Shemini Atzeres/Simchas Torah 5773

Rabbi YY Jacobson

• October 3, 2012
• |
• 17 Tishrei 5773
• |
• 49 views

• Print
  

  "Parchment Burning and Letters Soaring"

  Yizkor for Six People: The Secret of Jewish Eternity

  Rabbi YY Jacobson

  • October 3, 2012

  Three Last Wishes

  Three men, a Frenchman, an Italian, and a Jew, were condemned to be executed. Their captors told them that they had the right to have a final meal before the execution. They asked the Frenchman what he wanted.

  “Give me some good French wine and French bread,” he requested. So they gave it to him, he ate it, and then they executed him.

  Next it was the Italian’s turn. Give me a big plate of pasta,” said the Italian. So they brought it to him, he ate it, and then they executed him.

  Now it was the Jew’s turn. “I want a big bowl of strawberries, ” said the Jew.

  “Strawberries!!! They aren’t even in season!”

  “So, I’ll wait…

  In the Freezer

  Two men are waiting at the gates of heaven and strike up a conversation.

  "How'd you die?" the first man asks the second.

  "I froze to death," says the second.

  "That's awful," says the first man, "how does it feel to freeze to death?"

  "It's very uncomfortable at first," says the second man. "You get the shakes, and you get pains in all your fingers and toes. But eventually, it's a very calm way to go. You get numb and you kind of drift off, as if you're sleeping. How about you, how did you die?"

  "I had a heart attack," says the first man. "You see, I knew my wife was not being loyal to me, so one day I showed up at home unexpectedly to discover the truth, but found her alone watching television. I ran around the house looking for the man I suspected, but could find no one. As I ran up the stairs to the attic, I had a massive heart attack and died."

  The second man shakes his head. "That's so ironic," he says.

  "What do you mean?" asks the first man.

  "If you had only stopped to look in the freezer, we'd both still be alive."

  The Story of Rabbi Chanina ben Tradyon

  As we are about to recite Yizkor, I recall the tale recorded in the Talmud[1] about the execution of Rabbi Chanina ben Tradyon, one of the sages persecuted in the wake of the destruction of the Second Temple when the Roman Emperor Hadrian outlawed Torah study.

  Rabbi Chanina was a second generation sage of the Mishna who lived in Sachnin in the Galilee during the second century CE. He was known to be a particularly scrupulous and pious individual, who was appointed as an overseer of the communal charity fund. His primary pursuit was the study of Torah, and his teachings and rulings appear in numerous locations in the Talmud.

  In open defiance of the Roman edict, Rabbi Chanina ben Tradyon publicly taught Torah. This was no clandestine operation; it was a bold display of disdain for the Roman prohibition, as Rabbi Chanina ben Tradyon sat with a Torah in his hands and instructed all those who wished to study. The Romans caught him: "Why have you rebelliously busied yourself with Torah?" Rabbi Chanina ben Tradyon responded by quoting a biblical verse: "For G-d, my Lord, has commanded me."[2] Faced with such insolence, the Romans immediately sentenced him to be burned, his wife to be killed, and his daughter to be subjected to the life of a prostitute.

  עבודה זרה יז, ב: אתיוהו לרבי חנינא בן תרדיון אמרו ליה אמאי קא עסקת באורייתא אמר להו כאשר צוני ה' אלקי. מיד גזרו עליו לשריפה ועל אשתו להריגה ועל בתו לישב בקובה של זונות.

