By the Grace of G-d
Dear Friend,
A community member whose son I had the privilege to prepare for his Bar Mitzva, shared with me about his son’s progress in life. His son is currently undergoing intense training for an elite unite in the IDF.
The father also shared with pride that while their family is not fully mitzvah observant, his son puts on the Tefillin that he received at his Bar Mitzvah, at least once a week.
I was deeply inspired to hear of his son’s progress and heroic commitment to protecting our fellow Jews in the holy land of Israel.
As well, I admired his mature insight into the importance of simultaneously bonding with G-d via His mitzvah of Tefillin.
Why do I call it maturity?
Because it takes a combination of two opposite notions.
Nobody needs much convincing to agree that maintaining a strong army is one of the most critical components for Israel’s survival. Surrounded as they are by those who wish to see their annihilation, a strong military is an absolute must.
When it comes to putting on Tefillin, praying and doing G-d’s mitzvahs it doesn’t necessarily see so obvious. Some may ask, how does doing holy and spiritual things help preserve the security of Israel?
And on the flip side, if one believes that prayer and mitzvahs are so invincibly strong, why the need for an army at all?
The answer is very simple.
Hashem has clearly told us in the Torah that just like we have a body and a soul, the world operates in two tracks. There are the ‘rules of nature’ and there is nature defying ‘miracles’.
Are we to rely on miracles, or act within the boundaries of nature?
The Torah teaches us that we need a balance of both.
On the one hand G-d promises that He will bless us with supernatural protection, yet He has also instructed us that notwithstanding His Divine protection to us, we need to act within the parameters of nature.
The Jewish way is very clear.
To support ourselves and our families Hashem tells us that we need to go to work and earn money.
If one doesn’t feel well, the Torah instructs us to visit the doctor and get healed.
To ward off security threats, Hashem instructs us to self-protect. The Torah itself teaches us that we need to create a military deterrent by having a super strong army.
(We are too used to the absurd reality that we live in. A world where anti-Semitism has sadly and tragically not disappeared. The mere fact, that a nation that is chosen by G-d to be a ‘light unto the nations’ needs to invest in weaponry and develop military supremacy is ludicrous. It is insanity. However, for now it is the reality. For some reason unknown to us, this is the way Hashem has set it up for now. Hopefully soon to be changed with the coming of Mashiach and ‘they shall beat their swords into plowshares’).
And at the same time, we must always remember that it is Hashem who causes our actions to be successful.
As King David says in Tehillim (Psalms) 127: If Hashem will not build a house, its builders have toiled at it in vain; if Hashem will not guard a city, [its] watcher keeps his vigil in vain.
Some people get pulled to extremes.
Some consider themselves ‘non-believers’ and they pride themselves on relying solely on nature.
Others, in the name of being super-pious, proclaim that they wish to rely only on Divine miraculous intervention.
My Bar Mitzvah student obviously gets the balance.
He is training for an elite unit in the army which means he understands the critical need for a strong military.
Yet at the same time he is mindful that the blessings for success come from Above and he takes the time to pray to Hashem and wrap his Tefillin regularly.
It got me thinking about the other forms of polar opposites we are called upon to embrace during our lives.
Think about different character modes in terms of interpersonal relationships.
I remember hearing from a very prominent person in the London Jewish community about his frustrations when he arrived home after a high-level day. ‘I had just come home from dining in Buckingham Palace with the members of the royal family, and then my wife sent me to take out the rubbish’.
It can be quite challenging. Imagine a man or woman being an employer of hundreds or thousands of workers, at the top of a business hierarchy that has their wishes turning to commands and then coming home to eat dinner and interact with a spouse and children. One cannot give an ‘order’ to a spouse like one can issue an instruction to a secretary. At home the leader of the company must adjust to being the spouse and parent of that home. For some (or perhaps for many) these adjustments do not come so easily and thus the peace at home is sometimes challenged.
