(Re)Defining Redemption

Parshat Behar 

 by Rabbi Avi Billet 

 Lag Ba’Omer having been this past Wednesday night and Thursday, it is hard to believe that a year has gone by since that celebrated day became a tragedy for 45 families directly, and for all of Klal Yisrael in the wake of the event that took so many lives in Meron last year. 

 In his song “Memories” in which he laments how those who survived the Shoah are slowly fading away, Abie Rotenberg wrote “Time has a way of passing by so fast.” That is what Time is and what Time does – it moves on, leaving us all to figure out “what will become of all the memories?” 

Torahs have been written, foundations created, edifices dedicated in memory of those whose lives were cut short on that day. That is all wonderful and appropriate. 

The question we face is “How have we been moved?” It’s a monumental challenge. Every time we hear of a tragedy or a loss, when we contemplate the death of someone we knew or did not know (in the latter case their passing impacted us somehow nonetheless), we often make commitments that we will do something to remember that person, or to emulate a deed that person was known for, or to carry on a chesed that person was committed to, or to continue a legacy a person carried, or to complete a task a person began. 

It’s very hard to remember all the things we’ve taken on in this way, all the people we had planned to memorialize in our own choices of behavior and deed, and even more challenging to keep up the things that were so defining of those we remember, but may be against our nature, and not the kinds of things we were able to truly make our own. 

Perhaps we need a redemption from our undertakings, or at the very least a redemption from all the pain! 

 There are two words for redemption that generally come to mind when we think in terms of Biblical Hebrew. One appears in the phrase “Pidyon HaBen” (and similar cash redemptions) in which the subject is redeemed for money (or some equivalent) through the agency of a Kohen. פדה, פדיון, פדות

 The other word for redemption is גאולה, which is often used to describe the FINAL Redemption in the Messianic Era. How many speeches have we heard which conclude with some message that we should merit to experience “the Geulah Shleimah?” 

So let us do a quick Search of the word גאולה/גאלה in Tanach to see how often this most important concept is touched upon, and what it means. As it turns out the word GEULAH (read that way) appears three times in the Torah, two times in Navi (the Prophets) and once in Ketuvim (Writings). All three Torah appearances are in our Parsha, the Navi ones are both in Yirmiyahu, and the Ketuvim one in the book of Ruth. ALL of these refer to a redemption of land going back to its original owner, and in the case of our Parsha, it refers to what takes place in the Yovel (Biblical Jubilee) year with respect to property rights as described. (In the Torah, the root גאל appears 44 times, with 31 of those appearances being in בהר and בחקותי – all related to financial redemption of property. Nine of the remaining times refer to the avenging relative of the victim of an accidental homicide – the גאל הדם.) 

Put another way, “Geulah” means a return to what was in the past. Even the two times that the root word appear in the context of the Exodus can be easily understood to mean that God is returning the Israelites to the status they had been in before, namely free people. 

 When we consider the kinds of redemption we seek, we often think of a future of unknowable quality and caliber. We don’t know what the future will bring, and what it will look like, because so much of our world and understanding of it is informed by our experience, and not by what once was – for which we have minimal to no frame of reference. 

When it comes to redemption from pain, perhaps what would make us happiest would be a turning back of a more recent clock, to undo the pain of losses, to undo the difficulties of previous months or years, to undo that which has brought outcomes that we didn’t want or don’t understand or appreciate, to at least bring us to a place of equilibrium, where we are at peace with the world we experience. 

 Unfortunately that is not reality. We can’t undo the past, and there are too many parts in the world going forward that are beyond our control that expecting things to go back to how they were is perhaps naïve or foolish or a pipedream or even a dream that may be possible in one form or another, and yet still only a dream. 

What we yearn for is Geulah – a redemption that brings us peace with a vision going forward, what to live for in our service of God, what to live for even in the frail and fleeting human existence we each experience, and what to live for as a collective group under the sheltering wings of the Divine. 

 The most significant interpretation of the blessing of Geulah, the 7th blessing in the weekday Shmoneh Esrei, is a blessing for a healing of the mind or soul, that a person be healed of the pains and difficulties one experiences beyond the realm of an ailing body (Piskei Teshuos Orach Chaim 115, and see Rashi on Megillah 17b, s’v אתחלתא דגאולה היא). The 8th blessing (רפאנו) is a blessing requesting a healing of the body – a רפואת הגוף. But as we often pray for a full healing, the prayer for the healing of the body is often preceded by a prayer for רפואת הנפש (a healing of the soul), and that is what the blessing of ראה נא וענינו וריבה ריבנו וגאלנו מהרה למען שמך – the blessing of “redemption” - is all about (see the book שיח יום, and the note in Yalkut Yosef II:116:4:4) (see the comments after this article). 

 Why would we pray for that? Because the implication of praying for a “healing” is that there was a time before the current situation, a time before the current circumstance of a certain someone being so troubled in the mind. We remember a time when we or they were “normal,” and when things were OK. (This is also implied in Kuzari 3:19) 

 While it is impossible to tell anyone who has suffered any kind of loss to “move on,” it is a great blessing for anyone who has gone through the most difficult and tragic circumstances to “find peace.” It won’t be the same as it was before, as in most cases of traumatic events (barring a miraculous healing and recovery) there is no returning to how things were because in most of those cases there is a hole in the heart, an empty space at a table, an empty bed, but we are designed to be able to have resilience and to forge a path forward, with and despite the pain. 

Perhaps this is why the healing from suffering is referred to as “Geulah.” Pain can destroy a person. It is likely that some of us know people who live with pain of a loss, and mourn a loved one, or a life that “was,” and carry that burden for months, if not years, if not decades. Those who see the living person in this sorry state may pray that the person we’ve watched deteriorate in this way find a רפואת הנפש, because we know that without it, the life this person continues to live is a life not reaching its potential. 

 Especially when living a life dedicated to perpetuating the memory of a loved one, we owe it to them (the deceased) and to ourselves to not let the pain we feel swallow us alive leaving us as people in need of a personal redemption. We must live in a way that demonstrates a path forward, in which we have taken care of our emotional health, our physical health, our spiritual health, so that we are living our best lives despite the pain, because that is our task. We read the famous teaching of Rabbi Tarfon in Avos (2:16) a few weeks ago, “It is not for you to finish the task, but neither are you free to exempt yourself from it…” This is the answer to the opening question of how we have been moved - we have a responsibility in this world and in this life to make the very best of even the most difficult circumstances. 

 We get one chance at this life. Sometimes very difficult curveballs and even minefields aim to put us away from the right path. True redemption is when none of that is able to break us from finding joy when appropriate, laughing when appropriate, and continuing to have a relationship with the Almighty even when we don’t understand His ways. 

May those who need one be granted a Geulah we call Refuat HaNefesh (healing of the soul, freedom from suffering), and may we all experience a Geulah Shleimah.