Parshas Vayera: Dust and Ashes

No Is Not an Answer

Rabbi Adi joined this week's call toward the end, and he came straight from a levayah. Very little keeps him off these calls, he said; he has joined from a chuppah before. But this was something that could not be moved. More than a decade ago, a young man from America learned with him in Israel, and the following year the young man's sister came to learn as well. The family stayed in touch with Rabbi Adi over all the years since. Two days before the call, a message came from them: a brother in the family, a young man, had passed away suddenly, and the family was flying to Israel to bury him in Yerushalayim. They had no rabbi and no one there to help them, so the phone call they made was to Rabbi Adi. Usually, he said, when a family reaches out years later, it is for the simchos, the weddings and the brissim. This time it was the other kind of call, and twelve and thirteen years later, they still knew exactly whom to call. They asked for help with the burial, and for one more thing: they really wanted a true Shabbos experience while they were in Israel. He went, together with a few of the people who work alongside him, helped the family arrange the kevurah (the burial), and stood with them so that there would be a minyan at the levayah. The family was deeply moved that their brother was buried in Yerushalayim, with a minyan, with every single sibling there.

And it did not end at the cemetery. The whole family, a large one, is eating the Shabbos meals at Rabbi Adi's house this week, along with students learning nearby who are coming as well. When his wife asked where exactly they were going to fit everybody, the answer was: we will figure it out. We will move the couches if we have to. When somebody is at a time of need, especially like this, no is not an answer until we figure it out. It is hard to imagine a more fitting week for such a story: this is the parsha of Avraham's open tent.

Dust and Ashes

In the middle of the parsha, Avraham stands and davens for the people of Sdom, and in the middle of that tefillah he makes a famous statement about himself:

וְאָנֹכִי עָפָר וָאֵפֶר

And I am dust and ashes. (Bereishis 18:27)

What are these two words doing together? Rabbi Adi shared the Netziv's explanation: dust and ashes are two completely different things, almost opposites. Dust is something that has been around forever and seems like it will last forever. (Especially in Israel, Rabbi Adi added: every time you clean, more dust comes out of nowhere. It is around, and it will always be around.) It seems meaningless, like nothing at all, and yet it stays in existence for who knows how long. Ashes are exactly the opposite. Ashes come from something that had an existence, a structure that once stood, and now it has been destroyed, and it has no longer any purpose and is not going to be used again.

This, Rabbi Adi explained in the name of the Netziv, is the humility Avraham carried: remember that something that seems like nothingness, like dust, can have the ability to last forever and to be something lasting. And on the flip side, something that you think is a beautiful structure, a huge house, can turn into absolute nothingness with no future. Sometimes the things that look like a grand facade have no future at all, and the things that seem meaningless are exactly the things to focus on, because those can last forever.

The Tattoo and the Tefillin

The second piece was a story from Rabbi Adi's own week. This past Tuesday was election day in Israel, and everybody was off. His wife's aunt had flown in from Philadelphia, and for once all four siblings of that generation were in Israel at the same time. So his wife said: let's have a barbecue. Let's invite everybody, all the cousins, all the aunts and uncles. Fifty people came. And his wife made exactly one rule for the evening: nobody talks about the elections. The family runs across the whole spectrum of the Jewish people: an uncle who moved to Israel decades ago, cousins who flew back specially just to vote, relatives who are modern Orthodox and relatives who are more Haredi. Everybody came, and it was a beautiful, beautiful meal.

Toward the end, Rabbi Adi got up and spoke (he asked his wife's permission first). He told a story he heard from Rav Yosef Zvi Rimon, a big rav in Israel who teaches at a technological college in Yerushalayim. Two young soldiers entered the army at the same time, one very religious, one not religious at all. After six months of training together they became close. One day the second soldier turned to his religious friend and said: look at my right arm. It is covered with tattoos, and I have one space left that I want to fill. I have been thinking about what to put there. Maybe the insignia of our pluga (our unit). Maybe a heart. Maybe the map of Israel. Which one do you think I should choose? And they went back and forth about all the different ideas and which one seemed best. Then the religious soldier said: we have been together six months, so I can ask you something too. You have so many tattoos on your right arm, and you are trying to squeeze one more into the last empty space. Look at your left arm. It is completely empty. Why not just put the tattoo there? And his friend started laughing. What do you think, he said. My left arm is where I put my tefillin on. I cannot have a tattoo on that arm. And they both laughed together.

Rav Rimon's point, Rabbi Adi said, is that we Jews are a different bunch. We are all different types of people, from all different backgrounds, and we care about all different things. But at the end of the day, there are so many beautiful things that unite us. We all care about Israel. We all care about each other. And then Rabbi Adi said to the fifty people in the room: look around. I guarantee you there are people in this room who voted for ten different parties today. But everybody came. Everybody is here, because they care about Israel tremendously; some people even flew across the world to be able to vote. And today everybody is here loving each other, caring for each other, enjoying each other. Let this be a symbol for the rest of Israel: there are so many things that unite us with our brothers and sisters, and we would do anything for each other. Instead of focusing on the negative, focus on all the positive things, and if we unite around those, there is no question, he said, that our Father in Heaven will look down at us and want to end all the horrible things that have been happening to the Jewish people, and, im yirtzeh Hashem, bring the Mashiach.

One People

And that is where the two stories of the week met. Driving back from the levayah, Rabbi Adi heard the siblings saying to each other: what better place could there be for our brother? He is buried in Yerushalayim. He had a minyan. Every single one of us came. That, Rabbi Adi said, is what we have to remember at all these times: there are so many beautiful things that unite us. We are one people. We have different opinions, and everyone is very proud of their opinions, but we are brothers and sisters with one mission: to make Israel a better place, to make the Jewish people stronger, and to bring the Mashiach as soon as possible.

At the end of the call, one of the participants asked, with a smile: was your wife upset that she had one rule for the barbecue and you broke it? Rabbi Adi laughed. He had asked her permission before speaking. And the moment he finished, everyone else wanted to speak too; he told her he hoped he had not opened a Pandora's box. But it was perfect: everybody then got up and spoke about their mother and father, and the evening ended even more beautifully than it began. And with that, Rabbi Adi wished everybody a Shabbat Shalom.