Q:
Why is it that a father and a son or two brothers don’t get an aliyah at the Torah one after the other?
A:
And the answer is people will say that they’re partial to this family. They’ll say that this family has so much ‘pull’ and they’ll be jealous. And jealousy is unhealthy for everybody. Hakodosh Boruch Hu has pity on human beings and therefore jealousy has a result.
So therefore you make an interruption, so people should get a rest from seeing the father get an aliyah – there’s an interruption first and then later the son. By that time, they forgot about the father.
It’s important not to arouse too much jealousy. That’s always a principle of correct behavior.
September 1988
