KI SISSA 1994

In the Torah portion Ki Sissa we learn about many things.  We especially learn about the sin of the golden calf, but it is strange that in this Torah portion we also have the verse, You should not see the kid in its mother's milk."  This seems completely out of context.  This is, of course, one of the-three times in the Torah that it mentions that we are not supposed to mix milk and meat, and we learn that not only are we not supposed to cook milk and meat but we are not supposed to eat it and we cannot have any benefit from it at all.  It seems strange that out of the clear blue we would learn this particular law here.  We can understand learning this law when we learn other kosher laws, but why should we mention it in this Torah portion at all?

It seems to me that the reason why this law is mentioned in this Torah portion is because the mixing of kosher milk and kosher meat is the highest form of treifkite.  If you want to get the highest level of non-kosher it is not by buying ham or pork or shellfish but by buying two perfectly kosher objects and mixing them in an inappropriate way.  In fact, there is nothing you can even do with this mixture of milk and meat once you have cooked it.  You cannot even give it to your dog.  Basically you just have to throw it away.  There is nothing that you can do with it, which is different than regular non-kosher products.  If you have, for example, in your possession non-kosher meat you can sell it to a gentile.  In fact, that is what happens many times in slaughterhouses where that meat from that part of the animal which we do not eat we sell to gentiles and they are allowed to eat it so, therefore, we can benefit from it.  We cannot eat it ourselves but we can benefit from it, but when It comes to the mixing of milk and meat we can have any benefit from it at all.  This seems very strange.  Why should the putting together and cooking of two kosher objects cause such a high level of treifkite that we cannot have any benefit from it at all while something that is naturally not kosher, like pig or shellfish, we can benefit from it?  We cannot eat it but we can benefit from it.  In fact, someone once asked me the question, can a Jew own stock in MacDonald's because, after all, they serve cheeseburgers there and that is the mixing of milk and meat?  If you are a stockowner you are going to get profits based upon the mixing of milk and meat, so how is that possible that a Jew could own stock in MacDonald's?  I, of course, answered him by saying that MacDonald's is different.  MacDonald's does not have kosher meat and, in fact, for some period of time there was some doubt that it had much meat at all, but it uses non-kosher meat with non-kosher cheese so there is no problem whatsoever.  Even if it used kosher cheese and non-kosher meat they are not two basically kosher items from the beginning.  They have to be basically two kosher items from the beginning and when you mix them together in an inappropriate way then you come out with the highest form of treifkite.

Kashruth teaches us many things on many levels, Kashruth teaches us, first of all, that what we eat counts.  It does something to us, and, besides that, we learn that we have to control our appetites, that, by and large, Jews throughout the years have not been alcoholics because we knew that we could not take in and imbibe anything we wanted to, that we could only eat certain things at certain times.  Kashruth also teaches us many other basic principles of life, and one of them is that the highest form of evil is actually done by people who think they are doing good.  They take two good principles but they mix them together inappropriately and that causes a great deal of evil and harm to occur in the world.  In fact, this country knows about it.  This country despises ideologues and if a crook or an ideologue will run for political office invariably the crook will win because we do not trust ideologues.  This country is based on limited government.  We are not really a democracy because a democracy is a terrible form of government.  A democracy means that whoever has the majority rules and if the majority decides that all.  Jews should be killed then all Jews should be killed.  In fact, that is what happened in Germany.  Hitler won an election.  He was elected democratically as the head of the German government and just because the majority decide on something does not mean that it is true.  In this country we say that the government is limited, that there are certain areas that it cannot legislate in, for example, freedom of religion.  They cannot restrict my ability to express my views.  I am not going to go through the whole Bill of Rights here now, but we know that this country is great because it limits what government can do.  It is afraid of giving power to people who have ideals and ideas because this country is afraid that these ideologues will try to stuff their ideals down our throats even if we do not want them.  Of course, this was the whole problem with the religious wars in Europe.  In fact, in 1618 and 1648 almost all the males of Germany were wiped out and this so impressed western culture that they decided at least in America that they would separate forever ideology, which was associated mainly with religion, and power.  Of course, we see the terrible things in this century of combining ideology and power.  Stalin killed 20 million people trying to push communism down the throats of the Russian people, and Hitler killed an equal number of people.  He, of course, killed 6 million of our own people for no reason, just because he was ideologically committed to this particular position.  So ideas have a strange power, a power which causes us to suspend all mercy, which causes us to feel that we can act in violation of all moral laws, and especially when you put two ideas together which each one of them is kosher by itself but when they are put together in a non-kosher way then they, of course, cause great hardship.

