Friday, June 5, 2020

Parsha Behaalosecha, two stories, news


B”H granddaughter is starting recovery from operation. Please add Shmuel Gedaliah ben Altar Sara to your prayers temporarily suspend prayers for Hodaya Nurit bas Mazel Yaish.


When it was announced that swimming pools were open with distance between swimmers. I thought to myself. Ok my lane is good going but coming back I am without a mask and the return man is breathing without his. In the next lane the same thing. Breathing the air that the neighbor exhaled.

From Dr. Harry MD is my beginning Ed-Op: The death rate from Corona is comparable with flu, and less than fatal car accidents.  Question: how does one swim with a cloth mask on, and if they wear a swim mask they are still breathing thru their mouth or snorkel.  Kind of stupid suggestion don't you think.  There were more suicides in norther California in the three months than typically occur in a year.  This shutdown has destroyed the world’s economy, delayed cancer treatment and diagnosis, and the treatment of diabetes, hypertension, and other disease.  When you take away a man's business and the means to support his family, you basically "murder him".  This lockdown is about government control of everything and turning people into obedient sheep.  The local Chacabad in Boynton Beach refuses open completely due to the government, and will be tracking the people who pray and giving the information to local health officials ... keeping a list of Jews!  This crisis was not about the virus, but about government officials destroying the economy to bring Trump down.


Parsha Behaalosecha


The Mishkan is now functioning and practical to bring Korbanos and repent. All the princes have received functions in the Mishkan except Levi and especially the Cohanim. Now the L-RD is giving Aaron a special leadership Mitzvah.

8:1 And the LORD spoke unto Moses, saying: 2 'Speak unto Aaron, and say unto him: When thou lightest the lamps, the seven lamps shall give light in front of the candlestick.'

And Aaron was to the light the Menorah. Does G-D need such of light after being alive eons in darkness before the creation of light? Obviously not. HASHEM wants to give a prize to Israel therefore HE gave us plenty of Torah and Mitzvos.

3 And Aaron did so: he lighted the lamps thereof so as to give light in front of the candlestick, as the LORD commanded Moses. 4 And this was the work of the candlestick, beaten work of gold; unto the base thereof, and unto the flowers thereof, it was beaten work; according unto the pattern which the LORD had shown Moses, so he made the candlestick.

Thus instead of a onetime Mitzvah like princes, the Cohain Gadol received a daily Mitzvah.


5 And the LORD spoke unto Moses, saying: 6 'Take the Levites from among the children of Israel, and cleanse them. 7 And thus shalt thou do unto them, to cleanse them: sprinkle the water of purification upon them, and let them cause a razor to pass over all their flesh, and let them wash their clothes, and cleanse themselves.

The Leviim were to be upgraded in holiness over the nation in a ceremony. This is probably occurring before Pesach 2449.

8 Then let them take a young bullock, and its meal-offering, fine flour mingled with oil, and another young bullock shalt thou take for a sin-offering. 9 And thou shalt present the Levites before the tent of meeting; and thou shalt assemble the whole congregation of the children of Israel. 10 And thou shalt present the Levites before the LORD; and the children of Israel shall lay their hands upon the Levites. 11 And Aaron shall offer the Levites before the LORD for a wave-offering from the children of Israel, that they may be to do the service of the LORD. 12 And the Levites shall lay their hands upon the heads of the bullocks; and offer thou the one for a sin-offering, and the other for a burnt-offering, unto the LORD, to make atonement for the Levites. 13 And thou shalt set the Levites before Aaron, and before his sons, and offer them for a wave-offering unto the LORD. 14 Thus shalt thou separate the Levites from among the children of Israel; and the Levites shall be Mine.

The ceremony and the laying of the hands upon the offering separated the Leviim and gave them a special status of holiness. I also contend that they were the teachers and holders of the religion in Egypt and now the status was confirmed before HASHEM.

15 And after that shall the Levites go in to do the service of the tent of meeting; and thou shalt cleanse them, and offer them for a wave-offering. 16 For they are wholly given unto Me from among the children of Israel; instead of all that opens the womb, even the first-born of all the children of Israel, have I taken them unto Me.

Until the Mishkan, the Bechorim were the priests of each family and they would offer the sacrifices. The minute that some of them took part in the Egel HaZahav, they lost the merit to offer up sacrifices on the high places. They were now subject to being ordinary folks and the Cohanim replace them by the Korbanos and the Leviim took over their other religious duties.

