Rabbi Reem Hakohen
Question: What should we be doing in the realm of Torah when the rule of justice by the sword hangs over our nation living in Zion?
Answer:
Accepting Responsibility
At a time of suffering a person is required to take responsibility for the events which engulf him. A voice is calling out, demanding that he not remain passive with respect to the suffering and the reality which have come upon him, but rather to analyze his actions, leading to repentance. "If a person sees that suffering comes to him, he should search through his actions" [Berachot 5a].
This demand pertains not only to individuals but also to the community as a whole: "If one member of a group dies, the entire group should be worried" [Shabbat 106a].
Since the judgement of the sword has begun to strike at us in recent times, many pure souls have been taken from our midst. These are the souls of martyrs who are so holy that no other creature can stand close to them. I cannot claim that I know how to answer all the questions that rise up in the face of this terrible reality, but it seems to me that the encounter with the fear of death requires us to do a self-reckoning both as individuals and as a group, and to take on responsibility for the community from which the Master of the World has been taking sacrifices. It goes without saying that this acceptance of responsibility does not mean that we have a human explanation for the events. Rather, it is a way for people of faith to respond to harsh judgement in a way that resonds to the call that rises up from the suffering and the pain. Are we able as a community to take on responsibility for a public sacrifice?
Unity but not Uniformity
Ever since the Temple was destroyed and the joy has gone out of our lives, we no longer have an Altar on which we can bring individual and public sacrifices. As opposed to an individual sacrifice, where a single person is the owner, a public sacrifice is bought from contributions to the Temple, made up of half a Shekel donated by every person, so that the owners are the entire community. This is an act which establishes the character of the community.
Ownership of a community sacrifice requires shared and purposeful activity. Rashi explains that a public sacrifice is not defined by a technical act, where a number of people share the cost of the sacrifice (Vayikra 1). A sacrifice which simply belongs to a number of partners, no matter how many, is called a "shared sacrifice." In order for a sacrifice to become a public sacrifice, what is necessary is an internal partnership within the nation. Gathering the money is not sufficient – rather, the sacrifice must be sanctified by the entire community of Yisrael.
How can an entire nation be brought together to become the joint owners of a sacrifice?
In the Torah portion of Ki Tissa, the people of the nation are counted by taking a contribution of half a Shekel from each one. "When you want to count the number of Bnei Yisrael, as they are counted, let each one give an atonement for his soul... to atone for your souls" [Shemot 30:12]. Moshe found it difficult to visualize the half Shekel, because he understood that a public sacrifice is not the result of melting together all the individuals into a unity that cancels out the individual personality. The Holy One, Blessed be He, shows Moshe a coin made of fire which has been taken from under the Holy Throne, the place where the souls are stored. He thus teaches Moshe the following: The message of the half Shekel is one of individuality, where each person recognizes himself as part of the whole. Our process of unification of all the souls passes through recognition of their personal traits, through the paths that are unique for each one.
The sages have taught us that the census of Bnei Yisrael in the portion of Ki Tissa serves as atonement for Bnei Yisrael for the sin of the Golden Calf, when the people fell into the depths of a unity that involved confusion and blockage, in a cycle that was not open to the heavens. Aharon unified the people by melting the gold from their rings. He thus created an idol which was not a public sacrifice but rather had the characteristics of communism. With the half Shekel, on the other hand, every person brings part of himself – not a whole coin but a partial one. From the prayers said by each one, based on what each person lacks and on a personal longing for completeness, it is possible to achieve unity, which is expressed as the census of all Bnei Yisrael.
With respect to the momentous events at Mount Sinai, the sages have taught us that if one individual soul from the nation of Yisrael had been missing the Torah would not have been given. The concept of a "nation" appears twenty-three times in the passage, and each time a Divine declaration is mentioned it is written, "In front of the eyes of the entire nation." Even so, this does not mean that the ceremony at Sinai was nothing more than a frontal confrontation, without any meaning for the individual. Rather, the deep meaning of the lesson given to us by the sages is that this was a public event in the true sense of the word, which was divided into threads that went deep into the souls of every person, in a way that the unique inner light of every individual was not trampled. In the words of a prophet, "... for this is the covenant which I will make with the House of Yisrael after those days, G-d declared. I gave My Torah within them, and I will write it on their hearts, and I will be G-d for them, and they will be a nation for Me. And no man will teach his colleague, and no man will teach his brother, saying, know G-d, for they will all know Me, from small to big, G-d declares. For I will forgive their sins and I will no longer remember their iniquities." [Yirmiyahu 31:32-33].
To See the Light in the "Other"
We are aware that the half Shekel also atones for the sin of selling Yosef. This sin stemmed from a movement that left no room for various shades of behavior, and that refused to recognize that there is room in Bnei Yisrael for twelve different tribes. At this time, when every public sacrifice requires of us that there be no blemish at all in the act of performing the sacrifice – we must make the effort to be able to see the light in all the others. Rav Kook writes, based on the well-known Mishna in Sotta, "Jealousy among scribes will lead to an increase in the total wisdom," that "this is jealousy which will end by becoming spoiled." There is no place for jealousy among the Torah scholars in Eretz Yisrael. There is an obligation on us, we who are part of both the Torah world and Israeli society, not to search for nuances that separate us from one another and lead to disputes which delay the arrival of the Mashiach. Rather, we must act in the way of purely righteous people, who enhance existing sanctity, so that we as a community will be able to achieve a point of unity, and to become a community whose terrible sacrifices have not been in vain.
Let us pray that we can be like Aharon, let us be happy with each other, and with the different shades of thought and action. Let the true Song of the Community of Yisrael rise up, so that the Shechina will be revealed to the world.
