Pay attention to the words of Rashi at the beginning of this week’s Torah portion. He explains Aharon’s lighting of the menorah in the Mishkan as follows: “He shall light it until the flame rises on its own.”
Many commentators ask us to pause here: This is not just about the technical lighting of the menorah. Aharon HaKohen is the people’s spiritual mentor and he is, in fact, teaching us how to light a fire and generate enthusiasm in those under our wing: whether we are managers, military officers, teachers, or parents.
Initially, we have the task of simply lighting a fire. To educate, to explain, to pay close attention and to inspire. But it is impossible to always be there with constant instructions about what to do. A stage is reached where we must loosen our grip and let them fend for themselves. It’s a matter of finding the right time to take a step back and allowing them to generate their own light and brighten the worlds around them.
There are no fixed rules here. Sometimes parents must be constantly reassuring and exceedingly patient with a child, while other times they may smother a child with too much attention and need to be more distant. The words of Rashi call upon us to be aware of when to inspire and when to let go, when to supervise and be involved and when to foster independence, “until the flame rises on its own.”
Wishing everyone success in this endeavor.
PEGASUS AND U.S.
What can we learn from the news that Pegasus spyware was used by the police [in Israel], without justification, to wiretap the phones of numerous individuals, from politicians and journalists to ordinary citizens?
- Exercise of power without restriction is dangerous. A sense of hubris is created. It’s the feeling that we can do no wrong, that the ends justify the means. This is not only about overzealous police and prosecutors. Each of us needs to look around and see where, in every area of life, authority figures operate without accountability or transparency.
- This affair is a reminder of the new digital reality. Indeed, we would not be shocked if our bank accounts or medical records were hacked and exposed. By the same token, we have allowed our phones to become intimate parts of ourselves, inextricably linked to our minds, if not our souls.
- A wise person told me this week that it would be worthwhile to get back to basics and be more protective of our privacy. More than a thousand years ago, Rabbeinu Gershom published restrictions on personal conduct that included a prohibition on opening someone else’s mail. In our time, that prohibition would encompass accessing someone else’s digital documents, opening someone else’s computer without permission, sharing personal messages with a third party, and listening in to a conversation without knowledge of the participants. Our task now is to reassert our right to privacy in order to safeguard it in the future.
Translation by Yehoshua Siskin
