A BISSEL TORAH: EIKEV: THE BLACKSMITHING OF THE JEWS
REPORTING FROM JLI RHODE ISLAND
By: Suri Davis
Over the last year, I decided to read the biographies of the major Rebbes and figures of historical Lubavitch. All the Lubavitch rabbis were jailed for their religious practice including the last Rebbe, who had given a sermon in Berlin for Purim and was arrested for Sermonizing without a permit. Thank G-d his friend Rabbi Soloveitchik pleaded on his behalf and had the rebbe released. At said release, it is told that Rav Soloveitchik told the Rebbe, who was not yet Rebbe, that now that he had spent a night in jail, he could become a Lubavitch rabbi.
Here at JLI Rhode Island, my second Jewish Learning Institute, there are many classes on Jewish history and the history of Lubavitch. We know that Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai hid in a cave because he was wanted by the Romans for teaching torah. It is in the cave, that he wrote the Zohar, the basis of Kabbalah. So too with the Rabbis of Lubavitch who were thrown into jail, and from the depth came their brilliant treatises.
We heard this week from Rabbi Yosef Mendelevich who was tortured in Soviet Russia. We heard from Robert Meeropol, who is the son of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, the only convicted spies put to death in the United States when there was clear evidence, his mother was never a spy at all. And Brigadier General in the Israeli Army who teaches ethics to army personnel in Israel and around the world. Israel, the most ethical army in the world. Helps all countries in trouble, acknowledged by almost none.
But I wonder why it is that the history and foundation of Lubavitch has all of the Rebbes in jail. As I was ruminating about this, the question of Egyptian slavery entered my mind. The rabbis tell us that we needed to be slaves because it acted like a Kur Habarzel/a refinery from which strengthened and purified metal comes out.
It reminds me of my visits to the Bethpage Restoration Village where there are demonstrations in blacksmithing. The metal rod is heated until it is red hot and malleable, it is taken out of the fire and pounded repeatedly, and shaped, and cooled down to complete its new strengthened form, and repeated over and over until it becomes the impervious sword or knife.
It appears to me that this is the paradigm for all the rebbes in Lubavitch, and to all the modern day Jews who were tortured in the Holocaust and in communist Europe. Our Jewish history is replete with stories of how we were placed in the heat of the fire and pounded, and reheated and pounded, and what it has done was given us the fortitude and wherewithal to withstand the challenges to sanctify G-ds name and to deal with daily life to the nth degree.
Last week, the torah portion revealed the ten commandments. This week we are reminded that every mitzvah/commandment/good deed counts. It shapes who we are and strengthens our character and challenges our determination to live in a world where Jews are a minority and our resolve is challenged daily. Adversity which is met head on, strengthens us, our character and our wherewithal muscle. Rise to the challenge, be proud you were born a Jew with all its challenges and beauty.
Shabbat Shalom
Suri