ב''ה

SERMON RESOURCE FOR SHLUCHIM

ISTRIBUTION ATE D D : TH כח' בשבט ה'תשע"ד/ JANUARY 29 , 2014

PARSHA: תרומה /Terumah

SERMON TITLE:

Who is Willing to Step Down?

Sponsored by Shimon Aron & Devorah Leah Rosenfeld & Family A PROJECT OF THE SHLUCHIM OFFICE In loving memory of

ר' מנחם זאב בן פנחס ז''ל Emil W. Herman  The author is solely responsible for the contents of this document. who loved and supported learning.

Terumah

Who is Willing to Step Down?

Good Shabbos!

How many people are ready to forgo their personal interests for the good of the public?

The name of this week’s Torah portion, Terumah— means to donate. The entire Jewish nation in the desert donated money and goods to the Mishkan, thus putting the public good before personal good.

But giving money is not really the difficult task. How many people would be willing to give up their important position for the greater good of the people?

Let’s go back in Jewish history, to the era of the .

Rabbi Yehoshua ben Perachya was the Nasi, the president, of the , the “Jewish Supreme Court,” in the period of the Zugos, the great pairs of leaders during that era.

Now as it turns out, Rabbi Yehoshua actually had fled to Egypt for various reasons at the time— but the Jewish community asked him to return from there to and lead the Jewish Nation.

The Talmud (at the end of Tractate Menachos 109b) quotes Rabbi Yehoshua as saying: “At first, anyone who said to me, ‘Rise up [to leadership],’ I would put him down and place him before the lion; now, anyone who says to me, ‘Step down [to private life],’ I pour a pot of hot stuff over him.”

Sounds strange, right? But Rashi explains it to mean as follows: At first, Rabbi Yehoshua hated leadership—so much so that if someone suggested to him to become a leader, he would be ready to throw the man to the lions; that’s how much he didn’t want the responsibility. But once he had already risen to greatness, if someone would come along and suggest that he step down from it, he was ready to pour a pot of hot water all over the man.

From here we see that giving up “the seat” is a very tough test that almost no one is likely to pass.

Still, even this did occur in Jewish history. Everyone has heard of Hillel, a very famous name in the Jewish Nation.

The great Jewish Sage and leader Hillel was born in Bavel (Babylon), and thus was called Hillel HaBavli, Hillel the Babylonian. At the age of 40, he immigrated to the Holy Land—and in those days, the Jews of the Holy Land didn’t like the Jews of Bavel. They would belittle them, etc. 2

Many years later, a situation occurred. The Talmud (Tractate 66a) tells us: “The 14th [of Nissan, the eve of ] once fell on Shabbos, and they forgot and did not know if the laws of Passover overrode the Shabbos or not.” In other words, Seder night fell on Saturday night that year, and in the Temple era, the Korbon Pesach (the ) would be slaughtered that day – in this case, Shabbos and its meat eaten during the Seder. But now, the Sages were unsure if sacrificing the Korbon Pesach overrode Shabbos or not.

“They said, ‘Is there no person who knows whether Passover displaces Shabbos or not.’ So they said to them, ‘There is one person who came up from Bavel and Hillel HaBavli is his name; he apprenticed under two greats of the generation: and Avtalyon, and he knows whether Passover displaces Shabbos or not.’ So they sent and called for him, and they said, ‘Do you know if Passover displaces Shabbos or not?’ He said to them, ‘Do we have but one Passover in the year that displaces Shabbos?! Why, we have over 200 that displace Shabbos!’ ” In other words, Hillel explained to them that sacrifices were brought every Shabbos—and if so, why should the Passover Sacrifice not displace Shabbos?

But the Sages didn’t yet accept his words. So the Talmud Yerushalmi (Tractate Pesachim 6:1, 33a) tells us that he persisted and brought many proofs. But they still didn’t accept his opinion, until he said to them, “Thus I heard from Shmaya and Avtalyon.” So when they heard that he had a “tradition,” then and only then did they accept his words.

Now the leaders of the Jewish Nation in those days were the Beseira clan, a respected family whose origin according to many researchers was the city of Betira, which stood next to Mt. Hermon.

But when the Beseira clan saw that Hillel knew more than they did, they stepped down from their mission as leaders of the Jewish people—“and immediately seated him at their head and appointed him Nasi over them, and he would expound the entire day on the laws of Pesach. But he started provoking them with words; he said to them, ‘Who caused it that I came up from Bavel and became Nasi over you? The laziness within you that you did not serve the two greats of the generation, Shmaya and Avtalyon!’ ”

So here you have it that after the Beseiras committed an act of heroism and stepped down from their leadership and appointed Hillel as Nasi, what does Hillel do? He rains rebuke upon them that they weren’t dedicated disciples of Shmaya and Avtalyon! If only they had been more devoted to their rabbis, they would have known the Passover laws themselves!

