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CHUKAT 5784
Living in a ‘Chok’ World
Rabbi Andrew Shaw Chief Executive, Mizrachi UK
“It just doesn’t make sense; how can people think that?!”
That’s what one can think when looking at so many different situations going on in the world right now.
· How can there be so much pro-Hamas propaganda on campuses, supposedly places of intellectual and critical thought, across the globe?
· How can international bodies of peace like the UN and UNWRA act so disgracefully and be so openly antisemitic?
· How can a world, just 80 years on from the the greatest genocide of Jews in history, allow antisemitism to signi cantly grow and increase everywhere?
· How can Israel, defending itself against a genocidal terror group, be so egregiously vili ed in its most just cause of all causes?
There are many more areas that could be included
Yes, life is confusing and somewhat troubling and very worrying and yet the rst words of this week’s parsha are an answer as to how we should act in the current situation.
‘Zot Chukat Ha’Torah asher tzivah Hashem’ – ‘This is the statute of the Torah which Hashem commanded’ Bamidbar 19:2
The parsha goes on to describe the Parah Adumah, the Red Heifer, as Rabbi Sacks explains:
The command of the Parah Adumah, the Red Heifer, with which our parsha begins, is known as the hardest of the mitzvot to understand. The opening words, zot chukat ha-Torah, are taken to mean, this is the supreme example of a chok in the Torah, that is, a law whose logic is obscure, perhaps unfathomable
His stunning essay on this topic is inspiring.
At the moment we seem to live in a world ‘whose logic is obscure, perhaps unfathomable.’
So, what is our response to living in a Chok world?!
At the moment, I am heavily involved in the Simchat Torah Project, a global project to commemorate the tragic events of last Simchat Torah. Yesterday I was reminded of another series of global projects I was involved in many years ago, the Fifty, Sixty and Seventy days projects for the tragedy of the Shoah.
Each project was similar, to compile a book with Torah essays related to Judaism and the Holocaust. Every decade ( fty years after the Holocaust, sixty years after and then seventy years after) we requested and chose new essays However, there were a few essays that appeared in more than one book. One of those was an essay by Rabbi YY Rubinstein about ‘Belief in God after Auschwitz’. It was a very powerful essay, and I always remembered a particular part of it, which is so relevant to our discussion today. He writes back in 1995:
The place where I studied in yeshivah is a very antisemitic part of the world. I was once visiting Manchester and went into a Jewish bookshop belonging to a Mr Falk The owner was someone whom I admired greatly. He was a German Jew, and his children are amongst some of the most outstanding in the Rabbinic world. The shop was empty, and he asked me how I was getting on in yeshivah. There had just been a particularly ugly antisemitic incident and I decided to tell him the whole story Once I started it all came gushing forth This was in the late seventies and the National Front were doing really well. I was sickened and fed up with being spat at, shouted at and occasionally attacked. Mr Falk invited me to sit down and began to tell his own story. "My wife and I were in Buchenwald. It was a place which took people and ground them into tiny bits” When they arrived at Buchenwald, Mr Falk said that he thought, "I don't know
why God has put me here but it's my job to get on with being a Jew here, just as much as it would be anywhere else", and then he said something which astonished and inspired me: "And with that attitude, I was able to help very many people”. Imagine - Buchenwald, where human beings were reduced to animals; being able to help very many people.
This story made a big impression on me then, and still inspires me today.
It doesn’t matter if we live in a world that makes complete sense or is completely mad.
It doesn’t matter if the world is completely calm or tremendously stormy.
Our response is always the same.
‘It's my job to get on with being a Jew’
Looking at the situation with all the pro Hamas propaganda on Campuses across the world, what are we meant to do!?
The answer is this idea; We have to daven Shacharit in the morning, Mincha before sunset and Maariv ideally after nightfall
Look at the UN and UNWRA, they are a disgrace and are openly antisemitic!
We have to learn Torah, give tzedakah and perform chesed.
There is signi cantly growing antisemitism globally!
We have to believe in the eventual geulah and live our lives with that emunah.
Look at the vili cation of Israel for defending itself against a genocidal terror group!
We have to continue our observance of Torah and Mitzvot.
It is our job to get on with being a Jew, regardless of what is happening all around us.
That does not mean that we don’t pay attention to what is happening and do what we can to ght back against the hatred and the lies, but on a daily basis, our compass is rmly pointed to Hashem and Torah – as it has been for the last few thousand years.
That is our answer and our mission.
Shabbat Shalom
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