Parashat Acharei Mot-Kedoshim: Are You A Superhero?

 How far would you go to save someone’s life?

What if doing so resulted in injuries which Gd forbid included breaking eight bones in fourteen places:

·         Your right knee

·         Your right and left ankles

·         Your left leg tibia

·         Your shoulder bone

·         Your jaw

·         Having your eye popping out of its socket so far forward that it could see the other one

·         Suffering from a collapsed lung which had been pierced by the rib bone, along with a similar injury in the liver?

All this due to being run over by a 14,300 pound snowmobile (to be precise the 1988 Pistenbully Sno-Cat) and crushed into the ice hardened asphalt.

Why?  Because you had risked your life to protect that of your nephew’s.

It is New Year’s Day 2023 and you are situated at an altitude of 10,785 feet in the Sierra Mountains in Nevada.  The snow is very deep and the treacherous conditions make it difficult for any sort of rescue craft to make their way to you.  It eventually takes 21 minutes for a fire engine to arrive, followed by a helicopter which takes you to Reno Hospital.  Your life literally hangs in the balance.

It doesn’t matter how many roles the actor, Jeremy Renner played prior to the start of this year; this was not a film set and his Avengers ‘Hawkeye’ character was nowhere to be seen.  What he had experienced was in every manner the ‘stuff of nightmares.’

As I watched his recent TV interview with Diane Sawyer, I sat with my mouth wide-open.  He explained how he had been trying to pull his Ford Raptor truck from his snowbound driveway to the street.  His nephew Alex had tied a chain from the front of the truck to the back of the Sno-Cat.

They managed to manoeuvre the truck onto the road and Alex started to remove the chain. Ahead, Jeremy turned the Sno-Cat around and it slid on the icy road.  Panicking, he realised that he couldn’t see Alex and that the Sno-cat was heading straight for him.  Without considering his own safety, he leant out of the cabin and placed his foot on the rolling track, to try to spot Alex, forgetting in the process to apply the handbrake.

He lost his footing and fell off the track into the snow.  In a heartbeat, he jumped back onto the track to try to re-enter the cabin to halt the machine.  He had to stop it from moving forward as Alex could have been crushed between the two vehicles.  Climbing onto the extremely slippery track, he lost his footing again and was pulled under, whereupon the Sno-Cat rolled over his entire body, which was now face down on the road.

Alex saw what had happened and ran over to his uncle whilst the machine gently rolled into a seven-foot snow wall and stopped.

Without a phone handy, he tried to summon help but unfortunately most of the neighbouring houses were empty, presumably due to their owners being elsewhere over the new year holiday.  Fortunately, a couple heard the commotion and came out to help.  Between the three of them, they held Jeremy, called the emergency services and hoped for the best.  At one point, the lady said that Jeremy had possibly ‘died’ for a few seconds but was thankfully revived.

In hospital, his distraught family tried to communicate with him, but he was unable to speak.  Using sign language, he said that he was ‘sorry for what he had put them through’.  In the interview he added (crying), “I’m sorry my actions have caused so much pain.”

Astonishingly, when thinking about the accident, he said, "I have no regrets - I'd do it again…I refuse to have that be a trauma and it be a negative experience."

If one were to write down some of the Torah’s most famous verses, I would imagine that the following from Parashat Kedoshim would appear near the top of the list:

Vayikra/Leviticus 19:18

You must love your neighbour as yourself.

Rabbi Akiva (in Bereshit Rabba 24.7) commented that this represented the ‘great principle’ of the Torah.  Hillel famously told the man who wanted to learn the Torah on one foot (Shabbat 31a), “What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbour.  That is the entire Torah, the rest is just commentary, now go and study.”

The love that emanated from Jeremy’s titanium reconstructed jaw was very plain to see.  Although he had risked everything to save his nephew, it was very apparent that he would have carried out the Torah’s dictum, irrespective of whomever had been at that location at that time.  Similarly so, the bravery demonstrated by his nephew and neighbours which very possibly resulted in his life being saved.  If we can place this behaviour at the very top of our priorities, is this not the ultimate demonstration of ‘loving your neighbour’ irrespective of whether he or she is a relative?

