One walks through the
streets and wonders if murder will strike .at any moment. Terror terrorizes; it undermines and frustrates
the calm of normal routine. I just walked through Talpiot's main shopping
street. Streets are depleted. Everyone is eyeing up the other passers-by. On the
streets, people are feeling tense, sad, even frightened. Everyone at work is tense, bracing for the next dreadful news report.
What are we to think? What can we say?
One thing is to gain some perspective.
Yesterday, my son's (home room teacher) מחנך had a chat
with the kids. He told them that the media "exaggerate" things and things
are not as worrying as they sound. It was a discussion to calm the nerves of 10-year-olds, but really, he is not wrong; it was quite a good thing
to say to young kids. The news doesn't reflect their lives, safe in school or safe
at home. The vast majority of people will see no violence, will still have a
job, will be healthy and safe, will go to work and shop and return to their
loved ones. Israel is in good shape as a whole. My head can say that. My head can also say that the 2nd Intifada was far worse. All true!
But my nerves are not calmed. Why? Because an unlucky few will most probably NOT come home
safe and sound. We all fear where the next attack will take place and if it
will be on my watch.
I turn to the parsha for inspiration. Noah is faced with an evil, violent, generation; an environment of "Hamas" to quote Genesis. How does he respond? He hides. Under God's command, he takes refuge in an Ark. Humanity die; Noah is saved. But afterwards, what do we hear of him? Noah plants a vineyard and gets drunk. After the flood, Noah cannot face life. He turns to the bottle.
Noah is contrasted with Abraham. In the Midrashic imagination Abraham also confronts a world in disarray; for the Midrash the world is a " palace in flames". Society is on fire; threatening to destroy civilisation. Abraham is depicted as wondering: “Is it possible that the palace lacks an owner?” The owner of the palace looked out and said, “I am the owner of the palace.” So Abraham our father said, “Is it possible that the world lacks a ruler?” G-d looked out and said to him, “I am the ruler, the Sovereign of the universe.”Rabbi Sacks writes:
"This is an extraordinary passage... Surely the owner should be putting out the flames. You don’t leave a palace empty and unguarded. Yet the owner of the palace calls out to him, as G-d called to Abraham, asking him to help fight the fire. G-d needs us to fight the destructive instinct in the human heart. This is Abraham, the fighter against injustice, the man who sees the beauty of the natural universe being disfigured by the sufferings inflicted by man on man."
We are Abraham's children. When we see a world in flames, when we see violence, we do not shy away or back down; we fight to build a better world. We will not act like Noah and closet ourselves away; we will, like Avraham, vow to build a world of "tzedek umishpat - righteousness and justice," compassion and truth.
Israel has faced violence before. Terror is designed to frighten us, to unsettle us. We shall not hide away like Noah; we shall confront the world and the evil that surrounds us - that is our Abrahamic legacy. We shall uphold our right to the land, as well as our commitment to justice and kindness.
With full determination, we shall fight on defending our Jewish right to the land of Israel.
With full determination we shall continue to work to make Israel a light unto the nations.
We will try to continue
with our routine while taking maximum care.
We will try to inform our
children in safe ways, without alarming them.
With full determination we shall continue to build our lives, and thrive in Eretz Yisrael.
אתהלך לפני ה' בארצות החיים
Today is Rosh Hodesh
and we said Hallel. Sometimes we say Hallel and focus upon God's bountiful blessingsהודו לה' כי טוב כי לעולם חסדו.
At
other times, like today, we pray
אנא ה' הושיעה נא!
But did the Kohein Gadol's face really shine radiantly?
Whose face shone? - Moshe Rabbeinu.
Moshe Rabbeinu descended Mt. Sinai on Yom Kippur with the 2nd Luchot (Tablets), and with a message of divine forgiveness (Shemot ch.34) : "And Moses' face shone."
ומשה לא-ידע, כי קרן עור פניו--בדברו איתו
On Yom Kippur, the High Priest, who enters the Temple's inner chamber - the Kodesh Kodashim - simulates Moses' ascent to Mt. Sinai. This manifests itself in several ways:
1. The Kodesh Kodashim reflects the top of Mount Sinai:
Ramban (Ex 25:1; Num 1:1)) says that the Temple symbolizes Mt. Sinai; The Sanctuary structure is restricted to non-priests; just like Mount Sinai (Ex.19:22,24); the inner chamber - the Kodesh Kodashim - symbolizes the Mountain-top. It is the place that Moses encounters God, and the place in which the Law was transmitted. In the 1st Temple, th ekodesh kodashim contains those same Tablets of Stone - the Law.
On Yom Kippur the High Priest must enter the innner chamber with a cloud (Lev 16:2) of incense. The peak of Mount Sinai was covered by a cloud, symbolic of God's presence. (Ex 19:9, 16)
The High Priest enters the forbidden sanctuary, just like Moshe did at Sinai, to encounter the Divine.