17 For all the first-born among the children of Israel are Mine, both man and beast; on the day that I smote all the first-born in the land of Egypt I sanctified them for Myself. 18 And I have taken the Levites instead of all the first-born among the children of Israel.

The first born have been replaced by the Leviim.

19 And I have given the Levites--they are given to Aaron and to his sons from among the children of Israel, to do the service of the children of Israel in the tent of meeting, and to make atonement for the children of Israel, that there be no plague among the children of Israel, through the children of Israel coming nigh unto the sanctuary.'

The Leviim could come close to the holy items of the Mishkan but not the Bechorim or ordinary Yisraelim.

… 24 'This is that which pertains unto the Levites: from twenty and five years old and upward they shall go in to perform the service in the work of the tent of meeting; 25 and from the age of fifty years they shall return from the service of the work, and shall serve no more;

There was a minimum age for maturity and strength and a maximum age at which their strength and song begins to wane.

26 but shall minister with their brethren in the tent of meeting, to keep the charge, but they shall do no manner of service. Thus shalt thou do unto the Levites touching their charges.'

At the age of 50 they had to completely return from the holy work. Just as it is a Mitzvah to serve at the age of 25, so it is Mitzvah to cease and desist at the age of 50.
Rashi writes as follows what they could do after 50 besides teaching younger members of their tribe.

And do no more work: [I.e.,] the work of carrying on the shoulders; however, he can return to [the work of] locking the gates, singing, and loading the wagons. This is the meaning of “He shall minister with his brethren (אֶתאֶחָיו)” [in the next verse]-with his brethren, as the Targum [Onkelos] renders (עִם אֲחוֹהִי).

9:1 And the LORD spoke unto Moses in the wilderness of Sinai, in the first month of the second year after they were come out of the land of Egypt, saying: 2 'Let the children of Israel keep the Passover in its appointed season. 3 In the fourteenth day of this month, at dusk, ye shall keep it in its appointed season; according to all the statutes of it, and according to all the ordinances thereof, shall ye keep it.' 4 And Moses spoke unto the children of Israel, that they should keep the Passover. 5 And they kept the Passover in the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month, at dusk, in the wilderness of Sinai; according to all that the LORD commanded Moses, so did the children of Israel.

This appears to have happened right after the Leviim were dedicated.

6 But there were certain men, who were unclean by the dead body of a man, so that they could not keep the Passover on that day; and they came before Moses and before Aaron on that day.

Certain men! They were close cousins of Moshe and Aaron from the tribe of Levi. They buried the two sons of Aaron on the eighth of Nissan and would not be able to become ritually clean from contact with the dead until seven complete days with the dust of the Para Aduma (Red Heifer).

7 And those men said unto him: 'We are unclean by the dead body of a man; wherefore are we to be kept back, so as not to bring the offering of the LORD in its appointed season among the children of Israel?'

Approached Moses and Aaron: While the two were sitting in the study hall, they came and asked them. It is [however] inconceivable that they approached them one after the other [in this order], for if Moses did not know, how should Aaron know? - [Sifrei Behaalosecha 1:20]

8 And Moses said unto them: 'Stay ye, that I may hear what the LORD will command concerning you.' 9 And the LORD spoke unto Moses, saying:

Moshe is a Tzaddik and does not rest until he heard the Halacha from HASHEM.

10 'Speak unto the children of Israel, saying: If any man of you or of your generations shall be unclean by reason of a dead body, or be in a journey afar off, yet he shall keep the Passover unto the LORD; 11 in the second month on the fourteenth day at dusk they shall keep it; they shall eat it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs; 12 they shall leave none of it unto the morning, nor break a bone thereof; according to all the statute of the Passover they shall keep it.

We come across the laws of Pesach Sheni again. There is one difference large difference here. It is permissible to have Chametz in the house only the meal must be Kosher Le Pesach and the Korban completely like the first Korban and in its stead.

13 But the man that is clean, and is not on a journey, and forbears to keep the Passover, that soul shall be cut off from his people; because he brought not the offering of the LORD in its appointed season, that man shall bear his sin. 14 And if a stranger shall sojourn among you, and will keep the Passover unto the LORD: according to the statute of the Passover, and according to the ordinance thereof, so shall he do; ye shall have one statute, both for the stranger, and for him that is born in the land.'

This is a Ger Tzeddek and not a Ger Toshav or a Ger Toshav is a Ben Noach or Gentile for all intents and purposes. A person who was well and could make it to Yerushalayim for the Chag would get Kares but if he was ill, far away or in the state of Tuma, he gets a chance to make up the Mitzvah the next month.

