Story 1: The Prophet Eliyahu is
standing atop Mt. Carmel armed for spiritual battle with the idolatrous prophets
of the Baal. ‘Let us each pray to our
god and see which is the true deity.’
The idolaters build an altar and Eliyahu builds an altar. They offer a sacrifice and he offers a
sacrifice. They pray and beseech, all day
long. But there is no response. Eliyahu then douses his sacrifice in water
and prays to Hashem. A fire descends and
consumes the holy offering. How could
Eliyahu offer a sacrifice outside the Holy Temple? The exception, our Sages explain, is an
emergency, when we rely on the dictum, “There is a time to act for Hashem.”
Story 2: The Holy Temple is on the
verge of being destroyed by the Romans. Rabbi
Yochanan ben Zakkai manages to sneak out of the city, hidden in a coffin. The venerable sage is brought before General
Vespasian for a private audience. What
is his request of the Roman commander? ‘Give
me Yavneh and its Sages.’ At that
moment, he realizes that Jewish life is going to change and will need to adjust
in ways previously unimaginable. The
academy of Yavneh would lay the groundwork for the redaction of the Oral Law,
which has sustained Jewish life for two millennia.
דְּאָמַר רַב יְהוּדָה
אָמַר שְׁמוּאֵל: בְּשָׁעָה שֶׁתִּיקֵּן שְׁלֹמֹה עֵירוּבִין וּנְטִילַת יָדַיִם,
יָצְתָה בַּת קוֹל וְאָמְרָה: ״בְּנִי אִם חָכַם לִבֶּךָ יִשְׂמַח לִבִּי גַם
אָנִי״, ״חֲכַם בְּנִי וְשַׂמַּח לִבִּי וְאָשִׁיבָה חוֹרְפִי דָבָר״
Rav Yehuda quoted Shmuel: When Shlomo (King Solomon) instituted the
ordinances of eruv and handwashing, a Divine Voice emerged and declared: “My
son, if your heart is wise my heart will be glad, even mine . . . My son, be
wise and make my heart glad, that I may respond to those who taunt me.”
Which two ordinances did Shlomo Hamelech enact? Eruv and handwashing. Biblically speaking, one may not transfer
property from a private domain to a public domain on Shabbat. In order to avoid confusion, Shlomo
instituted that property should only pass between a private domain and a
semi-public domain (such as our suburban areas) with the prior sharing of food
and some form of enclosure. The handwashing
enactment was an edict that required the cleansing of one’s hands prior to
partaking of any sacrificial food.
Rav Hai Gaon explains why these ordinances were not enacted prior to the
time of King Shlomo. Until that time,
the nation of Israel was in a state of war, as we battled for sovereignty over
our Promised Land. The law is that
soldiers are not bound by the laws of eruv and handwashing, because of the pressures
presented by life in the trenches. Only
once peace had prevailed was Shlomo able to institute these important
injunctions.
We currently find ourselves living
in devastating times for all humanity.
Thousands have died. Hundreds of
thousands are suffering from ill health.
Businesses are collapsing.
Children are out of school.
People are out of work. So many find
themselves quarantined and scared for the future.
With the shuttering of shuls and
schools, Jewish life is now teetering at the edge as well. Simchas have been cancelled. Minyanim have been barred. Shivah houses happen in isolation. What does the future hold? When this horror eventually subsides, how
will Judaism look? Will we still care
about kaddish when it’s been missed for so long? Will anyone tune in to the Torah reading when
we were forced to neglect its reading for weeks or months?
It’s time to recognize that we are
in a warzone. In many ways, it’s even
worse. No time in history have we been
forced to completely shut down communal gatherings of Jewish life. Even in Roman Judea, Inquisition Spain, and Communist
Russia, we were still able to gather together in secret, to daven and to learn. During those dark days, why didn’t they simply
instruct people to practise their Judaism in solitude? Weren’t the rabbis of the time concerned for
the risk to human life?
Of course they were. But they had no choice. As Rabbi Akiva famously said, ‘If I fail to
gather my students in secret to learn Torah, we will be like fish taken out of
water. We will die.’ So why don’t we have the same attitude? Why aren’t we defying the calls and gathering
for Torah and communal prayer, despite the risks?
Because we have a secret weapon
that they didn’t have. Today we have the
internet. That’s why our rabbinic
leadership today has the confidence to ask us to temporarily move Jewish life
away from our communal brick and mortar buildings. The ability to offer Judaism online has made
for a new reality. No longer is Judaism at risk of destruction, because we can
still gather together virtually.
