OzTorah

“Holy” is one of the traditional key-words of religion. There are holy people, holy places, holy days, holy thoughts.

We tend to think that all these instances of holiness are rare and special, but as far as Judaism is concerned every human being can be holy, every place, every day, every thought, every relationship.

The Torah says, anshei kodesh tih’yun li – “You (all of you) shall be holy people to Me” (Ex. 22:30). Translated literally, the Hebrew means, “Humans of holiness shall you be to Me”.

The Kotzker Rebbe emphasised this word order when he said, “First be human, be a mensch – then be holy. A saint without humanity is no saint.”

How does a person become holy? According to the parashah, by observing the dietary laws.

They stand for respect for animals, but even more for respect for oneself. Deciding what to eat and what not to eat is an act of free-will. It says, “I have the capacity to make decisions. I have the courage to say yes and the nerve to say no.”

Doctors play a very important part in Jewish history.

Many of the great Jewish thinkers were also physicians. “My son the doctor” is a famous phrase in Jewish folk-talk.

Maybe it all began with this week’s parashah, with its command to the doctor, v’rappo yerappeh – “He shall surely heal” (Ex. 21:19)… or even earlier, when the Torah put into the Divine mouth the words, Ani HaShem rof’echa – “I am the Lord your healer” (Ex. 15:26).

There is, however, a condition attached to going to the doctor. A patient must not only approach the doctor but also the Almighty.

The Books of Chronicles criticise King Asa (II Chron. 16:12) when he put his trust in the physicians “but sought not the Lord”.

There were two elements of wrongdoing here – Asa did not pray to God, and the doctors forgot that their skill at healing came from God and they were His agents.

When doctors think they can manage without God, that’s when the sages (at end of Kiddushin) declare, “The best of physicians is destined for Gehinnom”.

The doctor must pray to God to guide his or her hands and to remind him or her that the patient is not a mere collection of plumbing and spare parts but a human being created in the Divine image.

There is a terrible danger of dehumanisation in the hands of the doctors.

We should all read a wonderful piece of writing by Abraham Joshua Heschel in his book, “The Insecurity of Freedom”. He says, “In dealing with a particular man I do not come upon a generality but upon an individuality, upon uniqueness, upon a person. I see a face, not only a body; a special situation, not a typical case. The disease is common, the patient is unique.”

He also points out that “It is part of the cure to trust in Him who cures”.

The success or otherwise of the doctor’s ministrations in the last resort is up to God, not the doctor.

In the double phrase v’rappo yerappeh maybe one verb is for the doctor and one is for God.

Q. Does one have a duty to report someone for an alleged crime and, if so, to whom?

A. The question of whether one has a duty to report a person for an alleged wrongful act must always have been a problem since it receives considerable treatment in ethical writings.

The Torah has two rules which define the legal extremities. One is, “Do not go about as a tale-bearer” (Lev. 19:16), and the other, “If you do not tell, you bear a sin on his account” (Lev. 5:1).

Between the two poles there are a number of intermediate considerations such as the motive of the moser. Mesirah (“informing”) goes by many names – “spilling the beans”, “whistle-blowing”, “dobbing someone in”, etc., though each name has its own nuances.

It might be sheer mischief or revenge; on the other hand it might be the well-being of the community, including saving a person from harm (e.g. a child who may be at risk from a pedophile), in which case the Torah says, “Do not stand idly by the blood of your fellow” (Lev. 19:16). The rules and their ramifications are analysed in the Chafetz Chayyim’s work on evil speech.

There is a major question of whom you should tell, in circumstances in which it would be wrong to cover up the alleged act.

In the first instance there is a duty to warn and admonish the alleged offender (Lev. 19:17), but you must be certain of your facts and speak tactfully and objectively.

In a Jewish community you should go to a rabbi, but there may be circumstances that render this inappropriate.

In a democratic society the alleged wrongdoing should be reported to the constituted authorities without concern for the religious or cultural affiliations of the alleged wrongdoers. In particular, a Jew should not feel constrained by the thought of telling something to “the goyim”.

The authorities are there because they are citizens and it is irrelevant whether anyone is a Jew or a gentile. If, for example, a Jew happens to be Chief Justice of an Australian State, he is chief of the State and not the “goyish” judiciary.

True, there have been times of sectarian conflict in which a particular post has been denied to (say) a Roman Catholic, but there are democratic ways of dealing with such problems.

No matter who an alleged offender is, he or she will be dealt with by the normal processes of law in which Jews – like other citizens – might well hold public appointments. The old fear that a Jewish whistle-blower would endanger the Jewish community applied in a different age and different circumstances.

If I may conclude on a personal note, I recall a situation in which someone said to me, “You’re a rabbi, and you want a Jew to go to prison?” My reply was, “Only if he has broken the law!”

He thought it was far from good that Moses was available to the people at all hours of the day: “Why do you sit there by yourself with the people standing before you from morning to night?” he asked (Ex.18:14).

Yitro feared that Moses would wear himself out and had to learn how to ration his time. Working from morning to night was not good for anyone.

Rashi, however, is not nearly as critical as Yitro. He thinks it was good for the leader to be engaged in giving judgment all day long. He took every case seriously and didn’t rush through an issue perfunctorily or impatiently.

It is a lesson that we can all learn when we have a decision to make.

Recently a problem I had at home illustrated the Rashi principle. We had a blocked sink; I called the plumber and told him, “It’s an easy one: it will only take you a minute”.

In the event it took half an hour because the plumber was not prepared to rush through the job without looking at it properly and taking whatever time it needed to solving the problem.

This careful attitude is what Rashi recognised in Moses. Nothing could be rushed, even if it meant devoting a whole day to working things out from morning to night.

After centuries of certainty that the site of Mount Sinai was in the Sinai desert in a no-man’s land between Egypt and Israel, an Israeli archaeologist, Emanuel Anati, thoroughly researched the area and in the late 1980s wrote a book called “The Mountain of God” in which he argued that Sinai was really in the Negev in the wilderness of Paran.

After investigating over twenty theories as to the location of Mount Sinai he was sure that history had got the story wrong and the true Sinai was Mount Karkom in Israel in a place strewn with religious relics.

The validity of his argument is now in the hands of the scholars but if it is true there are a number of major historical implications that need to be addressed.

There is a dimension of the problem that speaks to ordinary human beings, Jews and non-Jews alike. It is suggested by a D’var Torah I heard many years ago on the subject of the burial place of Moses.

The Torah insists (Deut. 34) that “no-one knows his burial place unto this day”. The D’var Torah I heard – and remembered – asserted, “Despite the Torah, I can tell you where Moses s buried. He is buried here in our own community where his Torah is neglected and spurned. That’s where Moses is buried – in our own midst”.

In similar fashion I might say that I know where Sinai is. Wherever the Sinai message is known, loved and heeded, that’s where Sinai is located.

Where is Sinai? Wherever we take it seriously.