Seeing Like a Ben Aliyah

We can explain in light of this statement that the bloods do not cancel each other out. A Jew who ascends in the ways of Hashem—a ben aliyah symbolized by the olah—does not nullify his friend. Instead he sees only the good in others and often praises them.

Stories off the Daf
You Are Called Adam
Menachos 22
Daf Yomi Digest

I read these "Stories off the Daf" every day (or almost every day) and sometimes they really get my attention. From yesterday's Daf, Rav Yehudah Freund, zt"l teaches us that we can learn something from the Olah offering in the combining of the blood of the bull and the goat on Yom Kippur (I know this may seem obscure, strange, or even bizarre to some of you, but the great Rebbes were able to see many moral lessons illustrated by God in the study of the Oral Law). In this case we learn that, even though more of the blood of the bull is used than the blood of the goat in the two separate Olah offerings, they do not nullify each other and particularly, the majority (bull) blood does not nullify the minority (goat) blood being offered.

The Rav continues:

My brother Yaakov taught a profound lesson from this halahcah, based on the famous words of the prayer of Rav Elimelech of Lizhensk, which many recite before the morning prayers: "May we only look upon the good qualities of our friends and not upon their weaknesses."

In the reality of our lives, even in the lives of disciples of the Jewish Messiah and worshipers of the one, true God of Israel, we find this practice, though ideal, somewhat elusive. A few days ago, Judah Himango posted a blog about the difficulties in forgiving others, and some of the comments made on one of the recent blogs I wrote for my congregation, show a less than gracious reply to some challenging remarks.

As human beings, our first response is to build ourselves up by tearing the other guy down. While the anonymous sage relates, "blowing out someone else's candle doesn't make yours burn any brighter", we nevertheless expend a great deal of our breath extinguishing the flames of those around us in the (vain) hope that our light will provide greater "illumination" (though often, we find ourselves sitting in the dark, instead).

The Rav concludes his lesson this way:

When a person acts as he should, he takes the blood of his body and binds it to Hashem, the "Aluf or Master of the world," But when one is on a low level he is merely dam, blood that is not connected to Hashem. People who are on this level of blood nullify each other. They tend to focus on the weaknesses of others, not on their good points.

We can almost imagine that Paul was making a commentary on Rav Yehudah's teaching with these words:

We who are strong ought to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves. Each of us should please our neighbors for their good, to build them up. For even Christ did not please himself but, as it is written: “The insults of those who insult you have fallen on me.” For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through the endurance taught in the Scriptures and the encouragement they provide we might have hope. -Romans 15:1-4 (quoting Psalm 69:9)

We bear the weaknesses of others, overlooking them and only seeing their strengths, because this has also been done by the Jewish Messiah for us:

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. -2 Corinthians 12:9-10

Good Shabbos.

The road is long and often, we travel in the dark.