Torah Portion: Tzav Book of Leviticus Chaps. 6:1-8:36 March 14, 2014 The famous Talmudic sage Rabbi Meir (2nd century b.c.e.) was teaching his students about the sacrificial cult that took place in the ancient Temple before its destruction in 70 c.e. He explained each animal sacrifice as it occurred in the Torah. The final sacrifice was the zevach shelamim, or peace offering. Rabbi Meir concluded it was not by accident that this sacrifice was mentioned last. Great is peace, he taught. For the sake of peace a person may even humiliate himself. The Midrashic literature (Jewish legends based on the Torah) tells the following story of Rabbi Meir (translated by Rabbi Harvey Fields): There was a particular woman who was fond of listening to Rabbi Meir teach his students. Once, when the rabbis lesson lasted a long time, she was late in returning to her home. Angrily her husband asked, Where have you been? When she told him she had been listening to Rabbi Meirs lesson, he refused to believe her, saying: I will not allow you into this house until you have spit in Rabbi Meirs face! Friends of the couple, who learned what had happened, suggested they go with her for counsel to Rabbi Meir. When Rabbi Meir heard what happened, he said to the wife, I have a favor to ask. Since the time you left my lesson, I have developed a serious eye infection that can be cured only with the spittle of your mouth. Therefore, please spit in my eye seven times. After the woman had done as Rabbi Meir requested, he told her, Now go and be reconciled with your husband. Say to him, I have spit in Rabbi Meirs eye. After the woman left, Rabbi Meir said to his students, Great is peace. You may suffer shame to make peace between friends, between a wife and a husband. (Leviticus Rabbah 9:9) Modern sensitivities draw our attention to the male chauvinism displayed by the husband. In the context of our times, his actions are clearly less acceptable today than 2,000 years ago. However, thats not the point. Rabbi Meir is teaching that for the sake of peace even ones own personal dignity can be sacrificed. So much time, and so many lives, are wasted by peoples and nations who insist that a posture of military strength and power is the only way to impose a lasting peace. Leaders like Rabbi Meir, Mother Theresa, Gandhi, the Dalai Lama, and Martin Luther King, teach posturing is a disguise. A lasting peace requires one possess the moral strength to come out from the shadows of guns and missiles. In doing so, be willing to expose their vulnerabilities. . . in the pursuit of peace. Or, as the old bumper sticker reads, Risk Peace, Not War! Rabbi Howard Siegel
Posted on: Fri, 14 Mar 2014 19:48:56 +0000
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