"Torah Lights"
 
Video Insights on the Parsha
 
 by Rabbi Shlomo Riskin

Efrat, Israel – “When the President shall sin... atonement must be made and he shall be forgiven” (Lev 4:22,26)

A story is told about a teenager from a secular American family who, after a number of years of living in Israel and growing more and more fascinated with the law and lore of hassidim, decided to become observant. Although the family had been living in Israel for nearly five years, the boy’s mother still prepared a stuffed-turkey dinner replete with pumpkin pie and cranberry sauce in honor of the American Thanksgiving holiday.

Wanting to honor his parents as well as keep the laws of the Torah, our enthusiastic baal tshuvah approached his Meah Shearim trained, tenth-generation Jerusalemite Rebbe: “I’m sorry,” the boy stammered “and perhaps my question is out of place, but am I required to recite the ya’ale ve’yavo prayer on Thanksgiving if I am celebrating it with my family?” The Rebbe looked confused.  “What is Thanksgiving?” he asked his new-found hassid.  The young man decided to seek his answer elsewhere, and so he returned to the government secular high school he’d recently attended and approached a very knowledgeable history teacher, a teacher whose classes had once been the highlight of his day, partly because he had an advanced degree from America and was an expert in American culture.  “I’m sorry,” the young man asked, “but might you know if one must say the ya’ale veyavo prayers on Thanksgiving?” The amused instructor, who had come to expect virtually anything from his former enthusiastic and irrepressible student, was confused by the Hebrew term.  “What’s ya’ale ve’yavo?,” he asked.  The student was frustrated but not deterred.  A government minister who lived in his town just happened to be arriving home from the Knesset.  Our student breathlessly ran up to him, almost poking his body-guard in the eye, “I’m sorry,” he began, “but perhaps someone as important as you might know.  Do observant Jews say ya’ale ve’yavo on Thanksgiving?’  The Israeli minister seemed perplexed. Scratching his forehead, he asked, “What’s ‘I’m sorry’?”  

For those of us who live in Israel this story is too close to home to be amusing.  It has been almost four years since we forced the good and brave pioneers of Gush Katif to leave their homes and jobs for the sake of the peace which our unilateral disengagement from Gaza was supposed to have brought us – and all we got was Hamas, Al Qaeda, Kassam rockets in Sderot and Ashkelon, and thousands of still homeless and unemployed Israeli citizens. And still no Israeli politician has said, “I’m sorry.” The highest office in the land appointed and/or retained incompetent ministers and military leadership which led to the first war we lost since 1948 – but still no word of apology. Scandal and sexual corruption has been found in our most exalted offices – but no one admits his guilt.

And as usual, the timeless and timely festivals and Biblical portions of the week cry out with a message to which everyone must pay heed – especially our “leaders.” 

Obviously, admission of guilt, an honest confrontation with oneself, is painfully difficult. Were it not so, confession would not count as the very definition of repentance (Maimonides, Laws of Repentance, 1,1). But only after the individual honestly faces his weaknesses and hypocrisies can the process of healing and repair actually begin. And this is what emerges from this week’s portion of Vayikra.  In Biblical times the individual would bring special sin offerings if he transgressed – but a sin offering without individual heart-felt repentance was not only meaningless but considered an abomination by G-d. In fact, what distinguished Judaism from all its ‘competitors' were the prophets’ declarations that ritual punctiliousness without moral rectitude were useless acts beneath contempt (Isaiah 1).

After the Bible sets the stage by informing us that human beings will  -- of necessity-- sin (Lev. 4:1,2), (it’s built into the complex animal-angel nature of the human personality), the very first sinner to be singled out is the High-Priest himself, the most exalted religious personality in Israel, the guardian of the Holy Temple. 

Apparently, our Bible does not recognize one scintilla of “papal infallibility;” the Bible even emphasizes that “if the High Priest will sin, it is a transgression upon the whole nation,” a sacrilegious blotch on our national escutcheon (4:3, Rashi as loc.).  On the great white fast of the Day of Forgiveness (Yom Kippur), the first individual to confess his guilt and request purification is the High Priest.  Indeed, the  first word to escape the mouth of our most sacred and exalted human being on the most sacred and exalted day of the year is “Anna,” please, oh, woe, a cry of personal and human anguish (as explained by my revered teacher, R. Joseph Dov Soloveitchik). 

The next in line for admission of guilt is the Sanhedrin, the Highest Court in the land, the Keepers of the Divine law.  When the lawmakers sin in judgment, all of Israel automatically sins, because they-the-judges- are entrusted with seeing that justice is done throughout society.  The elders of the congregation as well as the High Priest must share in the guilt of the Sanhedrin, because they should have prevented the travesty of an unfit judiciary (Lev. 4:13,15,16) 

And the third person to be singled out for confession and atonement is the Prince (Nasi), the Ruler, the President, the Prime Minister.  Amazingly, whereas the Bible uses the word “if” (Hebrew im) regarding the transgression of the High Priest and the Sanhedrin, it uses the word “when” (Hebrew asher) regarding the Nasi, the President, the Prime Minister.  Why is the number-one wielder of power most likely to fall prey to sin?  Is it because he comes to believe that he is above the law, that what is good for him is automatically good for the State?  Is it because he must rely on popular support, so he may fall prey to giving the people not what they need but what they want, to acting not in accordance with what is right but in accordance with the latest opinion poll (Meshekh Hakhma, ad loc)?  The Bible doesn’t quite tell us, but it does say that he is the most vulnerable. 

A fascinating difference in the behavior of two leaders can be discerned from events described in the Book of Samuel. On a particular occasion King Saul does not wait for Samuel, the great judge and prophet of his generation, to begin the public sacrifice, and ends up losing his kingdom (1 Samuel 13).  King David commits adultery and then sends Bathsheba’s husband to the front lines of battle to die, yet lives to become the progenitor of the messianic line of the Davidic dynasty. (2 Samuel 12).  Why?

Saul attempted to justify himself and blame the nation, whereas King David admitted his guilt and wept before the prophet and G-d. Rashi (Lev. 4:22) links the Hebrew “asher” (“when” the nasi sins) to the Hebrew “ashrei,” fortunate:  “fortunate is the generation whose nasi puts his heart and mind towards seeking forgiveness for his sins.”  Those in high office who are too high and mighty to seek forgiveness certainly ought be brought down a few notches by those very laws they seem to have haughtily disregarded.

Shabbat Shalom

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