It is always a challenge being in such a close-knit community where everyone knows everybody's business. It is hard to maintain on the one hand individuality and yet on the other hand tryong to conform to societal norms. Either extreme poses its own problems; those who claim that they could care less about what others think are either lying or allowing themselves the opportunity to behave in an unconscionable manner without remorse. Those who are complete conformers usually spend their time complaining about how much they hate conformity- these people are called FOMOs- for those less enlightened "Fear of missing out".
Like many things in life, there needs to be balance. We need to maintain our attachment to the community, participating in communal initiatives and sharing communal celebrations and calamaties, but we also need to be able to separate ourselves at certain times when communal behave is inappropriate- as the Mishna in Pirkei Avot teaches "Where there are no men, try to be a man."
This weeks portion Naso, tells of various princely offerings that were made during the dedication of the Mishkan. Everyone of the 12 Princes brought the identicle offering, yet the Torah goes out of its way to iterate everyone of the twelve in detail. Our Rabbis tell us that this shows the greatness of the entire episode. On the first day the first prince brings his offering. On the second day the prince stopped and asked himself- If I bring less than the first prince then it would look improper. If I bring more, then I will be starting a viscious cycle of one-upmanship that will continue for the next 10 days. By the time the last prince has to bring his offering he will have to take out a mortgage. So instead the prince brought the identicle offering to his predeccessor. This is the greatness of the episode- the ability to look in the future and see what the ramifications of one's actions now would be in the future and the senstivity to others.
We can well take a lesson from this incident- sometimes comformity is necessary and sometimes it is even a mitzvah- the goal is really in the motivation.
Shabbat Shalom
