Permit me to share the following story with you: The pilot of a plane going from New York to Miami in a storm, suddenly puts on the microphone and announces to his passengers, "I have some good news and some bad news. The bad news is that our compass is not working, and we have no idea where we are or in what direction we are heading. The good news is that we are maintaining our forward speed of 700 hundred miles an hour.” After reading this story I would like to pose the following question, “Are we sharing this problem with the passengers on this plane?” Look around our world. Have we lost our compass and don't seem to have a flight plan for our society and sadly we are going forward at intensive speed. Today, more than ever, we begin to realize that our life has no meaning unless there is a flight plan and a compass connected to our Judaic way of life.
With this thought in mind, the opening words of this week's Sedrah are most instructive to our way of thinking. The Torah states כי תשא את ראש בני ישראל לפקודיהם ונתנו איש כופר נפשו. When the census of the Jewish People was taken, Moshe was instructed not to count heads but rather to ask everyone to donate a half a shekel and to count the half shekels to ascertain the number of Jews present.
Many ask, “Why is a half shekel used and not a whole shekel? Why couldn’t they just count heads?”
The collecting of the half shekel suggests that a Jew is never alone. He/she always need the other. We are never complete until we become one with each other.
The idea of not counting heads by number, which we don't even do when we are counting to see how many people we have to make a minyan, is to teach us that we don't treat people like numbers. When we count by numbers we overlook the uniqueness of each individual person. There is this fear that we are dehumanizing people. There is that fear of treating them as if they were only numbers, and losing sight of that which makes each one important and priceless and special. Every person being created in the image of G-D has the potential to achieve greatness. Therefore, they are deemed worthy to be recognized for their individual achievements and are not to be lumped together as a mere number.
These are important times for, us, as part of the Jewish People to successfully move into the next era and have greater Jewish unity. It is true that we can disagree on different ideas and outlooks regarding so many modern topics facing Judaism, but when it creates a schism between traditional Jews then we are on the road that is unbridgeable.
Let us agree to disagree but let us not create a schism that will destroy the fabric of true Halachic Judaism that has been our foundation and our strength throughout the ages.
5777 is a call for unity and for our religious survival.
The more one enters into cooperative relations with others, the more personality one succeeds in achieving.
שבת שלום ומבורך
With this thought in mind, the opening words of this week's Sedrah are most instructive to our way of thinking. The Torah states כי תשא את ראש בני ישראל לפקודיהם ונתנו איש כופר נפשו. When the census of the Jewish People was taken, Moshe was instructed not to count heads but rather to ask everyone to donate a half a shekel and to count the half shekels to ascertain the number of Jews present.
Many ask, “Why is a half shekel used and not a whole shekel? Why couldn’t they just count heads?”
The collecting of the half shekel suggests that a Jew is never alone. He/she always need the other. We are never complete until we become one with each other.
The idea of not counting heads by number, which we don't even do when we are counting to see how many people we have to make a minyan, is to teach us that we don't treat people like numbers. When we count by numbers we overlook the uniqueness of each individual person. There is this fear that we are dehumanizing people. There is that fear of treating them as if they were only numbers, and losing sight of that which makes each one important and priceless and special. Every person being created in the image of G-D has the potential to achieve greatness. Therefore, they are deemed worthy to be recognized for their individual achievements and are not to be lumped together as a mere number.
These are important times for, us, as part of the Jewish People to successfully move into the next era and have greater Jewish unity. It is true that we can disagree on different ideas and outlooks regarding so many modern topics facing Judaism, but when it creates a schism between traditional Jews then we are on the road that is unbridgeable.
Let us agree to disagree but let us not create a schism that will destroy the fabric of true Halachic Judaism that has been our foundation and our strength throughout the ages.
5777 is a call for unity and for our religious survival.
The more one enters into cooperative relations with others, the more personality one succeeds in achieving.
שבת שלום ומבורך
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