Recently we all have undergone a shift of expectations and assumptions regarding Jewish life in the diaspora.   Now we are surprised and a bit unnerved when a synagogue does not have armed guards at its entrance.   How does this change of attitude, this fear, impact us on a communal and psychological level?

This week’s parsha opens by recalling the sudden death in the sanctuary of the two sons of Aaron, several weeks ago.  Our parsha comes not primarily to remind us of their death but to warn us to create secure boundaries and take proactive measures in order to avoid such an episode from recurring.  For instance, it instructs that the kohanim may only enter the sanctuary dressed in certain clothes, sober, and with certain sacrifices at a certain time (Yom Kippur). The death of the two sons of Aaron may have been appropriate, but it was nonetheless tragic, and the sanctuary must be a safe space.  Thus limits and guidelines are put into place to ensure such death in the tabernacle does not reoccur.

The tabernacle, and especially the sanctuary is a powerful, potentially dangerous place, but the Torah is saying, it must nevertheless be a safe one.  God cannot be encountered amidst anxiety and fear.  It is vital to feel both awe and comfort in a holy place.  This tension facilitates our spiritual life.   Too much comfort and the atmosphere lacks weightiness, too much awe and we are paralyzed, fearful, unable to be vulnerable to the intimacy of prayer and the close Divine presence.

But, for so many millennia the Jews have faced hardship and persecution, how is it that they were able to pray, able to  feel fully at home and integrated within their Shuls and their religious life, even amid persecution and threats, and can this be instructive for us?  Where did they get the other side of the balance, that of love, comfort and safety?   I think the answer lies in their sense of God’s presence, as Dr. Chaim Soloveitchik so famously wrote over 20 years ago in his profound essay Rupture and Reconstruction:

“God’s palpable presence and direct, natural involvement in daily life—and  I emphasize both “direct” and “daily”—, His immediate responsibility for everyday events, was a fact of life in the East European shtetl, so late as several generations ago…” (today, in contrast) “…individual Divine Providence, though passionately believed as a theological principle—and I do not for a moment question the depth of that conviction—is no longer experienced as a simple reality…(today) religious Jews seek to ground their new emerging spirituality less on a now unattainable intimacy with Him, than on an intimacy with His Will, avidly eliciting Its intricate demands and saturating their daily lives with Its exactions. Having lost the touch of His presence, they seek now solace in the pressure of His yoke.”  (Click here to read the essay in full:  https://www.lookstein.org/professional-dev/rupture-reconstruction-transformation-contemporary-orthodoxy/ )

We have no choice but in this atmosphere of fright to redouble our efforts to cultivate not only a serious atmosphere, but one that also is safe, loving, and comfortable, and in which God’s close presence can be felt.