  The Talmud related how he was executed:

  עבודה זרה יח, א: מצאוהו לרבי חנינא בן תרדיון שהיה יושב ועוסק בתורה ומקהיל קהלות ברבים וס"ת מונח לו בחיקו הביאוהו וכרכוהו בס"ת והקיפוהו בחבילי זמורות והציתו בהן את האור והביאו ספוגין של צמר ושראום במים והניחום על לבו כדי שלא תצא נשמתו מהרה. אמרה לו בתו אבא אראך בכך אמר לה אילמלי אני נשרפתי לבדי היה הדבר קשה לי עכשיו שאני נשרף וס"ת עמי מי שמבקש עלבונה של ס"ת הוא יבקש עלבוני. אמרו לו תלמידיו רבי מה אתה רואה? אמר להן גוילין נשרפין ואותיות פורחות. אף אתה פתח פיך ותכנס [בך] האש! אמר להן מוטב שיטלנה מי שנתנה ואל יחבל הוא בעצמו. אמר לו קלצטונירי רבי אם אני מרבה בשלהבת ונוטל ספוגין של צמר מעל לבך אתה מביאני לחיי העולם הבא אמר לו הן. השבע לי נשבע לו. מיד הרבה בשלהבת ונטל ספוגין של צמר מעל לבו יצאה נשמתו במהרה. אף הוא קפץ ונפל לתוך האור. יצאה בת קול ואמרה רבי חנינא בן תרדיון וקלצטונירי מזומנין הן לחיי העולם הבא. בכה רבי ואמר יש קונה עולמו בשעה אחת ויש קונה עולמו בכמה שנים.

  The venerable sage was wrapped in a Torah scroll—perhaps the very scroll that he had held in open violation of the Roman edict—and surrounded with bundles of vine branches. Lighting the pyre was not enough for the Romans; the sage's demise was to be slow and painful: Clumps of wool were brought, soaked in water and placed over the heart of Rabbi Chanina ben Tradyon. Rabbi Chanina ben Tradyon's daughter—herself sentenced by the Romans to a life of disrepute—cried: "Father, must I see you thus?" With tremendous courage, Rabbi Chanina ben Tradyon calmed his daughter: "If I alone was being burned it would be difficult for me. Now that I am being burned and the Torah scroll is with me—He who will seek a reckoning for the insult to the Torah scroll will seek a reckoning for my insult."

  As their teacher was nearing his end, the students sought to garner a final lesson: "Master, what do you see?" As the flames scorched his holy body, Rabbi Chanina ben Tradyon shared a lasting image:

  "The parchment is burning, but the letters are taking flight!"

  Seeing their master's pain, the disciples urged: "You too—like the Torah whose physical shell is being destroyed—open your mouth and the fire will enter you, and your soul will ascend with the letters." But the sage refused. "It is better that He who gave the soul should take it back, rather than a person inflicts harm on himself."

  The Roman executioner, seeing Rabbi Chanina ben Tradyon's sacred majesty, turned to the sage: "My master, if I increase the flame and remove the clumps of wet wool from over your heart in order to end your suffering, will you bring me to the life of the world-to-come?" "Yes." "Swear to me." The sage complied and the executioner immediately increased the fire and Rabbi Chanina ben Tradyon's soul departed. Without waiting, the Roman executioner jumped into the flames and a Heavenly voice resounded: "Rabbi Chanina ben Tradyon and the executioner are prepared for the world-to-come."

  The Image

  The sage is burning, together with the Torah scroll in which he is wrapped. And when his students ask him what he sees, he responds: "The parchment is burning, but the letters are taking flight!"

  I will dare to ask: How absurd was the question of his students. What were they thinking? Here their Rebbe is burning alive, what types of question was this: “What do you see?” What is he supposed to be seeing during such savage suffering?[3]

  And what is the meaning of this response about the parchment burning and the holy letters soaring? What was he trying to convey to them?

  What of the Future?

  It is in this story we discover the essence of Yizkor.

  The students of the holy sage stood and watched the demise of both their Rebbe and their Torah, being destroyed together. At such a moment, they asked one question: Rebbe! What do you see? “Mah Atah Roeh?” This exact term is found in Jeremiah chapter one, where G-d asks the prophet “What do you see?” referring to a prophecy about the future, and a future of destruction.
  The students were asking Rabbi Chaninah “What do you see” to constitute our future? With you—the preeminent sage of Israel—and the Torah going up in flames, what does the future hold for our people and faith? Where are we to invest our “stocks?” In the portfolio of Torah, seemingly meeting its doom, or in the portfolio of Rome seemingly on top of the world? Tell us, dear Rebbe, “what do you see?”

