My friend and colleague Rabbi Howard Zack of Congregation Torat Emet in Columbus Ohio shared with me this unbelievable story that took place before his eyes 25 years ago. He was the rabbi of Mr. Ernest Hollander in Oakland, CA.

Mr. Hollander, unlike many Holocaust survivors, was willing to tell anyone his story. Born in 1925 in Ochuwa, Czechoslovakia, he was the scion of a family of rabbis, dating back to the Spanish Inquisition until the line abruptly ended with the  Shoah (the family was originally Sephardic, but moved to Holland during the Spanish expulsion of 1492; the name Hollander was assumed to reflect that fact upon their return back to Eastern Europe). Mr. Hollander survived the War and married on November 29, 1947, the day the United Nations voted to create a Jewish homeland.

After the War, Mr. Hollander was told of his brother Zoltan’s demise by a friend who personally witnessed Zoltan’s execution in 1944. He was hanged from a tree by Nazi soldiers. Or so it seemed. In reality, unbeknownst to Ernest, Zoltan fell alive from the tree, and played dead, until he could escape. After 10 years of forced exile in Siberia, he made his way to Kragujevic, Yugoslavia, earning his living as a printer. Zoltan had been under the impression that his two brothers perished in the War. He had no idea that he had two brothers living in Northern California.

In 1991, Ernest accepted an invitation to ‘debate’ a Holocaust denier on the Montel Williams Show. Many of Mr. Hollander’s family members told him not to debate this man, but he never turned down an opportunity to remind people of the horrors of the Holocaust. The day the show aired, a migrant Serbian living in Brooklyn stayed home to care for his children, and turned on the Montel Williams show. He recognized Ernest as the ‘spitting image’ of a friend he knew in Serbia named Zoltan (Hersh) Hollander. The Serbian contacted both Mr. Hollanders, both brothers were told the good news and the reunion took place on the stage of the Montel Williams Show on November, 17, 1992. Ernest Hollander said, “This man has come back from the dead. We thought he had been dead for fifty years. I found a brother, but he found two brothers, uncles and aunts, nieces and nephews -- a city of people," adds Ernest, who calls their reunion "the greatest miracle since Moses crossed the sea (see the write-up from the Institute for Historical Review’ - http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v13/v13n1p45_Weber.html and the obituary for Mr. Ernest Hollander a’h in July of 2002 - http://www.jweekly.com/article/full/18192/holocaust-survivor-lecturer-ernie-hollander-dies-at-77/). Rabbi Zack told me that when Zoltan came to San Francisco to see his brother’s home and community, the whole shul met him at the airport and sang and danced to welcome the beloved brother of their long time gabbai. He told me that there was barely a dry eye in shul on Shabbos when Ernest called up his brother for an aliyah, which served as his bar mitzvah, since the war broke out when Zoltan was about 12 years old.

I am fascinated at the thought of two elderly men who shared a fraternal bond for a short part of their youth and tried in their autumn years to ‘catch up.’ After the reunion, Ernie Hollander said that the brothers spoke every day on the telephone. The brothers share a bond despite the decades of absence from one another. The familial or fraternal bond is inherently resilient.

Parshas Acharei Mos describes in great detail forbidden relationships between family-members. Although anthropological study reveals that every society prohibits incest - or at the very least considers it taboo - does the Torah consider these forbidden relationships as chukim, laws we follow even without logic, or mishpatim, statues we avoid for obvious reasons? The Ramban opines (differently from the Rambam and Ibn Ezra) that indeed the arayos (forbidden relations) are chukim. Others disagree with the Ramban and indeed offer rationales.

All agree that marrying within the family is condemned wholly, internationally and strongly. Noted 20th century social anthropologist Branislaw Manilowski writes as follows (I saw this mentioned in a shiur by Rabbi Elchanan Samet):

"In every human culture we find first of all some well-defined taboo systems, strictly separating the two sexes of whole groups and not allowing contact between them. The most important prohibition prevents any possibility of marriage between close relatives of the same family… The second most important law of the taboo of forbidden sexual relations concerns adultery ("the wife of a man"). While the aim of the first prohibition is to protect the family, the second protects marriage."

Yet, points out Rabbi Meir Simcha of Dvinsk in his Meshech Chochmah, the Jews craved incestuous relationships in the desert and cried when they were outlawed (see Rashi to Bamidbar 11:10). Similar tears were shed in the days of Ezra (see Nechemiah 7:61 and Kiddushin 70a). There was a time when this desire existed. Therefore, concludes the Meshech Chochmah the Torah warns us ‘I am HASHEM your God’ (Vayikra 18:2), implying that He created man and understands what we crave and also what we can control.

Can we believe that there was, at some time, a natural desire to marry such close relatives?