And so, the question in the study hall was immediately raised: “They said, ‘Master, one who forgot and did not bring a knife [with which to slaughter a sacrifice] before Shabbos, what is the law?’ ” In other words, they asked him what the law is for a person who forgot to bring the specialized slaughtering knife to the Azarah, the courtyard of the Temple before Shabbos. How can he bring the knife over on Shabbos when it is forbidden to carry any object in public on Shabbos? “He said, ‘I heard this law, but I forgot it.’ ”

Further on, the Talmud lays down an interesting verdict based on this story: “Rabbi Yehudah said in the name of Rav: ‘Anyone who boasts that he’s scholarly, his scholarship departs from him…’ [We learn this] from Hillel, for Mar said, ‘He had started to provoke them with words, but then he said to them, ‘I learned this law but then I forgot it.’ ”

3

But still, Hillel was appointed as the leader of the Jews, and in the course of 15 generations, the leaders of the Jewish nation were descended from Hillel—a very rare thing.

On one of the last leaders descended from Hillel, the Talmud Yerushalmi tells us something very interesting. It tells us about Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi, Rabbi Judah the Prince, who was a great leader of the Jewish people and was a close friend of Antoninus Caesar. Additionally, he was a very wealthy man, and it was he who compiled the and who began the writing of the Torah SheBa’al Peh, the Oral Torah.

The Talmud Yerushalmi (Tractate Kilayim 9:2) tells us, “Rebbi was a very humble man and would say, ‘I do everything people tell me to do, except for what the Sages of Beseira did to my grandfather in removing themselves from leadership and appointing him.”

Rebbi said that he was prepared to do whatever he was asked to do—but to compromise on leadership, that he would not do. Nevertheless, he continued and said, “If Rav Huna, the Exilarch, came up here [to the Holy Land], I would seat him above me.”

For one person, he was prepared to give up his seat—for the leader of Babylonian Jewry. If he, Rav Huna, would come up to the Holy Land, he would let him be higher than him. Why? “Because he is of [the Tribe of] Yehudah and I am of [the Tribe of] Binyomin; What he meant by that was that at first, the leaders of the Jewish Nation had to be from the Tribe of Yehudah.

The Talmud continues and says: “Rabbi Chiya the Great once came to him and said, ‘Look! Rav Huna is outside!’ And Rebbi’s face turned ashen; then Rabbi Chiya paused and clarified, ‘His casket has arrived...’ ”

In the history of Chasidism we find a similar story: After the passing of the Baal Shem Tov, the Baal Shem Tov’s son Rabbi Tzvi was chosen as leader of the movement. But after a year, the inner circle saw that he was weak in his powers, and the situation at the moment demanded a leader at the head of the Chasidic movement with spirit in him, a person of strength and fortitude. And the issue caused worry among the Baal Shem Tov’s students.

At the seudah, the holiday meal, on the second day of the holiday of Shavuos, after the first yahrzeit of the Baal Shem Tov, Rabbi Tzvi sat at the head of the table wearing his father’s holy garments with the inner circle sitting around him. After he finished sharing words of Torah, he rose to his full height and said:

“My holy father came to me today and notified me that ‘the Supernal Retinue, along with their servants, who were accustomed to visiting me, transferred today to the Maggid of Mezritch. And so therefore, my son, hand over the leadership in the presence of all the inner circle, and he will sit in my place at the head of the table and you will sit in his place, and know that he will succeed, and there is double in his spirit.’ ”

And while he was speaking, he turned to the Maggid with a “Mazel tov!” blessing, removed his outer garment and handed it to him, and then put on the Maggid’s outer garment and sat down in the Maggid’s place. Immediately, the Maggid seated himself at the head of the table and the entire inner circle stood up to hear the Torah teachings that the new leader would teach.

4

Concerning this story of Rabbi Tzvi, the Rebbe Rashab said, “One needs very great powers to do something like that, for we find with many of the Sages that they did not want to rise to power, but after they had risen…”

So what’s the lesson for us, my friends?

We’re not expecting anyone to give up their official title or their chair. But when it comes to a public matter, we must have the public good versus the personal good before our eyes.

Sponsored by Shimon Aron & Devorah Leah Rosenfeld & Family A PROJECT OF THE SHLUCHIM OFFICE In loving memory of

ר' מנחם זאב בן פנחס ז''ל Emil W. Herman  The author is solely responsible for the contents of this document. who loved and supported Torah learning.

5

6