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Topics in this digest: Bechukotai
5765
By Rabbi Dr. Barry Leff
Congregation B’nai Israel
Toledo, OH
God commands us to be just. Pursuing justice is one of the fundamental
commandments and one of the fundamental principles in the Torah. The
Torah commands us tzedek, tzedek, tirdof, justice, justice you shall
pursue. The prophet Micah tells us what it is that God wants of us – to
do justice and to love mercy. We are commanded over and over in the Torah
not to oppress the stranger, for we know what it’s like to be a stranger.
This Jewish obsession with justice makes it difficult to understand a
midrash on this week’s Torah portion. In this week’s recitation of curses
for not following the Torah, Leviticus 26:37 says “they will stumble, a man
on his brother.”
Rashi brings a midrash which says, “This one will stumble because of the
sin of this one.” How is this fair? It sounds like God is saying one
person sins and another person stumbles. Why should someone else’s sin
cause me to stumble? Is God punishing one person, making them fall,
because of the sin of someone else? Where’s the justice in that?
You might try and explain it by saying that the midrash doesn’t mean that
one is being punished for someone else, but rather it’s predictive: one
person screws up and it can have consequences for others. One person sins
by running a red light, causing an accident harming an innocent person.
But the midrash doesn’t really let us off the hook it put us on that
easily. The midrash continues and tells us why one sins and another
stumbles: sh’kol Yisrael aravin zeh lazeh, for all Israel is responsible
for one another. We are all responsible for the sins of every Jew.
Aravin literally means guarantors. Like co-signers on a loan. When I
started a company back in 1983 my partner and I went and got a loan
guaranteed by the Small Business Administration. But the company didn’t
have much in the way of assets or a track record. So the bank and the SBA
required my partner and I to personally guarantee the loan. We had
mortgages on our homes guaranteeing that if the company didn’t pay the
loan, the bank could force us to sell our homes to collect the money. I
was the President of the company, my partner was the Vice-President. We
were both on the hook. So even though I was President and CEO, and
theoretically responsible for making many of the management decisions, my
partner had a very strong reason to be very involved and make sure I made
the right decisions. If I did something stupid, it could have cost him
his house. So you can bet he was paying pretty close attention to what I
was doing.
Similarly, some years later I was president of an air-taxi company. I had
two partners, but I was the only one actively working in the company. When
we decided to buy a new airplane for the business, all three of us had to
sign on the dotted line personally guaranteeing the loan. You can bet my
partners were very interested in making sure I was on top of things like
making the insurance payment and seeing that the planes were maintained
properly. If I messed up and didn’t make an insurance payment and God
forbid something happened, they would have had to fork up the money to pay
off the loan and get nothing in return.
To be a guarantor is a huge responsibility. You are personally liable for
the actions of another person. So when we are told kol Yisrael aravin zeh
lazeh, all Israel is responsible for each and every one of us, it is a
huge responsibility. It’s the reason why rabbis are usually so gung-ho
about trying to get people to follow the Torah. It’s not because we feel
we can’t eat shrimp scampi, why should you? It’s because we really
believe in this communal responsibility for all Jews.
The idea of communal responsibility is a recurrent theme in the Jewish
tradition. In the weekday amidah which we will recite tonight when
Shabbat is over we say selach lanu avinu ki chatanu, forgive us, our
Father, for we have sinned. It doesn’t matter what kind of a goody
two-shoes you are, you still have to say this blessing.
Nowhere is this more pronounced that in the prayers for Yom Kippur. We
all stand and beat our chests: ashamnu! We have sinned! And we go through
a long litany of sins. We have murdered! We have stolen! We have lied!
What’s the point of all that? Wouldn’t it make more sense for people to
confess for their own sins? Give everyone a sheet with a list of sins and
a place to put a check mark: I murdered, I stole, I lied, I gossiped about
other people. Check off the ones that apply, ignore the rest. Work on
what you did wrong, don’t worry about someone else’s sins and mishegas.
We don’t do that because of the principle derived from the verse in this
week’s parsha: kol yisrael aravin zeh lazeh, all Israel is responsible one
for the other. There is another midrash which explains what this is like.
Picture this. You’re out on Lake Erie on a beautiful wooden sailboat with
a few friends, enjoying a sunny day and nice breeze. All of a sudden
someone takes out a drill and starts to drill under his seat. What’s your
reaction? Obviously people will stop him and say “what the heck are you
doing?” He answers, “hey, I’m only drilling under my seat, you go sit on
your seat and leave me alone!!”
All Jews are on the same boat. You can’t just worry about yourself.
Now you might be wondering, but WHY are we responsible for each other.
