MISHPATIM 1988

In the Torah portion Mishpoteem we learn about many of the rules and laws and regulations of Judaism, but we also learn about the mystical experience that the Jewish people had when they stood at Mount Sinai.  It is not enough just to follow laws.  We also have to feel these laws connect us to G‑d and to others, that by observing these laws and rules and regulations that we find the meaning of life, that they connect us to the spiritual source of all being.  If we do not feel this way then we will not do the laws.  Periodically throughout Jewish history Jews have neglected their religion.  They have stopped observing Jewish laws.  The reason for that is because they no longer feel that Judaism is a model which adds and connects them to G‑d and themselves and the world.  Unless you actually believe that Jewish laws connect you to G‑d and to others you will not be able to observe them.  They will be completely irrelevant.  This, of course, happened within Jewish history a hundred years ago, and we are still feeling the effects of it.  When the Marxist ideas came to the fore many Jews accepted them as a true model of the way the world should be and they gave up the Jewish conception of things.  Of course, Marx, himself, was a Jew and many of his ideas had a Jewish base, especially his passion for social justice, but Marx changed things.  He no longer felt that we could believe in a personal G‑d, that G‑d really does not care for the individual.  All he cares for is the mass, for the species, that G‑d's name really is not G‑d but it is historical forces, that certain historical forces are inevitable, and that what we must all do is conform ourselves to these historical forces otherwise we will be completely trampled on, that it does not good to apply to these historical forces because they can do nothing for you.  Marx, of course, based his work upon a view of science which in the last 50 years has proved to be obsolete.  This view of science said that everything is mechanical like a watch, that everything works with set rules, that it does no good to pray to G‑d because G‑d cannot change the rules.  G‑d may be like the watchmaker who made the watch originally, but after the watch is made the watchmaker can no longer tinker with it or change it.  The minutes will go as they are predicted to go, the hours as they are predicted to go, and nothing can change that, that really there is no relationship anymore between the watchmaker and his watch.  Just as there is no longer any relationship between G‑d and His world, everything is now scientific principles, cause and effect, etc., and you cannot change it.  These views have proved to be false, that the Newtonian kind of universe upon which Marx based his view has proved to be obsolete.  Einstein showed that.  We now know that most scientific laws are more probabilities.  They are not definite, precise rules.  In fact, there is a new book out called Chaos which shows that most of the things that work in nature are worked within a probability range.  They are not precise and exact the way we thought.  There are just very few linear equations.  Most equations are non-linear, unsolvable.  They repeat similarly, like the weather does every year, but not precisely.  There is a place now for G‑d to act in the world, that Jewish ideas once more can grasp the imagination., that the Jewish model that many Jews had discarded is now viable again, that now we can fulfill the Jewish laws.  Marx, on the other hand, had no room really for the individual.  It was the inexorable laws of history that counted.  Stalin had no problem making himself hard-hearted and cruel and starving to death six million Russian peasants because Russia would be better for it.  The world, too, many times does not really consider the individual.  They do not really care for the individual.  If great tragedy occurs and thousands of people get killed it hardly makes a ripple in the world.  When 400, 500, or 700 pilgrims were gunned down in Mecca it did not make the front pages.  Just recently 100 people were killed in Bangladesh and 3,000 or 4,000 were wounded it made the back page of the paper, not even the from.  page, but, of course, when Israel shoots and kills two Arabs or wounds some or tries to suppress a riot it makes the front pages because the world judges us by our own standards.  By us the individual is extremely important.  To us the individual counts.  In Israel if a soldier dies his picture appears in the paper and there are black bordered pictures of him pasted upon the bulletin board all throughout the neighborhood in which he lived.  The individual to us is precious.  We cannot give up on any individual.  We want every individual.  We do not want to lose even a single soul.

In Judaism then we believe that the individual must be able to attach himself to G‑d and to others, and this he does through practicing Jewish law, that Jewish law enhances a person's life, that it gives him inner strength, a rich inner life.  If you do not have this rich inner life it is hard to cope with life and its problems.  I am reminded of the famous story they tell about a Jew in Europe who sent his child to Cheder, and his child ran away from Cheder.  He went and found the child and was bringing him home and was trying to explain the importance of Cheder and how he had to study and learn.  The boy was protesting.  Finally, as they were walking down a mud road a carriage came drawn by 8 horses which had a footman and a teamster and another butler sitting on the top.  It was a gold embossed carriage and as the carriage came by them holding a Polish nobleman the carriage splattered them, and the man looked at his son and said, "See, if you don't study Torah you will grow up like that one."  Of course, it is a humorous story, but it gets the point across that in Jewish eyes a rich inner life was much more important than material things.  Even today we see that that is true.  How many people have received great riches that have squandered their lives on drugs and alcohol and have committed suicide?  Look at how many movie stars have committed suicide who had everything.  Look what Elvis Presley did to himself.  You need a rich inner life in order to combat the problems of this world, and we gain this rich inner life by studying, by learning how the Jewish laws and rituals attach us to G‑d and to others.  They are very rich in the sense that they give us this inner courage and strength to confront life.
We learn when Moshe Rabbeinu gave the laws to the Jewish people it says, "And these are the laws that you must put before them."  Rashi explains that they must be like a "Shulchan Orech - a prepared table", that the people must understand them.  They cannot just do them.  If they do them without understanding they will not do them.  They will not see how they connect them to life and to G‑d and to their fellow human being, and unless they feel this connection and sense this connection they will not observe the Jewish laws Jewish law will become completely irrelevant for them.  We learn that when Moshe came to the Jewish people and told them all the words of G‑d and the laws and all the people answered in one voice and they said, "Everything which G‑d said we will do," but this was not enough.  Later when Moshe came again it says he took the book of the covenant and he called in the ears of the people, and they said, ,All which G‑d spoke we will do and we will understand."  We must make sure the people understand about Judaism.  If they do not understand it they will not practice it.

