A Teaching from Gershon’s Newsletter…

Scientists have recently discovered that the earth is constantly turning, spinning, whirling, orbiting, revolving. It must be dizzying for its creatures to be spinning all the time, shaken, moved, stunned, stirred, whisked and roused. Yet, if the earth were to remain still if even for a moment, we would all go kaput, nothing would live, nothing would exist, and all would simply dissipate in moments. But now you can better understand why the world is in such upheaval all the time. If it is not one thing, it’s another, but something is always happening, whether a fatal flood in Bulgaria or a popular uprising in Egypt, not to mention the tragic goings-on right here at home in the good old USA daily, hourly, minute by minute in one city or another. Of course, there is turmoil and disruption everywhere and every second…it is the dizzying effect of a planet in constant spin!There. I have finally figured it out. Narrowed it down. So it is puzzling to me why everyone is so upset and anxious about what is happening down in Egypt land when far worse things are occurring daily everywhere else all the time, like human trafficking, parents murdering their children, women being raped, kids being kidnapped, people being blown up by radical elements of fellow countrymen, as in Iraq, for example, and so much else that has been going on moment to moment for eons without our batting an eyelash. But now, suddenly, we are holding prayer meetings, writing prolific essays and blogs and editorials focusing on the political turmoil in Egypt. The media is salivating with gusto over having something sensational (a/k/a newsworthy) to spotlight every five minutes with repetitious videos and stills showing the same demonstrators doing the same things, running hither and thither, bleeding now and then, holding up banners, etc. etc. etc. And bloggers are burning up their keyboards with opinions about whether this is good or bad for Israel, for the Middle-East, for the U.S., for Moishe Pipick, etc. etc. etc. blablablablabla…It blows my mind. It is beyond my comprehension.You know, back in my old yeshiva days, when I was a holy young man studying Torah day and night and in between, and even in my sleep, my elder rebbe, Rav Eliezer Benseon, he would lean his aging body forward against the tall wooden stand that cradled his aging Talmud, his forehead resting in the palm of his right hand, right elbow resting on the stand, left hand caressing the fading, browning folios of the wisdom of the sages, while chanting their Aramaic verbiage…Meanwhile, outside, mobile loudspeakers were bellowing out frantic announcements of pending war!!It was June, 1967. Israel was being attacked by seven Arab countries. And we were trying to understand the similarities between moving a bench along the earth on the Sabbath versus plowing the earth on the Sabbath, and how the same law applied because “p’seek reyshe v’lo yamut?” – “Can you cut off a head without causing death?” In other words, plowing is not permitted on the Sabbath. But what if you need to move a heavy chair or bench that is sitting on the ground outside, to make room for Shabbat guests, for example, and by so doing, you will inevitably end up cutting into the earth, like plowing. So, do we say it is permitted anyway because your intent is not to plow but to move furniture? But if so, we can argue that it is akin to cutting off a head even though your intent is not to kill!See? For just one half a minute or less, your mind was directed away from the uprising in Egypt and focused on a Talmudic discussion, attention to minute, silly little details of Torah law. And so was I, back then, in June of 1967, barely tuned into the frantic warnings bellowing outside the yeshiva walls, and more focused on the whispery, throaty voice of the elder rebbe as he slowly read from the pages of the Talmud. He would of course eventually get us into the shelters, but not just yet. More painful than death itself would be not knowing the Talmud’s resolution of this argument. We had to complete it, air strikes and artillery fire notwithstanding. Our yeshiva, by the way, was located on Rechov Shmuel HaNavi, (The Street of Samuel the Prophet), then smack across the street from the flimsy barbed wire that separated Israel from the Jordanians who were now firing us.The world is spinning. The Torah is not. It is centered. It remains steadfast and firmly grounded. Nothing can touch it. It has been the mystique of the survival of our people against all odds for as long as we have had her with us. Empires have come and gone, massacred us, conquered us, displaced us, exiled us…all to no avail. Because, we always took her along with us wherever we went. Even the silliest-sounding discussions of Torah law or lore has proven far more potent a source of our survival and empowerment than any other historical or psychological factor. I remember this 70-year-old guy who used to frequent Rav Eliezer’s discourses at the yeshiva. He would sit there glowing in bliss, smiling, loving every minute of it, cherishing every word, his