November 14, 2008

A few years ago during the intifada, the tragedy which seemed to trump all others occurred. Dr. David Applebaum and his daughter, Nava, we killed by a suicide bomber in a Jerusalem café, as they stole a few moments together over coffee the night before her wedding. Her fiancé is someone I know. We lived in his building in Har Nof. They were 'sweethearts' since childhood. Her wedding dress adorned his wall, amidst the tapestry of photos hiding any trace of anything else, until it was recently moved to the holy burial site of our matriarch, Rachel. David Applebaum, a pious, brilliant, learned Jew and doctor - famous in Israel for having revolutionized emergency room/trauma medicine and himself the head of Sharei Tzedek Hospital - was as righteous and beautiful a person as you could find. A student of the great Yeshivos of Brisk. I can still remember the clock standing still when I heard their names over the radio.

An outrage. Anger at God. How could He? Not like this! Not them! I remember an article published by a colleague of his who bore his existential and philosophical crisis to the public. "We must protest to the Almighty, for when the Almighty does wrong, it is incumbent upon us to rebuke", he cried. And his proof - Abraham arguing with God over the destruction of Sodom, which we will be reading this Shabbos. Abraham, though with great humility and caution, "argued" the Almighty down from 50 to 10, the number of "righteous" that could thus save the entire city from destruction. While the ten were never found and the city destroyed, Abraham's stance was successful. However, this columnist raised the following question himself, "Why didn't Abraham protest when asked to sacrifice his only son?" He left it unanswered.

Rav Naftoli Tzvi Berlin answers the question very poignantly. Before the Almighty announces His plan to destroy Sodom, He pontificates, as it were, and asks rhetorically, "Should I hide my ways from Abraham?" As if to say, "If he's meant to be the father of the Jewish nation, he must learn how I work in the world." And what follows is not at all an argument, but rather an intimate lesson on understanding the parameters of God's judgment and providence. This is born out very clearly in the verses. However, by the Akeida (the binding of Isaac, also found in this week's Torah reading), there was no such discourse, but rather a call to action. In my own humble opinion, were Abraham not to have been beckoned to probe and understand the Almighty's ways, he may not have had the resolve and conviction required to stand the greatest test of all. Protest, we don't. Accomplish, we do. Learn, we must. Anger? It's often an understandable reaction. But to understand and internalize God's ways, this is most critical of all. All we have to do then is live it.

We question to understand, to strengthen our resolve. And we stay steadfastly committed to carrying it out.

Good Shabbos,

Rabbi Lynn