With another year's Tropical Sermon Contest come and gone (mad props to Elliot Dine and Perry Swergeld, by the way, for coming in 3rd and 2nd, respectively), I thought I'd fulfill my promise to publish my sermon, on parshah Tzav, on my blog. Enjoy, for those of you interested in such things!
Shabbat Shalom, everyone! This week we read Parshah Tzav, the second
parshah in the book of Vayikra. In this
portion, Moshe initiates Aharon and his sons into the priesthood, and
sanctifies an altar for their use. He
clothes Aharon in the garments of the Kohen Gadol and the other kohanim in
their own uniforms, anoints them with oil, and places blood on their right
thumbs, their right big toes, and the outer cartilage of their right ears. Most importantly, he carefully instructs them
in the process of the korbanot, or offerings,
including peace offerings (Zevach
Hashlamim), the twice-daily meal-offerings, etc. This section concludes with the verse
הַשְּׁלָמִים וּלְזֶבַח וְלַמִּלּוּאִים וְלָאָשָׁם וְלַחַטָּאת לַמִּנְחָה לָעֹלָה הַתּוֹרָה זֹאת
This is the law for the burnt offering, for
the meal offering, for the sin offering, for the guilt offering, for the
investitures, and for the peace offering (7:37).
There are times at which reading the
Torah feels much like reading a textbook.
This week’s portion is such a time.
The word Torah itself means something like “instruction” or “guide,” and
I think that it is with this in mind that we should approach Tzav as well as
last week’s parshah Vayikra, reading them as a guide to korbanot, written in large part for the practical use of the
kohanim. That being said, even in the
absence of the Beit Hamikdash, the portion should remain important to the rest
of us, as do all parts of the Torah. As
Rabbi Shimon says in Pirkei Avot
(4:13), while the crown of priesthood may belong to the kohanim, the crown of
Torah belongs to us all. The law is all
of ours to study and educate ourselves. It is worth mentioning that by spelling
ou the process of the korbanot so
explicitly in the book of Vayikra, Judaism prevents the monopolization of
knowledge by an esoteric priesthood. As
Rabbi Tzvi Freeman has observed, even young children would be able to notice
and point out errors in the Kohanim’s procdures. It is also for this same reason, the
education of all in the Jewish law, that the book of Devarim instructs all Jews
to write their own Sefer Torahs (Devarim 31:19), a mitzvah now usually observed
by giving a copy of the Tanakh or the Chumash to B’nai Mitzvot. In this way, all Jews may study and learn the law.
Instruction and education are very
important Jewish values. Knowledge of
the law and ethics of the Tanakh and the Talmud is necessary to making the
right choices, when leading a moral life as an observant Jew. This is as true for the process of making
sacrifices as it is for the proper recitation of Ashrei as it is for the knowledge of when it is and is not
acceptable to lie. As Hillel states in Pirkei Avot, “a brutish man cannot fear sin [and] an
ignorant man cannot be pious” (2:6). In other words, education and knowledge are
necessary for an upright lifestyle. I
think that it is at this point of the year, in the month of Nissan, that
teaching, learning, and education should be on all of our minds. The core of the Seder of Pesach is the
mitzvah to teach future generations an important chapter in our national
history, specifically, the exodus from Egypt, when God began his relationship
with the entirety of the Jewish people, rather than specific individuals,
namely the Avot (Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov). It is written in the book of Shemot, “And you shall tell your son on that
day, saying, "Because of this, the Lord did for me when I went out of
Egypt" (13:8). The education
of future generations is necessary for maintaining the Jewish tradition and way
of life.
Although
I have been speaking specifically of Jews, this is a sermon on American values,
and the six and half million American Jews (to whom the 613 commandments apply)
make up only about two percent of the country’s population of around 312 or 313
million people. For this reason I
emphasize that just as education is necessary for an observant Jew, it is also
necessary for a responsible American citizen.
The Founding Fathers firmly believed that education was necessary for
the formation of informed citizens who could vote responsibly in a republican
form of government. For instance, the
Northwest Ordinances of 1787 set aside the 16th of the 36 sections
of each new township in the Northwest Territories to provide land and funding
for a public school. The bill explicitly
stated that “morality, and knowledge
being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools
and the means of education shall forever be encouraged.” Of
the thirty-nine men who signed the Constitution, sixteen of them sat in the
First Congress which unanimously passed this bill; a seventeenth, President
George Washington, signed the bill into law.
(Therefore when I say that the founding fathers supported public education,
I am neither being vague about which founders I mean, nor about just what I
mean by support.)
The
provision of land for public schools, however, is only an auxiliary measure of
the Northwest Ordinances, one of the most important bills passed by the first
Congress. The main purpose of the bill
was to regulate land distribution in the Ohio Valley and beyond for the
ever-moving westward frontier of the young nation (yes, I know that there were
American Indians already inhabiting this land, whom the lawmakers did not take into account, but that is the
topic for another time). Those of you
familiar with the Northwest Ordinances, the Homestead Act of 1862, and other
historic land bills know that land was parceled out in portions large enough
for a family, these bills requiring that the owners remain on the land for
several years before they could officially take possession of the property from
the government. American values held
that every family had the right to its own plot of land, to hold as
self-sufficient, independent producers.
This same importance placed upon the rights of all people to a plot of
their own land, we also find later in the book of Vayikra, in which it is
stated that every plot of land be redistributed every fifty years to its
original patrilineage:
אֲחֻזָּתוֹ אֶל אִישׁ תָּשֻׁבוּ הַזֹּאת הַיּוֹבֵל בִּשְׁנַת
During this Yovel year, you shall return,
each man to his property
(Vayikra 25:13).
