"And Proclaim Liberty Throughout The Land And In All Inhabitants Thereof…" - Leviticus 25:10; "That All Men Are Endowed By Their Creator With Certain Inaliable Rights.." - Declaration of Independence (Summer 1998)

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August 01 1998
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June-July-August 1998



 



And Proclaim
Liberty Throughout The Land And In All Inhabitants Thereof...(Leviticus 25:10)
That All Men Are Endowed By Their Creator With Certain Inaliable Rights..
(Declaration of Independence)



 



That stirring Biblical call memorialized on the Liberty Bell
in Philadelphia Proclaim liberty throughout the land and to All the
inhabitants thereof' (Vayikra-Levicitus 25:10) and which found imperishable
echo in the Declaration of Independence, particularly in its thunderclap
pronouncement, …..that All men are endowed by their Creator with certain
inalienable rights, is the touch-stone of the American democracy.



 



It is the Biblical account of creation, and G-d created man
in His image; in His image did He create Him - male and female did He create
them (Genesis, 1:27) which serves as the sure underpinning of this
encompassing and unchang­ing truth. It speaks to the irreducible worthwhileness
of each and everyone of us- of All humanity - and tells us that however
distant in obvious ways the unlet­tered bowery bum may appear to us to be from
the surpassing moral intellect of a Zaddik and the likes of an Einstein, it is
infinitesimal when compared to how much closer they are essentially to each
other because they - indeed all of us -emerge out of a common ancestor, Adam
who was made in the image of G-d.



 



The Sunday News - Review Section of the Times (5-24-98)
under the head­ing, DNA TEACHES HISTORY A FEW LESSON OF ITS OWN lists
some of the remarkable findings revealed by strands of DNA which very well may
reshape our view of history. One of them, about which we commented last year in
a previous Bulletin was that genetic analysis of the y-chromosome showed a high
transmission of subtle markers among Kohanim who, by definition, descended from
the first High Priest Aaron, which was significantly less preva­lent among Jews
who did not identify themselves as Kohanim.



More startling perhaps, was the finding using the same
analysis of subtle markers that indicated that indeed there was also a single
prehistoric Adam, a human who had a mutation of the y-chromosome which is found
in all humani­ty today save for a few living men in parts of Africa which has
yet to be explained. And, no less spectacular, analysis of DNA markers passed
exclu­sively from mother to daughter have led to similar conclusions about a
single prehistoric proto - Eve.



 



Coincidentally, an article entitled The Most Religious
Century
which appeared in the OP-ED section of that same day's N. Y
Times
addressing the provenance of lib­erty from the vantage point of
political science and theory, recalled that the premier British historian of
liberty, Lord Acton, held that the idea of liberty was coincident with the
history of Judaism and Christianity (whose bottom line assumptions of G-d and
man were taken from Judaism, the mother faith from whence it sprung).



 



Possibly, nowhere else do we find this belief more
dramatically projected than in two Midrashic passages (Exodus Rabba 32:9 and
II), one following almost on the heels of the other and which ought to be
viewed as complementary parts of a whole.



Commenting on the verse And you shall take on the first day
(of Sukkot), the fruit of a goodly tree - the Esrog; branches of palm
trees - the Lulov; and boughs of thick trees - Hadassim, and
willows of the brook - Aravos (Leviticus 23:40) the Rabbis say:



The fruit of a goodly tree (Esrog) - this is HaKadosh
Barukh Hu-
The Holy One Blessed Be He...



The branches of palm trees (Lulov) - This is HaKadosh
Barukh Hu
- The Holy One Blessed Be He...



The boughs of thick trees (Hadassim) - This is HaKodosh
Barukh Hu
- the Holy One Blessed Be He...



The willows of the brook (Aravos) - This is HaKadosh
Barukh Hu
- The Holy One Blessed Be He... (Midrash Vyikra Rabba 30:9)



For each of these astonishing assertions they conjure
credible Biblical support.



But what does it all mean? What apparently transcendent
instruction is meant to be conveyed here?



The answer is provided by the second and far better known midrash,
which fol­lows almost immediately:



The fruit of a goodly tree' - even as the Esrog has
taste and fragrance, so too there are Jews who have learning and good works;
the branches of palm trees' - even as the Lulov has taste but no
fragrance so two are there Jews who have learning but no good works; the
boughs of thick trees' - even as the Hadassim - myrtles - have fra­grance
and no taste so too there are Jews who have good works and no learning; and
finally, the willow of the brook' - even as the Aravos have no taste
and no fragrance, so too there are Jews who are without learning and without
good works. What does the Almighty do to this latter group. To destroy them, He
cannot! So, instead, He ties them together to the other designated species and
in this way they atone for each other. . .(Ibid,30: 11)



 



One can properly wonder: is it right to take the nearly
perfect Esrog with its sweet fragrance and taste - with its learning and
good works - and bunch it together with the Aravos, the boors and the
louts who are altogether bereft of taste and fragrance -who are entirely
without learning and good works?



 



The answer, of course, is that first Midrash. However rich
the Esrog is in learning and good works and however absent of these
attributes are the Aravos - however wide the gap between them
they are nonetheless united together because the Aravos no less than the
Esrog is HaKadosh Barukh Hu, is made in the image of G-d and his
is of the stuff of G-d.



. . .They are endowed (all of them) by their CREATOR with
certain inaliable rights!



 



Rabbi Zevulun Charlop



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    Learning on the Marcos and Adina Katz YUTorah site is sponsored today by Judy & Mark Frankel & family l'ilui nishmos מרדכי בן הרב משה יהודה ע"ה and משה יהודה ז"ל בן מאיר אליהו ויהודית