It was very early this past Monday morning -- 4:41AM to be exact -- when my phone rang. It’s not often that the phone rings in the middle of the night, and thankfully, the particular phone that was called was not in my bedroom so I did not even hear the phone, never mind know whom it was that had called at this unearthly hour until much later in the morning; and it was then that I noticed that a friend of mine, had phoned me at that early hour.
"Strange," I thought to myself. "I wonder why he would be calling me this early in the morning"; and it was only after I listened to the early news and I learned of the Jewish School massacre In Toulouse, France, that I knew why he had called. As is to be expected in these types of situations, the initial reports were somewhat sketchy and fluid, though even at first, we learned of the loss of life of young innocent school children at the hands of a cold blooded assassin.
We now know, as first hand eyewitness reports of this massacre become available, that the killer chased after one of his victims, little Miriam Monsonego all of 8 years young, yanked her by her hair and shot her in the head at point blank range. Then, as she lay bleeding to death on the ground, he lifted up her head and shot her two more times.
Miriam, together with the other murdered victims, Rabbi Jonathan Sandler, and his two little boys, Arieh, 6 and Gabriel 3, were all murdered because they were Jewish. The heart aches for yet another senseless killing and expression of hate, but more than this, the heart aches because of the lack of answers to the timeless question of “Why?" Just how many sacrifices must the Jewish people offer up on the altar of tears that is the story of our ongoing Jewish history?… but ultimately there are no answers to these questions, and the knowledge of this makes it even more unbearable.
The Midrash Vayikra Rabbah (Parshas Tzav 7:3) quotes the great sage Rav Asi who asked, 'Why do little school children begin their [study of the Torah] with the book of Leviticus and not with Genesis? Surely, we should begin teaching them from “the beginning” and yet we begin their formal education by teaching them from the third book of the Torah! Said Rav Asi: Surely it is because young children are pure, and the korbanot (sacrifices) are pure; so let the pure come and engage in the study of the pure.
This week, in Synagogues and schools across the world over, Jewish children (and adults) began reading and studying the third book of the Torah -- the book of Leviticus. And right from the get-go, the contrast between this book and the prior books could not be starker. For it is in this – the third of the five books of the Torah – that the Torah commands us to offer of ourselves, as it were, an offering to G-d!
It is also known as the most complex and technical book of the holy law, with its intricate nuances and detailed instructions. But sacrifices are pure. They reflect a level of commitment and of bringing oneself closer to G-d, but to get closer to G-d, is to get closer also to a level where human reason does not reach, is to get closer to a place that no human mind is capable of comprehension.
Perhaps this is the deeper reason why the little Jewish children begin their serious Torah studies through studying the topic of sacrifices -- for it, too, is a subject that is so pure, that it leaves more questions than answers and it belongs in a realm -- the realm of purity -- that is wholly beyond the scope of human understanding.
I can only hope and pray that these pure offerings in Toulouse, France will be the last such offerings -- and may we very soon merit to experience the warm embrace of the closeness of G-d in an open and revealed manner in line with the words expressed by the prophet Isaiah (also to be read in the Synagogues this Shabbos as the Haftarah): My people (the people of Israel, the Jewish nation) that I have formed for myself.