Our Rabbi's Message
May 14th 2010
By Rabbi Aaron KriegelThis week we begin the fourth book of the Torah, the Book of Numbers. In Hebrew the book is called B'Midbar, which means "In the Desert."
We are a people who believe that community is very important. Unlike other religions we hold that a significant religious quorum must be present for religious services. We encourage people to eat together, and grace after meals is that much prettier when it is said in a group.
We believe that people should live in walking distance from the synagogue, and that means, even today, that the Jewish community is found in urban or in highly populated suburban areas. We are commanded not to live in a town that does not have a doctor. We are encouraged to live in a town that has a vibrant synagogue.
We are advised not to be ascetic, and unlike most religions, we do not have a concept like monastery or cloister. We hold that in most cases a person is not whole if he or she is not married. We have a host of laws aimed at keeping the family together. In Judaism it is easy to marry but hard to divorce. Halacha seeks to encourage large families.
Our tradition emphasizes that we must live with people. We used to live only in cities so that we could walk to a schul that was close by. Even today there are few Jewish farmers, and in Israel, where farming is a main occupation, the center of the farm is the Moshav or the Kibbutz, which is a community of people. In America and in Israel farmers do not live alone out on the prairie. /p>
Yet our Torah is anti-city and pro-desert. The only major city that we know in tradition is Jerusalem and that city is not mentioned in the Torah. The cities that are mentioned in later books usually are a source of trouble, paganism, and war.
Our torah speaks of desert; our tradition speaks of urban areas of settlement. Our Torah commands us to leave the city; our tradition demands that we make homes in the city. What is happening?
Our Torah had to take us from cities that were polluted in order that we might create a new paradigm for city life. We had to learn anew how to live in a community so that by our world changing traditions we could change the world by implementing a new and a real moral code.
We did just that (even if the daily papers do not reflect the Jewish addition to civilization).
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