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Rabbi Pablo Berman,
Comunidad Israelita de El Salvador

Translated by Inés Baum - Proofreading by Ellen Zindler

In the Talmudic text, in the chapter about Kibud Av Va’Em, “honor your father and your mother”, one of the sages comments about his mother, how he fulfills this important mitzvah, no less one of the ten commandments, and recounts that he helps his mother to get in and out of bed, making it understood that she is old and that he gives her all the help he can. Later on, he arrives at the Beit Midrash, the house of study, and comments on this with his classmates, and the teacher replies: “You didn’t understand half of what Kibud Av Va’Em means. Do you really know what it means to honor your parents? That your mother throws away your wallet full of money into the sea and you do not say anything; that is Kibud Av Va’Em. It means that your mother can drive you mad and you will not say a word. It means that you will keep your manners before anything they may do or say to you; thus, you will show what honoring your mother and father really is.”

To drive us mad. Most of us are calm people; I believe we all maintain, in general, certain emotional equilibrium, to give it a name. Or don’t we? Anyway, there is always someone who can break this delicate equilibrium. There is always someone who can provoke an earthquake in our nervous system and drive us mad, make us lose control, and bring ourselves to no longer be the normal people we usually are.

Moses is driven mad; this time they make him lose control, producing in him a reaction, where he falls to the ground, vaipol al panav, “falls on his face”, saying “Enough! I can’t take it any more. This is the last straw!”

Korah, one of Moses’ first cousins, makes him step out of this attitude of control and equilibrium which we, being healthy human beings, usually hold. Korah wants power; he wants to be equal to Moses. “Ye take too much upon you,” they say to Moses, “seeing all the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the Lord is among them; wherefore then do ye lift yourself above the assembly of the Lord?” Then and there, Moses says “Enough!”, as if he hadn’t suffered enough already: with the meraglim (explorers), with the Golden Calf, with guiding a people through the wilderness while they keep insisting that in Egypt they used to eat fish for free. Korah and his group arrive to such a point of cynicism and madness that they dare say to Moses: ha meat ki eelitainu me Eretz zabat chalab hu dbash, leamiteinu ba midbar, “Is it a small thing that thou hast brought us up out of a land flowing with milk and honey, to kill us in the wilderness…?” That is when cynicism and lies reach their climax: Egypt is now the land where milk and honey flow. Moses is infuriated; he tries to keep control, to avoid taking Korah by the neck and strangling him. He is Moses, and leaders must never act on their anger. That is why his reaction is to fall to the ground, to cover his face and rub his eyes, asking himself whether what he is hearing and witnessing is not perhaps a horrible nightmare. And as the good leader he is, Moses invites his dear cousin to a test wherein God Himself will decide who is the one to continue leading the people towards the real Promised Land. Of course, Korah ends up badly, and the earth will open to swallow Korah, his family, his house, his belongings, and all who joined him in this adventure of power games.

Now then, we all have our moments; we all have someone who makes us lose control, who drives us mad.

What is it that provokes our pressure to climb to 150, how do we control this? How can we care for our health?

A long time ago, in the port of Andalucia, a merchant awaited the arrival of a merchandise shipment he had bought in far away lands. One day, a messenger came before him to inform him that there had been a great misfortune: the ship had sunk, and the goods of many merchants such as him had ended at the bottom of the sea. At receiving this news, the merchant lowered his head, closed his eyes and, after a moment, said in a very calm voice: “Thank God for that.”

A few weeks later, the same messenger knocked on the merchant’s door. “Chief,” he joyfully said, “I have good news. Your shipment just arrived to the port, safe and sound. It seems that the ship which went down was not the one bringing your goods, but another ship altogether.”

At hearing this, the merchant lowered his head, closed his eyes and, after a moment, whispered: “Thank God for that.”

Intrigued, the messenger asked: “My friend, why is it that you lower your head and close your eyes?” The merchant replied, “In both cases, I was taking a moment to make sure that my heart was steady.”

May we care for our heart, care for our health. When we face someone or something that makes us lose control, drives us crazy, may we take a moment to lower our heads, close our eyes and, as our friend the wise merchant does, make sure that our heart has not moved. There will always be someone who gets on our nerves, someone prepared to make us fall to the ground, like Moses, with our faces covered. Therefore, let us follow the merchants’ advice: before reacting, let us lower our heads, close our eyes, and make sure that our heart is steady; thus we will gain in health and, above all, in life years.

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Forwarded by Rabbi Gustavo Kraselnik, from Kol Shearith Israel Congregation, Panama.
Translated by Inés Baum and proofread by Ellen Zindler, from B’nei Israel Congregation, Costa Rica.

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