Shabbat HaGadol and Yom Kippur: The Inviolate Bed (April & May 1997)

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April 01 1997
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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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    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