15 And on the day that the tabernacle was reared up the cloud covered the tabernacle, even the tent of the testimony; and at even there was upon the tabernacle as it were the appearance of fire, until morning. 16 So it was always: the cloud covered it, and the appearance of fire by night. 17 And whenever the cloud was taken up from over the Tent, then after that the children of Israel journeyed; and in the place where the cloud abode, there the children of Israel encamped. … 22 Whether it were two days, or a month, or a year, that the cloud tarried upon the tabernacle, abiding thereon, the children of Israel remained encamped, and journeyed not; but when it was taken up, they journeyed. 23 At the commandment of the LORD they encamped, and at the commandment of the LORD they journeyed; they kept the charge of the LORD, at the commandment of the LORD by the hand of Moses.

The whole camp moved or remained in place according to the will of the L-RD. It is hard to believe this nation with an opinion on everything in anyways possible followed the will of HASHEM and did not move otherwise.

10:1 And the LORD spoke unto Moses, saying: 2 'Make thee two trumpets of silver; of beaten work shalt thou make them; and they shall be unto thee for the calling of the congregation, and for causing the camps to set forward. 3 And when they shall blow with them, all the congregation shall gather themselves unto thee at the door of the tent of meeting. … 8 And the sons of Aaron, the priests, shall blow with the trumpets; and they shall be to you for a statute forever throughout your generations. 9 And when ye go to war in your land against the adversary that oppresses you, then ye shall sound an alarm with the trumpets; and ye shall be remembered before the LORD your God, and ye shall be saved from your enemies. 10 Also in the day of your gladness, and in your appointed seasons, and in your new moons, ye shall blow with the trumpets over your burnt-offerings, and over the sacrifices of your peace-offerings; and they shall be to you for a memorial before your God: I am the LORD your God.'

The Trumpets were to be used to call the army or camp to be prepare for movement, the army for war or for a holiday.

11 And it came to pass in the second year, in the second month, on the twentieth day of the month, that the cloud was taken up from over the tabernacle of the testimony. 12 And the children of Israel set forward by their stages out of the wilderness of Sinai; and the cloud abode in the wilderness of Paran. -- 13 And they took their first journey, according to the commandment of the LORD by the hand of Moses. 14 And in the first place the standard of the camp of the children of Judah set forward according to their hosts; and over his host was Nachshon the son of Amminadav. … 28 Thus were the journeying of the children of Israel according to their hosts. --And they set forward.

This was the way the encampment would start to move east-south-west and north.

29 And Moses said unto Hobab, the son of Reuel the Midianite, Moses' father-in-law: 'We are journeying unto the place of which the LORD said: I will give it you; come thou with us, and we will do thee good; for the LORD hath spoken good concerning Israel.' 30 And he said unto him: 'I will not go; but I will depart to mine own land, and to my kindred.'

He wanted to return home to his people.

31 And he said: 'Leave us not, I pray thee; forasmuch as thou know how we are to encamp in the wilderness, and thou shalt be to us instead of eyes. 32 And it shall be, if thou go with us, yea, it shall be, that what good soever the LORD shall do unto us, the same will we do unto thee.'

Still he wanted to return home so Moshe blessed him.

33 And they set forward from the mount of the LORD three days' journey; and the ark of the covenant of the LORD went before them three days' journey, to seek out a resting-place for them. 34 And the cloud of the LORD was over them by day, when they set forward from the camp.

This is how they traveled and they said the following:

35 And it came to pass, when the ark set forward, that Moses said: 'Rise up, O LORD, and let Thine enemies be scattered; and let them that hate Thee flee before Thee.' 36 And when it rested, he said: 'Return, O LORD, unto the ten thousands of the families of Israel.'

The first part we say when we open up the Ark on Shabbos.

11:1 And the people were as murmurers, speaking evil in the ears of the LORD; and when the LORD heard it, His anger was kindled; and the fire of the LORD burnt among them, and devoured in the uttermost part of the camp. 2 And the people cried unto Moses; and Moses prayed unto the LORD, and the fire abated. 3 And the name of that place was called Taberah, because the fire of the LORD burnt among them. 4 And the mixed multitude that was among them fell a lusting; and the children of Israel also wept on their part, and said: 'Would that we were given flesh to eat! 5 We remember the fish, which we were wont to eat in Egypt for nought; the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlic; 6 but now our soul is dried away; there is nothing at all; we have nought save this manna to look to.'