We know our families are the most important people in our lives.  Extending this to the ‘family of humans’ means that, if we believe that we are descended from Adam and Eve, we must somehow, albeit distantly, be related to each other.  Certainly, we have more in common than that which divides us.  We sometimes forget to look before we metaphorically ‘leap’ by acting in a way that lets us down and upsets others.

It takes someone like Jeremy Renner to remind us of how important people are in our lives, how our time in this world can be so brief and how we can act to help others.

 You don’t need to jump off a moving snow plough to make a difference to another person’s life.         As Hillel said, “What is hateful to you, don’t do to others.”  It’s not a difficult lesson to absorb.

Jeremy summed it up with a moving quote at the end of the interview.

“I wouldn’t let that happen to my nephew…the real superpower (presumably referring to his role as ‘Hawkeye’) is the ability to transform your superpower into your strength”.

We all have a ‘superpower’ – our ability to live up to the verse’s message.

In admiring his determination to heal and make a positive impact on others, we can look to Mr Renner to remind us of what a real superhero looks like.  If we value and respect our neighbours, perhaps, we too can be our own superheroes.

Shavuah Tov.

Parashat Tazria Metzora: My Israel

 It is a memory emblazoned in my brain.

It was the mid-1980s.  I was in my late teens and having a glorious time working on kibbutz Rosh Tzurim.  It is located in the Gush Etzion region between Bethlehem and Hebron.  It lies just over three-and-a-half miles away from Efrat, the home of Rabbi Leo Dee and his family.

Back to my memories.

I had volunteered to work on the kibbutz and spent the morning picking nectarines.  This was the life!  I was due to return to London to complete my ‘A’ Levels but soaking in the atmosphere served to convince me of something that I had wanted to do for a very long time.

I stood at the rusty phone box and called home.

“Mum?  Hi.  How are you?”

“Fine.  You?”

“I’m great and I’ve decided that I’m not coming back.  I’m staying here.  Israel is my home.  That’s it.”

Silence.

At that moment, nothing in the world would convince me to change my mind.  I’d sort myself out.  I had family and friends in Israel and they would help me settle.  This was it.  I was going to make Aliyah.

It didn’t hurt that my first love lived (and still does) in Israel and she really wanted me to stay.

My mother however, knew better and soon she and my girlfriend, with whom she had a very special relationship, decided that it was best that I returned to the UK, finished my studies and then came back.  When you’re in love, everything your lady says makes sense, even if you don’t think it does.  To sum up, she convinced me to listen to my parents.  I came back and that Israel dream still lies unfulfilled, nearly forty years later.

There were other opportunities and I even came close to applying through the Aliyah department of the Jewish Agency but my efforts came to nought.  As an only child, leaving your parents behind is not an easy option and, in hindsight, despite my hopes and aspirations, I now realise that it was the correct course of action to take. 

What is it about Israel that ignited my inner passion, from the moment I entered the country for the first time at the tender age of seven?  What is it about Israel, a country which has witnessed some of the most devastating and cruel terrorist attacks on Jewish men, women and children since the end of the second world war, that fills me with such a longing to be there?

A country which has so much promise but, at the same time, is so fragile and faces existential threats from within and without?  Why does that memory burn so fiercely inside me?

During the night of 15^th January 1948, a convoy of thirty-eight Hagana soldiers was sent to the Gush region to deliver much needed supplies to the residents of the four kibbutzim who were blockaded by Arabs and militiamen in the surrounding villages.  They had no option but to travel by foot, following previous attacks on motorized convoys.  After three of the group were sent back as one of the men had sprained his ankle, the others were unable to reach their destination before the onset of daylight.  Having been spotted, they faced hundreds of armed Arabs who blocked their way and although the ‘35’ fought as valiantly as they could, they did not stand a chance and the last of the group was killed at about 4.30 pm that afternoon.  By the time the British authorities had reached them, a number of reports stated that their corpses had been ‘mutilated beyond recognition’.

This convoy, which had originally been called "Machleket HaHar" (The Mountain Platoon), was renamed as the ‘Lamed Hey’ – the ‘35’ even though only 23 could be identified when they were interred on Har (Mount) Herzl in Jerusalem.

