'Staying Close' to Synagogue: Parashat Ki Tavo 5769

Shabbat Shalom.
As a way of beginning an important discussion this morning I want to share an email with you.
This forwarded email is clearly very funny and exceeding clever but what is most impressive about it is that its contents can best described as life-saving. For those of you who perhaps have not yet seen this life-saving lesson, maybe due to your personal policy of never opening a forwarded email; allow me to share its message with you this morning, (With due thanks of course to the dozen or so congregants who sent it my way in the first place.)

The email’s title is: How to Stay Safe in the World Today. And it reads as follows:

-In order to stay safe one should avoid riding in automobiles because they are responsible for 20% of all fatal accidents in our country.
-But one should also not stay at home because 17% of all tragic accidents occur in the home. (that's 37% already)
-One should try to avoid walking in the streets or on the sidewalks because 14 % of all fatalities occur to pedestrians. (now that's 51%)
-Avoid traveling by air, trains, buses, or public transportation because 16% of serious accidents involve these forms of transportation. (that's a total now of 67%)
-Of the remaining 33%, 32% of all deaths occur in hospitalsl; Teaching us that above all else one should try to avoid hospitals.

But you will no doubt be pleased to learn that of the remaining 1% of fatalities only a miniscule 0.01% of these deaths occur in a synagogue; and of that 0.01% most are usually related to a previous physical disorder.

Therefore, sound logic, solid reasoning and mathematical truth dictate that the safest place for you to be at any given point in time is in here in the Synagogue.

For those who are wondering, Torah Study is even a safer endeavor. The number of deaths during Torah Study is too small to even register in our statistical accounting.

Therefore, for safety's sake, go to Shul as often as possible, and attend Torah Study. It could save your life!

This email, while humorous, and of dubious scientific accuracy is nonetheless offering us something to think about. When it comes to our own personal safety, our well-being and the well-being of our families, where should we be spending most of our precious time?

As always, I believe the Torah might have something to teach us with regard to this important question.

In this morning’s parasha, Parashat Ki Tavo the Children of Israel are told to perform an interesting ritual upon their entering the Promised Land. Six of the twelve tribes are to stand on Mount Gerizim while the remaining six tribes stand on Mount Ebal on opposite sides of the biblical city of Schem, modern day Nablus. Those standing on Mt. Eval are unlucky enough to enunciate twelve curses, twelve divine punishments for forsaking the spiritual or ethical tenets of the Torah. Those who stand on Mt. Gerizim have the more-desired position of reciting six concise blessings that will be bestowed upon the Israelites should they keep the terms of God’s covenant.


I want to focus this morning on two of these six blessings and explore what they have to teach us with regard to our coming to Synagogue more often. Of these six blessings two are familiar to us. The first reads:
בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה בָּעִיר וּבָרוּךְ אַתָּה בַּשָּׂדֶֽה:

“Blessed shall you be in the city and blessed shall you be in the country.”
The second verse, one often found on Jewish art intended to be hung as a blessing on our front door, reads:
בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה בְּבֹאֶךָ וּבָרוּךְ אַתָּה בְּצֵאתֶֽךָ:

“Blessed shall you be in your comings and blessed shall you be in your goings.”

These two verses and their rabbinic interpretations offer us great input into the debate over the safest and most fulfilling place for us to spend our time.

A discussion found in the Babylonian Talmud, Masechet Baba Metzia page 107a discusses the meaning of our first verse:

בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה בָּעִיר וּבָרוּךְ אַתָּה בַּשָּׂדֶֽה:
“Blessed shall you be in the city and blessed shall you be in the country.”
There, the Babylonian sage Rav understands this verse to be referring to physical proximity to a place of blessing. He explains that when the Torah tells us “Baruch Atah BaIr,” it is actually sayingשיהא ביתך סמוך לבית הכנסת
“Your home should be close to the Synagogue.” Here Rav is saying that our blessing from God will come to us when we choose a home that is nearest to our place of worship. In other words, Rav believes that the blessing offered to us in the Torah is conditional upon our physical proximity to the synagogue itself. The closer you are to shul, the more blessing you will have. Let’s call this our Physical interpretation.
Well this seems well and good for those of us who live on the East Side, (check mark) but what about our good neighbors and Temple members in those very far flung towns such as Pawtucket, Warwick or the 'galacticaly' remote East Greenwich? Well those distant foreigners need not fret, because the twentieth century Hasidic Rabbi, Rabbi Meged Yerachim has an interpretation you will enjoy. He explains that the statement of Rav in the Talmud is not speaking of physical proximity to the synagogue, but rather about our own spiritual closeness to the morals and tenets that our Beit K’neset, our religious community teaches us. He writes:

יש אנשים שהתנהגותם בבית היא לגמרי אחרת מאשר בבית הכנסת. בית
הכנסת רחוק מביתם.

