Rabbeinu (Moses our Teacher) cried out to the Master of the World after Miriam was smitten with Biblical leprosy for speaking lashon hora (deprecatory speech) about her brother. Miriam had initiated a brief discussion with her other brother, Aaron, concerning Moshe’s relationship with Tziporah, the woman he had married. (Numbers 12:1-3) And then suddenly – not even allowing time for them to purify themselves properly before appearing in the Divine Presence – Hashem came down among them, explaining Moshe’s unique role as His Prophet and as His ever-ready Servant. (12:4-6) “How dare you speak that way about My Servant, about [My] Moshe?” And Miriam was smitten with a Biblical leprosy that compelled her into a humiliating exile outside the Jewish encampment.
The Torah records that Moshe wasted no time, crying out: “Kel, na, R’fa na lah” – “G-d, please, heal her, please” (12:13) In only five words, Moshe pleaded with earth-shaking force for Miriam. There was no sacrifice of animal. No blood. Just the exhorting lips of Moshe, crying out to the Creator: “G-d, please, heal her, please.” And she was healed.
Prayer is a powerful vehicle. Our lips substitute for bulls. (Hosea 14:3) Long before the first Tabernacle was erected, Cain had pleaded to Hashem in prayer that the punishment for murdering his brother was too heavy to bear – and the Creator responded by placing a mark on him to protect him. (Genesis 4:13-15). Avraham prayed for the safety of the righteous who might be residing in Sodom and Gomorra – and Hashem was moved to change His plan. (Gen. 18:23-33) Avraham awoke early in the morning, praying in his usual place, on the day he set forth with Yitzchak for Mount Moriah. (Gen. 22:3) Yitzchak was conversing with Hashem – praying – in his field during late afternoon on the day he met Rivkah. (Gen. 24:63) Yaakov prayed at night. (Gen. 28) When Hashem spoke of wiping a nation out of history, Moshe prayed and pleaded for their forgiveness until He said: “I have forgiven, consonant with your words.” (Numbers 14: 20; cf. Exodus 32:14)
Prayer is powerful. Joshua prayed, and the world’s sun stood still on a Friday afternoon so that Israel’s enemies would be dispatched before the Shabbat. (Joshua 10:12-14) Samson, blind and bound as a spectacle for the Philistines, prayed and was answered. (Judges 16:28-29) As evidenced throughout so much of Psalms, David prayed – as he stood before Goliath, later as he fled from Saul’s pursuers and into Avimelech’s kingdom, and ultimately as King of Israel.
Prayer is not only powerful for Biblical figures. Through 2,000 years of Exile, tens of millions of the meekest and least historically prominent individuals in the Jewish nation prayed three times daily for a return to Jerusalem and the restoration of Zion. They prayed for centuries despite no possible rational basis to believe their prayers would be answered. But prayer is not only about empirical data, and – paradoxically – faith tests one’s faith. Prayer is about submitting oneself to a greater Power, a more omnipresent and omniscient Authority. Prayer tests our resolve – can we continue praying long after our prayers ostensibly have not yet been answered? Prayer forces us to search within and to judge ourselves: can we distinguish between the substantive needs that justify our passions and the vanities that are passing fancies? Prayer directs our hearts and teaches us humbly to acknowledge our own limits.
Prayer teaches us to harmonize with the Creation, to hear His response. When prayer is not answered, sometimes – as the country singer Garth Brooks poetically has observed – one reflects, stunned, and suddenly realizes that some of G-d’s greatest gifts are unanswered prayers. Sometimes, it takes 2,000 years and millions of tear-soaked prayers to receive the beginnings of an answer. And sometimes it only takes five words.
Or, as I explained respectfully to those two lovely women, sometimes the only sacrifice G-d demands of us is not someone else’s tragic death but the service of our hearts, the passion of our lips, and the unabashed exposing of our souls.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
K'doshim: Separating the Holy from the Despicable
“Tell the entire assemblage of Israel: you shall be holy because I the L-rd your G-d am holy.” (Vayikra 19:2)
This week’s Torah portion lays out a comprehensive array of Divinely ordained commandments that define the range of Judaism’s unique values. Legislated to an assemblage of just-liberated slaves, these are the concepts and aspirations taught orally to Moshe at Sinai and thereafter transmitted in an appendix – the Written Torah. Through them, we were sculpted into an entity greater than mere physical emancipation could have offered. We were made holy.
In Judaism, “holiness” is epitomized by separation -- "separateness." “Behold [they comprise] a Nation that shall dwell alone.” (Bamidbar 23:9). We are holy because we are separate.
These laws separated us from the surrounding world. Don’t just fear your Dad but also your Mom; don’t just cuddle up to Mom with honor but also honor your Dad. And, yet, remember that both your parents, no less than you, answer to the Creator; their authority extends only within Torah’s parameters.
Yes, be really careful to observe all the detailed rituals governing animal sacrifice, and carefully observe all kinds of esoteric laws: Refrain from donning garments made from a combination of both linen and wool. Don’t shave with a razor blade or obliterate your sideburns or get caught up in a societal tattooing craze. Tatt too will pass. Don’t go to fortune-tellers, and don’t erect statues.
But also remember that, as part of being holy – of being different – your Creator will hold you accountable for cursing deaf people and for tripping up the blind, even if they are oblivious to your deeds. He will demand you account for conducting business dealings deceitfully, for failing to leave a corner of your field’s produce as open-pickings for the poor. Don’t you dare steal or deal falsely. If you invoke His name in a false oath, if you perjure yourself in a court filing, you will have to account. Don’t you dare cheat your neighbor, and don’t you rob, and don’t you withhold your employee’s wages past payday. Don’t you dare.