  They, of course, remembered the first vision of G-d to Moses. How did Moses encounter the presence of G-d for the first time? In a burning bush. “And he saw that the bush is aflame but it is not being consumed.” The meaning of that vision, as the Midrash explains, is that the Jewish people will burn but they will never be consumed. But how will this happen? Wondered the students of Rabbi Chaninah, as they watched their master and the Torah being consumed! The burning bush was not being consumed, but the Sage and the Torah scroll were going up in the flames.

  Rabbi Chaninah’s response remains one of the most powerful and moving messages that has defined and sustained our people: "I see the parchment is burning, but the letters are taking flight!"

  The Torah consists of two parts: the parchment and the letters; the body and the soul; the physical matter and the ideas, the spirit, the message. The people too consist of two dimensions: the physical reality and the inner soul. The parchments of Torah, as well as the “parchments” of the Jewish people may be subjected to destruction and annihilation, but the letters of Torah—and the letters of the human spirit—are soaring. They never die. They endure, and they are transplanted into new places and new times.

   Seventy years ago, our parents and grandparents watched the parchments of 6,000,000 go up in flames. Literally. From 1933 till 1945 the Germans burnt 100 million Jewish books as well. They were determined to destroy every last fragment of Jewish parchment. I am still amazed every day how that generation managed to rebuild life from ashes. How? Somehow, they gazes at the burnt parchment, and they said to themselves: But the letters have soared! Their spiritual essence, their message, their values, dreams, loves, passions and traditions will continue to live in us.

  As the flames engulfed his body, Rabbi Chanina ben Tradyon saw the letters “porchot,” a Hebrew term that means not only soaring also blossoming, blooming, flowering and flourishing. While the parchment burned, the letters of our Tradition had already taken flight, like a seed box carrying the kernel that will grow into a new tree. This is the eternal charm of the letters of our Heritage: Out of the ashes they rise; and borne by the winds of history, they are supplanted in new fertile ground where they can once again take root and thrive.

  And so our generation took to heart Rabbi Chaninah’s words: The letters took flight… and they landed in the yeshivas, in the shuls, in the homes, and in the hearts and souls and communities of Jews in Jerusalem, New York, Melbourne, Moscow, Brazil, and Johannesburg. Wherever there are Jews, those words continue to stir, to arouse, to inspire and to resonate.

  Yizkor

  This is the story of Yizkor. The “parchment” of our loved ones is not here any longer; but their letters—their ideas, values, messages, words, deeds and faith—soared and continue to live through us and our children.

  Optional section

  Rabbi Tartas

  As we say Yizkor today, we forget nobody. In my mind I go back to Rabbi Isaac de Castro Tartas. In the aftermath of expulsion of the Jews of Spain in 1492, the Catholic Church promoted a series of local church courts to investigate and prosecute Christian heretics, primarily those who had converted from Judaism and were suspected of maintaining their Jewish beliefs and practices. Known as the Inquisition, these courts tortured and killed myriads of Annusim, or Marranos, throughout the vast reaches of Christendom for centuries. Nonetheless, many “New Christians” continued to maintain their Jewish identity and practices.

  One such Jew was Isaac de Castro, whose parents had escaped Portugal and settled in Tartas, in southern France. Isaac was born around 1623 and was the brother of David Castro Tartas, a famous printer in Amsterdam, where his family had moved and practiced Judaism openly.