“There are people whose personal behavior at home is drastically different from their behavior in the Beit Knesset. This is what is meant by the phrase “Those who live far away from the Temple.”

Let’s call this our Behavioral interpretation. In it, Rabbi Yerachim teaches us that distance is not something that can only be measured with a ruler. He is saying that there is also such a thing as behavioral distance, when our actions represent values that are truly far away from the teachings of our tradition. In this way we must be conscious of taking account of our behavior; we must ask what are the actions which bring me closer to my community. What are the deeds which increase the distance between me and the Beit Knesset, the place where my community resides?

For a different interpretation of this same verse, I turn to a very famous rabbi The Maharal of Prague. Rabbi Yehudah ben B’tzalel Loew, most famous for his connection with the legend of the Golem, also was a prolific philosopher, scholar and commentator to the Torah. His interpretation of this same verse offers us yet another perspective on our conversation this morning.
He writes:
ברוך אתה בעיר: שיהיה ביתך סמוך לבית הכנסת,

Blessed shall you be in the city: When Rav interpreted this verse as meaning that you should live in close proximity to the Synagogue;
אין הפירוש שלא יהיה צריך שילך בדרך רחוקה

He wasn’t saying that you wouldn’t have to walk a long way to get to shul,
אבל ר"ל שיהיה ביתך קרוב אל הש"י.

Instead he was saying that your house should be close to Hashem Yitbarach, to the Blessed One, to God.

In other words the Maharal rejects the physical interpretation in favor of a spiritual one. He argues that the essence of the question is not one of our actual proximity to the Beit HaKneset itself, but rather is a question of our closeness to the One God who is worshiped in that Beit HaKnesset. One can live around the corner from the shul, one can attend services regularly and still feel distant from God. In this case the question we should be asking ourselves during this time of introspection is “How will I, in the coming year, move my household closer to God?”
Finally I wish to speak about one last interpretation, this one about the second verse I quoted earlier. This verse is also germane with regard to the discussion of the place of the synagogue in our lives. The verse from the Torah reads:

בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה בְּבֹאֶךָ וּבָרוּךְ אַתָּה בְּצֵאתֶֽךָ:
“Blessed shall you be in your comings, and blessed shall you be in your goings.”
In Midrash Tanchuma, a collection of Aggadic Midrashim to the Torah this verse is expounded thusly:

ברוך אתה בבואך, על תנאי בבואך לבתי כנסיות ולבתי מדרשות,
Blessed shall you be in your comings: On the condition that you are coming to the Synagogue and to the Beit Midrash, the House of Study.

וברוך אתה בצאתך מבתי כנסיות ומבתי מדרשות
And blessed shall you be in your goings… as long as your are going from the Synagogue and from the House of Study.
I would call this the habitual interpretation. In other words, the blessing mentioned in the verse is bestowed upon the individual who makes it a habit to come to shul. Now, luckily there is numerical requirement mentioned as to the definition of habitual…it simply means that coming to shul to pray and to learn regularly, making it part of our routine, offers us the possibility of leading lives filled with blessing. It means that our physical proximity to our place of worship matters. It means that we should be behaving in ways which reflect the teachings of our holy tradition no matter where we reside. It means that we must work hard at bringing God close to our lives and the lives of our families. And finally it means that we must make a habit of going to our Beit Knesset, the place which offers us worship, learning, and the warmth of community.

I would like to end with a brief story about the importance of coming to Shul regularly. A habitual attendee of our morning and evening minyanim recently reported to me a harrowing experience. Upon arriving at morning minyan recently this person was shocked to discover that SOMEONE ELSE was sitting in their seat! Now to many this would seem a trifling matter, but to this person it ruined an entire morning! When they told me about what had happened they asked me whether or not I thought they were being petty. “Petty?” I asked. “No, you are not being petty, you are being pious!” I explained that the Halacha mandates that each of us have a Makom Kavuah, a permanent spot, that we sit in while we are in shul. So this person was actually fulfilling the mitzvah of claiming a personal spot of regularity in our communal space.

But, I also made certain to mention to this individual that a Makom Kavuah, a permanent personal spot, is to be respected only when it is Kavuah…permanent and T’midi…persistent. After all, if we aren’t there often enough for people to see us in that spot, we lose all rights and privileges to claim it as our own.
So feel free to stake claim on your own personal Makom Kavuah, your spot in this sanctuary. But make sure you come early and you come often, otherwise don’t be surprised if you find someone else sitting in your seat.
Shabbat Shalom.