Maybe the late-night TV talk show hosts make fun of elderly people, but not you. When you see someone with white hair, you get up from your cozy chair and you stand out of respect, and you honor that time-worn face. She has endured it all, and she has earned your reverence.
So it’s not just about meticulously observing 39 rules that define Jewish Sabbath observance – although that, too, is central to the very concept of a Jewish People. Nor is it only about eating kosher and avoiding forbidden mixtures. Rather, it also is about being honest, ethical, trustworthy, and thus noble. Your scales must be honest when you weigh a pound of meat or a hill of beans. Your every transaction must be honest; even your resumés must be truthful: where you went to school, the degrees you truly earned. A holy nation is not led by crooks, nor does it honor them.
That is what makes a great people. Such separateness makes “holy.”
Greatness is not measured by the size of your bat mitzvah smorgasbord or the layout of your backyard pool, but by how you acquired them. Your fancy car and your home landscaping and the jewelry in your safe do not define you. Your deeds define you. As Rabbi Emanuel Rackman taught: It is not enough to do well; you must do good.
Whom do we honor? At our every organizational banquet, our every special event, do we make room on the dais to honor at least one person of modest means whose presence is grounded exclusively in her kindness, her goodness, her nobility of character?
Money is great. And many profoundly wealthy people also justly populate the platform of the noble, those blessed with dignity and grace of character. But is wealth the standard we employ in selecting our nobles, our honorees? Can a Holy Nation count among its leaders those whose wealth is bound with mendacity? Those who became rich by ruining others or those who climbed ladders by destroying the reputations of others?
Not a holy nation. Not a nation separated and set apart by the command of their Creator to deal honestly, to judge honestly, and never to do unto others what they would not want done to them.
That is the striking message of this week’s Torah portion. It should be mandatory reading for every banquet committee and every nominating committee in organized American Jewish life. Its message is that extraordinary. And we all should study it, too.
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
On Bernie who Madoff with the Loot -- Fifty Billion
It was said of Lev Bronstein, a revolutionary in post-Czarist Russia, who -- to dissociate himself from his Jewish roots -- changed his name to Leon Trotsky: “It’s the Trotskys who make the revolutions, and the Bronsteins who pay the bill.”
We are 5 million Jews in America, and ten percent of us are Orthodox. So: 500,000 Orthodox Jews . . . 5 million American Jews. There are one or two of these crook situations each and every year. One or two out of 500,000 . . . one or two out of 5,000,000. The large-yarmulka’d rabbi of the 1970s nursing home scandal. The Brooklyn yeshiva condemned by United States Senator Sam Nunn for drawing federal Pell Grant funds for students who do not exist in a yeshiva that does not exist to eat meals that do not exist. The junk bond dealer. The Washington lobbyist. The fellow who fled America for Switzerland, then got pardoned by a departing President who said the pardon was requested by Israel’s Prime Minister. The New Square Chassidic community that bullet-voted for Hillary for U.S. Senate after Bill did not pardon but commuted sentences of three of their chassidim. The East Coast Chassidim, West Coast Orthodox Union lay leader, and Israeli bankers involved in a federally indicted money-laundering scheme. And of course Postville. Some are “Orthodox.” Some are otherwise denominated.
We Jews are such a profoundly ethical and honest community. How many prisoners in the federal prisons really ask for kosher meals? Five? Eight? Nine?
Yet, there comes a point where it no longer seems or feels like only three out of 500,000 -- because this is the area of stereotype. It plays and feeds into stereotype. And therein lies the profound sensitivity.
Stereotypes are foolish, built on apocryphal presumptions. Do Jews really know more about money than do others? Clearly, anti-Semites throughout history have thought so, always keeping a Jew around to head the Treasury or the Exchequer. Even Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand, when they expelled all Jews from Spain, asked one individual Jew, Don Isaac Abravanel, to stay behind to do the books. Insane! If Jews know so much about managing money and turning a profit, why is Israel unable to manage without American largesse? How did Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke help preside over the American fiscal fiasco? And was it Mayor Abe Beame who took New York City into bankruptcy? And Robert Citron in Orange County?
Who got the idea that Jews know so much more than anyone else about how to manage money? Yet several Presidents seem to have brought in some Jewish monetary advisors. FDR had Treasury Secretary Morgenthau. Nixon had Herbert Stein as chairman of his Council of Economic Advisors. Carter had W. Michael Blumenthal. (Shhhhh! He was not really Jewish despite being named Blumenthal.) Clinton had Robert Rubin. Certainly, to employ a double negative, there is no reason that a Jew should not be welcomed as an economic advisor if she is best for the job. And certainly Jewish deep thinkers populate the entire spectrum of economic thought from a range of liberals including Paul Samuelson to conservatives like Milton Friedman and even objectivist-libertarians like Ayn Rand (Shhhhh! She was Jewish despite changing her name to Rand . . . from Alice Rosenbaum.)
It is impossible to avoid noting that this latest crook, Bernard Madoff, was prominently positioned in the Yeshiva University lay hierarchy. (He personally is not Orthodox, nor is he nominally so or thus quasi-denominated.) He also invested hundreds of millions of charitable dollars in his Ponzi schemes. We need to do something as a community akin to what Jews in America did 100 years ago to separate ourselves in the popular imagination from the likes of Arnold Rothstein and Bugsy Siegel and Legs Diamond and Meyer Lansky. And we did.