Last Thursday I had the honor of participating in the graduation ceremony
at Toledo Talmud Torah. Talmud Torah is our community afternoon Hebrew
school. Kids who go to the Hebrew Academy, the community day school, may
end up learning more Hebrew, but the kids who go to Talmud Torah in many
ways show a greater dedication and commitment: after all, they have to
give up two afternoons a week, from right after school to dinner time, for
four years. Time that kids would rather spend either playing or pursuing
other interests. So on Thursday, at the graduation, the kids put on a
little skit. The skit they did is based on yet another midrash, which
explains the root of this communal responsibility. If I had known ahead
of time they were going to do this skit and I was going to talk about it,
I would have tried to get them to perform it for you…instead you’ll have
to settle for hearing the story.
When Moses went up to Mt. Sinai to get the Torah from God, God told Moses
“the Torah is the most precious thing in the entire world. What can you
give me to guarantee that you’ll take good care of it?” In other words,
God wanted something more than a simple promise—he wanted a security
deposit, or at least a co-signer, a guarantor. Moses went down and
consulted with the people. The people told Moses, “we know how precious
the Torah is, we’ll give God our gold and silver and jewelry as a pledge
that we’ll take good care of Torah.” So Moses hikes back up the mountain
and makes this offer to God. God says “forget it, I have more gold and
silver than they’ll ever see. I can create more any time I want it.
You’ll have to come up with something better than that.” So Moses goes
back down the mountain with his report of God’s rejection of their offer.
After much debate, they finally come up with what they think is an
irresistible offer: “Moses, offer yourself, and Aaron, and Miriam, and not
just you guys, but Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as our guarantors! That
should make God happy!” So Moses again climbs the mountain, makes the
offer, and God says “sorry Moe, all of you are already totally dedicated
to me and serve me. You’re not offering me anything I don’t already have.
Go on back down. Try again.” Back down the mountain. Once again the
people hold a grand consultation, and finally someone says “I’ve got it!
Let’s offer God our very most precious possession as our guarantor—our
children! If God gives us the Torah, we’ll guarantee to teach it to our
children and they’ll be responsible for it!” So yet again Moses goes up
the mountain—and he was probably pretty tired by now, after all he was 80
years old—and relays the offer to God. God says “now you’re talking! We
have a deal.”
So all of the children of Israel – all of the Jewish people – are
guarantors for the Torah. So, therefore, kol yisrael aravin zeh lazeh,
all Israel is responsible for each other.
How do we fulfill this requirement to take care of each other? Some
people might say, well let’s take care of the Jews in Toledo first. Once
there is no poverty in the Jewish community in Toledo, once all the Jews
in Toledo are active in the Jewish community, come to the synagogue,
follow the Torah, then we can go on and worry about Jews elsewhere in the
world.
There actually are Jewish teachings which say that charity begins at
home—that you take care of your family and your local community first.
But giving local needs priority does not mean we can ignore our
responsibilities to Jews in other places. We shouldn’t be deciding
whether to work on Jewish problems here or work on helping with problems
elsewhere: we have to do both.
There are Jews all over the world in all kinds of situations, many much
more difficult situations than we face here in Toledo. Jews in Israel
live with terrorism. Jews in Iran live with fear of persecution. Jews in
France live with the fear of anti-Semitism. Jews in Africa live in
terrible poverty.
Many of us contribute to the Jewish Federation’s annual campaign. A
significant chunk of the money raised in the campaign ends up with the
Joint Distribution Committee to help support Jews in need overseas.
That is a wonderful thing, but I also want to suggest that it’s not
enough. We need to do more.
The word aravin has another meaning. In addition to meaning “guarantor”
it can also mean “mixed together.” The related word ta’arovet means
“mixtures.” We are all part of one big mixture. At the Talmud Torah
graduation on Thursday I spoke about diversity in the Jewish world – how
we have Ashkenazi Jews, Sefardi Jews, Mizrachi Jews, Jews from Poland and
Russia and America, Jews from France and Morocco and Iran, and even Jews
in India, China, Ethiopia and Uganda. White Jews, black Jews, brown Jews.
We are united by faith in God, by the Torah, and by the Hebrew language.
The more we know about Jews in different places, about Jews with different
cultures, about Jews struggling with problems we can hardly imagine, the
stronger we will recognize kol yisrael aravin zeh lazeh. That’s why I
make it a point to talk about Jews in need from other countries – about
needs in Israel, about Jewish orphans in Ukraine, and a few months from
now we’ll start learning about Jews in Africa. We take the responsibility
for other Jews much more seriously when we have a personal connection, when
we hear the stories of what they are going through.
And, by the way, our responsibility for others does not stop at the
synagogue doors—we also have an obligation to help Gentiles. But that’s a
sermon for another time.
The good news about kol Yisrael aravin zeh lazeh is that it is a two way
street. Not only are we responsible for each other if one person messes
up or is in trouble, but we all benefit when someone does a righteous act.
In Proverbs (10:25) it says “A righteous man is the foundation of the
world. The mishnah says the entire world stands for the sake of the
righteous.
May God help us all to be righteous, and may we all join in the good
feelings that come from remembering, and acting on kol Yisrael aravin zeh
lazeh, all Israel is responsible one for the other.
Amen.
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