Similar to the section with Pesach Sheni mentioned before the section with the complaints about the Mann is here and the over-eating of the quail. Perhaps because of all the incidents with the spies, Korach and Pinchas would soon be mentioned.

7 Now the manna was like coriander seed, … 9 And when the dew fell upon the camp in the night, the manna fell upon it.-- 10 And Moses heard the people weeping, family by family, every man at the door of his tent; and the anger of the LORD was kindled greatly; and Moses was displeased. … 16 And the LORD said unto Moses: 'Gather unto Me seventy men of the elders of Israel, whom thou know to be the elders of the people, and officers over them; and bring them unto the tent of meeting, that they may stand there with thee. 17 And I will come down and speak with thee there; and I will take of the spirit which is upon thee, and will put it upon them; and they shall bear the burden of the people with thee, that thou bear it not thyself alone. 18 And say thou unto the people: Sanctify yourselves against to-morrow, and ye shall eat flesh; for ye have wept in the ears of the LORD, saying: Would that we were given flesh to eat! for it was well with us in Egypt; therefore the LORD will give you flesh, and ye shall eat. …22 If flocks and herds be slain for them, will they suffice them? or if all the fish of the sea be gathered together for them, will they suffice them?'

I once mentioned that Moshe was not logical as the people had eaten meat in Mitzrayim. I believe it was Rabbi Zvi Drapkin Shlita who mentioned that is was a psychological thing. The question was not about the physical needs of the people but their insatiable Yetzer. For their Yetzer was like a bottomless pit that could not be filled up with all the land fill in the world.

… 24 And Moses went out, and told the people the words of the LORD; and he gathered seventy men of the elders of the people, and set them round about the Tent. 25 And the LORD came down in the cloud, and spoke unto him, and took of the spirit that was upon him, and put it upon the seventy elders; and it came to pass, that, when the spirit rested upon them, they prophesied, but they did so no more. 26 But there remained two men in the camp, the name of the one was Eldad, and the name of the other Medad; and the spirit rested upon them; and they were of them that were recorded, but had not gone out unto the Tent; and they prophesied in the camp.

They were actually selected in the lottery to be inside the meeting of the Sanhedrin but they humbled themselves so that their colleagues would not be embarrassed. As a result, they were given prophecy for two reasons. One they were happy with their lot and humble. The meek and the happy are worthy of prophecy vs. the bold and the depressed.

27 And there ran a young man, and told Moses, and said: 'Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp.'

Who was the young man that was jealous for the sake of Moshe? It was Yehoshua.

28 And Joshua the son of Nun, the minister of Moses from his youth up, answered and said: 'My lord Moses, shut them in.' 29 And Moses said unto him: 'Art thou jealous for my sake? would that all the LORD'S people were prophets, that the LORD would put His spirit upon them!' … 33 While the flesh was yet between their teeth, ere it was chewed, the anger of the LORD was kindled against the people, and the LORD smote the people with a very great plague. 34 And the name of that place was called Kibroth-hattaavah, because there they buried the people that lusted. 35 From Kibroth-hattaavah the people journeyed unto Hazeroth; and they abode at Hazeroth.

Instead of being grateful to HASHEM and recognize his Tov (goodness), the people went after their stomachs instead of seeing the miracle and appreciating the Mann. So the gluttons who ate the raw quail died. But those who slaughtered and cooked or roasted the quail and blessed HASHEM did not find them toxic.

12:1 And Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woman whom he had married; for he had married a Cushite woman.

Black woman – not because of her skin color but Moshe blackened his wife by not performing his martial obligations to her. He was always at the beck and call of HASHEM 24/7 and therefore did not want to be with a drop of seed to clean from martial relations but immediate ready for HASHEM. Miriam and Aaron were prophets and they had normal family relationships.

2 And they said: 'Hath the LORD indeed spoken only with Moses? hath He not spoken also with us?' And the LORD heard it.

We too have prophecy and are on call but we do not refrain from acting human.

3 Now the man Moses was very meek, above all the men that were upon the face of the earth.

Moshe was the humblest of men that ever walked the face of the earth and G-D says this in his defense as he would have deferred himself to his older siblings.

4 And the LORD spoke suddenly unto Moses, and unto Aaron, and unto Miriam: 'Come out ye three unto the tent of meeting.' And they three came out.

G-D had heard Miriam’s Lashon HaRa and called the sudden meeting.

9 And the anger of the LORD was kindled against them; and He departed. 10 And when the cloud was removed from over the Tent, behold, Miriam was leprous, as white as snow; and Aaron looked upon Miriam; and, behold, she was leprous.