Whether it means refusing to count these characters in minyans, to give them aliyas, to permit them to attend banquet dinners, taking their names off synagogue walls and out of siddur/chumash inside-covers, or the like, it seems necessary to do something to separate our community from them.
There should always be a chance for teshuvah -- sincere, heartfelt repentance. Absolutely -- that is a core Jewish value and belief. And someday in the future, maybe after therapy, after restitution, after complete repentance (teshuvah g’murah), new books can be dedicated, and new minyanim can be formed with their inclusion. They can be given new honors. But there needs to be a separation, a havdalah g’murah, pending teshuvah.
Similarly, we must give real thought to changing the way we do business as an organized theological and spiritual community. Are we too material-focused? Do we respect money more than good deeds? To paraphrase Rav Michael Broyde's quote of Rav Emanuel Rackman's observation: Do we teach that it is more important to do good in this world -- or that it is more important to do well? Do we honor people who are monied more than people who exude righteousness? (Yes, a monied person simultaneously can exude righteousness. I have known some such people, like Jack Nagel of Los Angeles, and they have touched my life by their example without really donating my way.)
What a moment of opportunity we have before us to teach our community and our young people real Jewish values! Or to capture some of these thoughts in a public statement promoting reconsidered public policy. We have before us -- right now -- an opportunity to propose or suggest standards that limit or regulate the vulgar excesses of Bar Mitzvah and Bat Mitzvah parties. (How many meals can a Jew eat in three hours? Does every thirteen-year-old merit a life-sized ice sculpture of his luminescence and deserve to have 300 adults compelled to watch a fifteen minute retrospective of his life-and-times as though compiled by Ken Burns?)
What a moment of opportunity to reinforce condemnations that rabbinic organizations repeatedly have published against those who conduct synagogue-centered poker games and casino-like gambling. To teach people that the great names that have lived in Jewish history are those of rabbis who taught Torah, scholars and teachers, pioneers who built Israel, other pioneers who built and defended Jewish communities throughout the world -- and monied people who distributed their wealth generously. The greatness of Baron Rothschild, Moses Montefiore, Baron de Hirsch, Haym Salomon, Jacob Schiff, and others was not their riches but their philanthropy. They did not sit on their money and hoard it. They worked hard for it, took real risks in the world of industry, and then shared generously with those less fortunate.
What an opportunity we have! To require that every public event/banquet include at least one major award to be conferred on a humble less-prominent person purely for his or her profound leadership in Torah and ethics, regardless of money. To teach about honesty. To invite to schools the person who returns a lost bag of cash that he finds left behind in a taxi. This is the moment to turn this shame into a moment of pride.
And, even as we truly have a remarkably proud record throughout the world as a law-abiding community – can you think of a safer place to walk alone in the middle of the night than in a frum neighborhood that is not plagued by midnight interlopers from outside? -- we need to teach our yeshiva kids again and again, nukh a-mol un takeh nukh a-mol, that financial crimes are cardinal sins because they implicate the name and honor of HaKadosh Barukh Hu.
And now a final exposition: “Why is the religion of these isolated perpetrators relevant?”
In Torah terms, the problem is Chilul Hashem. Their actions desecrate the Holy Name of the G-d of Israel Who took us out of Egypt and brought us to Mount Sinai to receive His Word and to transmit its glory to the Nations around us.
And in secular terms, the problem is in the stereotype. If David Berkowitz, the non-Jewish “Son of Sam,” went around murdering blonde women in their cars with his .44-caliber gun, it still did not feed a stereotype. Jews are not stereotyped as killers/murderers.
But this Madoff thing fits a stereotype. For some prejudiced non-observant Jews, it fits one intra-Jewish stereotype: “Oh, those Orthodox! They are so strict about their supposedly high standards. They think they are so much better than we are. Why, one of their rabbis would not even drink wine that I poured for him! They won’t eat my food – even though they will eat the food of people who hire illegal aliens and employ child labor. So they are oh-so-holy, but when it comes to being honest, they take a back seat, those Orthodox. I’m a better Jew than they are, any day of the week. We may eat pork on Yom Kippur, but we are better Jews than they are. Because we have Jewish hearts.”
Cardiac Jews.
That is why Madoff -- who is not Orthodox in the first place -- is a problem of Chilul Hashem of one sort, when dealing with one sub-group of non-observant Jews. And it is not an answer to respond that the Reform Community Day school in Los Angeles is named for a junk-bond dealer who perpetrated crimes of financial shame. How can that be an answer? What kind of response is that? Rather, that is the road of falling into the same silly trap when, in fact, we all should be working together as Jews of all stripes and spots, denominations, genders, and politics, to eradicate financial malfeasance and defalcations.
Again the question, then: Why is the religion of the perpetrator relevant? I would say, because the real concern is the way that we -- all Jews -- appear in the eyes of those bigots among the non-Jewish world who may bear prejudices and stereotypes that feed off these aberrations.
There are plenty of non-Jewish crooks, frauds, and defalcators. The present Illinois Governor (still in office as of this second) was elected to shake up Springfield but instead shook down Illinois. How Jewish is a guy whose name is pronounced Bla-goy-avich? And Martha Stewart is not Jewish. And, during my high-stakes litigation career, I represented and defended powerful clients, including a solid cross-section of non-Jews who were accused of financial malfeasance.
