CHOCHMAS NASHIM: ELAH SHBCHALL DOR V’DOR OMDIM ALEINU L’CHALOTENU
By: Suri Davis
Twenty years ago, at the time of the intifada in Israel, I believe on the eve of Passover, Rav Zev Leff asked the question as to why we thank G-d for taking us out of Egypt, when He was the One who put us in Egypt, if He hadn’t put us in Egypt, He wouldn’t have had to taken us out of Egypt. The answer Rav Leff analogized to an orthopedic surgeon who has to break a leg in order to reset it.
I have another question, why is it that at the pinnacle of celebrating our redemption from Egyptian slavery as the seder table, we sing V’he Sheamdah l’avoteinu v’lanu: This stands for our father and for us, that it wasn’t just one nation that has wanted to decimate us, the Jews, in the past, but in EVERY generation there are those who rise up against us to destroy us, but G-d saves us from their hands.
We believe that we are the chosen nation, so why would we feel so special having those around us IN EVERY GENERATION, wanting to kill us, how would that make us feel special? I’ve been thinking about this, and I believe the understanding of this paradigm is revealed in the story of Joseph, who was the beloved son of Jacob and his father bestowed upon him the special coat, which caused the other brothers to be jealous of his favored son status.
Joseph is thrown in a pit with snakes and scorpions, he survives. He gets sold as a slave, and then rises as a butler in a prominent household in Egypt, that of Potiphar. Potiphar’s wife tries to seduce him, and he resists, nevertheless, falsely accused, he ends up in jail. He tries to shorten his stay in jail, but putting his faith in a fellow jail mate who was about to be freed, and was punished by having his stay in jail extended for not having faith in G-d.
He gets sprung from jail and becomes second to Pharaoh, exalted and saves Egypt and the entire region from famine with the help of G-d. One would think that the magnitude of this action would secure Joseph and his family’s place in Egypt forever, but no, THE VERY NEXT GENERATION, a new Pharaoh comes to power and enslaves the Jews for 210 years. Recognition of the Jews seems to be an eternal amnesia.
The Egyptians suffer the ten plagues and the miracles of the Exodus. News of these miracles spread throughout the region, so one would think that the Jews would be secure as they wandered the desert, but then comes Amalek, and we are commanded to destroy Amalek for eternity. One might ask today, where are the Amalek today, who are they? They are the eternal enemy in that the Amalekites knew the Jews were exhausted from 210 years of slavery, the Jews were tired and there was no reason for Amalek to go after these innocent Jews. They didn’t have any land, so Amalek could not have wanted their land, the Jews did not want Amalek’s land, nor were they a threat in any way to them, it was pure Satanic evil that a strong well armed army goes after the weak, to give them a false sense of strength and victory. It was also the Jews’ lesson that it is not their own might that wins wars, but purely G-d’s intervention of their behalf. In the course of nature, there would have been no way for the Jews to have won the war, it was G-dly.
Tomorrow marks the following important events:
Assassination of Meir Kahane
Born in 1932, Meir Kahane was a American-Israeli rabbi and activist. In 1968, he founded the Jewish Defense League in New York. With the motto of “Never Again,” the stated goal of the organization was to protect Jews from anti-Semitism in all its forms. In 1971, he moved his family to Israel, founding the Kach political party, and he was elected to the Knesset in 1984 (the Kach party was later outlawed in Israel).
In 1990, after concluding a speech in a Manhattan hotel, Kahane was fatally shot by an Egyptian-born terrorist. While strangely acquitted of the murder, El Sayyid Nosair was later convicted in relation to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
Pittsburgh Tree of Life Massacre
On Shabbat morning, Cheshvan 18, 5779 (Oct. 27, 2018), Pittsburgh’s peaceful Jewish enclave of Squirrel Hill was shattered by gunshots as a crazed anti-Semite attacked worshippers at the Tree of Life congregation, killing 11. It was the deadliest attack on Jews on American soil. Reeling from the pain, Pittsburghers struggled to make sense of the tragedy that had befallen their city, and people around the world responded with an outpouring of love, support, mitzvahs and faith.
Before there was a modern State of Israel, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem partnered with the Nazis to conspire how best to kill the Jews through torture. Clearly the hatred of Arabs towards Jews has nothing to do with the land.
We are commanded to wipe out the memory of Amalek, and every year we hear the torah reading wherein the commandment is read. What does it mean in this very day to wipe out the memory of Amalek. To understand, we have to understand the source of evil in Amalek, which was to advance against a people for no reason, a defenseless people. After the Jews left Egypt they were exhausted, physically, spiritually and morally from their 210 years of slavery. They had no country which would make another country envious, nor were they organized, nor did they want to wage war with anyone, they merely wanted safe passage through the desert and were willing to pay the nations occupying the desert for food and water. Amalek took advantage of the defenseless Jew and attempted to prey on them for sport.