This practice prevented too much
land, the most important form of property throughout most of the history of
human civilization, from being concentrated in too few hands, a concern from
earliest times. For instance, in the
early 6th century B.C.E., the late years of the First Temple period
in the kingdoms of Yehudah (while these agricultural laws were still in
effect), in the Greek city-state of Athens, maldistribution of wealth created
civil strife, as the poor had no choice but to use their own persons as
collateral to secure usurious loans from the wealthy landed aristocracy. The situation remained unstable even after
the cancellation of debts by the famous legislator Solon (in the famous σεισάχθεια, or “shaking off of bonds”) and social unrest continued for decades
in Attica. The law of the Yovel promoted
social justice in the land of Israel, seeking to ensure that all families would
have the economic means of supporting themselves.
I
argue that this insistence on independent means, enshrined in both 18th-
and 19th-century America and in the Torah, is the importance which
we place on one’s ability to provide for oneself as a social goal. We find
this same ethic in the Talmud: Rabbi Yehuda
said, "Anyone who does not teach his son a trade teaches him thievery"
(Kiddushin 30b). In other words, an
inability to provide for oneself leads directly to crime and to social
disorder. It is in the interest of both
the individual and the rest of society that he or she not find him- or herself
with no income, no job, and no assets.
In
our postindustrial society, where virtually all farming is done by large
corporations, and the traditional family farm is a rarity, the ability to
provide for oneself no longer depends upon land tenure. Rather, it depends upon labor: today, about
65% of all personal income in the United States is accounted for by employees’
wages. And labor, that is, the ability
to take and keep a job, depends upon education.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor statistics, the 2011 unemployment
rate for Americans without a high school diploma was 14.1%, the rate for those
with only a high school diploma was 9.4%, the rate for those with a bachelors’
degree was 4.9% (all statistics cover only those over the age of 25). Wages also depend on level of education: the
median annual wage of a high school dropout is $23,452, whereas that of a
holder of a bachelor’s decree is $54,756, more than twice as much.
Yet
the public education system in the United States is in decline today, millions
of Americans lack even high school diplomas, and “young Americans today are less likely than their
parents were to finish high school.”
Public education in the United States is also in decline relative to the
rest of the world: According to a study at Michigan State
University, “A slightly higher proportion of American adults qualify as
scientifically literate than European or Japanese adults.” Our
national level of education is also in decline relative to its own past: in the
late 18th century, the United States had the highest literacy rate
in the world, but a report from the United Nations Development Programme in
2011 ranked it as 10th in the world in literacy. The absolute figures are sometimes
staggering: although there are several different figures as to how many
American adults are illiterate, dependent partially upon the precise definition
of literacy, the National Right to Read Foundation estimated the figure at 42
million in 2002, while the U.S. Department of Education placed it at 32
million, or about one in seven, in 2009.
Although
adult education is a cure such
problems, an improved system of primary and secondary school education is more
effective as a preventative measure
to illiteracy and ignorance. Federal and
state money cannot solve everything: Brazil lavishes money on its very poor
system of public schooling, and yet its literacy rate remains at only 90%. That being said, I strongly disagree with Governor
Rick Perry, who in November made the campaign promise to abolish the Education
Department if elected President. In this
year’s State of the Union Address, President Obama recommended that all states
pass laws that students not be allowed to leave high school until they either
graduate or reach the age of 18; this would be a bold move, but I see its
passage, especially in all fifty states, as highly unlikely. Many point out to the low standards of
teaching in the United States, which I have personally experienced. In my senior year of high school, my
Government teacher, despite having been born in New York, having attended
Buffalo State University, and teaching at Ithaca High School, was able to name
neither the governor at the time (David Paterson), nor his recently-resigned
predecessor (Eliot Spitzer). The woman
to whom my training in civics was entrusted was working a second job as a
waitress, and could think of no lesson plan more creative than showing video
clips from YouTube. Many suggest that we
need is a new generation of passionate, informed teachers. Some members of the Cornell Jewish community
are contributing to this effort: seniors Nate Schorr and Sarah Myers will be
Teaching for America this coming year, and I wish them both all the luck in the
world in the paths that lie ahead of them.
In
John Steinbeck’s classic novel Of Mice
and Men, the story’s protagonists, George and Lenny, dream of a day when
they will no longer labor as migrant workers, living hand-to-mouth, from one
week’s wages to another. I believe that
this American dream, of a time when we might all secure safety under our own
vines and fig trees, is possible only through education. My own grandfather, Bernard Davis of blessed
memory, worked at a printshop by day, and took night classes in order to earn
his degree. He went on to become a high
school math teacher, and was able to send all three of his own children to
college, two of whom now teach. This, in
a sense, was his American dream, and without his hard work to educate himself,
I would not be where I am right now: I do not owe my place here in Cornell to
my own merit. We should be cautious
about being overly prideful in our own talents and accomplishments. As we approach Pesach, the most educational
of all holidays, in which we are instructed to recount our people’s history to
our children, let us bear in our hearts the two-and-a-half-millennium old words
of the prophet Yirmiyahu, which conclude this week’s Haftorah: “Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom,
nor the strong man boast of his strength, nor the rich man boast of his riches.”
(9:22). Rather, we should be conscious
of the roles our teachers and communities have played in our own formation as
mature Americans. May you have a Shabbat
Shalom.~JD
"La position des Italiens vis-à-vis de la Solution finale en Europe a rendu extrêmement difficile l’application des mesures recherchés" [The position of the Italians regarding the Final Solution in Europe rendered the application of the sought-after effects extremely difficult] (Heinrich Müller, as quoted in Serge Klarsfed, La Shoah en France, 234).
