This week’s parshah, Tetzaveh, is quite unique. Except for the Book of Genesis—whose narrative happened before Moses was born—and the Book of Deuteronomy—which consists of a single sermon by Moses—this is the only parshah in the entire Torah that does not mention Moses’ name. Not even once!
Many Jewish thinkers have proposed different potential reasons as to why this parshah uniquely omits the name of its author. Many point out that this parshah comes shortly after the sin of the Golden Calf, and Moses—when he transcribed the Torah—omitted any mention of his name in order to show that God’s covenant with the entire Jewish people was still intact and was not dependent upon the righteousness of one single person.
Thus, to emphasize the importance of the community, Moses de-emphasized himself.
There is a wonderful lesson that I think every single one of us can learn from this. While each of us as an individual is important in this world and important in God’s (metaphoric) eyes, our community as a whole is even more important. We, the Taiwan Jewish Community, is composed of many different, amazing, individuals. Nevertheless, together, the TJC is much mightier than the sum of its parts.
However, for any community to be greater than the sum of its parts, those parts have to emulate Moses to a certain extant, and emphasize the larger whole—somewhat at their own expense.
Doing so is directly related to a Jewish spiritual practice known in Hebrew as bitul. The word bitul literally means “nullification” and can be translated as “erasing.” Sometimes bitul has negative meanings, such as if you interrupt someone’s Torah study, it is referred to as “bitul torah,” erasing the Torah, canceling out the Torah that the person WOULD have studied had you not interrupted them.
But bitul can also be positive. Similar to how Moses “erased” his name from this week’s parshah, you attempt to “erase” or “nullify” yourself. As modern individuals who have been raised in societies that value individualism, this idea of bitul—of nullifying oneself—can rub us the wrong way a bit. It might even sound a bit scary and totalitarian. But that would be a negative use of the notion of bitul. So, let me give you a positive example to make the matter clear.
This example occurred during the infancy of the Hasidic movement and involves Rabbi Aharon of Karlin (1736 – 1772), student of the the Maggid of Mezeritch,
One night, in the early AM, Rabbi Aharon of Karlin was sitting in his house studying Torah. This was in the late 1700s in Belarus, so although he had no electric heat or even light, Rabbi Aharon made it a personal practice to study Kabbalah, the most mystical side of the Torah at night, by candlelight.
As he is sitting there, engrossed in his studies, he hears a knock at his window. He wonders, who could be knocking at my at this hour, and because he did not want to commit the sin of bitul torah, of interrupting his Torah study, he decided instead of getting up to see who it was, he’ll just call out and ask who is there.
So, he calls out in Yiddish, “Ver klopt es in fester beinacht azoy shpet” (Who is knocking at the window so late?) Ver iz du? Who is it?” The mysterious individual on the other side of the door answers “Ich,” in Yiddish, which means “its me.”
Instead of inquiring deeper into who this “me” is, Rav Aharon just goes back to his studies, essentially ignoring the visitor.
A few moments pass, and again, there is a knock at the window. Again, instead of getting up to see who it is, Rav Aharon asks, “Who is it?” and again, the person on the other side of the door, a little more desperately, in the cold Belarusian night, calls out “Ich!,” “it’s me!”
Unmoved, Rav Aharon goes back to his studies.
A few moments later, there is another knock. This time, the knock is louder, it is longer, as the “mystery me” is beginning to grow impatient. This time, Rav Aharon takes a deep sigh. This is the third time his studies into the secrets of the universe have been interrupted! Yet, again, instead of getting up, he asks, “Who is it?” And, you might have thought that the person on the other side would have taken a different approach, but no, again, he answers—but this time in a very desperate voice as he shivers from the cold— “Ich!” “It’ me.”