Yet it is not a sufficient answer to say that Enron were non-Jews and that Global Crossing were non-Jews and that Charles Keating was a non-Jew who used his fraudulent gains to support Mother Theresa – indeed, she even wrote a letter to the judge in his support during the legal proceedings against him. Because, at day’s end, there are stereotypes. Stereotypes are so hard to squelch and so easy to reinforce. People truly believe that Polish people are stupid, even though they have produced a Pope of the Catholic Church, a brilliant (if disastrous) foreign policy advisor to a past American president, my favorite / sharpest / most brilliant morning talk show hostess, and at least two Prime Ministers of Israel. If an Irish person gets involved in something arising from inebriation, well, it is as though the only alcoholic beverages ever concocted were Jameson's, Powell's, and Bailey's. When an Italian person is associated even obliquely with something arising from organized crime, it feeds stereotypes, even though Italians like Rudy Giulliani led vigorous struggles against organized crime.
People of color particularly are subjects of stereotypes.
The stuff of Madoff feeds our stereotype. The vulgar use of the word “Jew” as a verb is shamefully tied with financial vulgarism. We may fight the Oxford Dictionary, but this is what it is. The stereotype is Shylock the Moneylender. It is hook-nosed Fagin who corrupts and sends urchins to steal for him. Both were fictional creations of literary minds and pens that could have designated them Anglicans, but didn't. During the Civil War, the stereotype prompted Gen. Ulysses S. Grant to issue General Order No. 11. When William Jennings Bryant railed at the 1896 Chicago Democrat National Convention against Wall Street financiers, saying “You shall not press down upon the brow of labor a crown of thorns; [y]ou shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold,” everyone understood what he was saying. He was not stereotyping the Romans on Wall Street.
This is the viciously unfair stereotype of us. In the streets of the rustic Midwest, even where no Jews live, arson-for-insurance (as contrasted from pyromaniacally setting wildfires in California) is called “Jewish lightning.” The term is so defined on Wikipedia's Wiktionary website: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Jewish_lightning I heard it for the first time while traveling in the Bible Belt. The person was a non-Jewish colleague of mine, a friend, who did not even realize that the term was offensive. (It is like absent-mindedly criticizing a Native American as an “Indian giver.”) It is Marc Rich getting pardoned by an American President who pens dishonestly in the New York Times that he did so at the urgent behest of the Prime Minister of Israel. And every single time that an outlier, isolated Jew emerges in one of these things, it builds, and it builds on itself. It builds on stereotypes. It poses the single greatest calumny against Jewish people.
That’s why the religion of the perpetrator matters to me. I wish we could figure out a way to separate ourselves in the public mind from these guys, but it is easier said than done. As long as we allow such defalcators and crooks to be honorees at our events, to have their names on our institutions' buildings and in the inside covers of our holy books, to hold positions of lay leadership in temple and synagogue boards of directors or trustees, we inadvertently become ignorant accessories, teaching children for the next generation that we accord our highest honors based not only on how deeply within his denomination he bears his bond and trust in G-d . . . but on how consummately he is deeply pocketed in bearer bonds denominated “In Gd We Trust.”
We have to aim higher. We absolutely must.
We are 5 million Jews in America, and ten percent of us are Orthodox. So: 500,000 Orthodox Jews . . . 5 million American Jews. There are one or two of these crook situations each and every year. One or two out of 500,000 . . . one or two out of 5,000,000. The large-yarmulka’d rabbi of the 1970s nursing home scandal. The Brooklyn yeshiva condemned by United States Senator Sam Nunn for drawing federal Pell Grant funds for students who do not exist in a yeshiva that does not exist to eat meals that do not exist. The junk bond dealer. The Washington lobbyist. The fellow who fled America for Switzerland, then got pardoned by a departing President who said the pardon was requested by Israel’s Prime Minister. The New Square Chassidic community that bullet-voted for Hillary for U.S. Senate after Bill did not pardon but commuted sentences of three of their chassidim. The East Coast Chassidim, West Coast Orthodox Union lay leader, and Israeli bankers involved in a federally indicted money-laundering scheme. And of course Postville. Some are “Orthodox.” Some are otherwise denominated.
We Jews are such a profoundly ethical and honest community. How many prisoners in the federal prisons really ask for kosher meals? Five? Eight? Nine?
Yet, there comes a point where it no longer seems or feels like only three out of 500,000 -- because this is the area of stereotype. It plays and feeds into stereotype. And therein lies the profound sensitivity.
Stereotypes are foolish, built on apocryphal presumptions. Do Jews really know more about money than do others? Clearly, anti-Semites throughout history have thought so, always keeping a Jew around to head the Treasury or the Exchequer. Even Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand, when they expelled all Jews from Spain, asked one individual Jew, Don Isaac Abravanel, to stay behind to do the books. Insane! If Jews know so much about managing money and turning a profit, why is Israel unable to manage without American largesse? How did Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke help preside over the American fiscal fiasco? And was it Mayor Abe Beame who took New York City into bankruptcy? And Robert Citron in Orange County?
Who got the idea that Jews know so much more than anyone else about how to manage money? Yet several Presidents seem to have brought in some Jewish monetary advisors. FDR had Treasury Secretary Morgenthau. Nixon had Herbert Stein as chairman of his Council of Economic Advisors. Carter had W. Michael Blumenthal. (Shhhhh! He was not really Jewish despite being named Blumenthal.) Clinton had Robert Rubin. Certainly, to employ a double negative, there is no reason that a Jew should not be welcomed as an economic advisor if she is best for the job. And certainly Jewish deep thinkers populate the entire spectrum of economic thought from a range of liberals including Paul Samuelson to conservatives like Milton Friedman and even objectivist-libertarians like Ayn Rand (Shhhhh! She was Jewish despite changing her name to Rand . . . from Alice Rosenbaum.)