We are the people of the book, we are not know for our war prowess. It is our desire to live in peace in whatever country we find ourselves in the diaspora. The nations of the world cannot bide by our very existence, so they make up excuses to hurt, torture and mame us as can be seen by two very popular stories:
We learn after Joseph dies that a new Pharaoh arises in Egypt who [conveniently] didn’t know Joseph. Pharaoh got it in his mind at the beginning of the book of Exodus that the Jews are multiplying and they will get so multitudinous that they would wage war against Egypt and conquer it. The reality was far from the truth. Egypt was a great empire and vast. Jacob came down with his family and they were 70 people. How could it be that a generation later, Pharaoh would be threatened by “the multitudes.”
Haman wanted to kill the Jews and approached Achashverosh and said There is one nation who is separate and has strange customs spread among the nations, and sowed untruth conspiracy theories about the Jews as a threat to Persia.
And so for time immemorial, we have had to beware of Amalek, who created stories of how Jews needed to be battled, even though in reality they were a peaceful nation, the people of the book.
That is why the only time we were commanded to be warriors was when we conquered the land of Israel and had to drive away the nations living there who were idol worshippers and could negatively impact Jews and their Jewish practice. Amalek represents cowards who want to prey on Jews by creating ficitional reasons to do so, as the German used Jews as scapegoats during their economic downturn.
The Jews in New York are in shock that Jews who were slaughtered on October 7 in crimes recorded for posterity by their terrorists, and yet instead of sparking support for Jews, it revealed and exhumed the deeply embedded antisemitism worldwide. Even in our darkest victimized moments, there is no sympathy for a Jew.
Truly, I could understand the barbarism in uneducated civilizations of Ukraine and the Cossacks embedded in their history, and the Arabs, who have a deep hatred stemming back to the days of Abraham, Isaac and Ishmael. I really never understood how such a civilized and sophisticated culture as Germany, where the Jews reached the upper echelons of society as judges, doctors, scientists, artists, professors, could turn into sadistic brutal torturers. They voted in Hitler knowing his sentiments set forth in Mein Kampf.
The Arabs in Gaza voted in Hamas knowing their motto. There is no room for exculpation, except for the children. I am not horrified what Arabs did, they are clear about their goals of extermination, I am speechless, my head is spinning at the administration, staff and students of the ivy league universities. I cannot fathom how their minds have taken a leap in supporting a known terrorist organization that happily taped their torture.
It is so very absurd, that I need to contextualize it in its bear truth, this is clearly the hand of G-d, He wants us to know clearly that we should not be smug in our “kochi v’etzem yadi/that it is the great might of Israeli intelligence and its superior army that keeps the Jews safe, it is only the ratzon Hashem/the will of G-d which keeps Jews safe: As Bilam the gentile prophet told king Balak when Balak hired him to curse the Jews: “mah ekov lo kabo kel/I cannot curse a nation which G-d doesn’t want to curse.
And while we put so much faith in education, intellect and intelligent, the wisest man whoever lived, King Solomon, testifies, that wisdom too is folly. For all the collective intelligence at the ivy league schools, it is all vanity if unaccompanied by faith and fear in G-d. Tempered by the heart.
IF this question offends you, I apologize. We know from Ethics of Our Fathers that we cannot comfort someone while his dead loved one is before him. I choke sometimes on what Shaar Habitachon demands of us as faithful Jews. I admit that processing evil is personal to each one of us, as is our understanding and path to G-d. I choked on this question: If all is from G-d, and G-d only does good, how was this massacre good. It took a few days of processing, but pressed with my back against the wall, I would say, that before this massacre, there was a division among Jews in Israel that I believe was virtually unprecedented, and in the weeks since the massacre, approaching the shloshim of the event, I have seen, as many of you have, such scenes of love and unity and kindness and charity between man and man. We have seen unprecedented requests by those who were secular Jews to learn how to put on Tefilin/phylacteries, for tzitzit and yarmulkes, and learning how to light Shabbos candles and separate and bake challah and covering hair and writing Torahs, it has inspired a nation and lit the spark in the souls of Jews who are reveling in their spiritual souls where they can see that they were born in the image of G-d and attempt to live up to that image.
This Monday, I will finish Masechet Kidushin for those who were killed as a result of the massacre and in the merit of those who are alive as hostages and soldiers, and for a speedy recovery for those who need one. If you want to join, email me at Thefivetowns@aol.com.
And finally, about this torah portion, Lech Licha, go to yourself, Abraham it is time for you to go to your destiny, living your life as a paradigm for all generations to come. G-d says to Abraham in His covenant that there will be times that Jews will be strangers in a strange land and will be enslaved, but they will be redeemed with great wealth. This paragraph is also recited at the seder, juxtaposed as the paragraph before V’he sheamdah, says the commentary, that the word V’he/and she is mysterious, who is she? She refers to the paragraph before, the Covenant of G-d that the Jews will be in dire straights from time to time, indeed in every generation, but G-d is here to redeem them and they are redeemed with great wealth, defined as the Torah, for it is the source of all the wealth that is found in the world.
Keep the faith and trust.
-Suri