Rabbi Roodyn

Most of us are looking for the magical formula to be able to strike the perfect work-life balance. It’s never easy to find and so it’s somewhat reassuring that greatest human being who has ever lived struggled to cope with the workload. Moshe Rabbeinu cannot keep up with the needs of the people. It takes an outsider, his father in law Yisro to look at things objectively and tell him that he is on the verge of collapse.

He tells him that the secret to success is delegation. He has to appoint officers or princes over the thousands, hundreds, fifties and tens. This is the first ever hierarchy, with four different levels of seniority or authority, a model that remains with the Jewish people until the destruction of the Temple.

By the way, if you do the maths, it means that there were 78,600 judges, or in other words, every seventh or eighth man was a judge. In fact every good and honest man with some Torah knowledge is fit to be a judge. But that’s not all, the role of the judges was to teach Torah, to disseminate it amongst the people.

What are they meant to teach and how?

The clue comes from one word והזהרת, which is normally translated as ‘you shall warn them’, in fact that’s how the Artscroll translates it, ‘you shall caution them’. That’s an understandable translation, after all the world zahir means to be careful or cautious, in modern Hebrew zehirut means to take care.

This translation conjures up an image of an austere Rabbi or Dayan wagging his finger and telling you that everything you are about to do is forbidden. Torah appears drab and grey and taking all the fun out of life.

That doesn’t resonate with me, nor I imagine with you!

Enter Rav Shimshon Rephael Hirsch, a profound thinker and scholar whose works have deeply affected my personal religious experience.

He points out that the word zahir is related to the word zohar which has connotations of brightness and shining light. Hizhir therefore means to radiate light, or throw light on something for someone which otherwise they would not have seen or noticed. The grammarians among you will notice the double accusative of vehizharta eshem which means to cause rays of light to fall upon an object and to cause those rays to reach the eyes of the people.

So in our context, rather than being an austere ‘you shall caution them’ we can now say that vehizharta eshem means to cause the statutes and teachings to shine clearly and brightly before their eyes. The role of these judges or educators is to cause the statutes and teachings of the Torah to shine clearly and brightly before their eyes to help them appreciate the mitzvos to the extent that they guard themselves against transgressing them.

This idea reminds me of another teaching by someone whose words have also profoundly affected me. This man lived in slightly different era, but inhabited a very different world. The Piecezna Rebbe, Rav Kalonymus Kalman Shapira was a master educator before the war, establishing institutions based around his educational philosophy which was later recorded for posterity. He becomes the famed Rebbe of the Warsaw Ghetto, losing his entire family and dedicating himself selflessly to the community until he himself was murdered in the so called Harvest Festival of Autumn 1943. His drashos in the ghetto miraculously survived the war and were later published in a sefer called aish kodesh.

The Rebbe in his sefer Chovos Hatalmidim, a student’s obligation makes a similar point to Rav Hirsch. It is not enough to merely teach the youth that they are duty bound to listen to their Rabbonim. This alone will not suffice, because ultimately they will view their teachers or Rabbonim as the opposition and as foreign tyrants looking to control them. The main thing is to teach them that they themselves are their own educators, they are not small children, they are seedlings that Hashem has planted in the vineyard of Klal Yisrael and they alone bear responsibility for their development into towering atzei chayim, trees of life –  righteous and deeply learned servants of Hashem.

For too long Jewish education has been about rules, do this, don’t do that. Of course we need to know how to live as Jews and the details of Halacha are very very important. But it’s all too easy just to go through the motions.  There needs to be a shift from ‘rote to real’ and appreciate the value and beauty behind each and every aspect of Torah and Jewish life. This is what we mean when we say ותן חלקנו בתורתך each and every one of us has a portion, a role to play in making mitzvos meaningful. We may not know the ultimate, mystical reason for a mitzvah, but we can offer taamei hamitzvos, a taam isn’t just a reason, it’s a taste. Taamu u reu ki tov hashem, taste and see how great it is. The more we learn, the more we seek to understand the value behind what we do, the tastier it will become and the more we will value and protect it.

When Moshe comes down from the mountain, he says atem re’isem, don’t believe me because I say so, say it because you saw it. From day one, the Torah is something that is part of the experience of the individuals that make up the nation. Or in other words, the theme of this parsha is, it’s not enough to be a passive spectator, we need to be active participants, because when we are, it’s a totally different experience, one that is truly resplendent and beautiful.