All of this taking place not far from where I made that phone call.

So, what is it about the country that calls me to return again and again and again?

Rav Kook, the first Chief Rabbi of (pre-State) Israel (who died in 1935) wrote that the sacrifice of thousands of Jews (who would tragically include the thirty-five a decade later) was not only physical but spiritual too.  These men knew what they were doing but like countless others before and since, they risked and tragically lost their lives to protect those of their fellow Jews. 

Israel has always been the spiritual centre and beating heart of the Jewish people.  For thousands of years, between the destruction of the Second Temple and the rebirth of the State (Hakamat HaMedina), it could not serve as a physical home but in our hearts and souls it cried out to us ‘from the depths’.  Throughout history, we looked to Zion as a beacon of hope – Tikva.  And seventy-five years ago, this coming Tuesday night and Wednesday, our prayers were finally answered.

This week’s double Parasha of Tazria and Metzora focusses on the inexorable connection between physical and spiritual health.  The plague of Tzara’at (which has been erroneously translated for centuries as ‘leprosy’) came about when a Jew spoke Lashon Hara (gossip) about another Jew.  What was manifested on the body, could spread to the person’s clothes and finally the home.  Why?  Because, when our spiritual health is diseased, it automatically impacts on our physical health.  It destroys everything in its wake.

The pen may be mightier than the sword, but the tongue is more destructive than both.

Those thirty-five martyrs sacrificed their physical beings to protect the spiritual health of our nation.  It is the actions of these brave men and subsequent generations of Israelis, that called out to someone like me to make that phone call.  As it transpired, my modest contribution to our spiritual welfare lay beyond the borders of our beloved country.

Yom Ha’atzmaut always follows Yom Hazikaron.  One cannot appreciate the miracle that is Israel without first mourning those of our brethren who paid the ultimate price for its establishment.  Life and death are intertwined.  One cannot exist without the other.  But whereas death is the final step in our physical existence, it does not extinguish our spiritual entity as the soul lives forever.

So, despite all the deadly knocks that our Israel endures on a frequent basis, she refuses to give in.  She epitomises the Jewish soul which never gives up.

Today, it is Rosh Chodesh Iyar.  If you write the name Iyar in Hebrew (אייר), you have the acronym of Aleph Yud Yud Resh which can stand for ‘Ani Hashem (the two yuds) Refo’echa’ or ‘I am the Lord, your healer’.

This month contains three notable days which are (as I mentioned), Yom Hazikaron, Yom Ha’atzmaut and Yom Yerushalayim (which as we know is the anniversary of the recapture of our capital, Jerusalem in 1967).  Despite everything that our people endured, in this month, within the last three-quarters of a century, Gd healed us through the gift of the State of Israel.

And returning to the story of the ‘35’…Could they have envisaged that nearly half-a-century later, one young man, proudly wearing a kippah, standing in a tee-shirt and shorts at the end of a hot, sunny day clinging onto a telephone line (it was a collect call!) would have the opportunity to tell his mother that he wanted to live in the Jewish homeland?

A few hundred feet away from the place the ‘Lamed Hey’ fought for the heart and soul of Am Yisrael – the Jewish people.

That, my friends is but one reason why I made that call and would hazard a guess that it’s why every time we leave Israel, a piece of us stays behind waiting to be reclaimed when we return.

Kol od ba’le’vav p’nima,                                                                                                                    Nefesh yehudi ho’miyah.                                                                                                                               U’lefa-atei mizrach kadimah,                                                                                                                      Ayin le’Tziyyon tzofiyah.                                                                                                                                              

Od lo avda tikva-teinu,                                                                                                                                 Ha’tikvah bat sh’not al-payim                                                                                                                      Lih-yot am chofshi b’ar-tzeinu                                                                                                              Eretz Tziyyon v’Yerushalayim.

As long as within our hearts

The Jewish soul sings,

As long as forward to the East

To Zion, looks the eye.

Our hope is not yet lost,

It is two thousand years old,

To be a free people in our land

The land of Zion and Jerusalem.

 

Shabbat Shalom, Chodesh Tov and Chag Sameach