Parshat Ki Teitze – 5779
Rabbi Shaanan Gelman
Returning Lost Faith
My driveway has space for two cars at its end. My wife typically parks her minivan on the
right side, and I park on the left side.
If ever one of us encroach too far over the imaginary line in the center
it becomes much more cumbersome and difficult chore to navigate in and out of
the spot. The other day I pulled up to
the house, prepared to veer to the left into my customary spot when I noticed
that the van was over the line by a good foot or two. Now, being that it is the month of Elul and I
want to work on my middos I resolved to myself to not say a word…what an
incredible show of restraint and self-control, I thought to myself.
Anyway, the day went on, and I had to pull out of the
driveway several times as the van remained parked – and each time I had to
fight the urge to express my frustration.
Each time, I heroically overcame the yetzer hara.
At the end of the day, we were headed out together to attend
a wedding, and I was quietly celebrating my accomplishment, as Tziporah would
have to observe how tight a squeeze it was to fit the car in, she would learn
her lesson and I wouldn’t have to be the bad guy! At this moment of vindication, I took a
little victory lap in my mind. Just
then, she turned to me and said in the kindest tone “Shaanan, next time you
borrow my van, would you mind parking it a little bit further to the right!”
There is a natural assumption we live with that when
something is off with the world around us that blame lies with the other
person. This challenge exists primarily
because we are most reticent to point the finger inward and examine where we
veered off course, but also because our read of others is skewed.
From our experiences and our observations, our capacity to
trust in others, to see the best in them, has become tarnished.
I was speaking to an old friend the other day who lost a
client after years of investing in the relationship. What devastated him was not the loss of
business per se but the way it happened – a competitor snuck in and offered a
sweeter deal or better rate on a mortgage and the loyal client was lured
away. The former client did not come
back to him and give him a chance to counter nor did he bother to say
goodbye. My friend confided in me that
the heaviest casualty was the loss of trust, in his client and in
everyone. Trust is a much more difficult
thing to recover.
Jewish tradition doesn’t hand us a panacea to address this
concern. Instead it gives us little
mitzvot, incremental acts designed to correct a tiny corner of the universe and
set it back on track.
One such mitzvah is that of השבת אבידה, returning a lost object.
The Torah states:
דברים פרק כב
(א) לֹֽא־תִרְאֶה֩ אֶת־שׁ֨וֹר אָחִ֜יךָ א֤וֹ אֶת־שֵׂיוֹ֙
נִדָּחִ֔ים וְהִתְעַלַּמְתָּ֖ מֵהֶ֑ם הָשֵׁ֥ב תְּשִׁיבֵ֖ם לְאָחִֽיךָ:
(ב) וְאִם־לֹ֨א קָר֥וֹב אָחִ֛יךָ אֵלֶ֖יךָ וְלֹ֣א יְדַעְתּ֑וֹ
וַאֲסַפְתּוֹ֙ אֶל־תּ֣וֹךְ בֵּיתֶ֔ךָ וְהָיָ֣ה עִמְּךָ֗ עַ֣ד דְּרֹ֤שׁ אָחִ֙יךָ֙
אֹת֔וֹ וַהֲשֵׁבֹת֖וֹ לֽוֹ:
(ג) וְכֵ֧ן תַּעֲשֶׂ֣ה לַחֲמֹר֗וֹ וְכֵ֣ן תַּעֲשֶׂה֘ לְשִׂמְלָתוֹ֒
וְכֵ֣ן תַּעֲשֶׂ֗ה לְכָל־ אֲבֵדַ֥ת אָחִ֛יךָ אֲשֶׁר־תֹּאבַ֥ד מִמֶּ֖נּוּ
וּמְצָאתָ֑הּ לֹ֥א תוּכַ֖ל לְהִתְעַלֵּֽם: ס
1 Thou
shalt not see thy brother's ox or his sheep driven away, and hide thyself from
them; thou shalt surely bring them back unto thy brother. 2 And
if thy brother be not nigh unto thee, and thou know him not, then thou shalt
bring it home to thy house, and it shall be with thee until thy brother require
it, and thou shalt restore it to him. 3 And so
shalt thou do with his donkey; and so shalt thou do with his garment; and so
shalt thou do with every lost thing of thy brother's, which he hath lost, and
thou hast found; thou mayest not hide thyself.
At first blush, the mitzvah of
Hashavat Aveidah would seem to be a corrective, a way to enforce civil conduct,
caring for other’s possessions. Most
legal systems do not go as far as ours – there is such a thing as a Good
Samaritan law which provides legal protection to individuals who go out of
their way to provide reasonable assistance to those in peril or who are
injured. In other words, you won’t be
harmed for trying to be a decent person. Should something go wrong, God forbid,
in your attempt to intervene and save a life, you will be granted immunity.
While this encourages a culture of kindness, Judaism takes it
one step further; you must return a lost object, you are required by
law to go out of your way. For this reason there are two distinct mitzvot (Sefer Hachinuch תקלח and תקלט), a
positive commandment and a negative one…לא תוכל להתעלם, you
mustn’t avert your eyes and declare “sorry, it’s not my problem!”