I saw this idea at the end of a long letter to Elie Wiesel in 1967. The Rebbe implores Mr. Wiesel in this long Yiddish letter to get married (pursuant to a previous 1965 letter in this vein) and have children. In a PS, the Rebbe voiced his disappointment at the ‘meddling middlemen’ who derailed his proposed meeting with Mrs. Golda Meir during her visit to New York.
The Rebbe wrote (loose translation from the Yiddish original) ‘ I don't want to dwell on this painful matter, although of course I am disappointed that the meeting did not happen. Apart from all other things, the meeting with Mrs. G.M is also interesting to me from a purely human-psychological point of view. To be able to study a person who, although she has been active in political life for decades, with all the qualities that are associated with it, she has the ability to be a grandmother to small grandchildren, With the softness and heartiness that are required for this’.
Mrs. Golda Meir has been termed by biographers as a ‘lioness’ and ‘indomitable’. The Rebbe also saw her other side as a soft and emotional grandmother. The two opposite set of character traits coming together and being embodied in one person was of interest to the Rebbe.
In the Torah (this week’s Parsha) there is a law that instructs a Kohen Gadol (High Priest) to stay holy and segregated, not ever leaving the holiness of the Temple to engage in burying a dead person even if it’s his immediate relative. But then there is a different directive which stands in direct opposition to those laws of holiness. If there is a ‘met mitzvah’, a person who has died who has no one to tend to him, the Kohen Gadol is instructed by the Torah to go out and ‘impure’ himself by burying the dead person.
How can that be?
The Kohen Gadol occupies the holiest position in the Jewish People. He and only he, entered the Holy of Holies on the holiest day of the year Yom Kippur.
How can be instructed to ‘defile’ that holiness and engage with a corpse which has the highest level of impurity as defined in the Biblical laws of Taharah purity.
Even for his father he is not allowed to leave his perch of segregation from impurity, yet for an absolute stranger he may be instructed to defile himself?
The answer is obvious. There is absolutely no contradiction.
The Kohen Gadol is an agent of G-d.
He has one mission to fulfil.
The instructions of Hashem.
When one views life from that lens, it is quite uncomplicated.
Should you stay in Synagogue all day and pray?
Or go out and get a job to earn a living.
Should you get a job that doesn’t allow Shabbat observance or make a firm resolution that Shabbat will be kept at all costs?
Our singular mission in life is to fulfil Hashems will.
What should you do?
Ask Hashem.
He has made it very clear.
You need to do both.
‘Do what you can naturally. I will bless your efforts’.
It is a blend of human efforts with G-d’s blessings crowning those efforts with success.
It is really quite straightforward.
It is not about following your ‘heart’ and doing what you feel like.
One must follow the instruction of Hashem.
Nice people need to be ready to be ‘tough’ and firm when it comes to standing up for moral values and protecting others.
Tough and unyielding people need to cultivate kind and benevolent feelings in relating to their loved ones and to people who need their compassion and help.
(Because we are all subjective by nature, we must engage an impartial ‘rav’ teacher to help us come to the correct application of what Hashem is instructing us in any given situation).
How fortunate we are that Hashem ‘made us’ and just as He is omnipotent, he provides us with the ability to do the impossible when required. To straddle both worlds and to incorporate all kinds of character traits. As needed in following His instructions.
Thank you, my dear Bar Mitzvah student, for your commitment to the security of our people. I, like every single Jew owe you and of all those brave soldiers, my admiration, my prayers, my support and my love.
And thank you for being a beacon of transmission of our unchanging Jewish tradition by proudly putting on your Tefillin and promoting a message of faith and trust in Hashem as the cornerstone and bedrock of Am Yisrael.
May Hashem bless you and all our people.
Am Yisrael Chai.
May we be blessed with SHALOM, peace and tranquility in the holy land of Israel and the coming of Mashiach to usher in the everlasting utopian world that our Prophets have described – Mashiach NOW!
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Yosef Kantor