(Not so) Simple Guy

Not too smart, but he's a nice guy! The seder table includes four characters, one of whom sounds like he's well-suited to that non-compliment. 

The wise son, ah, now there's a bundle of nachas. He's the bright, articulate kid with a probing mind who has his Yiddishe mama convinced he is headed for Fortune 500 or a Nobel prize. Sure, he can be precocious at times, but that's just him expressing his creative side. Jewish parents all wish for such children and are generally convinced that their brood or all of above-average IQ. 

Of course, nobody wants to have a son labelled "the wicked one". He may be "going through a stage", but bubbeleh is not, G-d forbid, going to land up a delinquent. Just as much as Jewish parents wouldn't want their children to turn out "wicked", we usually balk at the thought of any of our kids being labelled "simple".

At the Seder, the "simple" son asks "What's this all about?". You get the sense that he asks the same question annually. He's the embarrassingly socially inept child who keeps banging on at the same silly issues (from "why do we dip a vegetable into salt water" to "who makes the holes in the matzos?"). After all these years, you'd hope he'd come up with a fresh conversation starter, but there he is again with his perennial "tell it to me slowly" routine all over again.

Or maybe we've misunderstood the "simple son". Perhaps his apparently superficial question hides an honesty and humility that we could do well to learn from.

The wise son knows all the facts, nuances and insights (what nachas!), but that is his Achilles Heel. He's so learned that he starts to imagine he knows, he's the authority, he understands. Actually, he's cast his opinions in stone and has no plans to shift them.

Real growth happens when you can look at the same Seder table you have seen yearly since you were a tot and ask "what's this?". Imagine being open enough to say, "I know I learned all about this last year, but are last year's insights all there is to the story? Perhaps I've gotten comfortable with thinking I know what Pesach and its message of personal growth is all about- and maybe that's exactly how I could miss its true message. Last year's Pesach message may have been relevant to last years challenges, but this year has brought new challenges, which means I'll need new insights."

So, let's start again- what is this all about? 

Wanna get close to G-d?

A 60-second thought on the Torah portion- Vayikra.

Are you drinking Pesach Coke?

Now, how do you like that? The only Coke that will be kosher for Pesach this year is being imported from Israel. And the ZAR has just dipped below R9,20 to the dollar. Let's only guess what that Coke is gonna cost. Of course, Pesach without Coke just wouldn't be the same, right? I can picture children of the future sitting at the Seder and saying "This Coke that we drink, for what reason? To remember the cool beverages that our forefathers drank in the desert heat to calm their digestive systems after eating bread that had baked on their backs for a week".

For us Chabadniks, the fact that we couldn't arrange local Pesach Coke didn't rattle us. We only drink water, wine and hand-squeezed fruit juices anyway. Not everybody relates to our minimalist Pesach experience (no processed foods, bone-dry matzah witout avo or peanut butter), although if you've tatsed our Pesach menus, you'll agree the food tastes, well, real.

We are not on a campaign to convert the whole community to have a spartan Pesach either. If Kosher LePesach cakes and chips help you enjoy the holiday more, by all means have them. We only need to stop and think about where to draw the line. Buying in some creature comforts to ease the Pesach process is great. Hiking up the overdraft to do it, not so much.

Pesach is meant to be a unique family time when you congregate over dry matzos and too-sweet wine, as you share the "oldies" like Dayeinu while you revisit the well-traveled story of Exodus and anticipate the quirks of the family members who sit at your table each year.

More importantly, Pesach is premier personal-development time. Pesach is when the small Israelite family was upgraded to the mighty Jewish nation; when the slaves of Egypt became the world's moral compass; when we were catapulted from lowliness to G-d's centre-stage. Pesach is not a past-tense holiday. All these journeys, escapes and spiritual catapults become available for us each year at this time.

There really is nothing wrong with sipping on a קולה at the Seder table, even if it did cost you R20 a can. But the key is to ensure Pesach doesn't become all about that Coke instead of about its spiritual messages and opportunities.  

Time to make a miracle!

Oy! I went wireless :(

Boy, did I feel lost this week! In a Divinely orchestrated perfect-storm, my technological veins were severed one by one. First my Whatsapp died and refused to be reinstalled. So I did a software reload, which killed my BBM and still won’t resurrect Whatsapp. Then my voicemail went and finally the phone itself morphed into a “landline”, because some gremlin drains the battery (even the brand new one) within minutes of unplugging the power source.

Timing is everything, so having my tele-collapse just before heading out of town was tough enough. G-d, in His infinite humour then decided to crash my laptop hard-drive just hours before my wife and I headed off to Cape Town for a pair of weekend weddings.

Cape Town’s crystal blue sky and seas were matched by the cleanliness of a streamlined world-class city. And I couldn't even Tweet about it! When my two year-old dipped his feet into the ocean and fed the seagulls, I couldn’t Whatsapp our family group as I normally would. My blog lay fallow, my Facebook timeline empty and a mob of people now have a faribel because I didn’t take their calls or reply to their text messages.

Don’t get me wrong- that is the recipe for a real holiday- sans technology. But, our coastal excursion wasn’t a leisure trip- I had speaking engagements and weddings to attend to, not to mention a community back home with no idea that their rabbi had been placed on involuntary leave.