That is what we learn about in this week's Torah portion, too, when we learn about the fact that the Jewish people worshipped idols.  Now they had two ideas, both of which were good.  One idea was that Moshe seemed no longer alive anymore and, therefore, they needed a leader so they wanted a leader.  They decided that the way they would choose their leader was the way they learned in Egypt.  They would choose a leader based upon their fantasies.  They would fashion something that they were willing to sacrifice for, that they would sacrifice their gold and their silver and then they would worship what they could buy with their gold and their silver.  They would choose a leader based on their gold and their silver.  That, of course, was foolishness.  Now it is true that in order for a leader to be effective the people must be willing to sacrifice for him, to give their gold and silver, and it is true that people need leaders, but when you combine these two ideas together that the product of your gold and silver, that you will worship what you, yourself, make and you will make that a leader is destructive.  We cannot have leadership that just caters to our fantasies.  We have to have a leader that knows what reality is.  A leader sometimes has to tell us no to certain things.  He has to lead us in the correct directions.  We cannot have a leader that is just a product of fantasies, a leader who will do anything we want because we bought him and created him in the image that we want him to be.  Bought leaders are no good.  They lead a country, of course, to destruction.  In America we are very careful that our leaders do not have power because if we would give them too much power or give them power when their power is also wedded to an ideology we are afraid that they may try to cram that ideology down our throats.  That, of course, is what happens many times to people who are obsessed with ideologies and that is the terrible thing that happened in Israel yesterday.  Here was a man who took two goad ideas but he put them together in a terrible way, and he created the highest form of treifkite, of non-kosher behavior, of terrible inhuman behavior.  He had one idea that the government is supposed to protect its people and he also had another idea that when things are not done the correct way you have to step forward and be the man who corrects problems.  Well, if he felt the government was not adequately protecting its citizens, especially its Jewish citizens in the city of Hebron, he should have petitioned the government, made demonstrations, done other types of acts of political protest, but he should not have taken the law into his own hands and felt he could solve the problems with murder, but he was obsessed by the idea that the Jewish people were going to be massacred so, therefore, he took the law into his own hands and he massacred others.  That is a terrible thing.  That, unfortunately, is a product of wrong thinking, and that, of course, is why in this country to a certain extent we will never solve our problems.  We will never solve our problems because we will never grant society enough power to solve the problems.  We will put up with a lot of alcohol abuse and drug abuse and we will put up with a lot of family abuse because we are afraid of what the government's reaction will be in other areas.  If we give it too much power, power especially which is wedded to ideas.

Judaism disagrees with this position of the American culture and says that you can be wedded to ideas but we have to carefully distinguish between ideas.  That is what most of Jewish learning is about.  It is unfortunate, too, that occasionally there are people who will not be steeped enough in their learning or will become deranged and will do all sorts of terrible things.  This is a catastrophe when this happens because it shows that the Jewish system of learning has collapsed.  It shows that we have not adequately analyzed ideas and we have mixed together two ideas which do not belong together and, therefore, cause misery and havoc to be wrought against innocent people.  It is true that many Arabs have been yelling to kill the Jews and when they throw the stones they say, "Slaughter the Jews," but, yet, it does not justify a person taking the law into his own hands and killing people when they are at prayer.  This was a terrible thing, but this does not mean, of course, that the Jewish people should not have settlements on the West Bank.  All these settlements were built on government land.  Begin and Shamir were very careful about that.  In fact, the only settlements that were not built on government land were actually built by Labor in the Jordan Valley and they are having problems with that right now.  Remember there was another massacre in Hebron in 1929 where more than 69 Jews were hacked up and probably more because they could not find all the bodies, and all the Jews were kicked out of the town.  Jewish settlement which had been continuous in Hebron for 3000 years was ended.  It is a terrible thing what happened in Hebron, but we believe that the Jews and Arabs can live together.  After all, there are 800,000 to a million Arabs living in Israel.  If the Jews cannot live in the West Bank then the Arabs cannot live in Israel proper either.  That was, of course, Rabbi Kahane's position.  When he was talking about expelling Arabs he was talking about expelling Arabs from Israel proper.  We do not accept that.  We do not accept that it is impossible for people to live together.  It is possible for Jews and Arabs to live together.  Are Arabs some sub-human race that they cannot live with other people?  Are Jews some sub-human race that they cannot live in Arab countries, in Jordan and Saudi Arabia?  We have to fight that.  Jews should be allowed to live everywhere just like Arabs should be allowed to live everywhere.  Let us hope and pray that this madness which we saw in the Middle East will cease on both sides, that Arabs will recognize, too, that it is important that we live together in peace and harmony, that Jews should be able to live with Arabs as well as Arabs live with Jews, and that no Jew should feel that he is going to be killed by his Arab neighbor just because he lives in their midst just as no Arab should feel that he is going to be killed by his Jewish neighbor just because he lives in his midst.  Let us hope and pray that peace will come to the Middle East in spite of the carnage, in spite of the hatred, that somehow love and brotherhood and compassion will shine through and peace will reign in the Middle East.  Amen.