Blog

In this week’s Torah portion, God expresses concerns that upon entering The Promised Land, the Israelites will adopt the practices of the pagan cultures that surround them. Throughout the Torah, they are regularly chastised by God and Moses, and the Prophets as well. The temptation to sin is always present, for as we read in Genesis 4:7 after Cain is depressed that God found his sacrifice to be less than optimal, “Sin couches at the door”. The most abhorrent practice that we learn about is the Canaanite custom of sacrificing first born males to the Canaanite god Molech. Some scholars suggest that the binding of Isaac story was a polemic that demonstrated the Israelite rejection of this practice. 

The election of the Israelites as God’s people has never been about superiority. Rather, the Israelites were tasked with teaching God’s word to the world as part of a covenantal agreement forged at Mt. Sinai by the same God who redeemed them from Egypt. This responsibility has continued for well over 3000 years. Before one can teach God’s word to the world, however, one must observe and model it, integrating it into one’s being. Alas, there are always those who do not model God’s expectations, usually with embarrassing and sometimes violent results. 

Many may remember Ivan Boesky, a stock trader, who cheated hundreds of people out of their money through his schemes. There are those who blame Hershel Grynzspan, who assassinated Archduke Ferdinand, setting in motion Kristallnacht, which some say is the start of the Holocaust. Just recently I read in the news that a Jewish man in Florida shot two men, a father and son, because he thought that they looked like Palestinians. They were Sephardic Jews, and fortunately their wounds were not serious, and they will fully recover. But will we as a people recover? 

There is a Yiddish phrase to describe this situation: A Shondeh Fur Di Goyim. It means “an embarrassment in front of the Gentiles”, and its use was to describe a situation where a Jew not only lapsed in fulfilling God’s word but did so in such a dramatic fashion that he brought embarrassment upon all Jews by his actions. Upon reflection, it might be easy for us to justify this shooting as an inevitable result of the events of 10.7 and beyond. I would not be surprised if his defense attorney might utilize these events, and how traumatized this man became, to justify a temporary insanity defense. Trauma can lead us to act in ways that do not resemble whom we really are. 

I think that I have earned the right to say that shooting people never solves anything. No matter your grievance, your situation, or the realities of your life, attempting homicide is abhorrent to the Jewish people, and a sin against God, which is why it became the Sixth Commandment. It saddens me so to learn that a fellow Jew was in such a state that he felt that he had to act in the way he did. We can do better. We must do better. As the teachers of God’s word, we must strive to be the best versions of ourselves, to model what God expects of us, and teach that to the world. Even in the face of evil, how much more so are we compelled to overcome that darkness with light? Light always vanquishes darkness, but no one person can do so alone. It takes a community of light to permanently drive out the evil that threatens to overtake our society. The blueprint for how to do so is contained in the Torah. Perhaps this shooting in Florida will wake us up to God’s expectations, and that there is much work to do. Evil will not win.