My computer is BH back and working better than ever (yes, I back up regularly and so should you). My phone is in its death throes, but I’m hoping for a stand-in until my upgrade falls due- speedily in our days. I feel somewhat reconnected, a feeling similar to the one you get when your generator brings on the fridge and some lights during a blackout. I’m wired again and feeling quite relieved about it.

Feeling disconnected is horrible.

We all need to be plugged in. Each of us is a mobile device with a slick operating system and a string of dazzling apps. But, the newest sensational gadget is useless unless it’s connected to the Network. We only function when we recharge our souls regularly, and we need to stay connected to our community network to keep ourselves abuzz. Nobody wants to be a “great phone” that’s just not online. If you ever feel disconnected, step into Shul, we’ll plug you in.

How to make a rabbi

Einstein is credited with the saying "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limitations". When you read the news, you often get the sense that the genius had a strong point to make. The "Darwin awards" for stupid behaviour certainly have more nominees than the Nobel prize, or even the Oscars.

Take for example the would-be bank robber in the US, who took a liking to the female teller he held at gunpoint, so he left her his number before making off with the loot. Or the Idaho druggie who, instead of calling his dealer for more stash, dialled the detective trailing him. Society seems to have no shortage of fools. We Jews like to imagine that we are from the small percentage of smart people still walking this Earth.

How, then, do we explain the mega-blunder of the Golden Calf? You don't get much more foolish than that! I mean, the Jews had just witnessed firsthand how G-d runs the show and takes down His enemies in no-time. They had just had G-d Himself tell them in earth-shattering terms that they should have no other gods. They were still standing at the site of history's greatest Divine revelation, yet they fell apart and broke the most fundamental law by fashioning an idol.

Nothing about the story makes sense.

As you may imagine, there is no shortage of commentary on this bizarre event. One fascinating perspective is that you'll notice that the people made the Calf because they felt they needed to replace Moses, not G-d(the Torah says they made the Golden Calf because they felt that Moses had abandoned them). Those Jews didn't want to worship a foreign god, it's just that they had a scrambled sense of what a Jewish leader- orrabbi- is.

Moses wasn't always popular (look how many times the people questioned him and complained about his decisions). Moses' job was to teach, guide and coach people in taking on the difficult spiritual challenges (like stepping into a desert, relying on G-d for sustenance, taking on a set of life-governing laws etc.) that they would have preferred to avoid. 

Before they received the Torah, Moses had played the role of saviour- the charismatic hero, who brought them inspiration and the promise of a better life. Moses had stood up for them against Pharaoh, he had dramatically taken them acroos the sea and treated them to excellent food and full Divine protection every day.

Then they got to Sinai. Suddenly, the caring, inspiring, accepting Moses turned into the law-giving Moses who expected you to uphold standards, change your life and conform. Oh, and he wasn't there as you needed him, either. Moses didn't arrive to service the community at precisely the time when they felt that he needed to be there for them.

So, they decided to look for a new leader, someone shaped to suit the community, rather than one who insisted on shaping the community. They wanted the sort of rabbi they could mould to work for them- the type who could be built by gold.

Foolish? 

More likely, fascinating.

A very attractive proposition, they made: Fashion a "golden rabbi". It didn't only happen at Sinai, it's the natural reaction of individuals and communities throughout history. But, it undermines the whole idea of having a rabbi. Jewish leaders are not meant to win popularity ratings as much as they are meant to challenge us, push us and raise us to a higher spirtiual and religious plane. Moses and his successors will always push our buttons, occassionally let us down and always prompt us to move to become better Jews, especially when we no longer feel the urge to improve.

Oy, Oscar!

The nation is in shock. No matter what you think of the Oscar Pistorius story (and there are some very divergent opinions out there), it's an absolute tragedy. Young people, both with promise- lives shattered. It's horrible.

What bothers me most is society's morbid fascination with a story like this. Media seems to thrive on the fallen hero; they're all over the story before there really is a story. Speculation is rife, opinions fly and we all tend to get sucked in. 

It didn't take long for the distasteful jokes to circulate. Opinions and armchair analysis developed quickly over coffee, in school parking lots and through social media. Sure, it's a natural human response to try and make sense of our dismay by talking and reading and listening to newscasts, as we hope to find "an explanation". But, today's news seems to deliver the shock-value too often, too quickly. The gloom-peddlers seem eager to make a buck and raise ratings through other people's torment. 

Interestingly, yesterday's daily Rambam piece focused on "rechilus", gossip or "peddling news". We're all familiar with the Torah's ban on lashon hara, not to speak badly of people, even when the story is true. Conjecture runs the risk of falling into the more odious category of "motzi shem ra", character assassination or libel. But, rechilus is a trait that Judaism despises just as strongly. And all it is is spreading news, sharing the innocent "did you hear?".

Whatever happened out in Pretoria yesterday is tragic, it's a story a life-altering mess that a person can surely never recover from. But, it's also really none of our business. How does it enhance our lives and quest for personal growth to dissect the news reports and callously joke about such an event?

There is really only one thing we should meditate on when such a story flies in our face: Who can claim to be so self-assured to know that they will never make a life-destroying mistake? We would do well to ask ourselves how often we look inward to check that we don't feel overconfident or invincible or deluded enough to imagine that we could never fall. Our response should be humility, gratitude that we have never crashed so severely and heartfelt prayer that we never do.