At this point,Rav Aharon realizes that the person outside of his house is thicker than the walls of the house themselves—intellectually, so he decides to school him a bit. Instead of going back to his studies, Rav Aharon explains, “Anyone who ever studied at the table of the Maggid, our teacher, would know that there is only one “Ich,” only one “I or me” in this world, and that is the one who declared “I am the Lord your God.”
And with that, the “mystery me” understood, and immediately departed, traveling back to the Maggid’s synagogue to go study more.
So, you see, Rav Aharon knew who the individual behind the door was the entire time. It was one of his friends who also studied under the Maggid, but he had not studied quite as well as Rav Aharon did. The mystery me—whose name we are never told—came to visit his friend, Rav Aharon, and assumed that when he knocked on the door and said “It’s me,” his friend would recognize his voice and automatically let him in! Who here hasn’t done that? Who hasn’t called someone—when there is no caller ID—or knocked on a friend or family member’s door and when they asked who it was, answered “It’s me,” knowing they will recognize your voice.
And while that is not a bad thing for us to do—in this particular story, Rav Aharon felt that his classmate had not learned to practice bitul, self nullification, on a high enough level, and used this visit as an opportunity to show him how full of himself he still was.
So how can WE practice bitul here, if we’re not or knocking on rabbi’s windows in the middle of the night? (Don’t do that by the way, please!) How can bitul be something that WE put into practice?
There are so many ways. I don’t remember who here attended our afternoon Torah study on Yom Kippur, but we explored the three actions that our tradition teaches that can help God forgive us during the high holidays. The first, is teshuvah, repentance. The second, tefillah, prayer. During our Yom Kippur session, we explored the third, does anyone here remember what that was?
Tzedakah, charity. Interesting, right? Teshuvah, Tefilah, and Tzedakah. Repentance, prayer, and charity. When I look at this list, it feels to me that one of these things is not like the others. Resolving to do better—and asking for forgiveness—these totally make sense. That’s how we make amends not only with God, but also with people. So how does charity fit in with the other two on this list?
Our rabbis explain that charity, opening not only your heart, but also sharing what you have earned—is one of the best ways to practice bitul. Why? Our material objects, our bank accounts—we see those as something that WE own, and something that we earned. This attachment, this ownership and entitlement, however, is an illusion.
And interestingly, and most people don’t realize this, it is a mitzvah, a commandment, to give charity, to give tzedakah. It is not considered optional according to the Jewish tradition. In fact, according to halachah, you are required to give a tenth, 10 percent, of all your earnings to charity. The word tithe in English, which means a tenth, comes from the Hebrew word for this mitzvah, maaser, which means a tenth!
So, what does this have to do with bitul? We, as humans, although at our core, we are spiritual beings having a physical experience—yes, spiritual beings having a physical experience—that is what life in this world is—we get so filled up by this sense of our physical selves. It is what seems real to us, although it is only temporary. And our basic survival instincts are always there, always driving our actions.
Our finances are an integral part of this. We can see this from the fact that we refer to our income as our “livelihood,” for think that it is what keeps us alive.
o, taking a bit of our livelihood and giving it to tzedakah is perhaps the most visceral form of bitul, of emptying a bit of ourselves, of deemphasizing the temporary, physical self to make room for the spiritual.
There is a custom, in many communities, to give tzedakah before lighting the shabbat candles. Many people keep a small pushke in Yiddish, a small tzedakah box by the candles in their home, and empty their pockets before they light the candles. According to Kabbalah, there is also a custom of to give tzedakah after reciting the Amidah, after the standing silent prayer. Why? The Amidah was instituted after the destruction of the temple, and was written in order to replace the sacrifices. As a sacrifice is essentially a form of charity, taking an animal from your herd or purchasing one and donating it to the temple, is nothing more—or less—than tzedakah.
So, I pray that all of us can learn how to follow Moses’ example, of putting others before us, and remember the words of Mr. Spock, who, when sacrificing his life to save the enterprise in the wrath of Khan, said the timeless words that, “the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one.”
Shabbat Shalom.