Aaron was punished for listening to Miriam’s gossip by having to declare her unclean and he had to separate from her. She got Tsaras and had to leave the camp completely because of her own Lashon HaRa.

… 13 And Moses cried unto the LORD, saying: 'Heal her now, O God, I beseech Thee.'

This is the shorted prayer recorded consisting of three Hebrew “Please heal her!”.

14 And the LORD said unto Moses: 'If her father had but spit in her face, should she not hide in shame seven days? let her be shut up without the camp seven days, and after that she shall be brought in again.' … 16 And afterward the people journeyed from Hazeroth, and pitched in the wilderness of Paran.

Because Miriam had waited and watched over the ark of bulrushes carrying Moshe, so too the camp waited and watched over her.


A Secular Jew Joins a Chassidic Minyan by Joseph Rosen


I live on a Montreal block in Mile End, once the neighborhood of Mordecai Richler, which is now 50-per-cent Hasidic Jews – an ultra-Orthodox sect that prays three times a day, and wears black hats imitating 18th-century Polish aristocracy.

While I live among them as a secular Jew, and have friendly relations with some neighbors, the Hasidim separate themselves from me and my social world. For many in the neighborhood, including me, social distance with our counterparts is nothing new.

But COVID-19 quarantine protocols, while physically distancing me from secular society, have brought me socially closer to my Hasidic neighbors. Morning and night, their voices sing out in prayer: ancient Middle Eastern melodies float through the pandemic-emptied street, bringing archaic echoes of spiritual yearning to the urban streetscape. Fathers, sons, grandfathers and grandsons – it’s only ever men – cluster together on front stoops, lean out from balconies, and dot the sidewalk. Melancholic songs ring up and down the street in passionate call and response, and passersby stare in wonder. After weeks of this outdoor synagogue, I see that the Hasidim have something to teach us seculars about what it means for a community to reconnect in a COVID-19 world.

My first response wasn’t so romantic. Hearing noises coming from my balcony, I stepped outside and was surprised to see four Hasidic brothers praying on the adjacent balcony. I went downstairs to see that my neighbor's front stoop was the center of the service, and immediately worried that this religious ritual might increase my family’s risk of infection.

Years ago, my neighbor put up a green plastic fence to separate our front stoops. I felt rejected. Since COVID-19, the same neighbor brings out a Torah scroll on a portable table, and I find the front of my house at the heart of their religious services. Because Orthodox Jews must pray communally in a “minyan" of at least 10 men, the Hasidim were in a bind when the government shuttered all religious buildings and forbade religious services. Rabbis, in accordance with government directives, forbade having minyans in person. Improvising, as Jews have often done living under regimes that forbid Jewish practice, my Orthodox neighbors took to the streets so that, while remaining two meters apart, they could continue to pray together. Instead of hiding in caves and basements – as Jews sometimes had to do in centuries past – the new coronavirus has driven them outdoors.

One morning my curiosity overcame my fear and I walked out to the sidewalk when I heard them chanting. As much as I enjoy secular life, I found myself missing a sense of spiritual connection. It was cold, with a smattering of April snow on the ground. In addition to COVID-19, we have to survive what Montreal calls “spring” together.

My neighbor had started praying with his son, and he watched for others to emerge from their front doors. White tallit – prayer shawls embroidered with silver and blue – covered their heads. They wore tefillin: black leather boxes containing parchment inscribed with Hebrew verses, which are wrapped with leather straps onto the forehead and arm. My neighbor walked up and down the sidewalk looking to connect with other Hasidim as they came out across the street and down the block. Silent, so as not to interrupt the order of prayers, they made hand gestures to each other like third base coaches, holding up fingers to indicate how many were praying. My neighbor signaled to a man a few houses away who peeked into his neighbor's window: two fingers. When they identified a minyan of 10 they said Kaddish. The prayer is recited by mourners for 11 months after a close relative dies. In Judaism, one doesn’t mourn alone – but surrounded by community.

The first Montrealer to die of COVID-19 was a 67-year-old Hasid who went to a synagogue two blocks away from me. Online news articles about the community became a hotspot of anti-Semitic ranting. The Hasidim felt immediately targeted. “The level of hatred, the level of focus, of scapegoating, has gone beyond anything we have seen before,” said one Hasid. When a janitor was seen cleaning a synagogue, a neighbor called the police and eight cop cars showed up. There are reports of verbal attacks on the street, and Hasidim being told to stick with “Jewish stores.”

