RESPONSIBILITY

“People don’t care about how much you know until they know how much you care”

   We, each, determine our own behavior. We are responsible for the way we act and react. That is why we must think for ourselves regardless of outside pressures. We must have the courage of our convictions.

   I remember speaking with a survivor of the Holocaust.  He told me his objective, while in the camp, was self-preservation and how to help his family and his friends survive, as well. 

   He shared with me what Chazal said, “Every person should have two pockets in his garment. In one pocket he should have a piece of paper saying בשבילי נברא העולם The entire world was created for my sake. In the other pocket, the note should read, אנכי אפר ועפר, I am but dust and ashes. Then, he told me, “I read the note describing myself as ‘Ashes and dust’ while I was in the concentration camp. However, when I arrived in the glorious state of Israel, I took out the note, which read, ‘The world was created for me.’ 

   This was a blessing and a lesson of a survivor, whose life was to move forward and to build a sanctuary to G-D out of a life of turmoil.

   For us, in our day and age, the main word that is necessary is “Responsibility”. What doesResponsibility do for mankind, we may ask, and how can we truly become a responsible person?

   My answer is forthcoming from this week’s Torahreading Shoftim. 

At the end of Sedrah we are introduced to a very interesting directive, called, עגלה ערופה. The Torah states, “If a murdered man was found in an open field and the murderer is not known, there is an act of expiation that has to be performed by the elders and the judges and the people of the city nearest to where the crime was committed.

   After the ceremony, the leaders of the city must wash their hands and make the following declaration; “Our hands have not shed this blood nor have our eyes seen it, forgive us Hashem.” 

   What a striking doctrine, one that makes us wonder, “Would we ever think that the leaders of the community would do such a dastardly act that required them to make such a statement?”

   The answer is ‘Responsibility.’ All of us, in some way or other, brought the death upon this innocent man. Crime and concern for others is the entire community’s ‘Responsibility.’ We are all affected, not only the victim. We are to begin to realize that communal Responsibility lies at our doorstep. Therefore, expiation is needed for this crime and other crimes, as well, that infest our communities, for our own self-preservation, and preservation of society.

   It is interesting that at the beginning of the Sedrah, we read of the need for proper judges, and Rashistates, 

קשוט עצמך ואחר כך קשוט לאחרים, “First start judging yourself, then you will be capable in judging others.” 

   With such introspection into our own behavioral patterns, we will be able to move forward with Hashem, walking briskly down the path of life for a healthy and constructive society. 

תמים תהיה עם הי אלוקיך , “Be complete and wholesome and totally faithful with 

G-D, resulting in a Humanity that is truly a G-Dly one.

   Martin Buber said it well, "Men become what they are, sons of G-D;

By becoming what they are, brothers of their brothers."

   Our life is a lesson that needs to confirm that the liberation, of time past, is a living reality today, inscribed in our minds, in our hearts, and in all of our deeds. 

   George Bernard Shaw wrote, "The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them; that is the essence of inhumanity."

   This is so evident in the entire procedure of the Mitzvah of עגלה ערופה, as the Torah states, “Their injustice was that their eyes did not see.” They, and so often many of us, are blind to the many who suffer, for so many reasons, within our own community.  We are, too often, indifferent to others and to their needs. The aim of Yiddiskeit is to encourage and to inspire others with the dignity that befits an עם קדוש. Too often our hands are stained because our eyes are clouded. 

   I believe the Rav put our entire subject in the proper perspective, when he analyzed the Mitzva ofמת מצוה – “When a Kohen, on Yom Kippur, on his way to the Beit Hamikdash, to do his Avodah, comes across a dead person not being attended to, must defile himself and attend to the burial himself.” Herein, we see the Rav enunciate. in a poignant way, that the dignity of man takes precedence over the most important participant, in the most spiritual charge scene of the year, the Yom Kippur service. 

   We thus see that Human Dignity Trumps Ritual. 

This is an important lesson for all of us as we approach the Yemay Noraim. 

What we see is no more and no less than what we are. 

Torah is a hymn to justice, kindness and compassion. 

   Albert Einstein wrote, "Thanks to the privilege of destiny, I am conscious of belonging to the Jewish People, and just as in the past we shall create through fruitful work, values that will help to make mankind noble."