Our new way of doing Jewish must be
embraced and celebrated. We must be
prepared to take bold steps to keep Jewish life going. Just like the times of the Prophet Eliyahu, “there
is a time to act for Hashem.” We have
faith that the Almighty will redeem us from this situation very soon. That’s why our tradition has a mechanism for
short-term emergency fixes. But in the
meantime, just like the vision of Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai, the responsible
approach is to make some major decisions, previously perhaps unthinkable. Hashem is now challenging us to step up and
do our part to sustain Jewish life under these strange conditions.
At Hampstead Garden Suburb
Synagogue, we are doing our very best to keep the flame alive and doing our
part to maintain and fortify traditional shul services. Are we doing things 100% absolutely
perfectly? Not even close. But we’ve made some courageous decisions in
order to keep our community in the game for as long as we can. That means being innovative, creative, and
ever-positive.
We’ve been holding thrice daily virtual
services. And our minyanim are bigger
than ever. We gather together in tallis
and tefillin and recite prayers as we would each morning, afternoon, and
evening. I love my congregants, and I
thank them for coming out each day to keep me inspired to pray and stay
spiritually fit and healthy. Our daily
routine keeps our souls in the light and we are motivating one another to ever
greater spiritual heights.
We don’t say everything. The exclusively communal parts of davening we
skip, including communal kaddishes and the chazan’s repetition. But we do permit mourners to recite
kaddish. Does it have the same spiritual
impact as if we were all standing together in shul as a bona fide minyan? I don’t know the answer to that. That’s for God to determine. We’re just doing the best we can with the
hand we’ve been dealt.
What I do know is that the opportunity
to recite kaddish is a glimmer of light and a consolation for the mourners. We have mourners who have just recently lost
loved ones. We have mourners who had to
sit shivah alone. And we have mourners
who were not allowed to see their elderly loved ones during their final days in
hospital. This is not a case of being meikel
(lenient) in the laws of kaddish. We’re
being machmir (stringent) in the laws of ahavat yisrael. We are
doing our bit to spread the love and the light.
We’re also leining from the Torah
three times a week (albeit now without aliyot) from a real Sefer Torah, Monday,
Thursday, and Friday (in honour of Shabbat).
Last Friday, we had a bar mitzvah boy read his maftir and haftorah
(without brachot), while everyone else watched via livestream. The young man recited his daily Birchot
HaTorah (Torah blessings) and dad recited the Baruch shepetarani
(Exemption blessing). Can you imagine how relieved and uplifted that family
felt!
These are some of the vital
enactments we’ve put in place. And we
hope and pray that very soon things will be back to the way they were. We’ll be praying together, singing together,
learning together. Sitting together with
our multigenerational families at the Pesach Seder.
But once again, we need to act
responsibly if we want to keep the flame alive.
That means finding creative ways to ensure that nobody is left alone for
the Pesach seder, if we are still stuck in two weeks’ time. I wonder if there aren’t ways that we could harness
the intersection of halacha and technology to bring everyone just a little bit closer. The Almighty has blessed us with miracles of
human invention the likes of which our ancestors never dreamed of! Let’s put our heads together to figure out
ways to make this a positively unforgettable Pesach!
Some people are worried about Torah changing to adapt to modern
viewpoints. That’s not what this is
about. This is a temporary fix, due to a
halachic category called ‘nishtanu hativiim’. Sometimes nature around us changes and we
adapt accordingly. In this instance,
with God’s help, it will be a very short-term change in the laws of
nature. We will be able to return to
Jewish life the way we have practiced it for thousands of years. But in the unprecedented interim, we ask
Heaven to inspire us with the tools to make our Judaism exciting, invigorating,
and sustainable, despite the challenges.
Our Gemara quotes two verses from Proverbs to demonstrate how wise Shlomo’s
edicts were. What was particularly
clever about these two ordinances? The
Chidushei HaRim explains that the purpose of an eruv is to bring people
together, while handwashing keeps people apart.
Spiritually speaking, the Chidushei HaRim means that handwashing denotes
sanctification which separates the holy from the mundane.
Now more than ever, we recognize the importance of handwashing to keep us
apart, right down to our tiniest microbial connections. True wisdom is the ability to connect people
even when we are physically separated.
May Hashem shine His countenance upon us and reunite us all very soon,
physically and spiritually!
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