Words From Rabbi White

I’m not a news junkie, but I often listen to the news when eating, or washing dishes, or driving. This past Sunday, I heard 4 times about an indigenous man who attaches electrodes to his plant, and connects to a computer. Thereby, he is able to translate the impulses into sound, which comes out through a speaker as music.  The man explained that in his tradition, there is life in everything.

I said to myself, wow!  There is a verse in Psalms, that we say every Friday night, ‘az yerannenu kol `atsei ya`ar, i.e., the time will come when all of the trees of the forest will sing. We usually understand that figuratively, but maybe it really should be understood literally. And, of course, there is pereq shirah (which, according to scholarship, dates from the 10th century) which describes the songs of all of nature.

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And speaking of song: this past Thursday was Lag ba`omer, the 33^rd day of the Omer period. This holiday particularly remembers Rabbi Shimon bar Yohai, who had to hide in a cave from the Romans, who were ruling over the land of Israel in the 2^nd century. What was he doing in a cave?  Well, we are all aware of political polarization: the left vs. the right.  This is nothing new! The Talmud in tractate Shabbat (ironically in folio 33) relates that there was a great divergence of opinions among the rabbis as to how to relate to Roman rule.

Rabbi Yehudah praised the Romans for their many improvements in the Land: fixing market places, bridges, and bath houses (remember: there was no running water in those days!)

Rabbi Shimon bar Yohai vociferously disagreed. He felt that the Romans couldn’t care less about the Jews. All of the “improvements” where only for the benefit of the Romans: the bridges were repaired in order to collect tolls, the markets set up for… well, I won’t mention!!

R. Yossi kept his silence. (Either because he didn’t have an opinion, or maybe he just didn’t want to antagonize one of his colleagues) The Talmud relates that when the Romans got word of the varied positions, they rewarded R. Yehudah. But they banished R. Yossi to the city of Sephoris, and they issued a warrant that R. Shimon should be killed. That’s why R. Shimon and his son had to go into hiding.

So, we see that polarized political opinion is nothing new!

Shabbat shalom, let’s hear only good news!