Monday, July 1, 2013
Shabbat Matot - Masei
Bamidbar 33:1-36:13
28 Tamuz 5773 / July 5 – 6, 2013
Do We Need Destruction?
by Zvi Bellin, MHHQ
In
Parshat Masei (Journeys) we are given a recap of a variety of stops
made on the way from Egypt to Palestine. Finally, the time has arrived
for the Jewish people to end their lives as nomads and become land
owners. One problem: Palestine is not an empty land. It is inhabited by
people from a variety of nations and in Chapter 33, verses 50-53, the
Israelites are instructed to not only take the land of the people
dwelling there but to “drive them out,” and “destroy all their
prostration stones; all their molten images shall you destroy; all their
high places you shall demolish.”
This
commandment to destroy reminds me of something I have been pondering
lately. We are now in a time period in the Jewish calendar called the
Three Weeks. It is the time between two fast days that mark the
destruction of the First and Second Temples in Jerusalem. The first day
is the 17th of Tamuz when the walls of the Temple were breached and the second day is the 9th of Ave, the actual day the Temples were destroyed.
The
destruction of the Temples brought a lot of change to the Jewish people
and not all of it was bad. We have stopped killing animals for our
worship and have become a book-based faith, able to survive anywhere. I
wonder about how destruction is sometimes necessary in order for new
ideas and understandings to bloom.
In
my community I hear a lot about taking the “Buddhist approach” to a
situation. Accept change and give up the pain of holding on to something
that you will eventually lose anyway. I definitely see the value in
this philosophy and with many things try to practice it. The problem
though is when we try to judge others through that lens. It is easy to
say that the Jews living in the Old City of Jerusalem should have just
accepted that life as they knew it was over and a new model was needed.
They could have opened the city gates and surrendered – perhaps saving
many lives and the Temple itself. Obviously, this is a very difficult
statement to make. How can we point back at the past and purport to know
what should have been done? How do we really know if things would have
turned out better?
The nation of Israel is charged with a responsibility to Wrestle with G-d (the literal translation of Yisra-El). During these Three Weeks I think it is important to wrestle with the following question: What convictions do we want to hold onto, even in the face of possible destruction? Let’s take this contemplative period of our calendar to consider what are the beliefs about ourselves, our community, and God that are really worth risking it all for. And similarly what convictions might we be fighting for that are no longer relevant or helpful.
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