Whenever people told me they’d be visiting Maimonides, I always urged them to find Mike Rosenberg z”l if they wanted to fall in love with the school… and then, with a grin, I would say that one of the things I was most proud of was that Mike had a picture of me hanging in his office. Not because of the picture, but because Mike thought I was worth celebrating. What a giant of a wonderful man who made others feel seen. I feel blessed that we had the pleasure to know him. This d’var Torah is for him.
I now live in Jerusalem, having made aliyah a year and a half ago, and while you in the States will have Purim on Friday, we in Jerusalem are experiencing a weird sort of four-day Purim season with megillah reading on Thursday evening, matanot la’evyonim on Friday, Al Hanisim on Shabbat, and the seudah and mishloach manot on Sunday. It’s like a never-ending celebration of things turning out right even when they seem the most dark. It feels especially appropriate this year, which has held some of the darkest and lightest moments.
This week’s parsha seems to hold that dissonance as well; coming off the high of receiving the Torah, we crash land with the sin of the golden calf and the breaking of the very things we were so anxiously craving.
I have always loved that we hold onto the broken tablets, and carry them along with the intact second tablets. They serve the purpose of reminding us, among other things, that our relationship with Hashem and with one another can survive the deepest pain and breakage and we are still together, on the same sacred mission.
I had the honor of hearing Lord Rabbi Jonathan Sacks zt”l speak to a group of educators who had lost two students in just a few weeks, and were simply broken. One of the teachers asked the rabbi how to respond to students who said they were angry. How many shiva houses could they attend?
The rabbi paused, and told us the following: When Moshe went up to Har Sinai to beg forgiveness, G-d said we were forgiven. Then Moshe asked to see G-d’s face, and G-d had a strange answer. He said you cannot see My face, only My back. Rabbi Sacks explained that seeing G-d’s face would enable Moshe to understand why bad things happen to good people, why there is pain and brokenness in the world. And we cannot know that, said Rabbi Sacks, because our job is to fight evil, to fight against the brokenness and the hatred, and if we know why it happens, then we will fall silent and miss out on our role. This is our job, he explained, to challenge evil. So, Rabbi Sacks said, it is okay to be angry and to be in pain. The key is to know that, as the broken luchot show us, we can be hurting and broken and still be sacred and in a relationship with G-d. The key is to stay, to engage, to work through the pain and brokenness, and see even that as part of the sacred journey that deserves to be kept in the aron kodesh.
The past year and a half have been full of pain for our people and for the world, and we have also seen the most glorious hope and bravery and strength. May we be blessed to hold onto both the pain of the brokenness and the wholeness of our people and our connection to G-d.
One more word about Mike: He was loyal beyond words. To Maimo, to the Red Sox, but above all, to each one of us. He was so proud of us; he celebrated us, he raised us up to one another and encouraged us to delight in one another and be present for each other, even when there was pain. I am blessed to have a front-row seat to the Jewish people coming together every day at my work, and I often think of Mike and how he made anyone and everyone feel like they belonged.
Thank you, Mike, for being our role model. |