A few unfortunately timed weddings, big families and travel back and forth may explain why my co-religionists were initially hit harder than other communities. And as friends and I joked, after Justin Trudeau warned against “speaking moistly,” energetic schmoozing might have been a factor in the Jewish transmission rate (JR0).

Some argue that they have been socially irresponsible, but the Hasidim are not libertarian yahoos: It is their communal commitments that have made them – and potentially my front yard – more vulnerable to the coronavirus. We worshippers of the secular indulge in unnecessary COVID-19 risks, too. Some go for runs in busy parks. Others order delivery from Pizza Pizza. My COVID-19 vices are social: ringing a friend’s doorbell to sing happy birthday to their child, midnight scotch drinking with friends (at two meters) and visiting my girlfriend across town (at nowhere near two meters). The risks we take are based on what we value most.

The Hasidim pray together. And my neighbors, facing the green fence, sing loudly right onto my stoop, potentially increasing my viral exposure. The coronavirus highlights how permeable the borders are between our bodies, and how much our private choices affect everyone around us.

After stepping onto the sidewalk that morning, I strolled up and down the block, seeing a Hasid every three or four houses. The silver embroidery on their tallit flashed brightly in the sun, imparting a splendor one does not see indoors. One man shouted his prayer from out of his open window on the second floor. I didn’t understand the words, and the singing wasn’t classically “beautiful” like the choirs in more mainstream synagogues and churches. But his voice rang out with a pained yearning that resonates in this time of uncertainty. At various points congregants yelled, so that all can hear, “Amen,” pronounced “Oh-MAIN,” meaning “so be it!”

And then they all simultaneously went quiet. They prayed the Amidah, a prayer said silently on one’s own. Closing their eyes they turned east – in the direction of Jerusalem – and began to bob up and down, swaying back and forth. Their fervor infected me, and I took a moment to stand, in the stillness of morning, feeling the weight and uncertainty of the pandemic that led to this outdoor synagogue. So many things seemed less important, and something – although I’m not sure what – felt more important.

They know what they’re praying; I don’t. They know what brings them together; we don’t. To what will we seculars say “Amen”?

On Saturday morning, the Jewish Sabbath, I decided to join their minyan. I feared they wouldn’t count me as a Jew, but I put on a tie, a black jacket and my yarmulke – the religious head covering that, along with hijabs, Quebec has banned from public office. They saw me with surprised but welcoming eyes. My neighbor whisked a Torah out of his house, like it was a famous celebrity and he was a security detail. They signaled back and forth silently to determine who would read and sing which parts. I let go of my insecurity and joined the chorus shouting “Amen!”

After the service everyone met one another’s eyes to congratulate each other. They looked at me too, smiling, and said “Good Shabbos!” Infected by their communal warmth, I felt connected to these previously distant neighbors.

Later that afternoon, walking down the street I asked a Hasid about the “Parsha HaShavua” – the section of the Torah they read that week. It addressed impurity: how to purify women who have given birth and men who have wasted an “emission” – meaning an ejaculation that has not landed in the divinely sanctified receptacle. Then it addressed how to purify someone with leprosy after a seven-day quarantine. “Just like now!” the Hasid said enthusiastically: “It was a disease that no one knew how to heal.” If a leper gets better, but their house remains unclean, concludes the Torah portion, it must be rebuilt using new materials.

The Hasidim have already figured out how to reorganize themselves, during COVID-19, based on their deepest values. And we – one of the most privileged societies in human history, who have known neither drought nor famine, war nor plague – need to do the same. The Sabbath is the day when we pause all forms of labor; it provides an opportunity to reconnect to the deeper values guiding our work week. COVID-19 has provided us seculars with just such a pause. In this time of physical distance and suspended labor, we must reimagine how we will reorganize our society. How we will restructure our economy – to come together, productively, without “wasting emissions”?

Given the plague of global warming, we cannot just return to “business as usual”: We need to discuss whether we must rebuild our house from scratch. We must rediscover the values that guide us. This is the conversation we need to have now: passionately, but not moistly.

Foot Note. On my block, we started a Minyan during the Schul Closures. The Schuls reopened but there was a bit of a mess. One man prayed directly behind me mask or no mask not only I but others continued to pray outside. One of the results was amazing. I have had osteoporosis for over 10 years now due to a fault parathyroid gland that was removed and lack of vitamin D. As a result of praying in direct sunlight on and off, my vitamin D was normal for the first time in all these years.