The Ramban writes:

"ומה יזיק אם ישא את בתו לבדה שמותר לבני נח, וישא שתי אחיות כיעקב אבינו. ואין לאדם נישואין הגונים כמו שישא את בתו לבנו הגדול ממנה וינחילם בנחלתו ויפרו וירבו בביתו כי הארץ לא תהו בראה לשבת יצרה  (ישעיה מ"ה:י"ח)"

“And what harm would there be if a man would marry only his daughter, just as was permitted to the Noachides, or marry two sisters as did our patriarch Yaakov? A person also could not do better than to give his daughter in marriage to his elder son, and they would inherit his possessions and multiply and increase his house for ‘He created not the earth a waste, He formed it to be inhabited’ (Yishayah 45:18).

Rav Yitzchak Arama (1420 to 1494 in Spain), author of Akeidas Yitzchak, declares that every civilized, healthy and normal society finds incestuous relations to be completely anathema. Why? Because HASHEM removed the desire from us. He offers a proof from Parshas Kedoshim.

"ואיש אשר יקח את אחתו בת אביו או בת אמו וראה את ערותה והיא תראה את ערותו חסד הוא ונכרתו לעיני בני עמם, ערות אחתו גלה עונו ישא" (ויקרא כ:י"ז)

“A man who shall take his sister, the daughter of his father or the daughter of his mother, and he shall see her nakedness and she shall see his nakedness, it is a disgrace (chesed) and they shall be cut off in the sight of the members of their people; he will have uncovered the nakedness of his sister, he shall bear his iniquity” (Vayikra 20:17).

While Rashi first explains the word ‘chesed’ here as deriving from the Aramaic language ‘chisuda’ which means ‘disgrace,’ he then provides a second more historical reason. When Kayin married his sister (since there were twins born with Kayin and Hevel according to the Midrash), HASHEM performed a kindness to them to allow for procreation; but for the rest of us it is not permitted. This episode, argues Rashi, is referred to in the statement in Tehillim (89:3), ‘olam chessed yibaneh’ (the world will be built through kindness). The Akeidah explains that the term ‘chesed’ in the context of incest alludes to the kindness HASHEM performed by programming in us to find this relationship to be disgusting and undesirable.

The hava amina (initial intellectual argument) of the Ramban, which of course he rejects, should not be ignored. We are hard-wired to turn askance from such a marriage. But from a purely rational glance, it can make sense. The couple need not argue to which in-laws they will go for Sukkos, or Pesach or Thanksgiving. There are only one set of in-laws. The young woman will remain a part of her family; her name will not change. The shidduch should be fairly easy; they’ve known each other their entire life. They know what color table-cloth they use Friday night, if their dining room set has a complete set of matching chairs, if robes or dresses are worn Friday night and all the other important shidduch-related questions.  While we reject the abhorrent notion from the bottom of our hearts and the depths of our mind, there is some rationale to it.

I once heard someone advance that it’s important for families to mix. Were brothers to marry sisters, clans and extended families would not be created. Young men and women would have to depart from their comfort zone within their family and meet other people with differing customs and perhaps even values. In-laws have to learn how to share, and how to love one-another, even before they have common grandchildren. Children should have two sets of grandparents, from whom they can learn great lessons. Part of the celebration of marriage is to bring two families together, not to remain secluded and elitist.  Manilowski said it so profoundly: we aim to protect both the families and the institution of marriage.

At the culminating moments of the Yom Kippur service (mentioned in the beginning of Acharei Mos), when the holiest moment, holiest person and holiest place on earth live in perfect harmony, the Torah records:

"וכל אדם לא יהיה באהל מועד בבאו לכפר בקדש עד צאתו, וכפר בעדו ובעד ביתו ובעד כל קהל עדת ישראל" (ויקרא ט"ז:י"ז)

“Any person shall not be in the Tent of Meeting when [the Kohen Gadol] comes to provide atonement in the Sanctuary until his departure; he shall provide atonement for himself, for his household, and for the entire congregation of Israel” (Vayikra 16:17). The Mussarist writings note the order of the end of the verse. First one must seek atonement for himself. Once he has attained that, he must request forgiveness for his family. Once that has been granted, he may turn his focus to all of Israel. Before a Jewish leader can make changes in all of Israel, he must work to inspire and grow himself and his family.

We see the power of the connection of family, the need to create family and of the vital nature of the stability of families. We noted the power of brotherly love, and cited our sages how our ancestors cried when incest was outlawed. There are times to look inward – i.e. blood is thicker than water – but there are also times to meet others and expand our families. As with so many areas of life, we need to find the balance. There is nothing more important than family, but the Torah mandates quite forcefully, that there are times when family must be avoided.