It is impossible to avoid noting that this latest crook, Bernard Madoff, was prominently positioned in the Yeshiva University lay hierarchy. (He personally is not Orthodox, nor is he nominally so or thus quasi-denominated.) He also invested hundreds of millions of charitable dollars in his Ponzi schemes. We need to do something as a community akin to what Jews in America did 100 years ago to separate ourselves in the popular imagination from the likes of Arnold Rothstein and Bugsy Siegel and Legs Diamond and Meyer Lansky. And we did.
Whether it means refusing to count these characters in minyans, to give them aliyas, to permit them to attend banquet dinners, taking their names off synagogue walls and out of siddur/chumash inside-covers, or the like, it seems necessary to do something to separate our community from them.
There should always be a chance for teshuvah -- sincere, heartfelt repentance. Absolutely -- that is a core Jewish value and belief. And someday in the future, maybe after therapy, after restitution, after complete repentance (teshuvah g’murah), new books can be dedicated, and new minyanim can be formed with their inclusion. They can be given new honors. But there needs to be a separation, a havdalah g’murah, pending teshuvah.
Similarly, we must give real thought to changing the way we do business as an organized theological and spiritual community. Are we too material-focused? Do we respect money more than good deeds? To paraphrase Rav Michael Broyde's quote of Rav Emanuel Rackman's observation: Do we teach that it is more important to do good in this world -- or that it is more important to do well? Do we honor people who are monied more than people who exude righteousness? (Yes, a monied person simultaneously can exude righteousness. I have known some such people, like Jack Nagel of Los Angeles, and they have touched my life by their example without really donating my way.)
What a moment of opportunity we have before us to teach our community and our young people real Jewish values! Or to capture some of these thoughts in a public statement promoting reconsidered public policy. We have before us -- right now -- an opportunity to propose or suggest standards that limit or regulate the vulgar excesses of Bar Mitzvah and Bat Mitzvah parties. (How many meals can a Jew eat in three hours? Does every thirteen-year-old merit a life-sized ice sculpture of his luminescence and deserve to have 300 adults compelled to watch a fifteen minute retrospective of his life-and-times as though compiled by Ken Burns?)
What a moment of opportunity to reinforce condemnations that rabbinic organizations repeatedly have published against those who conduct synagogue-centered poker games and casino-like gambling. To teach people that the great names that have lived in Jewish history are those of rabbis who taught Torah, scholars and teachers, pioneers who built Israel, other pioneers who built and defended Jewish communities throughout the world -- and monied people who distributed their wealth generously. The greatness of Baron Rothschild, Moses Montefiore, Baron de Hirsch, Haym Salomon, Jacob Schiff, and others was not their riches but their philanthropy. They did not sit on their money and hoard it. They worked hard for it, took real risks in the world of industry, and then shared generously with those less fortunate.
What an opportunity we have! To require that every public event/banquet include at least one major award to be conferred on a humble less-prominent person purely for his or her profound leadership in Torah and ethics, regardless of money. To teach about honesty. To invite to schools the person who returns a lost bag of cash that he finds left behind in a taxi. This is the moment to turn this shame into a moment of pride.
And, even as we truly have a remarkably proud record throughout the world as a law-abiding community – can you think of a safer place to walk alone in the middle of the night than in a frum neighborhood that is not plagued by midnight interlopers from outside? -- we need to teach our yeshiva kids again and again, nukh a-mol un takeh nukh a-mol, that financial crimes are cardinal sins because they implicate the name and honor of HaKadosh Barukh Hu.
And now a final exposition: “Why is the religion of these isolated perpetrators relevant?”
In Torah terms, the problem is Chilul Hashem. Their actions desecrate the Holy Name of the G-d of Israel Who took us out of Egypt and brought us to Mount Sinai to receive His Word and to transmit its glory to the Nations around us.
And in secular terms, the problem is in the stereotype. If David Berkowitz, the non-Jewish “Son of Sam,” went around murdering blonde women in their cars with his .44-caliber gun, it still did not feed a stereotype. Jews are not stereotyped as killers/murderers.
But this Madoff thing fits a stereotype. For some prejudiced non-observant Jews, it fits one intra-Jewish stereotype: “Oh, those Orthodox! They are so strict about their supposedly high standards. They think they are so much better than we are. Why, one of their rabbis would not even drink wine that I poured for him! They won’t eat my food – even though they will eat the food of people who hire illegal aliens and employ child labor. So they are oh-so-holy, but when it comes to being honest, they take a back seat, those Orthodox. I’m a better Jew than they are, any day of the week. We may eat pork on Yom Kippur, but we are better Jews than they are. Because we have Jewish hearts.”
Cardiac Jews.
That is why Madoff -- who is not Orthodox in the first place -- is a problem of Chilul Hashem of one sort, when dealing with one sub-group of non-observant Jews. And it is not an answer to respond that the Reform Community Day school in Los Angeles is named for a junk-bond dealer who perpetrated crimes of financial shame. How can that be an answer? What kind of response is that? Rather, that is the road of falling into the same silly trap when, in fact, we all should be working together as Jews of all stripes and spots, denominations, genders, and politics, to eradicate financial malfeasance and defalcations.
Again the question, then: Why is the religion of the perpetrator relevant? I would say, because the real concern is the way that we -- all Jews -- appear in the eyes of those bigots among the non-Jewish world who may bear prejudices and stereotypes that feed off these aberrations.
There are plenty of non-Jewish crooks, frauds, and defalcators. The present Illinois Governor (still in office as of this second) was elected to shake up Springfield but instead shook down Illinois. How Jewish is a guy whose name is pronounced Bla-goy-avich? And Martha Stewart is not Jewish. And, during my high-stakes litigation career, I represented and defended powerful clients, including a solid cross-section of non-Jews who were accused of financial malfeasance.