2. The High priest is fasting just as Moses "He did not eat bread, nor did he drink water" (Ex.34:28)
3. The text mentions that the High priest must enter the Kodesh Kodashim unaccompanied. The same instruction was given to Moses when he ascended Mount Sinai to receive the second tablets:
שמות לד:ג וְאִישׁ לֹא-יַעֲלֶה עִמָּךְ, וְגַם-אִישׁ אַל-יֵרָא בְּכָל-הָהָר
4. The High Priest discards his golden garb before entering the Holy of Holies. Why? As the Talmud explains: "The prosecutor cannot act as the defense attorney." What does this mean? The golden garb accuses is Israel for the Golden calf; The High priest enters without any gold upon him.
I am suggesting that the main focus of Yom Kippur is the High priest entering the "virtual" zenith of Mount Sinai; reenacting Moses' encounter with God upon Mt. Sinai, on Yom Kippur, as he received the second set of Tablets.
Moses is invited to the top of Mount Sinai after the debacle of the
Golden Calf. It had been Israel's greatest sin; the symbol of the
covenant - the two tablets - were smashed.
But now, some
time afterwards, God forgives. He invites Moses to craft, together with
Him, a second set of tablets just like the first. (Ex 34:1-2)
The High Priest does not receive the Second Tablets. But he emerges with God's blessing, God's covenant of forgiveness. The High Priest's face shines because he is emulating Moshe Rabbeinu after the Egel (Golden Calf).
On Mt. Sinai, God taught Moshe the 13 Attributes of Mercy:
ה' ה' - אני הוא קודם שיחטא האדם, ואני הוא לאחר שיחטא האדם ויעשה תשובה
The covenant renewed AFTER the Great Sin of the Golden Calf means that God knows we are human, we are flawed, we sin. ""I am He before man sins, and I am He after he has sinned and done Teshuva"" But if we show our earnest commitment, God promises to renew the covenant; to forgo the strict law (Din) and to acknowledge that we are merely flesh and blood, אין אדם בארץ אשר יעשה טוב ולא יחטא... כציץ נובל וכענן כלה... we are fallible. God knows that. He wants the covenant to continue despite our flaws. This is an act of great divine love.
Yom Kippur is the day that God forgives us although we are human.
In the next 25 hours, we will seek God's closeness, we will bow (emulating Israel's remorse after the Egel. see Ex.33:7-11) and confess as a sign of remorse for our sins, and God in turn will demonstrate his love and forgiveness.
As we emerge, purified, our faces will shine as well with the renewal of our relationship with God.
אמר רבי עקיבא, אשריכם ישראל, לפני מי אתם מטהרין, ומי מטהר אתכם, אביכם שבשמים
As we close Yom Kippur, Halakha advises us to move directly to the next mitzva; the building of the Sukka. How poignant! Hazal say that the day after Yom Kippur, Israel began to build the Mishkan. On motzaei Yom Kippur we build our Sukkah that symbolises the Mishkan.
Who counts the Omer in your shul? Is it the shaliach tzibbur/chazzan (prayer leader) for
Maariv (evening prayers) or is it the Rabbi?
Many communities have the Rabbi count the Omer rather than the chazzan. Why is this? In some places it might be to avoid shaming the chazzan. A chazzan might have dropped a day of counting mid-Omer, hence invalidating him from being able to recite the bracha. Hence, the Rabbi (who we assume attend shul daily and will not mess up) counts in order to eliminate asking the chazzan and possibly embarrassing him.
However I suspect another issue is at hand. In Hassidic communities the Rebbe counts. He is deemed as closer to God, and his blessing is more pure and holy. The Rebbe counts to add sanctity to the counting; to achieve a spiritual high that an ordinary commoner cannot reach. This veneration of the Rabbi is prevalant in yeshivot too, where the yeshiva head (Rosh Yeshiva) frequently has near cult-status, and hence in many yeshivot, the Rosh Yeshiva leads the counting.
Where I learned, in Yeshivat Har Etzion, both Rav Amital and Rav Lichtenstein never assumed that role, and they always told the chazzan to count. I always loved that. They didn't need to be the cult figurehead. I assume that they also presumed there was no significant spiritual advantage in them saying the blessing and counting aloud, and that the chazzan's counting was equally valid and equivalent in value to their own.
In my shul, the Rabbi counts and I wish he would ask the chazzan to do so. I think it would send a positive message. It conveys the sense that the religious observance of the average community member is on the same par as the Rabbi; that the Rabbi is no more holy than his congregants. Furthermore, it conveys confidence that baalei batim (congregants) can also successfully keep up with the counting. By this small gesture, the rabbi empowers his community and conveys to them that comprehensive halakhic observance is within their reach and a goal that they should set for themselves.
In recent years, it feels like Jerusalem Day has become more complicated. The political entanglement of the "territories" has cast a dark shadow over the sheer joy of the day. Even a card-carrying right-winger would argue that the issues raised by Israel's control over/return to/liberation of Yehudah veShomron are far from simple, and as a result, for many the festivity of Yom Yerushalyim is fraught with the complexities of current politics. This has been a feeling shared with me by many religious-zionist friends.
But I would argue that this is one day to put all the heavy baggage aside. To paraphrase Kohelet; there is a time to deliberate, and a time to celebrate. And today - Yom Yerushalayim - one must celebrate.
