Role Play

by Rabbi Mordechai Rhine

Role play is an effective way to appreciate a situation from a someone else’s vantage point. Also, it enables a person to consider the proper behavior if they were to find themselves in a different situation. By assigning a proposed “Role” to a person they get to “try it on” and see how it feels and how they would react. In this week’s portion we find out that it is even more important to try on one’s own role for size.

The Torah describes how Nadav and Avihu, two talented sons of Ahron, wanted to really make their mark. With a high level of dedication they decided to bring Kitores/Incense in the Mishkan/Sanctuary. The Torah records that they were struck dead for doing so, and even tells us why: Because it was a fire that “G-d did not command.” In other words, their yearning for greater heights of service took them to very lofty levels. But these were levels that they were not assigned. Unfortunately this was not an ordinary mistake. They “were playing with fire”. Entering the Sanctuary without permission is serious business. It came with serious consequences.

This event with Nadav and Avihu is similar to the story that will later occur with Korach. Korach, too, had great aspirations to achieve more greatness than he was assigned. He wanted to be Kohein Gadol- The High Priest. But he was not assigned to that position; Ahron was. But Korach really wanted… and he pushed his desire into a rebellion with tragic consequences.

In our time there is much talk of people who feel that they got the “raw end of the deal.” They feel “discriminated against” because of their role. Sometimes a sense of discrimination is the result of one’s feeling a personal potential that is greater than they are achieving. This is the story of Rabbi Akiva who described himself as resentful of others, until through hard work he became great himself.  But sometimes the sense of resentfulness is because we are too busy trying to role play other people’s lives and have not discovered how to role play our own.

The Bostoner Rebbe once illustrated this phenomenon by observing that in his shul they discriminate against him in a most profound way. Although other Rabbis are typically called up for Shlishi (the third Aliya), he is never called up then. “Such Discrimination!” he declared with a loving smile. He explained: I am a Levi. In the time of the Beis Hamikdash my tribe was the one chosen to be the honor guard and to provide the music. People of my tribe have the distinction of being called up for the second Aliya, not the third. Yet if you would like to interpret it as discrimination, “They discriminate against me. They are not giving me Shlishi as befits a Rebbe.”

A comfortable way to understand life is that it is like an army. Each person is given an assignment to further a common goal. If a person is assigned a certain goal, they cannot abdicate their position without giving proper notice and receiving authorization. Being in the air force is very grand and is a great contribution, but if one is on (boring) guard duty, he cannot just drop his assignment to achieve the loftier role of air force pilot. Such reassignment can be requested; only sometimes is it granted. The key to life satisfaction is not usually in reassignment. The key to life satisfaction is in understanding what the common goal is, and what our personal role is in achieving that goal.

On one occasion someone asked me if I am resentful that I am not a Kohein. It is, perhaps, an interesting thing to think about. But if I was a Kohein-as special as that is- I would not be allowed to go to a cemetery and would not be allowed in the same building as a dead body. This would preclude me from assisting a bereaved family on a most personal level. Far better to live the role assigned, than to imagine all the roles that we think we ought to have been given.

More often than not it is in fact hard to know how to define the “loftier role”. Is it the men who dominate the service in shul or is it the women who typically dominate in nurturing and training the next generation of Jews, a precious commodity indeed. Is it the honest businessman who makes time to study Torah and do chesed with his family and with others, or is it the Torah scholar dedicated to high level Torah study and to empower people to be all they can be?

Far better than role playing other people’s roles would be to search deep inside ourselves through Torah and through prayer,  to discover our personal strengths and our own personal role so that we can be the astoundingly best that we can be.

© 2016 by TEACH613™