18 May Faith for the Strong
This week we had an experience of pure, unadulterated light. Rabbi Leo Dee, a man who has experienced a form of unfathomable pain, having lost his wife Lucy, and daughters Maia and Rina, to a horrific terrorist attack in 2023 spoke to our community and to our Year 9-12 students.
What struck me, was that his faith and joy, seemed to surpass that of anyone I knew. He spoke with conviction about the future, about his trust in HaShem and about the deep and rich meaning that he had in life, not despite of, but as a result of the terrible tragedies that befell him.
It reminded me of a paradox I had seen in the writings of Rav Shimshon Refael Hirsch on Parshat Emor. Discussing the law that Cohen could not come in contact with the dead, Rav Hirsch explained that most pagan religions get their strength from the ‘dead’: from the fear and uncertainty that comes from the unknown of what lies after physical life. This is an essentially human phenomenon. When things are uncertain or threatening, we lean in to our religious convictions. In the words of the famous aphorism ‘there are no atheists in the foxholes’. The Cohanim however are forced to buck this trend. They are told to avoid the ‘dead’ and be ambassadors of a form of faith that remains steadfast even during times of prosperity, when things are good, calm and stable. To pray to G-d at night when the shadows lurk is one thing, but to do so in broad daylight, as the bird chirp and friends’ beckon, is another. Rabbi Dee’s message is profound as it shows how one’s faith can be crystalised in the crucible of suffering. What we, who have not suffered like he has, can take from it is, something different – to question ourselves as to whether we can attain that level of joy and connection to HaShem even when we are blessed to not have endured such suffering.
Judaism is ‘this worldly’ – our focus is not on the afterlife and on the rewards that await there, even though we do believe in the afterlife and that every deed has its reckoning. Our aim is encountering G-d not in the fog of night and in the whirlwind of sorrow, but in the clarity of day and the affluence and comfort of ‘the good life’.
May we be blessed with the courage to live health and happy lives, infused them with a deep commitment to and awareness of our Creator.
Rabbi Chaim Cowen