Today we should rejoice at the return to the Kotel, and our reconnection to the site of our Temple, the beating heart of the Jewish people towards which all Israel directed its heart in prayer, its tears of sorrow, and its hopes and dreams for 2000 years.
We should celebrate Jewish sovereignty over all of Jerusalem ... a fulfillment of the words of our prophets.
We should celebrate the astounding deliverance that was the Six-Day War.
We should celebrate the unification of our beloved city ... a city no longer severed by a dividing wall but now a viable, organic, united city; a flourishing centre, in contrast to the dangerous border-city that it was prior to June '67.
We should celebrate our ability to visit and reside in places that our ancestors dreamed of: Shilo and Beit-El, Kever Rachel and Me'arat Hamachpela.
And we should also direct our hearts in prayer, because even in Temple times when we happily declared: "Our feet stood within your gates, O Jerusalem", we continued, "Pray for the peace of Jerusalem!" (Psalm 122)
Let us not forget that in the years between 1949 and 1967, Jerusalem was a backwater, a beleaguered border town. The city centre was divided, fractured. The main entrance to Israel's parliment, the Knesset was oriented to face the westerly direction due to the danger of Jordanian shelling; in other words, even our national symbols were under fear of foreign fire. Israel in the lead-up to the Six-Day War was a country that was petrified for its survival. And in six resounding days, Israel reunited Jerusalem and tripled in size. The pride generated by those events sent electric waves through the Jewish world. Jerusalem now is a city which is the center of the Jewish world, a place that inspires virtually every Jew that visits it. It is also a city open to its Arab residents, as anyone who lives here can see.
Yes, Jerusalem as a city is highly entangled and far from simple. The situation of Yehuda Veshomron/ the West Bank/ Liberated/ Occupied Territories (call it what you like depending on your political perspective) is complex and is at present an intractable problem that cries out for resolution. (Much of the political trouble around this topic is in itself a tool to weaken Israel.) Maybe some of the achievements of the six-day-war will one day be sacrificed for the sake of an accord with our Palestinian neighbours; maybe never. And yet, with all that said, let us deliberate and debate for 364 days of the year. But for today, for one day a year, let us celebrate this quantum leap forward for the Jewish people and let us rejoice without hesitation.
Yesterday I was teaching the prophet Zechariah. The scene: The Second Temple is under construction. The prophet is asked: "shall we weep in the fifth month?" Should we still fast and mourn on Tisha Bav? We see the Temple rising upon the Jerusalem skyline. Is the Exile over?
The prophet answers: You are asking the wrong question. Buildings are nice. You can rebuild a Temple, but can you rebuild your society? אמת ומשפט ושלום שפטו בשעריכם ... Can we construct an ethical and compassionate society? We can establish a State, but can we suffuse it with Justice, compassion, and peace? If you haven't achieved a just society there is more work to do. [See Zecharia ch.7-8]
And it's Yom Yerushalayim (Jerusalem Day) this week, and the words of the prophet could have been written for today.
Last night we visit the Israel Museum's 50 years birthday celebrations. Mazal Tov! Its a party! And we visit the exhibit where we can read the Ten Commandments out of one of the Dead Sea scrolls, 2100 years old! You can actually read those words: "Do not steal; Do not swear falsely". We walk outside onto the museum roof into the beautiful spring Jerusalem air, and we are confronted by an exhilarating view - our Knesset, the "David's Harp" bridge, our Supreme court, the city all around... "Jerusalem rebuilt like a city knitted together". Yes- our city is being rebuilt! A miracle! "We were as dreamers!" But on the radio we hear about corrupt policemen and attorneys, about deals and scheming in government.
I see Jerusalem rebuilt. I feel the words of the prophet. They excite and delight me: עֹד יֵשְׁבוּ זְקֵנִים וּזְקֵנוֹת בִּרְחֹבוֹת יְרוּשָׁלִָם וְאִישׁ מִשְׁעַנְתּוֹ בְּיָדוֹ מֵרֹב יָמִים. ה וּרְחֹבוֹת הָעִיר יִמָּלְאוּ יְלָדִים וִילָדוֹת מְשַׂחֲקִים בִּרְחֹבֹתֶיהָ. "So said the Lord of Hosts: Old men and women shall yet sit in the streets of Jerusalem, each man with his staff in his hand because of old age.And the streets of the city shall be filled, with boys and girls playing in its streets."
And I look with thanks, gratitude at our national institutions and I say a heartfelt prayer to our halls of law and government. אמת ומשפט שלום שפטו בשעריכם - We have lots if work to do if we want to raise ירושלים של מטה (the earthly Jerusalem) a little closer to ירושלים של מעלה (the heavenly Jerusalem.)
Today is Pesach Sheni. No Tachanun this morning.
But what is the big joy in Pesach Sheni?
Pesach Sheni is a day of second chances. In Bamidbar (Numbers) ch.9, a group of people approached Moshe. They had missed the offering of the Korban Pesach (the Paschal sacrifice) due to ritual impurity and they didn't want to miss out on this religious opportunity. Moshe makes a special appeal to God, and God institutes a second Pesach, a chance for those who missed it the first time round to perform the ritual.
