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| Thomas Hawk Photography |
But.
The problem is that I wonder whether a large segment of my
readership even finds the word “lewd” problematic.
The times we are living in reflect a deep callousness to the
meaning of intimacy. Physical touch between men and women is entirely taken for
granted, but casual contact would be the best of it. I don’t have to become
explicit about quite how casual physical relationships have become. Anyone exposed
to the very least of American media can see within three seconds (the typical
length of a single camera angle) how vulgar our relationship with the entire
subject of intimacy has become.
Protesting this disgrace makes orthodox Jewry come off as
prudish and repressed, but the truth is exactly the opposite. Shabbos, for
example, gets bad press in the secular world for all of its restrictions, but
you know what? Those restrictions don’t create a lack of pleasure. They create
a space for pleasure, joy, and meaning in an over-busy world.
The same applies to the Torah’s restrictions of casual
relationships between men and women. Judaism says that the concept of original
sin is bunk. Instead, we believe in a precious, original, and indelible purity
that is worth guarding and staying sensitive to. Touch is supposed to mean a very
great deal.
Zimri ben Salu completely missed that.
Balaam’s Nefarious
Plan
Believe it or not, the Midrash explains that Zimri thought
he was doing the Jewish People a favor, or so he justified it to himself. In
the immediately preceding parasha,
Parashas Balak, Balaam the evil soothsayer tried to curse Israel. To his great
chagrin, the words that God made flow from his mouth on the mountaintop were
nothing but praise and blessings.
Not willing to let God’s love for the Jewish People get in
the way of a good bout of anti-Semitism, Balaam came up with an ingenious plan.
If the problem with cursing Israel was their divine merit, Balaam reasoned,
than removing their divine merit should pave the way for his original nefarious
intentions. Make ‘em sin! Get the Jewish People to behave so crassly, so
despicably, that the intimate relationship between them and God would be
severed.
As if this Machiavellian scheme weren’t enough, Balaam sat
down and mapped out a fail-proof strategy for how to go about it. His strategy
worked like this: Build an outdoor mall. Ever been to Jerusalem’s Ben Yehuda or
Mamilla? Lots of fun, right? Balaam knew that the Jews would have no problem
shopping in a clean, modest atmosphere, so he hired elderly Moabite
grandmothers to stand at every storefront hawking their wares. Nothing to fear
here, see? No licentiousness around.
Even more clever was Balaam’s prior sleuth work. He had gone
to the trouble of finding out what the Jewish People needed most: linen. The
Jewish People had been commanded to gather linen for a particular mitzvah (commandment), and now the Mall
of Moab provided the perfect venue where they could find it. The price was
right.
Jewish men would stop at storefronts to examine the products
being sold. If they found the products appealing, they would ask the old
grandmother saleswomen about the price. Just then, as the Jewish men were
considering whether to purchase the appealing product for the proposed price, a
higher-pitched voice would ring out from within the shady confines of the
inside of the store. A second, much younger saleslady stood in the back of the
store offering the same product at a much lower price.
Many Jewish men entered the stores intending to do nothing
more than compare products and prices, but the situation tumbled downward from
there. The devastating one-two blows of free Midianite prostitution and
exciting Moabite idol worship (ritualized child sacrifice, mutilation, and rape
included) became the new “in thing”. The other thing that quickly followed
these trends “in” was a plague of some sort of illness that ended up killing
some 24,000 of the Jewish People. Can you call a spiritually-induced plague an
STD?
Zimri’s Crass
“Solution”
Anyway, Zimri ben Salu thought he had a solution. Let them
go on “tefillin dates”! Since he
figured that it was impossible to stop the Jews from sinning with the Midianite
women (and besides, from his perspective, who would want to?), at least the sins
of idol worship could be avoided by bringing the Midianite women into the
Jewish encampment. In simple terms, instead of going to Moabite territory to
ruin their lives, Zimri proposed that the Jews ruin their lives right at home.
Pinchas saw right through Zimri’s twisted logic. Allowing
Midianite prostitution to take place in the holy Jewish encampment would not
stop the destructive behavior, it would encourage it. It would give the
behavior a stamp of approval that could only lead to more and more permissive
thinking until the holiness of the Jewish encampment was lost completely. An
idol would be placed in the Holy of Holies. There would be no safe place.
Of course, the Pinchas plan meant that many of the Jewish
People would still end up in Moab. There would be very few righteous
individuals left. But those left would be unimpaired. When the broken and
crippled of Israel crept back from the slums of Moab seeking succor, those few
would be ready and able to provide it and a genuine healing process could
begin.
When the Russian Ministry of Education threatened to close
the Volozhiner Yeshiva unless they incorporated a few hours of secular studies
into their curriculum, Rabbi Yosef Dov Soloveitchik, z”l, stood up at the board
meeting and declared that although the Almighty had commanded to educate many
students and ensure the transmission of living Torah wisdom from generation to
generation, this commandment only applied when it was transmitted to the students
the same way it had been transmitted at Sinai: pure, authentic Torah.
The Chofetz Chaim, Rabbi Yisrael Meir Kagan z”l, told this
story later with an added caveat. It’s true, he admitted, the yeshiva did close
down, but Volozhin’s decision was what saved Torah in that generation. The
problem wasn’t with the secular studies per say. Mathematics and medicine
aren’t the enemy.
The problem was, explained the Chofetz Chaim, that the
forces of evil are very wily. First they turn you away from Torah for only two
hours a day. Slowly but surely those two hours grow and expand until the
picture flips – and suddenly you find that the only time left for Torah study
is two hours. Insidious but true.
And Torah is like water, added Rabbi Kagan. Close up one
waterway and the stream finds another path to flow. Volozhin closed but soon
other yeshivas opened in other countries. Torah made her way to Lithuania and
Poland, staying pure and beautiful every step of the way. The integrity of the
importance of Torah learning, and the sanctity of a yeshiva, was never
compromised and found other ways to sprout. A yeshiva stayed a yeshiva. Torah
stayed Torah. And we retained our “safe place” in a dizzying world.
Love is in the Little
Things
Judaism begins and
ends with a sensitivity to the little things. Ever seen Hollywood depict that
first touch? A current of electricity runs through our veins because we all
know that Hollywood – and Torah – have got it right on that one. The little
things are not really little things. Life is in the details. The details of Torah
say, “Hey! It’s time to really start living!”
The converse is also true. Give up the little things, all
those nifty, detailed little Jewish laws, and you’re left with cultural
Judaism. Bagels and lox only get you so far – and not very far at all. They
certainly won’t score you a profound relationship with God. With your spouse.
With your friends. With your kids. With yourself.
What Zimri’s plan seemed to say was, “So what’s a little
compromise? Big deal. It’s better than nothing.” But the truth is that a little
compromise is a lot of apathy. Details matter. True love goes all the way.
Because it means something. It means everything.
