Taking 'a stand'



It’s popular to “take a stand” these days, particularly when one is advocating a stance which meets the approval of the masses. It’s considerably harder to maintain a position which runs against the grain of one’s society.

Jewish people have always been rebels, the Torah was and remains an iconoclastic work which has always created a tension between its adherents and the prevailing cultures. A friend of mine once expressed it thus: to be an Orthodox Jew one must feel some degree of tension between your lifestyle and that of society. If you don’t, you are either entirely cut off from the outside world, or you have long abandoned authentic Jewish values.

Prior to leaving Egypt, our ancestors were commanded to take a sheep and slaughter it as a sacrifice. In preparation, they needed to bring the sheep into their possession four days prior to the Exodus. The notion of ‘four days of preparation’ features on a number of occasions in Torah to denote a premeditated and resolute build up to a significant act. From the day Avraham is commanded to bind his son as a sacrifice, it is four days before the act takes place. Before the Matan Torah, the Israelites prepare themselves for a total of three days and it is only on the fourth that Revelation occurs. Significant acts and mere whims differ in terms of their premeditation. A commitment can only be truly relied upon when forethought (fourthought?) has been invested.

Sheep were deities in Ancient Egypt. To wilfully capture and slaughter sheep was to take a courageous stand against the values of the dominant Egyptian culture. Knowing the Exodus was nigh, an Israelite might have preferred to quietly offer his or her sacrifice in the privacy of their own home, not wanting to stir the pot and gain unwanted attention from the masses. Thus, the command to prepare the sheep four days prior was a step in imbuing the nascent nation with the fortitude to sustain millennia of rebellion against dominant values.

We are blessed to live in a multicultural society which provides us the freedom to be take a stand. The only thing holding us back it would appear, is us.

Based on Lekuttei Sichot vol 16 pp114-121

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Rose Coloured Glasses

Image
For the contemporary minded, there’s a deeply troubling introduction to a deeply troubling episode in Parshat Vayishlach. The tragic saga of Dina’s violation by Shechem, followed by the retributive massacre of the city, raises the eyebrow of the critical reader at a rate of something like twice per verse. Resolutions remains a touch out of grasp. What this a case of love or lust (see Bereishit 34:2-3)? Where Shimon and Levi even remotely justified in their vengeance? What was Ya’akov’s opinion on the matter? What outcome would Dina have wanted? Perhaps most perplexing of all is the introduction to the debacle – “and Dina, the daughter of Leah who had been born to Ya’akov, went out to see the daughters of the land.” Rashi, the foremost commentary on the Torah focuses on the superfluous rendition of her lineage and writes “due to her outgoingness she is labelled ‘the daughter of Leah’, for her mother too was an out-goer, [evidenced in the episode of the duda’im flowers (see B
Read more

Nocturnal Iconoclasts

Image
Dream interpretation seems somewhat out of vogue these days. Talmudic wisdom seems to have it that dreams are simply a concoction of what one experiences over the course of their waking hours (Berachot 55b). However, beneath the nightmare of thirsty sea-creatures meandering upon dry land, gulping from giant bottles of gurgling goop, there lies our most primal fears, anxieties and aspirations. Our subconscious lets loose as it weaves metaphors of childhood neglect (the thirsty sea creatures) which drives our insatiable appetite for approval at work (the giant bottles of gurgling goop). Obviously, this matter requires copious therapy if its seemingly far-fetched significance is to be fully unravelled. No different are the dreams that abound in Genesis. The colourful characters of the Bible were as iconoclastic in their sleep as they were in their waking hours. Jacob dreams of ladders, angels and sheep, Joseph dreams of stalks and stars, the butler and baker dreams of wine and b
Read more

The Price of Inspiration

Image
How do we look when we are uninspired? Do we let go of the values that define us, throwing in the proverbial towel, or hang on to them for dear life, praying for our next spiritual uplift? Inspiration, by definition, is short-term. It’s a burst that needs endless replenishment. Important, but not reflective of our real selves. What’s truly worth our time and energy is identifying   and shaping our lowest common-denominator, the person we are when our role models are on holiday and our texts don’t speak to us. Midrash on Parshat Vayechi tells us that Yaakov wished to reveal the date of the final Redemption to his children, yet he reneged in the last moment. What was the rationale for the change of heart? Knowing the potential date of Redemption is inspirational, it gives us the push we need to keep up our commitment, knowing that we only have a short distance still to cover. However, the very notion of the final Redemption is one of a fundamental change to reality. A c
Read more