Maybe we can look at this day and remind ourselves to give ourselves a second chance for missed opportunities. An opportunity to call a friend, to say sorry, to start a chavruta, to do that thing you that you have been procrastinating about, but know you must do.
Pesach Sheni.
We all get second chances.
What are you going to do today?
The Talmud suggests that many thousands of Rabbi Akiva's students died due to the discord and disrespect between them (Yevamot 62b). The period in which they died was the Omer. Hence, the Omer is designated as a space in which to improve on interpersonal relationships, a spirit of respect, forbearance and love to the people that surround us. In that vein, here are two statements from Pirkei Avot to guide us as we start our week:
פרק ב', משנה י
רַבִּי אֱלִיעֶזֶר אוֹמֵר, יְהִי כְבוֹד חֲבֵרָךְ חָבִיב עָלֶיךָ כְּשֶׁלָּךְ
Rabbi Eliezer said: Let the honor of your fellow be as precious to you as your own
He [Rabbi Hanina ben Dosa] used to say:
A person with whom people are pleased, God is pleased.
But anyone from whom people are displeased, God is displeased.
We had our annual Yom HaAtzmaut tiyul and BBQ today. We share it with another 10 families, families who like me, went to Bnei Akiva in the UK and made Aliyah. After eating (extensively) we took out a guitar and sang all those classic "shirei Eretz Yisrael" - kids and parents all joining in. It was quite beautiful.
I took it all in and just thought to myself... Once we were all singing these same songs at age 14 and 16 and 18 [the ages of our kids!] around a campfire at Bnei Akiva camp in Somerset and dreaming that one day we may live in Israel. And here we are, 30 years later, living here, working here, hiking in Israel's gorgeous scenery. And today, on such a special day - Yom Haatzmaut - we are singing together with our beautiful children - all Israeli - surrounded by the beauty of the hills and trees of our homeland.
We are indeed living a dream! We can count our blessings!
On Erev Yom Haatzmaut, I spoke to my Eretz Hatzvi students. I sought to communicate to them the remarkable gift and significance of modern Israel, and inspire them with the religious obligation of thanks and praise on this historic day for the Jewish people. I am sharing the shiur here.
Yom Hazikaron is a sacred day in the Israeli calendar. The nation mourns its fallen. In almost every workplace, people are absent on Yom Hazikaron; everyone has an "azkara", a memorial service for a relative, a friend, an army buddy. We who make Israel our home live in debt to these young lives - fathers who will never hug their children, wives who will never again embrace their husbands, children who will lose the memory of their fathers.
As I stand for the siren, I remember their memories and pray that God spare us further loss of life.
Last year, as I reached Jerusalem on the morning of Yom Hazikaron, driving from Gilo to Talpiot, I noticed this memorial. For Yom Hazikaron it was marked by a flag at half-mast and a fresh wreath. It is a memorial to a pilot, Dan Givon, whose plane was shot down by Jordanian anti-aircraft fire during the 6 day war. The sight of this roadside monument on a highway which I travel daily induced me to pen the following poem. This site commemorates the life of a single man of the 23,320 soldiers who have fallen in Israel's defense. One life is an entire world. One simply cannot conceive of the loss of 23,320 lives.
ה' עוז לעמו יתן, ה' יברך את עמו בשלום
----
By the road to work,
A roadside memorial,
A monument passed daily.
Barely noticed.
Today -
A wreath,
A flag at half mast.
A reminder
Of a life cut down.
A son,
A father?
A brother?
Between Gilo and Talpiot,
A hurried, frenzied daily commute,
Where drivers curse the heavy traffic,
Wars once raged,
Blood and bullets.
Soldiers, Young men,
Struck down,
Lives lost.
Were they heroes; the brave?
Or merely the unfortunate, caught in a crossfire.
בדמייך חיי!
They gave their life,
So we could have a country,
So that we can live,
Normal, ordinary life,
Of Waze-guided driving,
Traffic lights,
Cars and buses,
The rush home from work,
To the embrace
Of loved ones.
Today we salute those men,
And bless our good fortune,
That we live in the land of the living,
To live in the land of our past,
The land of our future.
The past 2 days have been tough. My Rosh Yeshiva, Rav Aharon Lichtenstein zt"l passed away yesterday. Rav Lichtenstein was a brilliant scholar, an exemplary human being and Jew, and a lodestar for the Modern Orthodox community. I sat listening to his wisdom for over a decade, and never ceased to be amazed by him; his religious philosophy made the most profound impression upon my life and shaped my lifestyle, my passions and my worldview. I can merely echo the words of a dear friend at the funeral today: I cannot imagine what person I was before I met Rav Aharon.
I intend to pen a piece that articulates some of what I learnt from him. That will take some time. But for now, for this blog, let me simply record the sheer grief and sadness of these two days. On Tuesday, after I heard the bitter news, I was simply shaking. Today I spent the 3 riveting hours of moving hespedim (eulogies) - most of them by his incredible children - transfixed and in tears. I have been somewhat startled by the depth of my emotional reaction - I haven't cried this much since my grandfather died - but as the Gemara tells us, a Rav can be a form of parent figure, giving live, shaping ones future.