A Jew of Color’s Advice in Combatting Racism by Dr. Y. A. Miller


Lev Baruch Perlow is a 1st Sergeant in the Israeli army and with his slightly Ethiopian-tinged Hebrew and English, he might seem like a “typical” Ethiopian-Israeli working to defend the Jewish state. Yet Lev’s background – and his Ashkenazi sounding name – indicate that his background is anything but ordinary.

He was adopted at the age of ten in 2005 into an American Jewish family and spent much of his childhood in an affluent suburb of Chicago, attending a mix of public schools and Jewish schools, immersed in his family’s tight-knit Orthodox Jewish community. Lev, as well as his siblings who were also adopted from Ethiopia, had Orthodox conversions to Judaism. In a recent Aish.com exclusive interview, Lev discussed growing up in a largely white American area, the racism he experienced, and what he wants people to know right now about racism and how to combat it.

“I remember pretty well living in an orphanage in Ethiopia as a young child," he recalls. He’d watched movies about New York and thought of America as a magical place. When it was time to actually leave Ethiopia and move to the United States to join a new family, he was apprehensive.

"When I got to America I was speechless,” Lev says. “It was a dream come true.” Back in Ethiopia “my house was the size of a room.” Suddenly, he had a beautiful house and every comfort he could imagine. More importantly, he now had two loving parents and a warm Jewish environment to welcome him. His second Shabbat in America, Lev went to synagogue with his parents. “From the very moment I got to shul, the second week after I got adopted, I felt very welcome.” The fact that he was from Ethiopia didn’t elicit negative stares or remarks. “Everybody saw me as another person – not something to stare at.”

That warmth and acceptance gave Lev a strong feeling of security and a sense of being home, but he soon realized that in many ways to have black skin in America is to face a constant drumbeat of racism, prejudice and hostility, invisible to many people who are not Black.

The first time Lev felt slighted because of his skin color was in a shopping mall where he’d arranged to meet a friend. Lev arrived early and waited. He was dressed well, Lev remembers, like most of the other shoppers in the mall. That didn’t seem to matter to a woman who walked towards him. “She looked at me and stopped,” he recalls. Somehow a young boy in a bustling public space, simply because he was black, seemed like a threat. She took her purse off her shoulder and switched it to the other side so that it wouldn’t be close to Lev as she walked past him.

It wasn't the last time he’d be negatively judged because of the color of his skin. But Lev stresses that his experience has been very different from most African Americans. "African Americans have a whole history in America – in Ethiopia, there’s no similar history of slavery or racism. You don’t really feel it until you come to America.” Yet once he was in America, Lev was struck at how many people seemed hung up on the color of his skin.

One of his first months in American school, a social worker entered his class. Lev was the only black child in the class – one of only a small handful in the school – and she asked him to come out of the room with her to talk. Black History Month was coming up, she explained, and she wanted to know Lev’s thoughts about it. “I kind of felt offended,” he remembers thinking. “Why do you have to specifically make a month to represent Blacks? What about the other eleven months of the year?” And why was she taking him, a ten-year-old, out of class and asking him and only him to think about it?

“The moment we start putting all these precautions around Black people,” trying to tiptoe around in order not to hurt their feelings, Lev cautions, we risk creating a gulf between people, and emphasizing differences in color instead of bringing people together. Asked what white people can do to overcome racism, Lev is emphatic: “Think of them as normal.” This is something he’s noticed many well-meaning whites fail at, as they try to bend over backwards to be extra nice or to show how unprejudiced they are. “At the end of the day we’re people. We’re not more special than another person – we’re the same as you. We have the same rights, the same everything – just a different skin color.”

Instead, he’s noticed that some people’s determination not to offend can make them even more likely to emphasize differences and to be inadvertently racist.

He remembers one time in class his teacher was reading excerpts from a book about slavery. “It was from a white point of view,” Lev recalls. “The teacher was reading the book and said the N word. I see her saying the word from the book and looking at me.” The teacher paused, possibly embarrassed, and in that moment the entire classroom of children all turned their heads too and stared at Lev. Suddenly, the racism in the book seemed horribly present in the classroom. “The moment that you put these side looks and pauses after saying the N word, you give it power… Little by little, you separate people from each other." What started off as Lev's teacher's embarrassment over saying the N word in his presence grew to feel like an acknowledgement that this vile slur somehow applied to him.

The N word continued to bedevil Lev as he got older. Some children seemed to be determined to make racist remarks about Lev. The liberal use of the N word in some rap songs gave them the perfect cover to say this odious insult with seeming impunity, under cover of merely singing some popular songs.

