CHOCHMAS NASHIM: VAYETZE:
PURELL V. FLU SHOT
By: Suri Davis
In this week’s torah portion, we have Jacob fleeing for his life from his brother Esau.
The rebbe raised the question of how it was that Abraham and Isaac, who dwelt mostly in the ancestral land of Canaan/modern day Israel, each had a child whose acts were not up to Jewish ethical standards, yet Jacob, who had 11/12 of his children while living with Lavan, himself not up to standard, had all 12 of his children follow in the Jewish way of life.
The rebbe answers, Sichas Shabbos Parshas Vayetze 5750, that Abraham and Isaac expelled their evil, rather than resist and learn how to build resistance to evil, in trying to understand the difference, one can imagine the debate about whether it is wise to consistently use Purell and anti-bacterials in our life.
When we get a flu shot early in the season, we do so to allow our bodies to build resistance to the virus. Many argue that it is not wise to use Purell and similar anti-bacterials, because then our bodies do not know how to fight bacteria, when we come into contact with it, that our bodies never learn how to fight the natural bacteria around us.
Thus, since Abraham and Isaac appear to have been impervious or built a barrier to evil, when they each had a son who committed evil acts, they did not know how to resist or combat it, never having really dealt with it in their own personal lives.
Jacob, on the other hand, built up defenses against evil from the very beginning, knowing with whom he lived, and similarly taught his family to be conscious, wary and on the defensive about the evil surrounding them.
Thus the debate amongst the Orthodox of with how much of the outside world we permit our children to have contact. Is it best for them to experience the world and learn how to resist it, as we learn how to manage our colds and viruses, as inevitable encroachments on our lives, or do we keep our children sheltered from the outside world in hopes they never have to deal with the secular world. At what age, and how much and in what manner.
Points to ponder.
Have a good Shabbos.
-Suri