The funeral today was highly emotional but unbelievably inspirational. The hespedim depicted Rav Aharon in rich technicolour: His phenomenal humility, his unflagging commitment to, and joy in, Torah study; his novel and remarkable Torah methodology; his pride in, commitment to, and absolute love of his family; his normality of dress and personal comportment, his humanity and empathy, his economy of time - never wasting a second; his charity - and his joy in giving charity; his fearless and powerful moral voice, his vision, his simple faith, love of God, his piety, his passionate prayer, his sense of mission, of dedication, his Zionism. He was compared to the Ner Tamid - the eternal flame, to an army general leading his troops, to Jacob's ladder rooted on earth and reaching the heavens, to a walking Torah scroll, to an angel. Rav Gigi expressed how Rav Lichtenstein had raised the benchmark for Torah throughout the religious-zionist yeshiva world. His contribution to furthering Torah study and religious ritual for women was noted. And the family in their wonderful menchlechkeit thanked everyone possible, including (twice) Rav Lichtenstein's carer; in Esti Rosenberg's words: "You loved him and he loved you."
Thousands came out to accompany him on his final journey. The Modern Orthodox world has lost its leader.
A vital culture, far from being detached from life, embraces it in all its aspects. Culture is whatever life creates for living purposes: Farming, building, and road-making - any work, any craft, any productive activity is part of culture and is indeed the foundation and the stuff of culture. The procedure, the pattern, the shape, the manner in which things are done - these represent the forms of culture. Whatever people feel and think both at work and at leisure, and the relations arising from these situations, combined with the natural surroundings - all that constitutes the spirit of a people’s culture. It sustains the higher expression of culture in science and art, creeds and ideologies. The things we call culture in the most restricted sense, the higher expressions of culture (which is what is usually meant when culture is discussed in our circles) - this is the butter churned out of culture in general, in its broadest sense. But can butter be produced without milk? Or can a man make butter by using his neighbors’ milk and still call the butter all his own? (A.D. Gordon. People and Labor)
Gordon believed that Israel had to be built by working in the fields, by building Israel; not by creating theories and philosophies of Zionism. He saw Israel as created not in a "top-down" motion - from the academies and halls of learning - but "bottom-up", from the grassroots, the smell of the earth and the song of the land, the hills and valleys, the rocks and rivers. That is why Israeli culture is created by the language, by the native foods, by the scenery, the music, the climate, the flora and fauna, the cities and highways, the inventions and achievements, the politicians and generals, and the modern and ancient history of our beloved land. This is what builds our Israeli Culture.
After the trauma of Yom Hashoah, we need a break ... some music would be good!
Leading towards Yom Ha'atzmaut, let's get ready for Shabbat in true Zionist fashion with a beautiful zemer for Shabbat by Chaim Nachman Bialik, our national poet. When we were children, we would often sing this on Friday night at the Shabbat table. (You can find the words here).
Bialik studied in Volozhin Yeshiva, but rejected traditional observance. In his perception, the world of the yeshiva was going to disappear, and Judaism needed to evolve into a new Israeli Judaism. Shabbat was very improtant to his vision of a new Hebrew society and he used his influence to convince businesses to close on Shabbat in Tel Aviv! Bialik composed new songs for Shabbat to be sung at his new Oneg Shabbat meetings:
Bialik sought to put these ideas into practice through his Oneg Shabbat programs. In Tel Aviv, with its primarily secular atmosphere, many young people and adults had begun to spend their Saturdays at entertainment centers or on the beach. In an effort to counter this trend and infuse the Sabbath with Jewish content, Bialik invited the public to a weekly Saturday afternoon get-together that combined lectures, Torah study (in the broadest sense of the word), communal singing, cantorial music and refreshments. The lectures were on Bible, Haggadah, Talmud, Jewish law, Jewish philosophy, the history of the Jewish people, and more. These programs drew hundreds of people from all social sectors. In keeping with Bialik's plan, Oneg Shabbat societies soon sprung up in other parts of the country and even in the Diaspora. There were active groups, for example, in Jerusalem, Haifa, the kibbutzim and several European cities. (see the whole article here)
Bialik's attempt to include a different mode of Shabbat in the crucible of a new Zionist culture was an endeavour that I love, alongside with today's secular batei midrash and the like. Now, like then, we have to find ways in which to ensure that all Jews, all Israelis, have a connection with Judaism, viewing it as their own, and not seeing it as the exclusive domain of the religious sector. It may not be the manner in which I perceive Shabbat, but I would prefer a connection with Shabbat than none whatsoever.
Yesterday's post challenged the philosophy that the answer to the Holocaust is mere survival and Jewish strength. I challenged a narrative that sees Medinat Yisrael as the answer to the Holocaust merely because it protects the Jewish people. I argued that the heroism of the Shoah is richer than endurance and defiance and that the response to the Shoah should be wider than mere survival, but should focus upon building a new society, rebuilding Judaism, forging a positive Jewish mission.
