Parable of the Healing Herb

Rabbi Gary S. Creditor 

Rabbi Bernard Berzon, in his book "Sermons the Year Round" led me to a midrash that is recorded in both Leviticus Rabbah and Ecclesiastes Rabbah. The following strange legend is embedded in a series of legends. In the text there is no name to the passage. I call it "The Parable of the Healing Herb." This time of year embraces a series of the most significant dates in the Jewish calendar: Yom HaShoah - in memory of the Holocaust, Yom HaZikaron - in memory of those who died defending the State of Israel, Remembrance of Ghetto Warsaw - whose revolt began at Pesach, Yom HaAtzmaut - Israel 's Independence Day celebrated this past Monday. This strange legend is truly a parable on our history, mission and destiny.

"It once happened that a certain person coming from Babylonia and sat down to rest on the road, when he saw two birds fighting with each other and one of them killed the other. The survivor went and fetched some herb and, placing it on the other, revived her. It will be a good thing, he thought, if I take some of this herb and revive therewith the dead of the Land of Israel - ve-achaya metaya de-ara de'Yisrael. As he was running along he saw a fox dead and decaying on the road. It will be a good thing, he thought, if I try it on this fox. He placed it on him and revived him. He went on until he reached the Ladders of Tyre, in Lebanon . When he reached the Ladders of Tyre he saw a lion slain and decaying on the road. It will be a good thing, he thought, if I try it on this lion. He placed some of the herb on him and he came back to life and devoured him." [Leviticus Rabbah 22:4 (page 282); Ecclesiastes Rabbah 8:8 (page143)]. Both versions of the Midrash end by citing a maxim against doing good for someone bad.

How can we understand this parable, in Hebrew, a mashal?

First we note that the character of the legend is described as desalek-min-Bavel, coming from Babylonia . This immediately connotes the Diaspora. This is a Jew in the exile. He has no home. He is a wanderer, "na va-nad ba'aretz," homeless, rootless. From the context of the story, it is refers to a Jewish world that is post the destruction of the Second Temple by the Romans in 70 C.E. and the defeat of the Bar Kochba Rebellion in 135 C.E. The Jewish home has been destroyed. The vibrant hearth has been extinguished. Having discovered a magic elixir, he wants to revive the Jewish homeland - ve-achaya metaya de-ara de'Yisrael. And even though by the time of this legend though Babylonia possibly could have had great yeshivot, learning academies, Babylonia was not home. This Jew wants to come home.

But he doesn't come directly home. In the Midrash he stops near Tyre in Lebanon . We don't know why he didn't go straight to Israel . He detoured, and followed a fork in the main road that took him westward instead of southwest. And he brought with him the magical, mysterious healing herb. We the Jewish people, since the great dispersions of 70 and 135 C.E. have never gone straight home, even when we could. We have detoured to every country under the sun. From China to Japan , South Africa to Germany , Russia to America , Spain to Turkey , Iran to Iraq , we have brought our healing herb. We have brought our industriousness, our culture, our focus on education, our music and literature, our scientists, our thirst for democracy, fairness, honesty, ethics, our belief in the holiness of the individual and law. We have brought our Torah. And to each host we applied our healing herb, our life-sustaining force and contributed enormously to the betterment of each and every country. And just as magically and mysteriously, the splendorous content of the healing herb was never exhausted.

What did this Jew find in his detour? A fox. What an image! In Rabbinic literature the fox is always the one trying to trick and deceive, even kill. If only the anonymous author of the Midrash could have known the applicability of his creation in the two thousand years since he wrote it. Nearly every host country, America and Canada certainly being the outstanding exceptions, has acted craftily towards the Jewish people. What did it beget us for bringing our healing herb? In country after country we were expelled, persecuted, subject to blood libels, holy books burnt on pyres, pogroms and genocide, even as they picked our bones dry. Imagine any place that we have resided without our contributions! 350 years ago, if it weren't for the protection of Jewish members in the Amsterdam Company, Peter Styvesant would have thrown us out of New Amsterdam as well. Imagine America without the Jewish people. The inclusion of the fox in the Midrash is perfect. And despite our experience, time after time, place after place, we brought and applied our healing herb.

