TAZRIA METZORA 5777
IMPURE HUMANITY AND POLLUTED SOCIETY
April 27, 2017
1 Iyar 5777
The prophets decried and bemoaned the pollution and impurities that all too often plagued nations and societies.
This past week we observed Holocaust Memorial Day, the annual commemoration of the catastrophic Nazi assault on European Jewry that left six million Jews dead To this very day The inhume Nazi policies and programs belie human imagination.
For over seven decades survivors and their families have gathered to participate in these yearly commemorations. Survivors light six candles (memorializing the six million victims of the Holocaust), listen to personal accounts of the struggle to stay alive and then rise for the chanting of the El Maleh Archaism, and the recital of Caddish. I have attended and participated at such ceremonies and programs in Synagogues, government buildings, community centers and cemeteries.
Times forward march, however, is relentless. Fewer and fewer survivors, living witnesses to the Shoah, are no longer with us to tell their stories. Many of their children, the hemshech (continuing) generation are committed to keep the memory of the Holocaust alive. Yet as their numbers begin to dwindle, there will be diminishing interest in Holocaust commemorations. Far too many of today's young generation have neither knowledge about nor interest in the Holocaust. To paraphrase the Haggadah's wicked son, they ask, "What is the Holocaust's relevance for me?"
The Holocaust testifies to human capacity to commit or to silently acquiesce, to evil as it unfolds in our midst. Unconscionable leaders are uncannily successful in manipulating seemingly good people to respond to the darker impulses that reside in every human heart.
Following the Second World War, as a horrified world learned of the scope of Nazi depravity, Rapheal Lemkin created the term, genocide, to describe the crime of the Nazi policicy of the systematic destruction of the Jewish people.
Sadly, Nazi atrocities are not a story of past behavior but an ongoing saga in which the new "players" are ISIS, Boko Haram, South Sudanese, the Syrian government and the many other demonic forces that continue to plague and threaten us all.
A very relevant lesson of the Holocaust is the all too apt account of how seemingly decent people were successfully manipulated by charismatic evil leaders to respond to the darker forces that reside within us all. This should come as no surprise since nations come and go, movements are here today and gone tomorrow, the times seem to be "achanging," but human nature remains human nature.
How else can we explain the willingness of self identified God fearing people during the Jim Crow era to live with the lynching of thousands of people of color? These atrocities were not carried out in the dark of night or in some concealed wooded area, but in full public view, and witnessed by many who perceived themselves as people of great virtue.
Fortunately there also resides within us the amazing capacity to engage in acts of kindness. Thus we honor the brave European Christians who despite the danger felt it their moral duty to shield and to hide Jews. Tragically many of these righteous men and women were apprehended. Some were summarily executed; others were sent to concentration camps. In our times there are similar righteous individuals.
In our day there are the many young men and women who volunteer for the Peace Corps or participate in Teach for America. There are the participants in Habitat for Humanity and in hunger walks and volunteers in Soup Kitchens In my son-in-loves's congregation in Newton the community has rallied around resettling a Syrian family.
Holocaust commemorations remind us how easily a society can be spiritually and morally polluted. These memorial events will remain relevant until "sinners disappear from the earth and the wicked be no more."(Psalms 104:35). Until such time, however, there is still much for the good among us to do, may we be numbered in their midst.
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From Newton my best wishes for a Shabbat Shalom u'Mevorach– a Shabbat of peace and of blessing.
Rabbi Arnold M. Goodman
SHEMINI 5777
THE PRESENT OF THE PRESENT
April 20, 2017
24 Nisan 2017
The eighth day finally dawned. For seven days Aaron and his sons were confined to their quarters undergoing the rigorous preparation to enable them to perform their duties as Kohanim (priests). It was a great honor to be sanctified as the community's ritual leaders.
There was much to learn. Among their new responsibilities were the preparation of the special incense, offering the various sacrifices, the daily tending of the eternal flame, and cleaning the sacrificial altars. Moses made it clear to Judaism's first Kohanim that the tasks were exacting with little room for error.
Finally the seven day training ordeal was over. I imagine them counting each day of their confinement impatiently waiting for the eighth day. Then with the rising of the sun they emerged from their isolation to appear before the assembled Israelites for the much awaited consecration ceremony.
Time marched on for them as it does for us. We have all experienced periods of great anticipation when we could barely await the arrival of the big moment. It may have been the birth of a child or grandchild, Bar/t Mitzvah or wedding, or waiting for an acceptance letter from a school. Those days passed very slowly. We all know what it is to want to hurry up time.
Then there are, of course, those events in which time just passes all too quickly. Vacations seem to end much too soon as does a family simcha.
I suspect that for our ancestors the forty-nine days immediately following their liberation from Egypt may have seemed to be stuck in a time warp. At the end of the seventh week they were destined to reach the site where they would enter into the eternal covenant between themselves and God. It was the moment that they would be designated as a "Kingdom of Priests and a Holy Nation" (Exodus 19:6) The forty years of wandering in the desert that followed may have been filled with sameness and boredom, but not so those first glorious weeks that were filled with the anticipation of the promised moment of Divine Revelation.
To this day the traditional Sefirat Haomer is the annual recollection of those 49 days. Beginning with the Second night of Pesach we count another day in our "march" to Shavuot, the Festival celebrating the glorious experiences of Divine Revelation and mattan torah (the giving of the Torah).
This 49 day/seven week period known as sefira (counting) is marked by ticking off each of the 49 days in turn until the completion of the seven weeks.
Sefira also sensitizes us to the relentless march of time. We age, we look back at the years that have gone by, and we wonder where all the time has gone. This nostalgia is captured in the beautiful duet of Sunrise and Sunset as Tevya and Golda, beholding their daughter as a bride, reflect, "we don'r remember getting older, when did she?" We have all paused at various stages of our lives and wondered where the days have gone. As time forges ahead, the past is often reduced to a blur.
Yet rather than becoming depressed by the finitude of the time at our disposal, we are urged to enjoy the present and to look ahead to a hopefully bright tomorrow. During sefira as we count each of the 49 days we are reminded to embrace the present even as we continue to move closer and closer to our goal of Shavuot.
The brief but cogent prayer of the Psalmist, "Teach us to number our days that we may attain a heart of wisdom" (Psalms 90:12), reminds us of the daily opportunity to add to our knowledge or to forge new experiences. The day before us will soon pass, but tomorrow is always before us. The immediate moment is a gift; the present is just that, a present. Would that we be blessed with the wisdom and perspective to enjoy this gift with its potential for personal fulfillment and enrichment.
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From Jerusalem my best wishes for a Shabbat Shalom u'Mevorach– a Shabbat of peace and of blessing.
Rabbi Arnold M. Goodman