As a teenager, kids – including some in his Jewish school – would sing rap songs containing that offensive slur around him. Each time they’d come to the N word in the lyrics, they’d pause and look at Lev. Sometimes they would yell out the N word louder than the other words. Lev would pretend not to hear, but the pain was horrible. He wanted to fight his tormentors but his parents worked with him, convincing him not to. They advised him to be patient and to talk with people who slighted him. “They taught me patience; patience is what helped me get through it."

“The use of the N word really ticks me off,” he says. There’s such a horrible history associated with it; once Lev learned more about it he was even more pained by its use. Even now that he lives in Israel, he hears the N word in rap music, and tries to educate people not to repeat it. “Israelis used to say it around me until I explained the history – I said this is a word that’s not used as a good thing.”

Many of the people currently posting on social media in the United States, saying that they want to help eliminate racism might do well to heed this warning: The N word, even if it’s ostensibly used in an “artistic” way, is a hateful word that should never be used.

At other times, kids made jokes about Lev’s skin color and Ethiopian origins. Even when they felt they were simply being funny, their insensitive remarks often made Lev feel out of place. This type of racism was particularly pervasive in the Jewish community, Lev observed. “In school I was one of the fastest kids, one of the strongest kids, so they would use that to joke around,” Lev recalls. “‘Oh, he can run fast because he's Black or African’ – those jokes.” Another common stereotype Lev disliked was that he liked rap music – “they want that stereotype (of rappers) to be every Black person,” he observes. Making these broad assumptions strips away Black people’s individualities, implying that all Black people are somehow alike simply because of the color of their skin.

At times, the humor was more obviously barbed. There was a time in high school when Lev came to school wearing a black shirt. “Hey Lev, put on a shirt!” several students teased him. The teacher didn’t say anything.

After high school, Lev immigrated to Israel. His mother is Israeli, and he’d grown up loving Israel as the Jewish homeland. “I made aliyah because of the Jewish people and because of my parents” he explains. “My parents gave me everything I could have wanted and dreamed of in America and more. Moving to Israel is a thank you.” He also wanted to serve in the Israeli Defense Forces to defend his country.

Tragically Lev has encountered racism in Israel as well. He’s noticed that Israeli Jews from Ethiopian families sometimes embrace African American culture, recognizing a community similarly beset by racism. He advises his Ethiopian friends in Israel to embrace their own rich Jewish culture instead. “You have a different culture, you’re raised differently,” he explains – still, the common sympathy can be strong as Ethiopian Jews watch the American Black experience from afar and recognize much of the own racism and police brutality that Ethiopian Jews face in Israel too.

In both the United States and in Israel, Lev has found racism to be pervasive. “It’s every day, it’s every second – this type of light racism (of jokes and minor slights). It floats in the air. People try to wave it away, but as long as you have it racism will stay.” Lev has started speaking up, pointing out small instances of racism and racist assumptions when he sees them – he’s found that he has to say something every day.

Lev’s parents and siblings still live in suburban Chicago and he’s been following the news avidly, reading about protests against the murder of George Floyd and the riots and looting that have spread across the country. He understands the frustration of Black Americans who’ve been subject to violence and racism and oppression that many white people simply can’t conceive of. He mourns the violence, which he doesn’t support, and feels he understands the peaceful protests as many thousands of African Americans have stood up and said enough.

When he watched the video footage of George Floyd’s arrest and murder, Lev says it reminded him of his military training – and seemed to be a classic case of what not to do when apprehending someone.

Floyd’s death came just a few months after the February 23 shooting of Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old man who was murdered while out jogging in Brunswick, Georgia. That murder reminded Lev of terror attacks he’d witnessed against Israeli soldiers years earlier. Still living at home in Chicago, Lev remembers seeing footage on the news of an Arab terrorist ramming his car into a crowd of Israeli soldiers. After watching that horrific attack Lev told his mother that he was going to move to Israel and enlist to help protect the Jewish state.

“That kind of hatred behind the murder of Arbery is disgusting and horrific. I had the same feeling that I had when I saw a car hit Israeli soldiers: another person killing someone because of the color of their skin.”

Today, with so many Americans and others around the world asking what they can do to help stamp out racism, Lev has some advice we all need to hear. Be kind. Be sensitive. Don’t joke about other people’s differences or try to taunt them. Look at others as fully realized people, not simply as walking embodiments of the color of their skin. “It's pretty simple: treat a black person like you treat yourself, like you treat any other person.”



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Have a healthy and wonderful Shabbos,
Rachamim Pauli
Posted by Rabbi Rachamim Pauli at 12:22 PM