Dear Friends,
Among the 613 mitzvot in the Torah, this commandment stirs me the most. It rattles my intellectual sensibilities, and it captures my emotional fancies.
“If, along the road, you chance upon a bird’s nest, in any tree or on the ground, with fledglings or eggs and the mother sitting over the fledglings or one the eggs, do not take the mother together with her young. Let the mother go, and take only the young, in order that you may fare well and have a long life.” [Deut. 22:6]
The simultaneous simplicity and complexity of the charge is powerful. Simply, we are only allowed to take the young, because the mother can beget more offspring. But, we are charged to follow this command that our own lives may be long and good; the link between this mitzvah and a good, long life is troubling.
The late Rabbi Milton Steinberg, a leading light of the Conservative Movement in the mid-20th century, wrote a magnificent, best-selling novel, As a Driven Leaf, based on the encounter of a rabbinic sage with this mitzvah. The sage, Elisha ben Abuyah, happened upon a father and his son strolling along the road, when they discovered a bird’s nest in a tree. The father instructed the son in the Torah’s law, and then sent the lad up the tree to shoo the mother and take the young. As the boy reached his hand to dispatch the mother, the boy fell from the tree to his death. Thereupon, Elisha foreswore Judaism; he had observed the boy follow the law to the letter, but was rewarded with death instead of long life. The remainder of the novel details Steinberg’s fiction of Elisha’s lifetime of soul-searching.
Tragically, Steinberg, himself, died very young while engaged in the mitzvot of rabbinic life.
Wouldn’t it be nice if the world always followed proper patterns? Yes, the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. But, things happen. Rabbi Harold Kushner wrote his best-seller, When Bad Things Happen to Good People, exploring the random nature of the universe. Why does an earthquake hit the poorest country in the Caribbean? Why is an educated girl in Afghanistan subject to terror and abuse, for being learned? How could a boy who was schooled in Torah suffer a deadly accident, just when God should have protected him?
The secret to life is not learning to live with rules and patterns; it is learning to live when the rules and patterns fail, and our faith and comfort are shattered. That is real spiritual courage.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Douglas Kohn
Among the 613 mitzvot in the Torah, this commandment stirs me the most. It rattles my intellectual sensibilities, and it captures my emotional fancies.
“If, along the road, you chance upon a bird’s nest, in any tree or on the ground, with fledglings or eggs and the mother sitting over the fledglings or one the eggs, do not take the mother together with her young. Let the mother go, and take only the young, in order that you may fare well and have a long life.” [Deut. 22:6]
The simultaneous simplicity and complexity of the charge is powerful. Simply, we are only allowed to take the young, because the mother can beget more offspring. But, we are charged to follow this command that our own lives may be long and good; the link between this mitzvah and a good, long life is troubling.
The late Rabbi Milton Steinberg, a leading light of the Conservative Movement in the mid-20th century, wrote a magnificent, best-selling novel, As a Driven Leaf, based on the encounter of a rabbinic sage with this mitzvah. The sage, Elisha ben Abuyah, happened upon a father and his son strolling along the road, when they discovered a bird’s nest in a tree. The father instructed the son in the Torah’s law, and then sent the lad up the tree to shoo the mother and take the young. As the boy reached his hand to dispatch the mother, the boy fell from the tree to his death. Thereupon, Elisha foreswore Judaism; he had observed the boy follow the law to the letter, but was rewarded with death instead of long life. The remainder of the novel details Steinberg’s fiction of Elisha’s lifetime of soul-searching.
Tragically, Steinberg, himself, died very young while engaged in the mitzvot of rabbinic life.
Wouldn’t it be nice if the world always followed proper patterns? Yes, the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. But, things happen. Rabbi Harold Kushner wrote his best-seller, When Bad Things Happen to Good People, exploring the random nature of the universe. Why does an earthquake hit the poorest country in the Caribbean? Why is an educated girl in Afghanistan subject to terror and abuse, for being learned? How could a boy who was schooled in Torah suffer a deadly accident, just when God should have protected him?
The secret to life is not learning to live with rules and patterns; it is learning to live when the rules and patterns fail, and our faith and comfort are shattered. That is real spiritual courage.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Douglas Kohn
