This
week's Torah portion left me with a question that I've grappled with a good
part of this past week. Hashem smites the Egyptian firstborns; as an
interesting aside, in some homes there were multiple firstborns as every
paternal firstborn passed away and so if an Egyptian wife was unfaithful to her
husband and was rather promiscuous, in a given home even ten firstborns may
have dropped dead in the "dead of night".
The
Torah relates that the Jewish households were "saved" from the mashchit,
which we can loosely translate as the "avenger." The question that I
want to confront is, "In what way were the Jewish people saved from the
wrath of Hashem in makat b'chorot, the smiting of the
firstborns?" That would seem to give us a deeper understanding of why
Hashem after makat b'chorot chose to sanctify Jewish firstborns, making
them distinct from all other Jewish progeny and the necessity, as this portion
teaches, to redeem the firstborn.
To
be perfectly honest, though I've reviewed the commentaries, I'm yet to find an
answer that satisfies me. What I can suggest at this point is that the meaning
of "holy" or kadosh in Hebrew is separate or distinct and
perhaps it could be said that sort of in a way that resembles the First Law of
Thermodynamics. That law states that energy in the universe remains constant. With
the Egyptian firstborns perishing, the Jewish firstborns needed to be elevated
to retain the world's spiritual equilibrium or balance.
At
the time of the plague of the firstborns, the Jewish people are commanded not
to leave their homes which seems to be reminiscent of the angel's command to Lot' wife not to turn around and see the misfortune of
her former neighbors. Salt representing the inert side of life, it's her
insensitivity that becomes ossified in space and time, reminding us that
callousness has no place in the heartbeat of life. After all, a sentient soul
and spirit like a fire warms others, while love can be transferred without
diminishing from the original flame. It could be argued that the firstborns'
elevation thus inculcates in the Jewish people a heightened attentiveness and
sensitivity to others, but perhaps it can also be said that the same way the
firstborns need to be redeemed, life at its very core is not ours but that it
belongs to Hashem and is His to give and take. The redemptive process regarding
the firstborn helps us internalize just that.
Lastly,
in the following NY Times article, IMHO, we see a perversion of this
understanding of the value of life http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/06/magazine.
The parents of a young woman who has been murdered by her boyfriend, fight to
have the boyfriend's term mitigated because they do not want his life wasted as
he festers in jail. They believe that it is enough that they lost their
daughter; seeing that their daughter would have forgiven her boyfriend, the
parents reason that they must show Jesus Christ's attribute of forgiveness. I
quote from the article: "Ann’s parents strive to model their lives on
those of Jesus and St. Augustine,
and forgiveness is deep in their creed. “I realized it was not just Ann asking
me to forgive Conor, it was Jesus Christ,” Andy recalls. “And I hadn’t said no
to him before, and I wasn’t going to start then. It was just a wave of joy, and
I told Ann: ‘I will. I will.’ ” Jesus or no Jesus, he says, “what father can
say no to his daughter?”
It
is this perversion which makes idolatry so severe. Worshiping idolatry as did
Ann's parents, prevented them from realizing that it wasn't solely their
prerogative to forgive but that of the one and only Creator of the universe.
May all Jews who have converted to Christianity or who have sought out another
form of idolatry return to their true and only faith, be'ezrat Hashem.
No comments:
Post a Comment