Ours is a culture forever in search of heroes. We demand the constant creation of new images on which to project our highest ideals and expectations, looking to politicians, celebrities; millionaires or athletes to not only excel in the professional life, but to shine in their personal conduct as well. Small wonder that our hopes and dreams are so often shattered—to succeed professionally often requires such a tremendous focus on personal goals and glory that the qualities of true heroism (compassion, selflessness, vision) are snuffed out early on. Victory is the result of calculation, self-promotion, and a touch of ruthlessness - and, of course, a sizable helping of plain old good luck.
In our desire to worship heroes, we stand on a solid biblical base. The Bible rarely reports the average, everyday dealings of ordinary people. Instead, this collection of holy books parades an unending series of great men and women—people touched by a passion for God, by prophetic zeal, or by military prowess. The people who populate the Bible are each of them remarkable, looming large both in their virtues and in their vices. Perhaps it is, in part, due to the Bible’s focus on heroes that we are so ill equipped to live in a world in which the most prominent figures are often average, pathetic, or repugnant in their conduct of their own private affairs. The narratives of the Bible lead us to expect personal greatness in the socially prominent, and the world just doesn’t seem to work that way.
One area in which the Bible’s hero veneration seems to abate somewhat is in the areas that focus on law rather than on anecdote. Stories, by their nature, focus on the extraordinary. Law, in order to meet the need of the society it is to guide, addresses the normal: the average person conducting a routine life. Law must speak to each person in the routine of the everyday, while the tales to the Torah inspire us with visions of what might yet be possible.
Nowhere is that focus on the routine more striking, or more revolutionary than a passage in this week’s Torah portion. The Book of Devarim, Deuteronomy, records the laws of how Israel is to fight a holy war, one conducted in accordance not only with military strategy but also in a Godly fashion. One of the provisions is for the appointment of a Meshuah Milhamah, the kohen appointed to accompany the troops into battle. He gives a brief speech, encouraging the soldiers by reminding them that they are fighting on behalf of a holy cause. Then, the officials address the troops, saying,
Is there anyone who has built a new house but has not dedicated it? Let him go back to his home, lest he die in battle and another dedicate it. Is there anyone who has planted a vineyard but has never harvested it? Let him go back to his home, lest he die and another harvest it. Is there anyone who has paid the bride-price for a wife, but who has not yet married her? Let him go back to his home, lest he die in battle and another marry her.
By any measurement, this is a remarkable standard. At the beginning of a milhemet hovah, an obligatory war, soldiers who have just built a home, just planted a field, or just married are told to go home. They’re not even given an option! Rashi comments on this astounding series of laws by explaining that “this is a matter of agmat nefesh, anguish of the soul.”
Since when does agmat nefesh override national interest? How many nations would take a supreme religious obligation (such as the Conquest of the Promised Land) and say that it was less important than the simple acts of daily life: home, marriage, and work. Yet that is precisely the perspective the Torah relates: The basics of life are not some commodity to be traded away; they are the very goal of being alive. Not just heroism, with its thrill and its rarity, but normal living too is the proper context for holiness.
In fact, what the laws of the Torah suggest is a radically different notion of heroism altogether. The hero is not the great warrior, the eccentric designer, or the conquering entrepreneur. True heroism is far less recognized, and requires much greater patience, diligence, and control. The true hero is the devoted parent, the caring child, the responsible citizen, quietly shouldering the task of decency and compassion and love.
We show ourselves to be heroic when we adequately appreciate God’s gift of life, when we cherish our loved ones and provide for their (and our own) sustenance honestly and with dignity.
The newspapers may never report such greatness, and the televisions won’t make a show extolling normal neighbors, but the countless acts of quiet and unnoted heroism that parents lavish on children, children devote to parents, and neighbors and citizens bestow on each other are the humble implementation of God’s most basic command: to love each other.
Shabbat Shalom.