I challenged this philosophy on several accounts yesterday, and yet today, I would like to give the other side of the coin.
Every time I watch the state ceremony at Yad Vashem - with the Israeli soldiers standing to attention, the president and the prime minister, the diplomatic corps in attendance - I am struck by the dignity and pride that the State of Israel gives us as a nation. Each time, I ask myself, how would the Jewish people have managed to salvage itself after the Holocaust without Medinat Yisrael? After the Holocaust the despair, the depression and hopelessness would have been too crushing to inspire Jews to retain their future. But the establishment of Israel just 3 years later lifted the Jewish people, raised our pride and dignity.
The shamefulness of persecution and exile is intense. In my post yesterday, I mentioned Titus' Arch. I stood in Rome last year looking at the huge edifice of Titus' arch and I was struck by a mix of disbelief and humiliation. Why disbelief? Because the gateway to ancient Rome was Titus' arch, built to celebrate the downfall of Jerusalem. Every person that entered the city saw it, passed under it, and that is the image that endures in Rome to this day; that and the Coloseum, which as every tour guide says, was built by Titus with the money ransacked from Jerusalem in 70 CE and built by Jewish slave labor (80,000 slaves!). Disbelief because anti-semitism is so inexplicable, so perplexing. Why should the great Roman empire with its global aspirations care about the ancient Judeans, the Jews? and how is it that this monument to our Temple still stands as a testimony to the most irrational hatred?
And humiliation. Because look! Here is testimony to our exile, our national calamity, our Hurban! I thought to myself, I would have to stand here and "cut keriya" (tear my clothes in a sign of mourning) were it not for Medinat Yisrael and our national revival. To see our Hurban on public display, our slavery and destruction in the centre stage of the city which is widely viewed as the crucible of government, to see our disgrace paraded in full view - that is the epitome of national disgrace and dishonour.
With Medinat Yisrael, the pendulum of history has (thank God) swung in the opposite direction. Rav Soloveitchik put it well in Kol Dodi Dofek:
... for the first time in the history of our exile, divine providence has surprised our enemies with the sensational discovery that Jewish blood is not free for the taking; it is not hefker!”
Yes! Israel will stand up for and protect Jews all over the world; you cannot murder a Jew and expect to get away with it! Now there is an address, a source of dignity and pride. And furthermore, with the establishment of the State of Israel we end our ceaseless wandering; we have Israel as a homeland:
"...the gates of the land were opened. A Jew who flees from a hostile country now knows that he can find a secure refuge in the land of his ancestors…Now that the era of divine self-concealment (hester panim) is over, Jews who have been uprooted from their homes can find lodging in the Holy Land"
On Yom Hashoah I thank God that we have the protection and pride of the State of Israel. No - this is not all. As I said yesterday, Judaism is not just about mere persistence; but without survival and hope, we have nothing.
We have experienced the prophecy of Ezekiel's dry bones in the most literal way, and we have much for which to thank God and the visionaries and leaders of our modern State of Israel:
1 The LORD carried me and set me down in the midst of the valley, and it was full of bones ... 3 And He said unto me: 'Son of man, can these bones live?' And I answered: 'O Lord GOD, You know.' 4 Then He said to me: …. 5. Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and you shall live. 6 And I will lay sinews upon you, and will bring up flesh upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live….11 Then He said to me: 'Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel; behold, they say: Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost (avda tikvateinu); we are clean cut off. 12 Therefore prophesy, and say unto them: Thus says the Lord: Behold, I will open your graves, and cause you to come up out of your graves, my people; and I will bring you into the land of Israel. …. And I will put My spirit in you, and ye shall live… (ch.37)
They say, the world said only 70 years ago: "our hope is lost - avda tikvateinu!" But the State of Israel gave the strongest refutation of that - "Od lo avda tikvateinu" - our hope is NOT lost. Yad Vashem is like a dark tunnel, but when we emerge we find ourselves in rebuilt Jerusalem. We realise that our mission is to build our country, our society, or future in our own sweet land.
The Holocaust is a topic I shy away from. I don't like visiting Yad
Vashem. I visited Poland once and don't want to repeat the experience of going
to that bloodstained land.
And yet, every year on Yom Hashoah I watch the
national ceremony at Yad Vashem on television as the survivors, surrounded by
their beautiful grandchildren, light six torches, and I cry as I spend the day
listening to survivors' testimony on the various TV and radio channels. This
day, a sacred day of sorts, is an intense period of communing with our
collective memory and also the memory of my own ancestors, my family in Poland and in Germany, who were murdered so brutally by the Nazis. It is my good
fortune that my grandparents escaped Germany in February 1939 or else I would
not be here today. Yom Hashoah is a powerful experience during which we engage
with a whole host of aspects of the Shoah; the systematic murder and
humiliation, the defiance, the dignity, survival, the memory, the religious implications,
and so much more. To me it is a highly important day.
And yet, I would like to reflect upon the manner in which Israel as a
country has remembered the Shoah, subject it to some criticism, and then reverse
and find the power in that mode of memory.
Where to begin?