Yet it is not a sufficient answer to say that Enron were non-Jews and that Global Crossing were non-Jews and that Charles Keating was a non-Jew who used his fraudulent gains to support Mother Theresa – indeed, she even wrote a letter to the judge in his support during the legal proceedings against him. Because, at day’s end, there are stereotypes. Stereotypes are so hard to squelch and so easy to reinforce. People truly believe that Polish people are stupid, even though they have produced a Pope of the Catholic Church, a brilliant (if disastrous) foreign policy advisor to a past American president, my favorite / sharpest / most brilliant morning talk show hostess, and at least two Prime Ministers of Israel. If an Irish person gets involved in something arising from inebriation, well, it is as though the only alcoholic beverages ever concocted were Jameson's, Powell's, and Bailey's. When an Italian person is associated even obliquely with something arising from organized crime, it feeds stereotypes, even though Italians like Rudy Giulliani led vigorous struggles against organized crime.
People of color particularly are subjects of stereotypes.
The stuff of Madoff feeds our stereotype. The vulgar use of the word “Jew” as a verb is shamefully tied with financial vulgarism. We may fight the Oxford Dictionary, but this is what it is. The stereotype is Shylock the Moneylender. It is hook-nosed Fagin who corrupts and sends urchins to steal for him. Both were fictional creations of literary minds and pens that could have designated them Anglicans, but didn't. During the Civil War, the stereotype prompted Gen. Ulysses S. Grant to issue General Order No. 11. When William Jennings Bryant railed at the 1896 Chicago Democrat National Convention against Wall Street financiers, saying “You shall not press down upon the brow of labor a crown of thorns; [y]ou shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold,” everyone understood what he was saying. He was not stereotyping the Romans on Wall Street.
This is the viciously unfair stereotype of us. In the streets of the rustic Midwest, even where no Jews live, arson-for-insurance (as contrasted from pyromaniacally setting wildfires in California) is called “Jewish lightning.” The term is so defined on Wikipedia's Wiktionary website: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Jewish_lightning I heard it for the first time while traveling in the Bible Belt. The person was a non-Jewish colleague of mine, a friend, who did not even realize that the term was offensive. (It is like absent-mindedly criticizing a Native American as an “Indian giver.”) It is Marc Rich getting pardoned by an American President who pens dishonestly in the New York Times that he did so at the urgent behest of the Prime Minister of Israel. And every single time that an outlier, isolated Jew emerges in one of these things, it builds, and it builds on itself. It builds on stereotypes. It poses the single greatest calumny against Jewish people.
That’s why the religion of the perpetrator matters to me. I wish we could figure out a way to separate ourselves in the public mind from these guys, but it is easier said than done. As long as we allow such defalcators and crooks to be honorees at our events, to have their names on our institutions' buildings and in the inside covers of our holy books, to hold positions of lay leadership in temple and synagogue boards of directors or trustees, we inadvertently become ignorant accessories, teaching children for the next generation that we accord our highest honors based not only on how deeply within his denomination he bears his bond and trust in G-d . . . but on how consummately he is deeply pocketed in bearer bonds denominated “In Gd We Trust.”
We have to aim higher. We absolutely must.
The Mumbai (Bombay) Massacre of Jews
Not all Jews, even the Torah-observant Jews among us, even Chassidic Jews, count themselves as Chabad Jews. There are doctrinal differences, sometimes very significant, that individuate Chabad from the larger normative Orthodox community. Particularly, there are real issues of profound halakhic significance concerning the place of the Lubavitcher Rebbe in the constellation of great Torah leaders of the past generation. For an overwhelming majority of Orthodox Jews, particularly in communities where yeshivas proliferate and Torah learning dominates Orthodoxy, the roles of late Torah giants like HaRav Aharon Kotler, HaRav Moshe Feinstein, HaRav Yosef Ber Soloveitchik, and HaRav Eliezer Shach – and, yibadel l’chaim, HaRav HaChacham Ovadia Yosef – overshadow the role of Rav Menachem Mendel Schneerson. Likewise, in the Chassidic world.
Nevertheless, virtually each and every one of us has been at some end-of-the-earth place where even MasterCard/Visa is not accepted, but where a Chabad House exists to provide a kosher meal, a local Jewish resting place, an address for Shabbat. No matter where in the world you are, there is a decent chance that you can catch a Mincha or a Torah reading on Shabbat morning at a local Chabad House, where one or another darling rabbinical couple will be there. When traveling through Oklahoma, my family knew it could stop for Shabbat in Oklahoma City because the local Chabad couple was hosting Shabbat meals. Others have told me their stories, from Hong Kong to Thailand. And for so many people who today are members of shuls like Young Israel of Orange County, their first step into normative Torah practice took place at a Chabad House or at a campus Chabad.
Rabbi and Rebbetzin Holtzberg and their Mumbai Chabad House were just the quintessence of that image we have. Just looking at the photos, these were such beautiful young people who had just begun their life’s journey together, contributing so powerfully at a time when more Westerners are traveling to India as participants in the burgeoning global economy. Americans, Israelis, and others travel to India when their jobs compel them to do so, and – as with those compelled by the need to earn a living by traveling occasionally to Hong Kong or other such places – there is the Chabad presence to assure that Shabbat can be celebrated, that kosher food can be found, and even (thanks to Rav Holtzberg, who also slaughtered kosher meat) that kosher meat could be had.