  Early in life, Isaac went to Parahiba, Brazil, where he lived for several years. He then moved to Bahia dos Santos in Brazil. Although he was not formally known as a Chacham, he was a deeply learned man, and reportedly was engaged in studying and teaching Torah. He was soon recognized as a Jew, arrested by the Inquisition, and sent to Lisbon. Summoned before the tribunal

  of the Inquisition, he at once reaffirmed his belief in Judaism and his determination to remain true to the faith. All the endeavors of the inquisitors to convert him to Christianity were in vain. On Dec. 15, 1647 he was led, together with five fellow-sufferers, to be burned at the stake. In the midst of the flames he called out, "Shema Yisrael,” a cry which deeply resonated with the Annusim of Portugal.

  In Amsterdam, the tragic end of this promising young man occasioned deep mourning. A memorial sermon was delivered, and elegies in Hebrew and in Spanish were written in his honor by prominent Jews, including a descendant of the Abravanel. The reign of terror of the Inquisition finally ended with its abolishment on March 30, 1782 by King Ferdinand IV.

  His parchment was burnt, but his letters soared…

  Rabbi Mann of Veizin

  And then my memory takes me to Lithuania, 18th century. In Veizin, a small suburb of Vilna, in the 18th century, lived an apostate. Angered by the rejection and insults of the Jewish community, he set out to take revenge on his former coreligionists with a nefarious plan. One night ahead of the final days of Sukkot, the apostate stole an icon from a local Catholic church and hid it under the Aron Kodesh in the synagogue. He quickly went to the local parish priest and foretold an upcoming Jewish ritual in which the Jews would take a Christian icon and beat it with willow branches on a specific date. The news enraged the Christian authorities, who bided their time until the date which the apostate had mentioned: Hoshana Rabbah.

  On that fateful morning, while the Jewish community was assembled at prayer holding their hoshanot (willow branches), the local authorities burst into the shul and found an icon under the

  Aron kodesh. They immediately charged the Jews with crimes against the church. The Jews stood shocked, stunned in silence. This was interpreted as an admission of guilt, and an anti-Jewish pogrom was unleashed. Many Jews were beaten, maimed and killed. Those who survived quaked with the fear of the unknown fate that would befall them after the formal trial that they would face.

  In the midst of this crisis, Rabbi Mann, an elderly pious member of the community secretly approached the Catholic authorities. He figured that if he would accept the blame for the incident, then the rest of the community would be spared. The local authorities accepted his admission, and Rabbi Mann stood trial for his “crimes.” On the seventeenth of Tammuz, he was burned at the stake.

  For decades, the Jewish community of Vilna, the nearby major Jewish population center, observed annual memorial prayers in memory of “the Kadosh” Rabbi Mann, as he was known for his martyrdom including a unique אל מלא , whose text is extant, that was composed in his memory.

  (Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik recalled as a young man hearing a memorial prayer recited in Vilna for the holy Rabbi Mann, whose story was known throughout Vilna and the surrounding Lithuanian Jewish communities.)

  His parchment was burnt, but his letters took flight…

  Thundering Words of a Tormented Jew

  As we say yizkor, I remember the story told by Professor Michael Klein who was in Auschwitz. Klein’s brief narrative is titled “Breaking Silence.” The story reflects on Klein’s close friend, Salamon Abshalom, who had attempted escape from the death camp and was to suffer death as a consequence. The day he was to die was Yom Kippur.

  “My friend Salamon Abshalom was let out. He was barely able to walk; his hands were tied behind his back. An SS guard took him to the back of the camp yard. … He was led to the gallows and made to climb onto what looked like a stepladder. The noose was tied around his neck.

  “We stood paralyzed, in bewildered despair. How could the Heavens allow this to happen on this holy Yom Kippur evening? Did the Germans set up the execution specifically for Yom Kippur to humiliate the G-d of Israel and His people? The silence of the Heavens screamed out in our hearts and in our souls. The desecration of the G-d of Israel, of the people of Israel, of Yom Kippur, and the humiliation of man created in the image of G-d preceded in silence as the German hangman, the Camp's SS commander, stood over Salamon Abshalom.

