Weekly Parsha Vetchanan - The Animal Inside Of Us

11th Av 5771



 
There will be no davar for the next 2 weeks during holiday time. I'll be back again at the end of August.

Torah Portion

Moses is not allowed into the land of Israel. He is accused of losing his temper, forgetting Jewish law and not believing in God. Even though God, and not Moses, is the author of the Bible, the humility of Moses was so great that even if he had written it, he would not have been afraid to expose his own shortcomings. Truth was more important to him than how history judged him.
 
Some of the most significant sections of the entire Torah are contained within this portion. The 10 Commandments and the Shema are the best known.

Davar Torah

I generally want my davar to focus on Torah’s wisdom, not social commentary, but I do feel an expectation that I write something about the riots in the UK over this past week.
 
I don’t want to talk about political issues, such as whether or not the police are hamstrung by legislation and whether or not any of the rioters have genuine social grievances. The Prime Minister has pointed out that our society has a serious problem. That so many young people can have no care for other human beings or their property and cause damage for fun and loot just to make a quick buck, is indicative of a moral ill that runs deep and must be addressed urgently. There are messages for our society that we must learn from and respond to.
 
As a Rabbi, however, I want to talk about a lesson from these riots that applies to us all.
 
There are two sides to every single one of us and no one can be certain how he or anyone else will act in a given circumstance. I was once asked by a student of mine what would I do if someone held a gun to my head and told me to bow down to an idol or he would kill me. There is only one genuine answer I could possibly give to that question: ‘I don’t know’. Of course, I’d like to think that I have the strength of my convictions to say that I would die for my values. But that’s all nice theory. We don’t know what we are really made of until we have faced a test in actuality and passed it or failed it. The Rabbis tell us, ‘don’t trust yourself until the day you die’.
 
I have been reading stories of people in court with perfectly clean records from stable backgrounds who seem to have been simply caught up in the heat of moment. Who are the rioters? Young men from poor areas ... but that's not the full story | UK news | The Guardian There are always going to be ringleaders in a riot, as well as thieves who see an opportunity arise and grasp it (I heard it said that whilst recent uprisings in the Middle East were about freedom, the London uprisings were simply about Plasma TVs) But it seems there were also people who were simply in the right (or rather wrong) place at the right time and made a knee jerk decision to get involved. This does not in any way absolve anyone of responsibility for their actions, but it helps understand what is going on.

It happens in all of our lives, though usually in less extreme circumstances. An opportunity arises and we are put in a position of making a decision. A decision to engage in something wrong, but very appealing. Or to do the right thing and walk away. Torah tells us that we are all made up of a Godly soul and an animal soul. And in the heat of a moment, it’s hard to know which will win out. Sometimes, when the animal inside of us flares up, it’s very hard to control. Once again, this has nothing to do with responsibility for our actions – that is always a given; I'm simply saying that we are all very similar. When the chips are down, we would like to think we will act in a certain way – but we cannot be sure. It’s a frightening thought when we look at the violence and lack of any moral sense in these riots. But every person has that animal part and the more aware we are of its existence, the more likely we are to be ready when its impulses tug hard upon us.
 
And then, of course, there is the other side. When looking at the public response to these riots – people who are donating goods, donating money, volunteering to clean up in neighbourhoods that are not their own, it’s genuinely heart-warming. There is a Godly side in all of us also. And the contrast in the potential consequences of human decisions could not be illustrated more starkly by the riots.
 
The ultimate success of our societies, or our world, depends on our ability to educate future generations; our children need to appreciate the nature of their choices and the challenges they face in making them. And we need to give them deep enough and strong enough reasons to choose Godliness over base animal passion when faced with spur of the moment decisions.
 
Obviously, there are broader and longer term lessons to learn from these riots as well, but I feel that this something practical and immediate that has value for us also.

Shabbat Shalom
Rabbi Shaul Rosenblatt

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