It is the paradox of the Jewish experience in history that we so uniquely among peoples get caught in others’ cross-fires. The Christian Crusaders, en route to liberate the Holy Land from the infidel Moslem Saracens – it had nothing to do with Jews – stopped along watering holes throughout Europe to massacre whole Jewish bystander communities. Three centuries later, as a bubonic plague took hold throughout Europe – it had nothing to do with Jews – insane justification somehow was found to murder one-third of our people there. Three centuries later, Bogdan Chmielnitzki and the Cossack Massacres reflected Cossack poverty in Eastern Europe – it had nothing to do with Jews. Three centuries later, Hitler, the Nazis, and their European confederates perpetrated the Holocaust in the aftermath of Germany’s financial collapse post-WWI. That collapse really had nothing to do with Jews; it was the result of brutally punitive terms of surrender foolishly and cruelly imposed against Germany by the victorious and imperial-colonialist British and the French.
Not to mention medieval expulsions from lands as gentle as France (1182, 1306, 1394) and England (1290), the persecutions of Mashad, the mellahs of Morocco and the ghettoes of Italy, the June 1941 Iraqi Shavuot Pogrom after the fall of the Golden Square. In all these insane outbursts of anti-Jewish hate and murder, we were pedestrians, bystanders. We had nothing to do with the issues. We were just standing at the corner, waiting for the light to change.
And now it is a dispute between Pakistani Moslems and Indian Hindus regarding suzerainty over Kashmir. It is an issue that has absolutely nothing to do with Jews. (Ask the average Jew his thoughts about Kashmir, and he will tell you that he cannot afford it and buys sweaters made from Shetland wool instead. We do not know what it is, where it is, and -- maybe the ultimate indicator -- it is so far off our radar and alien to our world that there is not even a Chabad in Kashmir.) So these horrible IslamoNazi thugs and goons perpetrated these terrible murders in Mumbai targeting Jews in general, and this wonderful young couple in particular.
From these things come many tears, but great responses come, too. We may be certain that a much bigger, much stronger, far more widely visited-and-utilized Chabad House will rise in Mumbai. We may be certain that plenty of Chabad young Rav-and-Rebbetzin couples will step forward to serve there. And we may be certain that every Jew will feel, for years to come, that she must make a pilgrimage at least once to that Chabad House, even if she has never been to Jerusalem or to Oklahoma City.
Things happen for reasons. Bad things sometimes happen for the purpose of laying foundations for great things. As Rav Avigdor Miller brings out, all of our Patriarch Yaakov’s setbacks in his relationship with Esav were necessary for the expansive formation of a Jewish People. Had Yaakov emerged from the womb first, there would have been no animus when he duly received a first-born’s bracha. Had his father, Yitzchak, had better eyesight, there would have been no animus. Had there been no animus, Yaakov would not have been compelled to flee home for Charan. If Yaakov had not fled home, then his parents presumably would have done for him as Avraham did for Yitzchak: sending out a messenger to Charan to find him a wife. The messenger would have come back with one wife, not two.
If the messenger had come back with Leah, there would have been no Rachel and no children born to Rachel: no Yosef, no sale to Egypt, no subsequent relocation of the Jewish People to Egypt for the slavery, the Aseret HaMakot (the Ten Plagues), the Y’tzi’at Mitzrayim (the Exodus), and the receiving of the Torah at Har Sinai. There also would have been no Benjamin born – so no King Saul, no Mordechai to save the Jews in Persia, no component alongside the tribes of Yehudah and Levi to comprise the Jewish People during our long Second Exile.
And if, instead, the messenger had come back with Rachel rather than Leah, there would have been no Leah-as-Wife, so no children born to Leah. Thus, no Levi, so no Moshe and no Aharon, no tribe to stand alone for G-d at the time of the Golden Calf, no Pinchas and no Eliyahu, no Chashmona’im and no Maccabees. And there would have been no Yehudah, so no Nachshon ben Aminadav to jump in first and begin Hashem’s process of splitting the Sea, no Elisheva to marry Aharon, no Calev ben Y’funeh to stand with Yehoshua for G-d’s word at the time of the m’raglim (the spies), no David HaMelekh, so no Moshiach.
But history is fact beyond "what-if." So there, in fact, was animus and hate. Yaakov came out second, and Yitzchak’s eyesight was impaired. Rivkah knew the plan because Hashem had revealed to her, but not to Yitzchak, Yaakov’s superior destiny. And, as a result, Yaakov ultimately had to flee for his life, and he ended up with two wives rather than one, along with children from Bilhah and Zilpah.
That is how setbacks work for Jews. One must wait twenty years (as during Yaakov’s sojourn with Lavan), and sometimes 200 years or even 2,000 years, to know how it all will play out. And this tragedy in Mumbai that has no words for its pain is not the final word on how the result of this incident will play out. May it be for a blessing, and may the memories of the holy martyrs, Rav and Rebbetzin Holtzberg, be for a blessing and inspiration to all of us.
Nevertheless, virtually each and every one of us has been at some end-of-the-earth place where even MasterCard/Visa is not accepted, but where a Chabad House exists to provide a kosher meal, a local Jewish resting place, an address for Shabbat. No matter where in the world you are, there is a decent chance that you can catch a Mincha or a Torah reading on Shabbat morning at a local Chabad House, where one or another darling rabbinical couple will be there. When traveling through Oklahoma, my family knew it could stop for Shabbat in Oklahoma City because the local Chabad couple was hosting Shabbat meals. Others have told me their stories, from Hong Kong to Thailand. And for so many people who today are members of shuls like Young Israel of Orange County, their first step into normative Torah practice took place at a Chabad House or at a campus Chabad.