  Suddenly, as if from nowhere, a powerful, high pitched voice rang out over the camp yard. It sent chills down our spines, as we heard the cry of "Sh'ma Yisrael...", Hear O Israel", as Salamon Abshalom declaimed the eternal proclamation of the Jewish people's belief in one G-d.

  With his prayer of Sh'ma Yisrael arising from his last breath, he raised all of us standing to the highest spiritual level. Even as his life was extinguished by the brutal murderer to whom nothing was holy, he still proclaimed the eternity of the Jewish People, in defiance of evil, in defiance of the Germans, in defiance of the silence of humanity, and in defiance of the silence of the Heavens. Salamon Abshalom proclaimed the G-dliness of the Jewish People even at a time when G-d seemed to be totally absent.”

  His parchment was destroyed; but his letters soared…

  Rabbi Dr. David Halevi Applebaum

  And then my memory travels to Jerusalem, 21st century. Rabbi Dr. David Applebaum was born in Detroit, Michigan in 1952 and grew up in Cleveland, Ohio. He spent his teenage years studying at Hebrew Theological College in Chicago under the tutelage of Rabbi Ahron Soloveichik. He received his M.D. from the Medical College of Ohio in 1978.

  In 1981, after his residency, he emigrated to Israel with his wife, Debra, where he served as a medical director of Magen David Adom, Israel’s ambulance corps, in Jerusalem, as well as working in Shaare Zedek Hospital. He left the hospital to found the Terem Immediate Care Center, which revolutionized emergency care in Jerusalem by treating relatively minor injuries in a freestanding clinic, freeing up hospital emergency rooms to deal with more serious cases. In 1986, Dr. Applebaum was presented with an award by the Knesset after treating terror victims at the scene of an attack on King George Street in Jerusalem while still under fire.

  In 2002, Dr. Applebaum was appointed head of Shaare Zedek Medical Center's Department of Emergency Medicine, and was viewed in Israel's medical community as one of the country's leaders in the field. He introduced a number of groundbreaking changes to improve efficiency, introduced the computer tracking of patients, and was insistent on cutting waiting time to an absolute minimum. Dr. Applebaum was on call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, including Shabbat. When he was out of the hospital, he continued to monitor the treatment of each patient via a computer connection, even when he was abroad. He was a scholar, who authored dozens of articles in medicine and Halacha, and lectured internationally.

  David and Debra had two sons and four daughters; David was active at home in the lives of his children and his extended family. Their daughter, Naava, was engaged to be married on September 10, 2003, and on the eve of the wedding, Dr. Appelbaum took Naava for an outing together to Café Hillel on Emek Refaim street in Jerusalem. At 11:20pm a Hamas terrorist detonated his explosives in the café, killing seven people. Among the victims were Naava Appelbaum, the bride-to-be, and her father, Rabbi Dr. David Appelbaum, the remarkable physician who had spent years administering medical care for Israel’s victims of terror.

  Their parchment was burnt, but their letters—their love, their passion, their ideas, their values—soared… and continues to educate and inspire us.

  End of optional section

  Our Memories

  This is true of all of our loved ones who we will remember today.

  Today we remember mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, husbands, wives, sons and daughters, all our loved ones whose deaths have forever left us un-whole. Each one of us stands incomplete, knowing that those near and dear to us are removed from our present. That awareness is disorienting and painful. Death is not something that can ever be overcome. The impenetrable and terrible boundary of human mortality is a divide that we can never traverse. This is why we need this moment – this service of Yizkor.

  Yizkor is our opportunity to retrieve what is ours. To recall that while the “parchment” has died, the letters still linger. The memories of our past are both beyond our reach, yet ours to claim as our rightful and ongoing inheritance. The kindness and wisdom of a parent who continues to shape our moral code; the love of a life partner, who even in his or her absence, informs our very being. The wisdom of a brother or a sister who, even in death, remains our teacher. A child whose life remains for us a testament of love. Yizkor is not meant to ease grief. It does not diminish our loss. The power of Yizkor is that it teaches us that the lives of our loved ones, while lodged in our past, can and must be a legacy that informs our present and future. The memories of our loved ones can become a blessing when and only when we crack open our hearts and souls just wide enough to allow for the possibility that we can still feel the immediacy of their love, that we can still learn from them, that we the living, while separated from the past, can still draw on it as an ever-renewing source of strength.

