This week’s parsha, Acharei Mot, opens with a reference to the tragic loss of Aaron’s two sons stricken down for bringing an aish zara –—“a strange fire” in the Mishkan (Tabernacle). Like other prominent leaders throughout Jewish history, Aaron had to cope with great personal tragedy.
The question is how? How are we to deal with failures and serious setbacks in our lives?
How, for example, did Rabbi Akiva deal with the loss of 24,000 of his beloved students who died suddenly during this time of year? The Talmud tells us: R’ Akiva had twelve thousand pairs of disciples… and they all died during one period because they did not treat each other with respect. And the world was left barren of Torah until R’ Akiva came to our rabbis in the south and taught (the Torah) to them. They were R’ Meir, R’ Yehudah, R’ Yose, R’ Shimon, and R’ Elazar ben Shamua. And it was these later disciples who upheld the study of Torah at that time.” (Yevamot 62b)
When all was lost, Rebbe Akiva started all over again. He looked for others to teach and began anew. He never gave up.
How did Rebbe Akiva do it? How does anyone who goes through a tragic situation get back on their feet? How did so many Holocaust survivors pick themselves up, restart their lives, and in some cases go on to create the modern State of Israel?
I’ve had the great merit of interviewing dozens of survivors who courageously rebuilt their lives after the Shoah, and they all seem to possess two common traits: faith and positive thinking. Those qualities helped them to move on and inspired them with the ability to keep things in perspective.
My friend, Yeshiva University President Rabbi Ari Berman, shared a powerful story. When he was previously the rabbi of The Jewish Center, Rabbi Berman was approached by a group of Jewish singles from the Upper West Side who asked if they could meet to discuss some issues causing distress in their lives. Rabbi Berman said that when he entered the apartment to speak to the group, he felt like he’d been in the home before — but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. The group began to share some of the stressful issues they were dealing with, when after a few minutes, it hit him. Rabbi Berman interrupted the discussion and said: “I’m sorry to interrupt but I just remembered when I was in this apartment last. This was the home of an old-time Jewish Center member who passed away. I remember being here because I visited him when he was sick and alone.” Rabbi Berman continued: “The gentleman, a Holocaust survivor, told me that he somehow managed to wear his tefillin every day when he was running from the Nazis. He lost his wife and children during the war, came to the United States, remarried and started a new family. He came to minyan every day at 7 a.m., always the first one there with his tefillin on. When I used to visit him, he was sometimes in excruciating pain from his illness, but he always remained positive. I never once heard him complain.”
There was silence in the room.
Rabbi Berman apologized for the interruption and asked the group of singles to continue their discussion. As you can imagine, the tone of the conversation changed dramatically. The issues the singles shared were now placed within the context of the man who lived in that apartment before. The difficulties being expressed were real and they didn’t suddenly disappear when they heard the story about the old man, but they were able to see their own situation in a totally different perspective.
We need to realize how blessed we are and for that we need perspective. Perhaps this is why King Solomon famously remarked: “Better to go to a house of mourning than a house of feasting” (Kohelet 7:2). It gives us perspective.
We’re all guilty of not having perspective. Recently, on a Friday before one of our large MJE Shabbat dinners, there was some chaos in the MJE office, dealing with the food, reservations, table assignments and getting everything together in time for Shabbat. The staff started to get stressed out, with people raising their voices, until one staffer finally yelled: “Calm down, it’s just a Shabbat dinner, not a national security crisis!”
Before setting out to confront any life challenge, it is critical to place the given problem in its proper perspective. Whether the issue concerns our professions or our dating or married life, unless we can reasonably place the issue in its proper perspective, everything will feel stressful and insurmountable. Keeping perspective — that’s it’s just a Shabbat dinner, a job or a date — not a life crisis, allows us to think and ultimately act more positively.
May the surviving heroes of the Shoah continue to inspire us to rebuild, and like Aaron and Rebbe Akiva, to never give up.
Shabbat Shalom.
Rabbi Mark Wildes, founder, Manhattan Jewish Experience (MJE), a highly successful Jewish outreach program which engages 20’s/30’s in Jewish life and which has facilitated 383 marriages.
