Shalom chevre, In light of what has been going on in Israel with the kidnap pings, my thoughts on this situation, especially in ought of the way we study this difficult topic on ICC on TRY. Helplessness and the kidnappings What can we do in the face of helplessness? This question is being asked so many times, over the last few days. So many people are asking this, as our darkest fears take shape, as three boys sit who-knows-where, as three families lie devastated, and as the entire community of Am Yisrael painfully looks at a renewed, unsolvable Schalit-like problem, that of captured/kidnapped Jews. What do we do? How do we cope with this hopeless situation? (Im not even referring to the most difficult dilemma we face: of whether we negotiate to release them. If we do this and release a thousand prisoners, it merely encourages our enemies to re-double their efforts to do it agin; yet we cannot let them rot forever, we have to do everything in our power to get them back, for our own way of life revolves around our caring for every Jew and our motivation to fight for this land comes from the knowledge that we will not be left there.) So, again: what can we do in he the face of such helplessness? Lets do what Jews have done for millennia, look at the Torah. Lets see what we can glean from our book of books. Maybe, just maybe, the greatest teacher of all time, Moshe, can help us, and maybe, just maybe, it is in this weeks, last weeks, and next weeks Torah portions (shelach lecha, korach, chukat) The key phrase is fall on his/their face(s), which appears 5 times over the course of these three portions. A strange enough expression, and one that, a quick google search reveals, appears 27 times in tenach. 1 is irrelevant: Goliath falling having been killed by David. 12 are of people falling before the glory of g-d or an angel. 5 are people falling before a king/prophet out of respect. 2 are Abraham communicating with g-d 2 are David and Ezekiel, also communicating with g-d That leaves 5: once in parshat shelach lecha, three times in korach, and once in chukat. All 5 are Moshe, with or without Aaron. All 5 are directly after a horrific event happens to him. All 5 are his reaction to this event, and it seems to me that this falling on his face is symbolizing incredible helplessness in a horrific situation. How, then does Moshe rebbeinu cope with helplessness? Each of the 5 is followed by a very different reaction, and it is from this that I think we can learn something about at we can do. The first: (Numbers 14:1-5) Moshe is told by the people, after the failure of the spies, to appoint a new leader and that they want to return to Egypt. Moshes response, after falling on his face? Nothing! He does nothing. That is one response to helplessness; to simply curl up and do nothing. Unlike our gut reaction, this is not necessarily a bad thing to do. It may not be productive, but to not react and not do anything, as there is no point, is a legitimate reaction. The second: (Numbers 16:1-7) Korach stands up to Moshe, demanding he step down. Moshes response, after falling on his face? To talk to Korach and his men. That is a second reaction. Talking, getting your feelings out, talking to both your friends and family, and even to the enemy. Talk it out. The third: (Numbers 16:20-22) after G-d threatens to destroy in an instant the entire congregation of Korach. Moshes response, after falling on his face? To pray to G-d, not to punish the entire people for one persons mistake. That is a third reaction: praying or learning, the quintessential Jewish response. To pray to g-d, like tens of thousands have been doing both publicly and privately. Prayer! The fourth: (Numbers 17:9-11) after Korach has been swallowed up by the earth, and G-d issues an almost identical threat to the people, that he will destroy them with a plague. Moshes response, after falling on his face? To act! To take the incense, and with it stopping the plague. To spring to action is the fourth reaction, in any way we can. If it is helping the IDF in their quest to find the boys by providing food, support, going out and giving what we can. If it is massing donations of clothes or money for the families or soldiers, if it is organizing a rally or a protest, whether online or offline. Action! The fifth and most puzzling, though, comes next week,(Numbers 20:1-11) and it is when the people are complaining that they have no water, that it would have been better to die already than to be without water. Moshes response, after falling on his face? The glory of g-d appears to him, and g-d tells him to speak to the rock, and famously, Moshe blatantly disobeys g-ds command and hits the rock instead, thereby incurring the punishment of not seeing the land. I think the request that g-d had of Moshe, was one that even for him was too difficult: to change himself. To speak to the rock. To change the way of thinking, of looking at things, so as to not let the helpless situation, which was beyond his power to change, from destroying him. Moshe fails at this, yet the response is clear: change the way you think about it. Which of these reactions is correct? They all are. It is up to us to decide what to do: to do nothing, to talk it out, to pray, to take whatever action we can, or to change the way we think so we can continue our lives.
Posted on: Thu, 19 Jun 2014 07:33:21 +0000