What else did the Jew find? A lion. The lion was the symbol of the British Empire . We and they need remember that even as the British implemented the White Paper, which closed Palestine in 1939 to the Jews of Europe, the only potential place of their salvation in the whole world, the Jews of Palestine dedicated themselves to helping the British. While the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem went to Berlin and pledged allegiance to the Nazis, the tiny Jewish community of Palestine signed with their blood to support the British lion, forming brigades to fight along side them. In exchange, what did that Lion do? Like in the Midrash, it tried to eat us. In the waning years of the British Mandate, every favor, every strategic location was handed over to the Arabs. When terrorists from Syria , Lebanon , Transjordan , Egypt and elsewhere entered, the British took away the guns from the Jewish settlements. The Lion nearly ate the source of the healing herb.

But here is an abrupt shift to the legend. In the real story, the desalek-min-Bavel does not die. He brings his healing herb to a parched and virtually deserted backwaters land, ara d'Yisrael. The soil is barren of trees and it marshes are infested. It is dry and empty. He applies the herb and the land begins to heal from its barrenness and the millennium of its destitution. And the bearers of the healing herb begin to return from all points of the Diaspora. In about 125 years the land of Eretz Yisrael has undergone a metamorphosis. And so has the people of Israel . As the prophets in the Bible foresaw, the sons and daughters of Israel have returned from the lands of our dispersion and created a vibrant, strong and gallant country. It is almost impossible to imagine that 56 years ago there was no Israel ; that Jews lived in DP camps; that Jews were afraid of their shadow; that we were in the pit of our powerlessness; that we were scattered and disconnected. Despite current conditions, it is incumbent to review from whence we have come to where we have arrived. Our people have applied the healing bush to the land and to ourselves.

Yet foxes and lions still lie in wait on the path. 
1. While the United States is portrayed as justified in pursuing bin Ladin, and President Bush still makes a case for Iraq and Sadam Hussein , Israel is condemned for pursuing Yassin and Rantsi, leaders of Hamas. Proportionately, in the past three and a half years of intifada, the number of Israelis murdered would equate to 22,499 Russians or 43,136 Americans or 58,963 Europeans. That is just from Hamas. Would any nation stomach such an assault upon its citizens? Would the world be silent if it happened to anyone else?

2. Why are NPR, BBC, the U.N., ABC, European Common Market, to name a few, so anti-Israel? Why do they equate unprovoked attacks on civilians, the most recent attempt on Ashdod which could have leveled the city, with the stopping of suicide bombers? Why do they openly and brazenly lie about Jenin, where there was no massacre?

3. Why is everybody else deserving of a homeland, but ours, declared by the U.N. just like so many others, is called illegitimate? 
Foxes, lions, tigers and bears, lie on the path.

Yet the grandeur, majesty and splendor of our people, is that it still offers to bring the healing herb to the Palestinians. There are numerous initiatives made by Israelis privately and governmentally to cooperate, coordinate, extend scientific, medical, educational, agricultural, economic assistance, help and support to the Palestinians. We have to be meshugah! The healing herb that called us into being, the Torah, and its author God, has implanted in the Jewish people the will to do good and help others and the desire for peace - with fairness and equity. God has also planted within the Jewish people the seed of eternity.

May the Holy One, Blessed Be He, hold close and dear all those who died in Kiddush HaShem, for Kiddush HaAm, and for Kiddush HaAretz, memorialized on Yom HaShoah, Yom HaZikaron and Yom HaAtzmaut.

May the Kadosh Baruch Hu, strengthen those who defend the land and the people of Israel .

May He give the people of Israel the tenacity to hold fast to a vision for peace.

May God Himself apply the healing herb to the land, the people and the State, so that Isaiah's words will come true, "the wolf shall dwell with the lamb, the leopard lied down with the kid; the calf, the beast of prey, and fatling together, with a little child to herd them. The cow and the bear shall graze, their young shall lie down together; the lion, like the ox, shall eat straw.In all my holy mountain, nothing evil shall be done; for the land shall be filled with the devotion to the Lord as the water covers the sea. (Isaiah 11:6ff).

Amen.