King David writes: “Even as I walk in the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me.” (Psalm 23) I have walked through the Valley of death before; I have been to Poland, I have been to Auschwitz. But never did it look like this. Never was the Valley of Death surrounded by bookshelves in a high school library; never did the Valley of Death contain two toddlers playing in front of their house.
This past Wednesday night my Yeshiva went to Yeshivat Merkaz HaRav to conduct our night studies, to strengthen our brothers in shock there, as well as to help us to relate to what had happened. The glass door to the library was covered in bullet holes. There was a stack of books sectioned off, awaiting burial, as they were splattered with blood. The floors were arbitrarily chipped from volleys of bullets. Going from stack to stack in the library, it was clear to see where eight young men’s lives were ended bloodily. On Thursday I led a group of twenty-five young men and women to Sderot. Amongst many other activities, we stopped to pay our respects where two children, ages two and four, had been murdered four years ago while playing outside their home.
Today we read the Torah portion of Vayikra. Vayikra is all about sacrifices that were brought in the Tabernacle, and later in the Temples. But as the Torah is an eternal source of instruction, what relevance do sacrifices have to us today-especially to those of us who are not as fortunate as I am to live overlooking the Temple Mount, where those sacrifices were once brought? The answer to this is alluded to in the second verse of today’s Torah reading. “If any man brings an offering of you to the L-rd.” “An offering of you”? This seems to imply that the sacrifice must be of yourself. What does this mean?
To me and to many others in the Jewish people today, the association is automatic. Ten days ago, eight young men were sacrificed. Unlike our barbaric foes, however, this is not the ideal form of sacrifice in Judaism. My teacher and dear friend, Rav Chizkiyahu Neventzal, shed some light on the matter in the very library where the boys were murdered. In Hebrew, the term for giving up one’s life in G-d’s name is Mesirat Nefesh, literally translated as “Giving over one’s soul.” However, the word Nefesh has another meaning: It means will or desire. Every time we desire to do something, but choose not to because we know it is not what G-d wants, this is considered Mesirat Nefesh, giving over one’s soul. This is the type of sacrifice G-d really wants.
The Lubavitcher Rebbe, of sainted memory, explains the concept in view of the entire nature of sacrifice. When G-d first commanded the Jewish people to build him a Sanctuary, the words He used were “And make for me a Sanctuary, and I will dwell in them.” (Exodus 25:8) It does not say “I will dwell in it” but rather “in them.” This, the Rebbe clarifies, indicates that every Jew has the potential to make a Sanctuary for G-d within him or her. We must “slaughter” our physical desires and use them instead in the service of G-d. Just like the animal sacrifices had to be free of any flaw or blemish, so too we must search out the inner flaws of our soul and do the best to rectify them. In doing so, however, one often gets depressed thinking of the sins committed in the past, and loses hope of ever returning to G-d. But once one has been through the Valley of the Shadow of Death in a spiritual sense, meaning that one has sinned and felt utterly detached and distanced from G-d, one’s desire to be reunited with G-d again is multiplied exponentially. Then, like the sacrifices, one bursts into flame of love for G-d.
One aspect of sacrifice stuck out in my mind in a painful way: the requirement that a sacrifice be without blemish, without flaw. The boys in Merkaz HaRav who sacrificed their lives were all innocent, without blemish. Every one of them was described by everyone who knew them as being an exemplary boy, kind and caring. I heard their teacher tearfully speak of them firsthand on Wednesday night. Doron, an Ethiopian immigrant, used to finish all six tractates of Mishnah once a month, a feat that required learning an average of eighteen chapters of Mishnah a day. Every one of them had a similar story. One brought flowers to his elderly aunt every Friday; every one of them went beyond the norm. The reason why they were not upstairs with their peers celebrating the beginning of the month of Adar was because they preferred to go to the library and study more Torah instead. They were gunned down in the service of G-d. But this is the Way of G-d: if He is going to take a sacrifice, it must be pure. Throughout the years, all of the guys killed in the army from Yeshivas have been the best guys.
But there is hope even in the darkest of times. One of the murdered boys, Yehonadav, was wearing a tshirt from the Disengagement that said “It will be alright.” I cried when I read this today, but I think that is the message we need to take out of it. Even in the saddest of times, we have faith that “It will be alright.” In Psalm 23, King David ends on an optimistic note: “Only goodness and kindness will pursue me all the days of my life, and I will sit in the House of G-d for long days.” Similarly today we must trust that only goodness and kindness will pursue us. Purim is coming up this week and this is a time of happiness.
It is very late in Israel right now and I am very tired. I hope with G-d’s help to write soon about my most recent experience in Sderot and on the upcoming holiday of Sderot. To those of you have written me personally and I have not yet responded, I apologize. I will do my best to write you back soon.
With Love from the Holy Land,
Elisha
