A close friend of mine told me a wonderful story earlier this week.
We were
discussing my recent trip to Poland and he related that he had visited the
country several years ago. When he went
to Auschwitz, his guide was a Polish man called Peter. My friend said that Peter excelled in his
role and exhibited a wealth of knowledge both about the Shoah and the notorious
location they were visiting. Whilst leading
the group around one of the camps (either Auschwitz I or Auschwitz II
Birkenau), he told them the following story.
Many
years earlier, Peter had similarly led a group of American tourists around, and
during the visit one of them asked him if he had ever seen the film ‘Schindler’s
List’. He replied that he hadn’t and the
man was taken aback that a guide, who was so knowledgeable about the subject,
had not seen one of the key films made about the Shoah. After all, it focuses on the Jews of Krakow
who, unlike nearly every member of my maternal grandmother’s family, were saved
by Oskar Schindler.
The man
offered to send Peter a copy of the DVD.
Although he thought this a little strange, he willingly supplied his
address and sure enough, a few weeks later, it arrived in the post. When he opened the package, he read the
attached note which had words to the effect of, ‘With best wishes, from Steven.’
What is the
definition of a mensch?
Leo
Rosten, in his seminal work, ‘The Joys of Yiddish’, provides the
following definitions:
1.
A human being. “After all, he is a mensch, not an
animal.”
2.
An upright, honourable, decent person. “Come on, act like a mensch.”
3.
Someone of consequence; someone to admire and
emulate; someone of noble character. “Now
there is a real mensch.”
If I
asked you to name five films directed by Steven Spielberg, what would be the
first one that comes to mind? Jaws? E.T? Jurassic
Park? Raiders of the Lost Ark or Close
Encounters of the Third Kind?
When
quizzed on which film mattered the most to the man who singlehandedly created
the annual summer blockbuster with Jaws, his answer has always been
‘Schindler’s List’.
And why
was that?
He replied
that it was the first time he felt he wasn’t just entertaining the world—he was
serving it. He was giving voice to those
who had none. He was honouring the
memory of the Shoah.
He
refused to take a salary, director fees, royalties or a share of the profits,
calling any personal profit from the Shoah story ‘blood money’ and instead used
these to set up and fund the USC Shoah Foundation to record the testimony of
survivors, including that of my mother in 1997, four years after the film came
out (see https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/9bkcbf/til_steven_spielberg_refused_a_salary_for/).
Steven
Spielberg satisfies all three definitions suggested by Mr Rosten.
Parashat
Behar, which is the first of our double sidrot, teaches us the laws of Shmittah
and Yovel whereby Gd tells us that the land of Israel is different from every
other country in the world. For six
years, we can work the land and reap the rewards of the crops we have sown. However, in the seventh year, we are to
re-enact the weekly model we follow and just as we keep shabbat, so too, must
the land be sanctified. It must be freed
from service and allowed to rest.
The Shmittah
year is also significant in that it enables a Hebrew slave to gain freedom from
his master, should he wish to do so.
When we
complete a cycle of seven Shmittah years (i.e. forty-nine years), the fiftieth
is called the Yovel (from whence we derive the word ‘Jubilee’).
At this
juncture, all slaves are freed, all debts are annulled and any land that we may
have bought from another Jew in the period following the previous cycle returns
to its original owner. G-d tells us that
as He owns the land, He has the power to make decisions as to who is entitled
to consider it their own.
The laws
of Yovel run against the grain of our materialistic society. We grow up
assuming that once we buy something, it’s ours forever. And in the past — when
slaveowners traded in human beings — whatever was purchased was considered the
owner’s property in perpetuity.
The Torah
is teaching us a very powerful lesson which is:
- We are not the ultimate owners of anything.
- All power is temporary.
- Wealth is temporary.
- Status is temporary.
- Only God is permanent.
When we
respect the land, through keeping the laws of Shmittah, and prioritise the
treatment of people, by granting them their freedom, we accept the fact that
instead of dominating the world, we are instead elevating it. This is the road to our becoming a mensch.
Giving
instead of taking and acting in a responsible manner towards nature in all its
forms.
In
Bereishit mankind was formed b‘tzelem Elokim, in G-d’s image. When we behave in this elevated manner, we
are effectively being ‘menschen’ – decent, upstanding people.
A mensch
accepts that dignity is not earned by success but by responsibility.
These
last few years have been very challenging for us as a community. Some people who we thought were menschen were
silent when they should have spoken up. Others
who we didn’t know came forward and showed us what it means to be a mensch.
It
doesn’t cost anything to behave decently. In other words, to be a mensch shouldn’t take
the kind of atrocities we have witnessed to bring the best out of people.
Perhaps,
if more behaved in a menschlich (humane) way, irrespective of their gender,
religious or ethnic backgrounds, we’d have more Spielbergs and less...I won’t
list anyone but I’m sure you can think of someone!
May we be
blessed to have more menschen in our lives.
