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Our Rabbis taught: Four entered the garden (pardes) and they were Ben Azzai and Ben Zorna, Aher and Rabbi Akiba. Ben Azzai looked and died. Of him Scripture says, “Precious in the eyes of the Lord is the death of his faithful ones.” (Ps. 116:15). Ben Zoma looked and was distracted. Of him Scripture says, “Have you found honey? Eat only as much as you need lest you become filled with it and vomit it out.” (Prov. 25:16). Aher plucked up the shoots. Rabbi Akiba departed unhurt.

Ben Azzai

Ben Azzai is a symbol of Jews who have died over the centuries from Jew hating. He is the symbol of the Jews murdered on October 7. Ben Azzai’s lesson in fighting the Jew haters is that when they tell us that they want to kill us, we must believe them. When they tell us, “One state from the river to the sea” it is a rallying call to all Jew haters for the death of every single Israeli from the Jordan river to the Mediterranean Sea. And when they tell us “Globalize the intifada” it is a call to kill every single Jew in the world.

Of course we must remember that in defending ourselves against terrorists we cannot kill the innocents who come to us. I mourn the Palestinian dead who did not come to kill us but came to us to find a way to live together. Inshallah (May it be God’s will.)

Ben Azzai looked and died.

Ben Zoma

Ben Zoma ate too much honey but what is the honey? The honey is the glitz and glamor of our world that keeps us from focusing on what really matters. On days when we are distracted like Ben Zoma by the honey of a sporting event or by a celebrity wedding we forget to think of the children dying in Gaza and Israel and Sudan and Bangladesh. I understand that the taste of honey is sweeter than the taste of suffering and death but we cannot fight evil if we are distracted by trivial joy.

Ben Zoma looked and was distracted.

Aher (Rabbi Elisha ben Abuyah)

Rabbi Elisha ben Abuyah, was made famous by the fact that he became an apostate. He renounced Judaism and his apostasy, we are told, occurred when he saw a young boy climb a tree to get some bird’s eggs. He shooed away the mother bird as the Torah requires in Deuteronomy 22:6-7 (shiluah haken) but in the midst of performing this mitzvah the boy lost his balance, fell to the ground and died.

So what is the message of Aher’s heresy? I believe it is the message that those who want Jews dead also want America dead. The shoots they are pulling up are not just Jewish shoots. They are the shoots of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. What is true about Jew haters is that they are also America haters. How many times have you seen American flags at an anti-Israel rally? Our flag is burned next to the burning Israeli flag.

I hope you know the famous poem written by the German Lutheran pastor Martin Niemöller who opposed Hitler and was imprisoned in Sachsenhausen and Dachau concentration camps from 1938 to 1945,

“First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out – because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out – because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out – because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me – and there was no one left to speak for me.”

Akiba departed unhurt.

Rabbi Akibah was a shepherd until age 40 when he finally started studying the Torah. The only way to understand why Akibah departed unhurt from the Garden is to understand Thomas Jefferson.

In the first version of the Declaration of Independence Jefferson wrote, “We hold these truths to be sacred.” After the Continental Congress got through with tearing apart the greatest words ever written in English by anyone other than Shakespeare, the final version became the bastardized version, “We hold these truths to be self-evident.” The difference is immense. The idea that we are, each of us, endowed by our creator with certain unalienable rights is, as Jefferson understood, a religious belief not a self-evident truth. These are revealed religious beliefs. They affirm that our rights come from God and not from the state and that therefore the state cannot revoke what God has bestowed. Jefferson was right. We hold these truths to be sacred. I believe that the ghost of Akibah was whispering in Jefferson’s ear.

Amen.

Happy New Year! God bless us one and all, Marc!

(Send ALL QUESTIONS AND COMMENTS to The God Squad via email at godsquadquestion@aol.com. Rabbi Gellman is the author of several books, including “Religion for Dummies,” co-written with Fr. Tom Hartman. Also, the new God Squad podcast is now available.)

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