At Jewish Newport
Rosh Hashanah, 2019
By Aaron Ginsburg
edited by Beth Levine
Smoke gets in your eyes
On the first day of Rosh Hashanah, Rabbi Marc Mandel of Newport’s Touro Synagogue spoke about blindness,
“In olden days, we used to receive many magazines; Time, Business Week, Parents. Today in the digital age, not so much. Jackie still receives People Magazine
“She recently shared an article about a graduate from Harvard Law School named Haben Girma.
“You might wonder, ‘Why an article about a graduate from Harvard Law School?’ Each year there are many graduates from Harvard Law School. Haben Girma is special and unique because she is blind and deaf, the first blind and deaf person to graduate from Harvard Law School.
“Why talk about blindness on Rosh Hashanah? Is there a connection between blindness and Rosh Hashanah? We read this morning about the binding of Yitzhak, Isaac who became blind. What caused his blindness? The simple explanation is old age.
“But the Midrash digs deeper. One explanation is that Isaac became blind from the second-hand smoke of his brother’s idol worship offerings. Another Midrash says he was blinded by the tears of the angels when he was on the mountain with his father.
“Sometimes we don’t see what’s right in front of us. In tomorrow’s Torah reading: וַתֵּ֨רֶא שָׂרָ֜ה Sarah saw the bad behavior of Hager’s son, Yishmael. Why didn’t Abraham see what was going on? Why wasn’t he aware? Maybe he didn’t want to see. After all, Yishmael was his son.
“Later, when Yishmael is dying, Hagar doesn’t see the well. וַיִּפְקַ֤ח עֵינֶ֔יהָ. And God opened her eyes - she couldn’t see by herself. The whole reading today is about seeing and not seeing.
“But the opposite of not seeing is seeing too much. The Misha tells us in Avot to cultivate an ayin tova, a good eye, like Avraham and not a bad eye like Balam, not bad in the physical sense, but in the spiritual sense - always looking to see what other people have, that’s a bad eye. Can we learn to be satisfied with what we have - or are we looking for more?
“Every day we praise God פּוֹקֵחַ עִוְרִים who opens [the eyes] of the blind. A recent National Geographic article about blindness gave hope that some day the blind will see.”
God opens our eyes, but will we use them to see?
When Rabbi Mandel said ”second-hand smoke,” many of us opened our eyes, perhaps in search of a fire. If we were not listening and seeing up until then, we gave the rabbi our full attention.
Second-hand smoking or passive smoking refers to the effects of tobacco on people who are present when someone is smoking. One of the ways to study it is to study the spouses of smokers. At team from Dana–Farber/Harvard Cancer Center coined “third-hand smoke” to describe the effect of the residue left after the smoke is gone. I suspect that at this very moment someone is trying to define, “fourth-hand smoke.”
On the second day of Rosh Hashanah, Rabbi Mandel discussed how we see Israel.
No one said it would be easy
“‘Trial’ has more than one meaing
- A formal examination of evidence by a judge and a jury, in order to decide guilt in a case of criminal or civil proceedings.
- A test of the performance, qualities or suitability of someone or something.
‘Today we will use the second definition. We look at Abraham’s trial [The Binding of Isaac] as a test of his ability to follow the will of God.
‘But that was not his only trial. The Mishnah tells us that Abraham had 10 trials from God. We know some of them: Lech Lecha (leave your home), circumcision when old, the war against the kings. Most commentaries say that Avraham’s final test was from today’s torah reading, the Akeda, the binding of Isaac.
‘But I heard a class from Rabbi J. J. Schacter from Yeshiva University, who said that wasn’t Avraham’s final test.
‘You know your Tanakh! What happens after the Akeda? Sarah dies and Avraham has to bury her, and that was his last trial, trying to get a burial place for his wife in the land of Israel.
‘It was difficult for him because the local people (Hebrew) didn’t want to give Avraham any land, and it was a trial for him to see if he would stick with it.
“Rabbi Schacter taught us, מַעֲשֵׂה אֲבוֹת סִימָן לַבָּנִים ‘Whatever happens to our fathers happens to us.’ Anything dealing with the Land of Israel is difficult and not easy.
“That’s our test today in the diaspora. What is our relationship with Israel? Here in the diaspora, we can say, “That's not our problem.” Or we could say, “I don’t like the image of Israel these days. It’s not what it used to be.” And we could also say, “I don’t think we should support Israel under today’s conditions.” And there are Jews saying all these things.
“That’s why it’s a test. It’s not supposed to be easy.
“Sure, it was easy in the days after the Holocaust to support Israel, but today the survivors are barely alive and Israel’s demographics have changed.”
Among the most difficult trials is the loss of a child. Among those at shul during Rosh Hashanah was Sima Menora, who lost two teenage daughters, Rikki and Rachelli, in a plane crash. In their memory, she founded DROR. “DROR – the Hebrew acronym for Derech Rikki and Racheli (in English, Rikki and Racheli’s Way) - was...inspired by many of the traits that defined Rikki and Racheli in their all-too-short lives, DROR is an organization that embraces the spirit of activity and empowerment to benefit the lives of other adolescent girls.” @jewishnewport @newportri
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