Speaking About Money…

            You might have missed it so allow me the joy of sharing it with you. It is a story of no less than pure redemption.

             Rabbi Meir Shapiro was an illustrious European rabbi, an extraordinary genius and a man of tremendous vision. He was the chief rabbi of Lublin, Poland and among other things, was a member of the Polish parliament known as the sejm. When he passed away in 1933, his funeral was attended by several hundred thousand people including the prime minister and president of Poland.

             Three years prior to his passing, Rabbi Shapiro, in front of a throng of 20,000 people, dedicated what was considered to be the tiffany Torah center of its day. The yeshiva was named Chachmei Lublin and was a citadel for scholars and scholarship. Literally, chachmei Lublin means, the wise ones of Lublin. Lublin was once referred to as the Jewish Oxford as it produced many prodigious and towering scholars. But Rabbi Shapiro did not intend his yeshiva to be a rabbinical seminary per se. In fact, when interviewed by the secular Polish press of the day, Rabbi Shapiro was asked where he would find five hundred rabbinical positions for the five hundred students of the yeshiva. He responded, “Only two will be rabbis. The other 498 will know how to appreciate rabbis!”

             During the war the yeshiva was desecrated and used as a headquarters for the German Gestapo. It was subsequently turned into a nursing college but a few years ago the building was returned back to the Warsaw Jewish community. And – in case you missed it, Poland’s current chief rabbi, Rabbi Michael Shudrich affixed a mezzua in front of a crowd of 2,000 people, rededicated Yeshivat Chachmei Lublin as a synagogue and study house…eleven days ago.

             On February 11, 2007- 23 Sh’vat 5767 – after being exiled from her family for over 70 years, Yeshivat Chachmei Lublin came home.

            May I share with you a story from her birth? Rabbi Shapiro had grandiose ideas for this institution and we all know that grandiose dreams need grandiose dollars for their realization. And so Rabbi Shapiro set out on a fund raising mission to the United States.

                In a biography about Rabbi Meir Shapiro entitled, A Blaze in the Darkening Gloom, I found this delicious story. One of Rabbi Shapiro's fund raising stops brought him to a synagogue in the Midwest. People thronged to the synagogue to hear the presentation of one of Jewry's eminent teachers. Rabbi Shapiro delivered his eloquent address speaking about the manifold needs of his brethren as well as of his dream of a Yeshiva. He made an impassioned appeal for funds - describing the penurious state of European Jewry and also of the enormous potential that would emerge from his institution.

             At the conclusion of his lecture, Rabbi Shapiro noticed a very young boy making a sprint from the back of the room - maneuvering around the adults, careening through the aisles, anxiously trying to make his way toward him. Realizing that this young boy could not possibly have grasped the essence of his talk and appeal - delivered in Yiddish, no less, Rabbi Shapiro asked him the following:
        

            "Why are you so anxious to speak to me?"

             "Because I heard the rabbi was speaking about MONEY."

             Said Rabbi Shapiro, "My son, if you understood that…you understood my talk better

             than every one else in the room!

 
    This week we learn about the project and fund raising involved in building the Mishkan - the Sanctuary. We learn of a basic tenet of tzedaka. Let’s read the verse carefully. “Speak to the children of Israel, they should take for me donations...this is the portion that you shall take from them - gold, silver, and copper." Why is the verse written in the plural, they should take for me?

            Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch articulates a fundamental principle about Jewish giving. He writes, "Each individual's gift for Divine purposes must be given through the community. It is not the individual, but rather the community that must build for and protect the Jewish people." Hirsch is articulating a Jewish axiom and it is communal giving. Something that sounds very familiar. Some of us are able to share gold, others silver and still others copper – but it is only together as a community that we can build a Mishkan –a place of Jewish values and dreams.

 
            Shabbat Shalom

            David