A TALE OF TWO SCULPTURES
Tonight at Yad Vashem, the official national commemoration ceremony is
held in front of two huge bronze relief sculptures, both by the artist Nathan
Rappoport (They are also on the central memorial in the Warsaw Ghetto). These
two monuments tell a story.
The first is low and long. What do we see in it? It is called "The
Last March" and it depicts Jews being led away - to the ghetto? the cattle
trucks? the gas chamber? death march? – We can imagine all of the above. All
the Jews look broken, weeping, bent over. Two figures stand out. One, a man,
carries a Sefer Torah and is raising his face to heaven – is he praying? Protesting
to God? And if he is praying, he is the only one. And a second figure, a child,
stares out. To whom? - To the perpetrators? the bystanders? to ourselves? Is he
too young to know he must lower his head? Is he so naïve that he still retains
his faith in humanity? And in the background, the helmets of the German guards.
The posture of the Jews aligned with the soldiers helmets in the background is supposed
to recall the relief from Titus' arch in Rome (see below) that depicts
Jerusalem's exile.
Rapopport's second relief is vertical, not horizontal but erect and proud, and it shows
the fighters of the Warsaw ghetto. In the centre like a Greek hero is Mordechai
Anilewicz who led the Warsaw Ghetto revolt. One figure lies slain at the base,
but all the other figures appear heroic, victorious, glorious. We even wonder whether certain of the
figures are the same as the first relief. Has the religious man taken off his
kippa, discarded his Torah and joined the fight? Is the boy on the right the same
young child of the first relief but a few years older?
LIKE SHEEP TO THE SLAUGHTER
But what is the message of all this. Quite clearly, the placement of
these two sculptures alongside one another conveys the sense that it is the
fighters who are the true heroes of the Holocaust. The horizontal relief
remarkably shows no actual violence; the Jews march to their deaths "like
sheep to the slaughter." The second image is one of pride at the ability
to strike back, to resist.
These sculptures reflect the atmosphere of Israel in the 1950's. Yom
Hashoah is actually named "Yom Hahoah veHagevura - The day of the Holocaust and Heroism" and
was set on the date 27 Nissan because it marks the day of the Warsaw Ghetto
Uprising.
In the 1950's many Israelis were embarrassed by the Shoah. The new Jew
of Eretz Yisrael who built the land and defended himself derided the meek,
cowering Eastern European Jews, who, they assumed had done little to defend
themselves. In the 1950's Israel the Holocaust was a source of shame and almost
all that young Israelis could salvage from it was the revolt in the Warsaw
Ghetto, so that is the day upon which they fixed Yom Hashoah.
CHANGING CONSCIOUSNESS
But Israel grew up. The Eichman trial in 1961 suddenly brought the
stories of the Shoah into the public eye for Israel, and ever since that moment,
Israeli society has become more hospitable, more sophisticated about the Shoah.
Movies, music, the second generation and now the third have added layer upon
layer to our understanding of the Shoah. Today, every dimension of the Shoah is embraced and examined, the survivors are cherished and venerated, and virtually every Israeli High
School student takes a trip to Poland, the army sends missions to Auschwitz,
the Knesset too.
The Holocaust has become a huge part of Israeli consciousness. But. I
believe that a central feature of the messaging is still somewhat problematic and open to distortion.
Why? What message? For many Israelis, the very existence of Israel has
become somehow rooted in the Holocaust. The Holocaust expressed the
powerlessness of the Jew and Israel is the embodiment of Jewish power. That is
why we need a strong military, that is why Israelis look down at diaspora Jews for their powerlessness.
For a good expression of this perspective, see this scene from Operation
Thunderbolt which recreates Yoni Netanyahu's speech as the soldiers embark on
the famous Entebbe mission. There he tells his men how their job is to ensure the safety of Jews worldwide: (Now is not the time, but the movie itself is
saturated with overtones of the Holocaust. For another post some time.)
PROBLEMS
Now this is not a problematic perspective in its own right, but it is worrysome when it becomes the sole or dominant approach to the Holocaust and Zionism, and this for several reasons:
First, because Israel is not invincible. In 1967, there was a genuine
fear that Israel may be overrun by Arab forces. Thank God Israel has survived calamity time and time again, but Israel is not immune from disaster. If Israel is just about safety, and American Jew may argue that he is safer in the US than in Israel and see no reason or motive for residing in Israel.
Second, it reduces Judaism and Israel to a central principle of survival. But as a
society - Jewish and Israeli - we aspire to so much more. Whereas some Zionist thinkers and founders saw Zionism's essence as obliterating anti-semitism, many of those thinkers and Halutzim dreamed of reviving a new Jew and a new Judaism; they sought to build a new society. And we should aspire to a society of justice and equal rights, we aspire
to culture and progress, we aspire to a love of the land and its history, we
aspire to create a successful ethical society, we aspire, as Jews, to realize
our religious values and create an exemplary society.
The sole focus upon survival and strength eclipses this lofty vision. This was stated by one of my teachers, Rabbi Immanuel
Jakobovits:
"…we must beware against breeding a Holocaust
mentality of morose dependency amongst our people, especially our youth…Should
we not replace negative by positive factors to vindicate our claim in survival?
