Within one week we are overwhelmed by the sadness over the loss of those millions who perished at the hand of the Nazis, yemach shemam vezichronam, awed by the heroism of the soldiers of the Israel Defense Force and emboldened by the celebration of the existence of the State. Last evening, we, as a community, memorialized the victims and vociferously declared, in word and in deed, that we are survivors. This coming week, we will recognize the dedication and sacrifice of our Israeli soldiers through education and a tzedakah campaign. Twenty-four hours later, we will celebrate Israel with a march at 2:30 pm from MHA, up White Station Road, down Laurie Lane, down Yates and into Baron Hirsch Congregation.
These days of remembrance and celebration are fraught with emotion particularly because they commemorate events that are fresh in our national consciousness. What makes this week challenging – besides for the intensity of emotion – is the roller-coaster nature of the emotions. How can we successfully navigate this week without succumbing to schizophrenia?
This question is underscored by the fact that the events that we are commemorating did not occur over a century or even a lifetime. They occurred in less than a decade. How can it be that the Jewish People rose, within three years, from the depths of the Holocaust to form their own sovereign state in our ancestral homeland?
I would like to consider this question from a lesson from the end of this week’s parasha.
The Torah writes, “For I am Hashem your G-d – make yourselves holy and you will be holy, for I am holy …”
Our chachamim address the obvious duplication of the language of the verse – make yourselves holy and you will be holy – in a comment in Masechet Yoma. Our Rabbis explain that if a person makes himself holy a little bit, they will make him very holy.
Our Rabbis have a number of approaches to explaining how this principle works.
Some explain that G-d greatly rewards a person who makes himself holy – particularly through refraining from eating non-kosher food – with a great spiritual reward – even more reward than he or she would normally deserve.
Rabbi Baruch HaLeyve Epstein in his commentary on Chumash – Torah Temima – connects this statement to another widely known dictum of our Rabbis – one mitzvah drags along another mitzvah. That there is truth in this principle is borne out by experience. I will often advise students who are looking to grow in Torah observance to pick one mitzvah to perform regularly. Often, the attention to this one mitzvah leads to growth in other mitzvot, as well.
But, how does one Mitzvah drag along another? What is doing the dragging? Why does this principle work?
I would like to propose an answer based on a comment made by the medieval scholar, Rabbenu Yonah of Gerona.
Hashem created man with a specific feature that drives this mitzvah-dragging phenomenon. A mitzvah-performance resides at the union of intention and act. When a person makes an initial commitment of thought and energy into performing a mitzvah, this commitment initiates a routine that leads to further mitzvah performance. The same is true when a person commits a sin. A routine is built by one combination of intention and resulting act.
Man is dynamic. When a person puts his or her energy into an effort – the person is changed – now, he or she has momentum in a certain direction. This momentum drags along a new mitzvah in the wake of the previous mitzvah. This feature – that we are creatures of momentum and not static beings – explains how a person can make himself holy just a little bit and result is that he or she is made very holy. With just one intent and act of holiness, a person puts him or herself on a path of holiness – all attributable to that original act of mitzvah.
How was it possible that the State of Israel was borne – so quickly – out of the horror of the Holocaust? Surely, there are many answers.
One explanation is that the Rabbinic dictum that a person who makes himself holy a little bit will be made very holy, also operates on a national level. When individual Jews make themselves holy – even in a small way – the entire nation is made greatly holy.
Perhaps the cumulative small acts of holiness performed by countless upon countless Jews – acts such as ones that were recalled at last night’s program and acts of heroism performed by those who fight in support of Israel – created the momentum to build a homeland for the Jewish People.
How do we successfully navigate this week of memorials? The lesson of this week is that even a small initiative of holiness or of mitzvah can have far-reaching consequences that could not have been imagined.
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