  William Faulkner wrote, “The past is never dead. It’s not even the past.”

  Gur Sharon

  It was 1967.

  With the dust from the Six-Day War still settling, Ariel Sharon took his wife, Lily, and eleven-year-old son, Gur, to visit newly liberated Jerusalem. Sharon was in battle in the Sinai Desert when he first heard that Jerusalem had been freed. Now, after the miraculous victory, the family walked together through throngs of eager Jews toward the Western Wall. A tefillin stand run by a Chabad rabbi caught Sharon’s eye. Moved and inspired, in the shadow of the wall, Ariel Sharon put on tefillin.

  The rabbi manning the tefillin stand immediately recognized Sharon, the war hero who had earned a reputation for bravery and brilliance. Fighting in every war since Israel’s birth, Sharon had recently led Israeli tanks through Sinai to the eastern bank of the Suez Canal, greatly contributing to Israel’s victory.

  Just weeks later, was Rosh Hashanah. Young Gur Sharon, 11 years old, jovially saluted his father and went off to play. A minute later a shot rang out. Gur was playing with one of his father’s guns and he shot himself. As a soldier, Ariel Sharon knew the wound was fatal, yet, still hoping, he picked up the boy, blood soaking his shirt, and flagged down a passing car. Moments later, Gur died in his father’s arms.

  Though they never met till then, the Lubavitcher Rebbe wrote Sharon a letter. In it he wondering about the traditional words of consolation said to mourners: "May the Almighty comfort you amongst the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem." What exactly is the consolation in those words? How is comparing the loss of a loved one to the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans two thousand years ago supposed to make me feel any better?

  The Answer was this: There are several parallels between the fall of Jerusalem and the passing of a soul. By contemplating these, the mourners can find a profound message of hope.

  1-- You're not alone. Although the destruction of Jerusalem would have directly affected those who lived there the most, nevertheless it was a national tragedy. All Jews, including those who lived far from Jerusalem, were deeply pained at the loss of their holy city. It gave strength and courage to the Jerusalemites to know that the entire people was feeling their pain. So too, although it is the family that is mourning for their loss, the entire Jewish people share in their sorrow at the passing of one of our own. This is comfort in knowing that your sorrow is being shared by your people.

  2--It isn't forever. After two millenia we still mourn for the loss of Jerusalem, but the Jewish people have never lost hope that Jerusalem will one day be rebuilt. In a similar way, we mourn the loss of our loved ones, but we have faith that we will one day be reunited with them, for our prophets have promised that the dead will come back to life in the Messianic era. This is comfort in knowing that the separation, as painful as it is, is only temporary.

  3--They're still with us. While the Romans were able to destroy the buildings of Jerusalem, its spirit and inner holiness were beyond their reach. No enemy can destroy the soul of Jerusalem, and even today it remains the Holy City. So too, death can only take away the physical persona, but the soul lives on. Even after their passing, our loved ones are with us in spirit. They strengthen us when we face challenges, and they smile with us when we celebrate. While we can no longer see them, we can sense their presence. This is comfort in knowing that we are never really apart.

   

  None of this denies the pain and sorrow of death. But it may take the edge off that pain to know that, like Jerusalem, the soul has eternal powers that even death can't conquer.

  The time for Yizkor has arrived. The time to draw on the past is present. The parchment is gone, but the letters are here with us. May we internalize, embrace and cherish those letters and pass them on to our loved ones, for eternity.

   

  ---

  [1]  Talmud  Avoda Zara 17b; 18a.

  [2]  Deuteronomy 4:5

  [3] Tosefos to Avoda Zara 18a asks the question and offers two answers.

   

• Comment