Really Righteous

This past year, I’ve been really pondering about who is really righteous, these days. It used to be that if I saw a black hat, or someone was called ‘rabbi’, I automatically assumed that that person was really righteous.

But in recent months, all my assumptions went out the window. An apparently ‘religious’ person killed a small Jewish boy in America; a week later, another apparently ‘religious’ person stabbed their spiritual guide to death in Beer Sheva. The week after that, my kids’ (Torani) school sent out a message telling all the (religious) parents that they were upping the ante on dressing modestly, and from now on, all the kids would have to come to school wearing socks.

I was very pleased about that letter; but a lot of people weren’t, and they were quoting halacha up and down about how girls don’t need to wear socks. At the same time, I heard a shiur (Torah class) by Rav Arush where he said that the real measure of a woman can be gauged by how she dresses and acts.

I started to feel more and more confused. If I took these shiurim seriously, and if I was pleased that my kids’ school wanted to encourage them to wear socks, was I really being righteous, or just a judgemental religious extremist?

Then I heard another, amazing, shiur by Rav Arush, where he was explaining that so many things that are the very essence of being a believing Jew, and living a  ‘really righteous’ life, simply aren’t written down in the Torah.

Things like talking to G-d every day; things like being happy about having the chance to do mitzvot every day; things like living in Israel; things like wearing socks…. If you had to boil it all down, it came to this: did a person really want to at least want to be doing what Hashem wanted, or not?

And if not, it doesn’t matter how ‘religious’ they might appear, they were fooling themselves (and probably, a whole bunch of other people as well) that they were really righteous.

My head went into a spin. I started to wonder: am I really righteous myself? OK, I try to talk to G-d, I try to keep as many mitzvot as I can, but I know I have a whole bunch of ‘issues’ that still need sorting out, not least a terrible tendency to judge people very harshly.

I’ve been working on it for a good year, and usually, I manage to keep it more or less in check. But recently, I kind of had a ‘really righteous’ malfunction, and all I started noticing about people was how they were dressing.

It came to a head last week, when my husband and I spent Shabbat in Meron, where the author of the Zohar, Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, is buried.

Rabbi Shimon’s tomb is a strange place; it’s not dark and foreboding, as you might expect of a tomb. It’s not even quiet and contemplative, as you also might expect. People eat food there; they chat there; they sing there; some people even camp out there.

That morning, I’d just experienced my first ever bonafide rocket siren, as I was doing my personal prayer around the outskirts of my village, so I was feeling even more wound up than usual, and I really hoped I’d get some clarity and peace in Meron.

On the way there, we picked up a few hitch-hikers – two parents, a boy and the mum’s sister.

They were dressed the way secular people dress when they are going somewhere ‘religious’, and don’t want to offend anybody, and immediately, I opened a mental box in my head, and shoved them in it.

The wife kept saying thanks to G-d that she’d managed to get a ride to Meron before Shabbat came in, and I was a bit perturbed, because I assumed she’d be trying to get a ride back a couple of hours’ later, and she’d be breaking Shabbat anyway.

Shows how much I know.

That family spent the whole of Shabbat in the tomb of Rabbi Shimon. Every time I saw the wife, she was saying tehillim, or praying heartfelt prayers, or trying to help her sister out, who clearly had a lot of emotional issues.

Once I realized, the next morning, that this apparently ‘secular’ family had spent the whole night at the tomb, I felt very humbled. Appearances can be very deceiving, especially these days.

I got more insight into that a little while later, when an apparently ‘religious’ woman started to have a go at the apparently ‘secular’ woman for being inappropriately dressed.

I’d been watching the apparently ‘religious’ woman for a few minutes beforehand, while she lolled around on the floor in a very undignified way, legs akimbo, sucking a lollipop; or yelled at some little kids for making some noise and a mess; or ate some of the free cholent they give out at the tomb. What I hadn’t seen her do was pray. In half an hour, I hadn’t seen her crack open a prayer book, or a book of psalms, or talk to G-d in any way, shape or form.

What am I meant to think about all this?

I spent a long time at Rabbi Shimon’s tomb, mulling it all over. On a day when rockets were flying all over Israel; in a week where Jews were dying all over the place as a result of Arab violence; in a month where loads of other Jews were being diagnosed with terminal illnesses, G-d forbid; or getting divorced – what was I meant to think about it all?

What does it mean to really be righteous, today?

I don’t know.

But for me, it means I’m going to continue to make more of an effort to want what G-d wants, and to listen to our holy Rabbis; I’m going to continue to try to at least want to behave and dress more modestly; but at the same time, I’m going to also ask G-d to help me judge my fellow Jew favorably.

I simply don’t know what’s going on in other people’s lives.

If I hadn’t given that apparently ‘secular’ family a lift to Meron, I would never have known about their self-sacrifice and sincerity. I might also have tutted to myself about the see-through white top, and the too-tight-too-short skirt.

And then, if I had, I’d be just like that other ‘really religious’ lady, who was so full of herself, and so far away from G-d, regardless of how she looked.

And that thought is terrifying.