The Baal HaTurim, Rabbi Yaakov ben Asher
adds another dimension to this mitzvah, emphasizing the psychological
and emotional perspective of the person who lost a treasured item:
בעל הטורים דברים פרק כב פסוק ב
ד"א החושד בכשרים לוקה בגופו (שבת צז א) ומי שאבדה
לו אבידה חושד בכל אף בכשרים ולוקה בגופו בצרעת.
One who loses
an object begins to grow suspicious of others, even those who are entirely
innocent!
Everywhere
the baal ha’aveida turns he assumes the worst… “that person stole
it…maybe that one stole it…” He becomes
increasingly sarcastic and distrusting.
When you can’t find your keys, your purse, glasses or the remote control
– everyone is to blame, the presumption of innocence is removed. And the anger metastasizes over time as the
item remains lost. A recent study
reported that, on average, we spend 2.5 days of our year searching for missing
items! “The study also shows that 60% of people have
either been late to work or school because of lost items, followed by 49% who
have missed appointments or meetings, and even 22% who’ve missed flights,
trains, or bus rides. Turns out misplacing things can be more than just
expensive; it’s a major time drain too.” [1]
While this is
all taking place, the world is less trusting, everyone we know is a source of
distress and a reminder of the imperfections which abound.
But the Baal
HaTurim reminds us that something remarkable takes place when we engage in the mitzvah
of hashavat aveida:
ונמצא כשתאסוף
האבידה לביתך ותחזירנה לו, אז לא יחשוד עוד באחרים ותאסוף אותו מצרעתו:
You stop
treating everyone as a criminal, with your credit cards and ID, your faith
in humanity has been restored!
This is the
potential of a tiny mitzvah – the whole universe is corrected, people
are kinder, animosity fades away.
I want to
share an incredible story about a friend and colleague, Rabbi Akiva Males of
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania:
The story
begins at the tail end[2] – the
emcee, a relative of the bride or groom announces “Mechubad (honored) with the
sixth blessing, Rabbi Akiva Males, Mara D’atra of Kesher Israel Congregation in
Harrisburg Pennsylvania, Hashavat Aveida extraordinare, mailer of the package
and accidental shadchan of the chassan and kallah” - the crowd erupts in a huge round of
applause, Rabbi Males gets up and with a beaming smile recites the words “שמח תשמח רעים אהובים” before a couple whom he had never met before in his life. What brought him to the wedding of Josh and
Margot Botwinick?
Months
earlier Rabbi Males was going around his shul on the night before Pesach, with
his father, visiting for Yom Tov, decided to accompany him on this lonely
task. In the seldom used coat room, on
the top shelf, they saw a backpack which his father helped him to recover. Upon opening the bag, they noticed -there was
no ID per se, but there was a post card from a girl names Margot, written to
Josh – who was obviously spending a summer at Camp Stone. He surmised that since every summer a group
of campers and staff pass through Harrisburg, this backpack must have been
inadvertently forgotten the previous summer.
With nowhere to mail the bag in the month of April, and no last name for
Josh to look up his address, Rabbi Males elected to ship it off the return
address on the postcard, Margot’s house.
Margot and
Josh met several years earlier in Camp Stone, they hit it off and dated for two
years, but neither were ready for the commitment so they broke it off, went
their separate ways, and dated other people.
Then the bag
arrived in the mail. It took Margot a
few minutes to figure out the owner of the mysterious package. Once she realized it belonged to Josh she did
something she hadn’t done in three years – she texted him - "Hey Josh”, she wrote, “funny story- I received a
package that was meant for you. If you want, you can come pick it up."
Well, he did. Slowly they went through the contents of the bag, reminiscing. They filled each other in on what they’ve been up to. It was a lovely conversation, long overdue. The next day, Josh asked her out.
Well, he did. Slowly they went through the contents of the bag, reminiscing. They filled each other in on what they’ve been up to. It was a lovely conversation, long overdue. The next day, Josh asked her out.
Five
months later he bought Margot a ring, she was led to the spot they met half a
decade earlier discovering the bag that came in the package, only this time it
said “Will you marry me?” on it.
When I read this story published in OU’s
Jewish Action[3]
I gave him a call and he was able to confirm the story. He told me about an important postscript –
the Botwinicks are currently serving as the
JLIC couple
in IDC College in Herzliya – they inspire hundreds of students each week
through Shabbos experiences, Torah study at all levels, in-reach and outreach
work. Today, Rabbi Males serves as the
Rav of YI of Memphis, and a number of his congregants are studying at IDC
Herzliya, learning and growing from the hadracha of the Botwinicks!
מצוה גוררת מצוה, the power of one tiny action – to bring a couple together and
to restore our faith in love and human goodness!
Possessions
aren’t the only way to restore our faith in humanity, meeting decent and kind
people is an even more powerful way to do so.
People who act in a noble, honest and kind fashion – not only make you
feel great in the moment, but they convince us that the world is a kinder
place, that God’s greatest experiment was not an error in judgment.
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