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The candle that checks for chametz
Why, after searching for chametz, do we throw the candle into the fire? Uri Orbach talks about a sermon he heard many years ago, and there’s a thought-provoking ending
At a conference held by the Bnei Akiva youth movement during Passover 1980-something I heard a very nice sermon from the head of a well-known yeshiva high school: “Why, after the search for chametz, do we throw the candle into the fire? Why we don't just burn the chametz instead of adding the candle, which is not chametz, to the fire?”
Straightening his glasses a bit and waving his finger at the hall, which was packed with young people, the rabbi emphasized every word in a loud voice in the sing-song tones of gemara discussion: “Because we don’t like a person who is searching for defects, either! Because when you are always busy finding dark corners to find the sins of other people, when you are always seeking the ‘chametz,’ there is a great defect in you as well. You are also ‘chametz’! Anyone who is constantly looking for sins—that is a sin in itself!”
Sermons against journalists and their profession have never stirred me. Hostility to criticism, and to self-criticism, has always been prominent among politicians and rabbis, public figures and educators. “The media” is an expression that is tossed about every time we, the religious public, hear something negative said about us. After all, we’re perfect. We don’t like to wash our dirty laundry in public, but when it’s tossed in the laundry basket at home, no one bothers to wash it at all.
Nevertheless, let’s admit it. There’s something addictive in poking around to find things that are wrong. Self-criticism is not just for journalists and columnists. Religious generals, religious educators, and even religious rabbis love to find and to stress the failings of the religious public. Feminist women and chauvinist men or vice versa protest our injustices and our backwardness. Religious people who see themselves as the best ponder the question of why we are so bad.
The preaching and the criticism also help the critic himself. The prophet feels the elation of a martyr, a feeling of “just the opposite” intoxicates him, people whisper in his ear: “Good for you for having the courage to say the truth to their faces.”
Here and there it even seems that he’s come upon people who look angry because he has revealed their shame in public, in front of everyone.
The feelings of true righteousness and false courage are like Red Bull - they give him strength. Suddenly he’s the man who’s going against everyone else, the person opposing norms and customs. He appears to himself to be a combination of the State Comptroller, the Prophet Jeremiah, and the child from the story of the emperor’s new clothes. He is not like everyone else, he’s unique and special.
There are a lot more than ten plagues among the religious public that we enumerate here on our site and in other places. We could continue counting all our flaws and ills until it was time to read the morning Shema prayer. It’s nice to pick at wounds, to protest, to tell everyone that if things go on this way, we’ll come to a bitter end.
After all, it’s easier to criticize than to establish a settlement, to study to become a religious court judge, to run a yeshiva, to organize a march, to hold a demonstration, to release someone on bail, and to get up every morning at 4:30. Each of us has been at 1,000 talks like this: “You know what the problem is with our (the religious) public? The problem with us is that we always know what our problems are. Each of us is a small candle for searching for chametz.”
Let’s slightly saw the branch on which we are swaying. The older religious media along with the newer web sites love the self-criticism. So as we approach Passover every year and the search for chametz and the candle, I remember that sermon.
That same rabbi, by the way—it’s a good thing you asked—later became famous for committing indecent acts on his young students, was disgraced and removed from his position, and was in jail for several years. It’s a story you know. So I still like the sermon about the candle that is thrown into the fire just because it is looking for defects, but on the other hand, every time I remember exactly where I heard it, I say to myself: Well, well, maybe it’s not so bad to illuminate the dark corners.
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