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Six years ago, when my son Andrew was not yet five and we were at shul celebrating Purim, he turned to me and asked, “Mommy, if Haman was so evil, why did Hashem create him?" Many thoughts went through my head about free will, Amalek, philosophical responses to the problem of evil, etc., all of which I teach in my intro to religion classes, and none of which would resonate with a kid Andrew's age. So I gave the best response all my years of schooling and teaching could muster, "Ask the rabbi." And thus began years of Andrew asking our rabbi really tough questions, the answers to which scholars and rabbis and Jews of all kinds have wrestled with for centuries.
Why did God create Haman and Hitler and Hamas? Why would the God who led us out of Egypt sit by as we are persecuted? We are taught that in every generation, someone will rise up to try and destroy the Jewish people and we have seen the tragedy of this pronouncement play out so many times. And as we look to the rise of anti-Semitism in Europe, the existential threat of Iran's nuclear program, the rockets flying into Israel last summer, we know that there are countless people who seek our annihilation yet again. We are a small people in a world full of Hamans. But perhaps the most troubling threat to our existence is not the Haman of previous generations (the hateful leader from outside), but rather the Haman from within, the Haman of our own apathy. Rising rates of disaffiliation and intermarriage and distrust in organized religion have left our small people with large swathes of disinterest in Jewish life, Jewish identity and Jewish values. We all know the numbers. What those outside could not do, we may do to ourselves – apathy is our greatest threat today. If we do not kill it, it will blot us out.
And here's where this week's Torah portion comes into the mix. I'll set the scene... The Israelites are waiting for Moses to descend Mount Sinai after his forty days with God and he doesn't arrive back when he says he will. They become anxious. Fear begins to creep in. Who will lead them now that Moses may never return? They plea with Aaron, saying, “Make us a god who shall go before us, for we do not know what happened to Moses.” Aaron concedes. He melts the gold the people give him and molds it into a golden calf. The people exclaim, “This is the god, O Israel, which brought us out of the land of Egypt.” Early the next morning the people worship and make offerings.
When God gets wind of what is happening down below, God becomes angry and vows to destroy the people. Moses convinces God to spare them and God gives Moses the two tablets on which the Ten Commandments are written. Moses takes the tablets to the people, but upon seeing the people dancing around the calf, Moses becomes enraged and smashes the tablets. Fast forward a bit and Moses is back on Mount Sinai begging for forgiveness on behalf of the people. God is swayed, writes the commandments again, and says “Now go, Moses, and take the people to the land flowing with milk and honey, as I swore to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. I will send an Angel before you and drive out the native peoples. But I will not go in your midst, since you are a stiff-necked people." Rashi explains that this is a punishment; up to this time, God would guide the Jewish people in the desert, but from now on, only an angel would guide them. The entire nation is punished and the Golden Calf is forever looked at as one of the greatest mistakes of the Jewish people. But why? Out of three millions Jews, the Torah says that at the end of it all, when they rounded up the culprits, only 3,000 people were involved. That's 0.1%. Yet, the whole Jewish nation is held responsible. Why?
The answer lies in understanding the influence communal values have on the behavior of individuals. These societal mores shape who we are more than any other single force. It is, after all, much easier to sit back and follow than to fight for what is right. And, if society has the power to shape the values of individuals, then we all must also be held accountable when it fails to do so. The fact that 3,000 people could build an idol meant that they lived in a society that was not sufficiently repulsed by such a notion nor with leadership that could push back to do what is right. Had building an idol been considered totally and utterly outrageous, they would never have contemplated doing so or at the very least would not have been allowed to proceed.
So, if the Haman of our day is apathy and we as a Jewish collective are responsible for shaping the values and ensuing behavior of our people, what lesson must we learn from Purim and the Golden Calf? Quite simply, we cannot sit idly by and watch as our people are annihilated through our own doing. As Esther says, "how can I look on as my people are destroyed?" We must stand up. We must demand change. We must continue to fight for what is right.
The task is huge, but the risk of doing nothing is far too great. We are all responsible for the actions of the few, more so when we do nothing in the face of those actions. The Jewish college students who say nothing in the face of anti-Israel, anti-Semitic rhetoric are my responsibility. The rising rates of intermarriage and Jewish children growing up with no sense of their history or who they are is my responsibility. The doors of more and more JCCs, Jewish schools and synagogues closing is my responsibility. The downward trend in the numbers of donors giving to local federations is my responsibility. The apathy of the Jewish community is my responsibility. It's my responsibility and it's yours. It's on us.
And so, as we move forward in our lives as leaders in the Jewish world, may God grant us all the strength to be brave like Esther, to blot out that which seeks to destroy us, to work together in fashioning a collective in which a Golden Calf could never be imagined and where we together rise up against all threats – external and internal – for the continued strength of our people. May we all live long and prosper.
Shabbat Shalom,
Devra
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