arthritic left middle finger diligently following every Aramaic word being read, his quivering lips mouthing each and every syllable. To my shock, I eventually found out during a casual conversation with him, that he was a sworn atheist. He didn’t believe in God, or in religion, or in anything. But he loved the Torah. He had been in the camps during the Holocaust, seen his family wiped out, fought in Israel’s War of Independence and during the Sinai campaign in ’56, and all the little wars against terrorists in between. Yet, nothing kept him alive more than the Torah of the God that he didn’t believe in, the Torah he so loved. I could not understand his thinking, so I asked him to help me understand how he could so love Torah and not believe in God. This is what he said:“My mother died a long time ago. But her letters to me while she was alive, they remain precious. I read them even now when I am seventy. Likewise, for me, God died in the camps. But his letters to me while he was alive remain precious. I read them even now when I am seventy.”Wow. What could I say? I was but seventeen at the time. Young, naïve, idealistic… Then these words spilled out of my lips in a near-whisper: “Yes, but if you are still alive, then so is God.” He looked at me in silence for what seemed to be a long period of time, then finished his tea and left. I never saw him again.Until August of 1973.In August of 1973, I returned to Jerusalem to visit family and friends, and to spend some learning time with my teachers, Rav Eliezer Benseon and Rav Yosef Ratzabi. As Rav Eliezer opened the door to me, he was shaking the hand of an earlier visitor preparing to leave, a very distinguished looking elderly gentleman with a long white beard and a huge colorful yarmulka. The man turned to me, paused, then embraced me, thanked me, and left. I had no clue who he was or why he thanked me until Rav Eliezer told me that it was the man who thought that God had died in the camps. “You said something to him,” Rav Eliezer reminded me, “that changed his life.”So, in the end, can you move the bench in your backyard on the Sabbath, or is it like cutting off a head without intending to kill in the process? I mean, sometimes we feel like doing that to some people. “I will have your head for this!” is an age-old declaration that may not necessarily imply any intent to kill. Or: “I wish I had a head like yours” and the like. Or, “I sure would like to get ahead.” Etc.You know, it reminds me of this discussion in the Talmud about whether we should plow our fields altogether. If we are going to have to work all the time, when will we have time or energy to study Torah? That is the question they raised in the second century. So, Rabbi Yishmael said, “Working to make a living is itself also part of the Torah way.” Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai said: “If you immerse yourself in the will of God, you won’t have to work; others will do the work for you.” The Talmud’s conclusion: “Many tried Rabbi Shimon’s way and failed; many tried Rabbi Yishmael’s way, and succeeded” (Berachot 35b).Good. But what about the bench and plow question? Is it like cutting off a head without intending death, or not?“No. Because in a situation where a soul is involved, it is very easy to obliterate , there are so many additional things needed and so many other factors involved, for it to actually take effect” (Talmud Bav’li, Shabbat 75a).Very important. Taking a soul is far simpler an act than to plant a seed. Don’t forget this. This is the whole meaning of the lesson. This is the entire message of the Torah. Your soul, your very being, is extremely fragile. Take very very good care of it (Deuteronomy 4:15 and Joshua 23:11). Don’t let them take your soul. It’s too easy. Stay centered. Don’t get sidetracked and sidewinded and spun into the dizzying spin of the world around you. God is not dead. It is we who are dead. God is very much alive, and so are you, and so is our Torah. Don’t leave home without it. The world doesn’t need you. You need you. Let the universe work out its own problems while your fingers do the walking through the yellowing pages of the Tenakh, the Talmud, the Midrash, the Kabbalah, the Aggadata, and the Halachah. As for the world, wisely did Solomon say that “All rivers run into the sea, yet the sea is never filled by them, for they return to where the rivers begin to run all over again…What was, will be again; and what is happening, will happen again; and there really isn’t anything new under the sun. It will often be said, ‘Behold a new thing!’ – but it has already been in worlds long before ours…Whatever once was, now is again; and what is destined to be, has already been before” (Kohelet 1:7-10 and 3:15).Should we care? Of course. Care, pray, be concerned. But don’t lose your head over any of it. Instead of sticking out your middle finger at the incompetent driver you just passed on the road, use it as a pointer along the folios of the Talmud.Okay. Done. Now go blog about Egypt or turn on CNN.If you still can.

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