That is why Jewish education is so important.  When Jewish education ceases then the community stops observing Jewish laws and customs and rituals.  That is, of course, what has happened in America where we had such a weak education until recently.  We know we have to give every Jew a Jewish education.  Every Jew is precious to us.  Every Jew is an individual who we must make sure that he can connect to G‑d and to others.  We know that it is not easy to give a child a Jewish education because not everybody has equal abilities.  We are not all equal.  We are equal only in the sense that we have a Neshoma, a piece of G‑d within us, but many children have difficulty learning.  Fifteen percent of all children have some kind of learning disabilities.  We have about 125 children in our Talmud Torah, and this is about right.  We have identified ten firm cases and there are 10 cases that are still being evaluated.  Most children who have learning disabilities have average and above average IQs , Learning disabilities has nothing to do with your 19.  If you have a very i2 but you have difficulty with numbers or social studies it has to do with the grasp of different types of cognitive skills.  Some people are born with these cognitive skills and some people are not born with these cognitive skills.  Some children can never learn to read or have a difficult time learning to read because they have dyslexia.  Woodrow Wilson, one of our greatest intellectual presidents, perhaps one of the only intellectuals who was ever president of the United States, was a university professor at Princeton but had a learning disability.  He suffered from dyslexia.  It is difficult to learn when you have a learning disability, but it is not impossible.  What you have to do is present the material to the children in a different way.  We know that more boys have learning disabilities than girls, and we also know that learning disabilities run in families, but most learning disabilities can be diagnosed before a child is 6 so that we can prepare a child to understand his heritage if we but try to give him the information.  Learning disabilities have nothing at all to do with IQ.  They can also come from accidents.  We all know about Rabbi Segal's son who was shot when he entered a convenience store just to pick up a candy bar or paper and a robber shot him.  They originally thought he would not live, but he did live, and not only did he live but he managed to finish college and is going to graduate school now and has done very well, but he has a learning disability.  That part of his brain that contained the bullet was damaged in some way so he has a very difficult time reading, so Rabbi Segal has arranged for people to come and read his textbooks to him.  He has no problem with his IQ.  They read the textbooks to him, and he gets very good grades.  This happens with many other children as well, too.  Children sometimes have difficulty looking at the letters or numbers or certain types of concepts if they are presented in a certain way, but if they presented in a different way they can learn and they should learn.  We all applaud the efforts of Kesher, a group in this community which is trying to advocate and support parents of Jewish children whose children have special learning needs.  Every child is important to us.  Every individual is important to us.  We are not Marxists.  We do not believe just in the group.  We believe in the individual.  These individuals have to be helped and can be helped.  One of the worst problems, though, are parents who refuse to accept the fact that their child has a learning disability.  I know that when we identify the children in our Hebrew school who have learning disabilities, one of the parents who is very well educated was very upset and said, "My child does not have any learning disability," and created a big ruckus.  We said, "Okay, we will not help your child if you do not want us to help your child."  That parent is doing a great disservice to their own child.  They are maiming their child.  Somehow the parent thinks that he or she is a failure if the child has a learning disability, but that is not true.  Not everybody has all the tools that we normally think a child has in order to learn, and we must give them the proper tools.  If they can only learn the material that is presented in a certain way, then we should give them the material presented in that way.  I remember when I had another congregation and did a lot more teaching of youngsters than I do today, although I still teach today (a course in Talmud to high school kids), one of the things that gave me the greatest satisfaction was that parents used to come to me with children who had very great difficulty in learning, and I was able to teach them.  The child did not have any trouble learning.  It was just the way the material was presented to them.  If you could figure out the way to present the material to them in a way they could handle it, then they could learn, too.  That is, of course, what Kesher is all about.  We must all try to make sure that every Jewish child learns so that he can attach himself to G‑d and to his people.  It is only in this way that he will be able to make the positive contributions to life that we all should make, and only in this way will he have the rich inner life which will allow him to overcome his problems.  Parents, though, who refuse to recognize their children need help are wronging their children, are maiming their children.

I am reminded of the story they tell about a Texan who went to Boston.  There with a group of friends he said, "How come you people in Boston don't have any heroes like we have in Texas?  We have Davy Crocket and the heroes of the Alamo and Sam Houston.  What kind of heroes do you have in Boston?" One of the people stood up and said, "What's the matter?  Haven't you ever heard of Paul Revere?" The Texan said, "Paul Revere?  Isn't that the guy who ran for help?" It is true.  A real hero is sometimes the one who runs for help.  A parent can be a real hero if they notice their child needs help and get help for him.  It is no disgrace.  It is the greatest blessing that a parent can do for their child.  Let us hope and pray that every child will be able to understand the Jewish religion, that they will be able to learn so that they will be able to attach themselves to G‑d, to their people, and to others, and that all parents who have children that need help will recognize the fact and that this help will be available for them.