Calendar disputes have plagued history for centuries. Even in the days of Jesus. Pharisees, Sadducees, Samaritans, Essenes, all had their take on how the calendar should be followed. The Gregorian calendar the western world follows today has had several revisions but if we are to be able to operate together, we must agree to a consensus to follow the same calendar.
One very special day in the Jewish calendar is Yom Kippur in the fall. It is believed that that day is the last of ten when the heavens were opened to receive the people’s prayers of repentance. Until today, it is the most important day in the Jewish calendar. It a day of fasting and prayers; even non-religious Jews fast on that day. People neither travel, carry money, nor work. On that day, everything is closed in Israel. There is no traffic in the streets and people stroll on the highway with their children and families. There was a time when 2 Rabbis from a well known academy disagreed on the calendar and therefore on the day of Yom Kippur that year. That school was the most important academy in the Land after the Romans had shut down the country of Israel. This school was actually in charge of the program to preserve Judaism through the coming long years of exile. The younger of the two rabbis who ran the school, wanted to make his mark as a leader so he forced the older rabbi (who had been his teacher) to come to the school for a dinner on a certain day, day which the older rabbi felt was actually the day to fast. The old rabbi wrestled with his conscience but finally decided to go; why? He weighed the pros and the cons. He realised that if he allowed himself the luxury of following his own hunches regardless of how right they are, everyone would start doing the same and as a result, not only the country will be finished, but the Jewish people themselves. He felt then that in this situation, it was a better ‘obedience’ to the commandments to follow consensus than to follow his own convictions of what is right. A very famous Rabbi commented on that episode between the two religious leaders of that academy. He said,“Sometime you must break the Torah in order to obey the Torah.” What he meant was that the word of God requires us to learn to live together in love and unity, and sometimes to accomplish that, one may feel like he is breaking another demand of the Word, but consensus, love, and unity trumps individuality. I think that a great lesson can be learned from this for marriages, associations, organisations, religious groups, even for the members of our government. The ideas of consensus and unity for the love the greater good are more important than trivial details. As the old saying goes, “If we don’t hang together, we will surely hang separately!”
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