April-May 1997
SHABBOS HAGADOL AND YOM KIPPUR
The Inviolate Bed
The
Times Sunday News of the Week section (March 30, 1997) announced
incest, one of humanity's last taboos is taboo no longer. In the short span
of several months only a dozen movies, television drain as and memoirs have
proclaimed incest as the ...Zeitgeist zapping a jaded American
audience. All the traditional bars have been dropped.
It
is against this obscene, even terrifying background, that Shabbos HaGadol, the
Great Sabbath - the Sabbath immediately preceding Passover - takes on enormous
significance. Countless reasons have been given to explain the singularity of
this Sabbath that it alone of all the Sabbaths of the year carries the horrific
designation of Great.
My
father, obm, suggested that the extraordinary distinction bequeathed to this
Sabbath can be found in the very special and exclusive time frame it shares
with Yom Kippur, the holiest day of our calendar - a day especially
denoted as Shabbat Shabbaton - the Sabbath of Sabbaths - and with no
other day.
That
very first Shabbos HaGadol, which took place several days before
Israel's deliverance from Egyptian bondage, occurred B asor Lachodesh -
on the tenth day of the month. That very same expression B asor LaChodesh
is used for the dating of Yom Kippur. To be sure, they both related
to different months. Shabbos HaGadol was on the tenth day of the Hebrew
month of Nissan and Yom Kippur is the tenth day of Tishrei. Tellingly,
both, in their way, are first months. Nissan, is the first month as the
Bible reckons months - the first month of our national history. Tishrei, on
the other hand, is when we celebrate Rosh Hashana, the first month of
our calendar.
My
father, obm, felt that this time identity was not mere coincidence, but that
the genius of our tradition deliberately linked them - Shabbos HaGadol and
Yom Kippur together - a linkage not necessarily or immediately sensed.
It
was on that first tenth of the month, on the threshold of the exodus from
Egypt, that a dispirited, motley and obsequious multitude of beaten slaves
began to take on the character of single and proud entity. For, on that day,
still writhing under the brutal heel of vicious oppression, the Jews were
bidden by a G-d, they still could only inchoately fathom, to muster courage of
an heroic measure and to take the lamb which was the chief deity of their
self-same brutal masters and unceremoniously tie it to the bedposts.
My
father, obm, explained that here was imbedded the surprising bond that links Shabbos
HaGadol and Yom Kippur.
The
Egyptians were consternated - they could not understand why the A-mighty
specifically chose the Jewish people as His people - that He worked in their
behalf the most fantastic panoply of miracles to particularly enable their
redemption - a redemption that would remain forever and powerfully part of the
historical consciousness of mankind. For as far as they could perceive,
morally, there was little to choose between them and the seed of Abraham. And,
indeed, they were nearly right. According to our tradition they plummeted down
the full fifty gates of uncleanness, hitting rock bottom. The Jews
unfortunately were not far behind. They had fallen to the forty-ninth descent,
only one level short of Egyptian depravity. But that one level was all the
difference. With all their faults and sins they maintained their bed inviolate.
Fidelity in marriage remained intact in the face of brute coercion and
barbarous temptation. And because of this they merited deliverance and ultimately
to be chosen G-d's special people. That was the reason they were instructed to
tie the lamb to the bedpost - to proclaim for all the world to know the reason
for their emancipation and election.
This
same moral teaching is underscored on the other tenth day; Yom Kippur Yom
Kippur is likened to a Mikvah by our Rabbis in the Mishnah. Even
as a Mikvah purifies an unwell woman and allows her to return to her
husband's embrace, so too, Yom Kippur purifies the Jew and enables him
to return to the bosom of his Creator. It is for this reason also, just as we
are about to reach the climax of the Holy Day near evening, that the Torah
reading focuses on the litany of forbidden sexual liaisons to emphasize the
transcendent value of morality in the most ultimate relationship between man
and woman and the centrality of the family in the scheme of Jewish survival.
What
a lesson for our time when incest has become palatable and homosexuality a
sacred right - when the outer sanctum of obscene sexual revelations has
replaced the inner sanctum of decent public life and modest private behavior!
Rabbi Zevulun Charlop
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