Parshat Pinchas and my personal lessons
Some of you probably has already seen this text in my Russian blog, but I decided to repost here for some personal reflection and because I'm planning to post my thoughst on Weekly Parshat (Torah portion) here.
So, under lj cut my presentation on Parshat Pinchas that I delivered in my synagogue on July 11, 2009.
At the beginning of today Parshat, Pinchas, the census takes place, at the end of which the total is given - 601,730 men.
Fellow *** members, dear staff and most welcome guests, since my professional interest lies in the field of accounting, today I’m going to concentrate on numbers.
As you know, the first census of the Book of Numbers gave the count of 603,350. The second population count gives us the lower number. 1820 less men than before. What does it mean?
Negative population growth.
Throughout our history, there were many times when we experienced zero or negative population growth too. The most recent one, Holocaust took the lives of approximately six million people.
However, the numbers can indicate not only our losses; they can indicate our pride too, according to statistics the current population of the State of Israel in December, 2008 was 7,411,000, which gives us hope that the revival even after unbelievable tragedies is possible. But this revival is largely due to incredible faith and commitment to the tradition despite everything.
I would liketo share a story with you. I have a friend, who lives in NYC. Having known my interest in Holocaust, he mentioned about the Auschwitz Torah that is now in Central Synagogue in NYC. I got interested and started my research. This what I found out: this Torah is originally from Oswiencim, a small town, close to the Auschwitz camp. Two days before Nazis came to the town, the Torah was buried in a metal box in the Jewish cemetery , so it could be saved from destruction.Many people tried to locate this Torah after WW2, but without any success. They even started to believe that it was only a beautiful legend about the buried Torah. Up until the moment when the Rabbi Menachem Yolus tried using a metal detector and did his search on the territory larger than the original area of search was, since the territory of the Jewish cemetery shrank in size after the war. Indeed, he did find a metal box where the Torah was but unfortunately it lacked four panels, without which the Torah wouldn’t be kosher. The Rabbi placed an ad in the newspaper about it, and after some time he was contacted by the priest who had all 4 panels. That priest happened to be a born Jew, who was sent to Auschwitz as a child.
These four panels were chosen were carefully. They were:
Ten Commandments from the Book of Exodus. The Ten Commandments contain with it the word Zachor-the obligation to always remember.
the curses that will befall the Jewish people on the day theat God hides His face from us.
The the section from Parshat Pinchas that we read this week that spoke about korbanot-sacrifices, burnt offerings-that were offered to God.
And the last panel contained the Shema.
There was also one more interesting thin gconnected with the numbers: when this Torah was finally restored, Rabbi Youlus looked at at and noticed that the word shamor was missing the letter, vav. The Torah had been originally written without this letter included in it. The vav, has a numerical value of 6, but it also represents the six million.
Now this Torah is kept in the Cenral Synagogue in NYC, and the congregation reads from it on Yom Kippur. Every other year It is taken on a trip to Auschwitz on the March of Living.
I was in Dachau, as a participant of a Youth forum some years ago, I remember one phrase that a Holocaust survivor said while giving his presentation. He said: Numbers are intellectual witnesses that belong only to mankind. Numbers are scary or inspiring. But they are only numbers. We, as Jews, are the ones that make numbers history.
Shabbat Shalom.
Now, my personal lessons:
One of the best advice that my ex-husband#2 has ever given me was the following:
at the time I just graduated from Moscow State University and was starting to teach English. I was trying to find private students but was refusing to advertize. He told me: I personally think that you are a wonderful instructor. But how on earth people are going to find out about you if you don't let me know?
Lesson 1: UInless you exercise initiave and let people know, nobody will know about you. How many times before I'd been sitting and thinking: Oh! Icould have done this better but never actually offered. Unless you try, you will never know.
I was extremely nervous about how people were going to listen and if they were going at all, and the room setting wth the podium in the middle at the chairs around was driving me nuts! I was thinking: My, oh my. I am going to lose half of the audience on the spot because they are going to be seeing my back!
But I was amazed with the people's reaction to my presentation, and how carefully in fact they were listening. And the room setting wasn't that bad after all, if you turn around a bit.
Lesson 2: Don't underestimate people.
Lesson 3: Do the best you can, and don't worry about something if it hasn't happened yet.