Rabbi and Rebbetzin Holtzberg and their Mumbai Chabad House were just the quintessence of that image we have. Just looking at the photos, these were such beautiful young people who had just begun their life’s journey together, contributing so powerfully at a time when more Westerners are traveling to India as participants in the burgeoning global economy. Americans, Israelis, and others travel to India when their jobs compel them to do so, and – as with those compelled by the need to earn a living by traveling occasionally to Hong Kong or other such places – there is the Chabad presence to assure that Shabbat can be celebrated, that kosher food can be found, and even (thanks to Rav Holtzberg, who also slaughtered kosher meat) that kosher meat could be had.
It is the paradox of the Jewish experience in history that we so uniquely among peoples get caught in others’ cross-fires. The Christian Crusaders, en route to liberate the Holy Land from the infidel Moslem Saracens – it had nothing to do with Jews – stopped along watering holes throughout Europe to massacre whole Jewish bystander communities. Three centuries later, as a bubonic plague took hold throughout Europe – it had nothing to do with Jews – insane justification somehow was found to murder one-third of our people there. Three centuries later, Bogdan Chmielnitzki and the Cossack Massacres reflected Cossack poverty in Eastern Europe – it had nothing to do with Jews. Three centuries later, Hitler, the Nazis, and their European confederates perpetrated the Holocaust in the aftermath of Germany’s financial collapse post-WWI. That collapse really had nothing to do with Jews; it was the result of brutally punitive terms of surrender foolishly and cruelly imposed against Germany by the victorious and imperial-colonialist British and the French.
Not to mention medieval expulsions from lands as gentle as France (1182, 1306, 1394) and England (1290), the persecutions of Mashad, the mellahs of Morocco and the ghettoes of Italy, the June 1941 Iraqi Shavuot Pogrom after the fall of the Golden Square. In all these insane outbursts of anti-Jewish hate and murder, we were pedestrians, bystanders. We had nothing to do with the issues. We were just standing at the corner, waiting for the light to change.
And now it is a dispute between Pakistani Moslems and Indian Hindus regarding suzerainty over Kashmir. It is an issue that has absolutely nothing to do with Jews. (Ask the average Jew his thoughts about Kashmir, and he will tell you that he cannot afford it and buys sweaters made from Shetland wool instead. We do not know what it is, where it is, and -- maybe the ultimate indicator -- it is so far off our radar and alien to our world that there is not even a Chabad in Kashmir.) So these horrible IslamoNazi thugs and goons perpetrated these terrible murders in Mumbai targeting Jews in general, and this wonderful young couple in particular.
From these things come many tears, but great responses come, too. We may be certain that a much bigger, much stronger, far more widely visited-and-utilized Chabad House will rise in Mumbai. We may be certain that plenty of Chabad young Rav-and-Rebbetzin couples will step forward to serve there. And we may be certain that every Jew will feel, for years to come, that she must make a pilgrimage at least once to that Chabad House, even if she has never been to Jerusalem or to Oklahoma City.
Things happen for reasons. Bad things sometimes happen for the purpose of laying foundations for great things. As Rav Avigdor Miller brings out, all of our Patriarch Yaakov’s setbacks in his relationship with Esav were necessary for the expansive formation of a Jewish People. Had Yaakov emerged from the womb first, there would have been no animus when he duly received a first-born’s bracha. Had his father, Yitzchak, had better eyesight, there would have been no animus. Had there been no animus, Yaakov would not have been compelled to flee home for Charan. If Yaakov had not fled home, then his parents presumably would have done for him as Avraham did for Yitzchak: sending out a messenger to Charan to find him a wife. The messenger would have come back with one wife, not two.
If the messenger had come back with Leah, there would have been no Rachel and no children born to Rachel: no Yosef, no sale to Egypt, no subsequent relocation of the Jewish People to Egypt for the slavery, the Aseret HaMakot (the Ten Plagues), the Y’tzi’at Mitzrayim (the Exodus), and the receiving of the Torah at Har Sinai. There also would have been no Benjamin born – so no King Saul, no Mordechai to save the Jews in Persia, no component alongside the tribes of Yehudah and Levi to comprise the Jewish People during our long Second Exile.
And if, instead, the messenger had come back with Rachel rather than Leah, there would have been no Leah-as-Wife, so no children born to Leah. Thus, no Levi, so no Moshe and no Aharon, no tribe to stand alone for G-d at the time of the Golden Calf, no Pinchas and no Eliyahu, no Chashmona’im and no Maccabees. And there would have been no Yehudah, so no Nachshon ben Aminadav to jump in first and begin Hashem’s process of splitting the Sea, no Elisheva to marry Aharon, no Calev ben Y’funeh to stand with Yehoshua for G-d’s word at the time of the m’raglim (the spies), no David HaMelekh, so no Moshiach.
But history is fact beyond "what-if." So there, in fact, was animus and hate. Yaakov came out second, and Yitzchak’s eyesight was impaired. Rivkah knew the plan because Hashem had revealed to her, but not to Yitzchak, Yaakov’s superior destiny. And, as a result, Yaakov ultimately had to flee for his life, and he ended up with two wives rather than one, along with children from Bilhah and Zilpah.
That is how setbacks work for Jews. One must wait twenty years (as during Yaakov’s sojourn with Lavan), and sometimes 200 years or even 2,000 years, to know how it all will play out. And this tragedy in Mumbai that has no words for its pain is not the final word on how the result of this incident will play out. May it be for a blessing, and may the memories of the holy martyrs, Rav and Rebbetzin Holtzberg, be for a blessing and inspiration to all of us.
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