The slogan, "Never Again!", now so popular is a poor substitute for
purposeful Jewish vitality. We exist not in order to prevent our own
destruction but to advance … the ageless values which are our national raison
d'etre" ("Religious Responses to the Holocaust: Retrospect and
Prospect" L'eyla, 1988)
As Jews we must understand why we live as Jews, and not put all our energies into how to avoid death as Jews; we should not keep Judaism so we may survive or persist - we must live so that we may live Judaism!
Third, when the Holocaust becomes our founding principle, we are prone
to distortions of victimization, seeing all the nations as hostile and perceiving ourselves as perennial
victims; we are prone to suspicion and defensiveness towards adversaries, and
less open to conciliation and bridge-building.
JUDAISM and HEROISM
This has been a long post, but let me just take this further and challenge the "sheep to the slaughter" attitude, and by the same token, open to other vectors of remembrance of the Holocaust.
The Heroism of the Shoah is
not measure merely by armed resistance. The heroism can be in areas of simple humanity,
dignity and spirit. When a mother comforted and reassured her child in
Auschwitz, that is heroism! When a Jew shared a piece of bread with another
inmate in Theresienstadt, that was true heroism! When we read of Janusz Korzcak
who lead his orphans to their deportation singing even though he might have
saved his own life, that is true humanity, true heroism. When we read of Rabbis
who led their communities in faith and halakha despite the adverse conditions,
and Jews who retained their commitment to their Jewish faith and law despite
adversity - that is true Heroism!
The Haredi community do not commemorate the Shoah at Yad Vashem, with readings and with a minute of silence. But teh Haredi community has a heightened sense of Shoah awareness. The mourn for the communities lost, for the righteous who were murdered. But how do they respond? They have rebuilt institutions - indeed Mir, Ponevezh, Brisk, Gur, Belz etc - are institutions in Eretz Yisrael that bear the names and legacy of their European forebears; they live with the desire to revive what was lost. Ponevezh has a verse
emblazoned on its main entrance "And on the mount of God, there will be a remnant, and it will become holy". When Haredim are asked why they have such large families, they will frequently explain that they wish to replenish the ranks of the Jewish people who were lost in the Shoah. Their Holocaust sensibility is deeply entrenched.
This is a different response, but an incredibly powerful one - have children, rebuild Torah institution, replace the Torah communities that were lost. I would argue that this group's response - statistics show they are the largest growth group in Jewry today - may do more for the Jewish people than the Holocaust museums and the memorials. For they are filled with a burning desire to live Judaism, to continue its legacy in the world. The Holocaust spurs them to intensify their commitment to Judaism. But they focus on Judaism itself; not on the Shoah. This is a very different perspective and it should raise questions about limiting the response of the Shoah to mere survival or Jewish strength.
The questions of what is the desirable response, what is the best mode of commemoration is far more complex, far wider than the Israeli official narrative of memorial. We must widen the messages; encourage Jews not merely to ensure our national survival and the eradication of violence and hate, but also to foster an understanding of how to live as Jews.
On this point, I will end with a story by
Rabbi Dr. David Weiss Halivni from his years as a teenager in a German labor
camp. He studied Torah before the War, he got through teh Shoah inspired by Torah, and continued learning and teaching after the war. For him, Torah AND survival is the true response to the Nazis:
I passed by the Todt (German Guard) as he was eating his scheduled
snack, his meal between meals. In characteristic German style, he ate at the
same time every night and, what's more, he ate the same thing every night: a
thinly sliced sandwich containing some greasy substance that stained the
wrapping paper and made it transparent. He and his eating habits became as much
a feature of the tunnel as the chila (wagons) and carrying the drills.
This time, however, our meeting was different. His sandwich was wrapped
in a page of "Orach Chaim," a volume of the Shulchan Aruch… It
was my ambition as a child to own a … Shulchan Aruch. Here, of all
places, in the shadows of the tunnel, under the threatening gaze of the German,
a page of the Shulchan Aruch, with fatty spots all over it, met my eyes.
Upon seeing this wrapper, I instinctively fell at the feet of the guard,
without even realizing why; the mere letters propelled me. With tears in my
eyes, I implored him to give me this bletl, this page. For a while he didn't
know what was happening; he thought I was suffering from epilepsy. He
immediately put his hand to his revolver, the usual reaction to an unknown
situation. But then he understood. This was, I explained to him, a page from a
book I had studied at home. Please, I sobbed, give it to me as a souvenir. He
gave me the bletl and I took it back to the camp.
On the Sundays we had off, we now had not only Oral
Torah but Written Torah as well. The bletl became a visible
symbol of a connection between the camp and the activities of Jews throughout
history. It was not important what the topic was… The bletl became a rallying
point. We looked forward to studying it whenever we had free time, more so even
than to the phylacteries. It was the bletl, parts of which had to be deciphered
because the grease made some letters illegible, that summoned our attention.
Most of those who came to listen didn't understand the subject matter, but that
was irrelevant. They all perceived the symbolic significance of the bletl.
