Shabbat Shalom!
Now that my childhood is over,
I can look back at all the good times and bad.J
Some of the best times have occurred out on the field, for baseball and soccer,
and on the court for basketball. If I’m
not in the classroom or asleep, you’ll probably find me on one of those.
In some cases, the most
challenging times became the
best times, all in the same game. I can
remember one baseball game when my team came back from nine runs down in the
late innings. It was amazing.
In my mind there were four keys
to the comeback.
1)
We were patient. We came
back a little at a time, not just by swinging for the fences but by getting on
base and starting a rally.
2)
We never lost hope. Once the
rally started, we could imagine what it would be like to win the game.
3)
We stayed together. No one
blamed a teammate or picked a fight. And
4)
We didn’t give in to fear but turned the negative feelings into
positive action.
In my Torah portion, the Israelites faced a similar
situation. Moses had gone up to the
mountain to get the Torah, but he never came back. For days
and weeks the people waited. Many
feared that he was dead. Finally, they
gave in to the fear and built a golden calf and started to worship it.
The
central figure in this story is Aharon.
The Torah text sort of paints him as the one responsible for building
the calf. But the midrash tries to explain
his actions in a way that makes him appear less guilty. It states that Aharon was a great peacemaker
and, really, he had no power to stop the people – but he did have the power to
slow things down. So he asked for their
jewelry, thinking that they wouldn’t give it up. But when they did, he melted it down,
thinking that it would take a long time to build the idol – but the midrash
says that some Egyptian magicians who left Egypt with them made the calf
appear. Then Aharon stalled some more by
building an altar for the calf to be placed on.
But even then, Moses still didn’t return.
I
think Aharon did the right thing in trying to stall – it’s a lot like the
patience we had to show when coming from behind in baseball. He bought some time and hoped for Moses to
return. It’s also important that he
never lost hope, much like my team.
Also, he never got into a fight with anyone – he tried to keep the peace
so that things would not get out of control.
But
in the end, I still think he should have prevented b’nai Yisrael from actually
worshipping the calf.
Even
though things didn’t work out as well for Aharon as they did for my team, there
are some important lessons here that have helped the Jewish people through many
tough times. And because of that, we’ve
always been able to overcome our challenges.
After
the Holocaust, miraculously the Jewish people lived on and three years later,
we created the state of Israel. Our own
history teaches us, time and time again, that we should be patient and never
lose hope.
As
all of you know, our Portuguese Water dog Jeter is a very important member of
our family who also has taught us the meaning of patience. J Here in Stamford,
there are many dogs and cats that do not have owners who can care for them. As
a result, they are found at the Stamford Animal Shelter, hopefully waiting to be adopted. An organization called OPIN
(Outreach for Pets in Need) was founded by shelter volunteers to promote adoption
of homeless animals and support the shelter. As you can see on the Bimah, in response to their
“wish list” we will be giving these baskets filled with dog and cat food, toys
and supplies to the Stamford Animal Shelter to help them care for the cats and
dogs.
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