1) My wife made the following observation: Yaakov is the model of the Jew in galus. The Torah tells us that when Yaakov heard Lavan’s sons murmuring accusations against him, he realized that it was time to leave. He didn’t wait for them to sharpen the pitchforks and come after him.
Listen to the rhetoric of the Labour party. Listen to the rhetoric of the Democrat party. Listen to the reports of what is already happening in France, in Belgium, in other parts of Europe. Don’t wait for the pitchforks.
2) “V’atah haloch halacha ki nichsof nishsafta l’beis avicha lamah ganavta…” (31:30)
Chasam Sofer asks mah inyan the reisha of the pasuk to the seifa of the pasuk. What does Yaakov wanting to return to his father’s house have to do with the theft of the terafim? One surely does not excuse the other or explain the other.
He gives a pilpulistic answer, but the Rishonim are already bothered by this question and explain al pi peshat that Lavan was saying that he understood that Yaakov ran out not because he was a thief, but because he was so anxious to get back to this father’s house. Nonetheless, the terafim were missing and Yaakov or someone in his family must have taken them.
Rav Drook quoted a nice explanation of the pasuk b’shem R’ Shimon Shkop, but the idea is already found in the Malbim. Imagine a kollel guy who spends pesach with his in-laws and when it's time to return home he packs up their large screen TV along with his own luggage. When the shverr runs after him to ask what's going on, it’s not the theft per se which is so troubling -– the shverr can afford another large screen TV. What bothers him more is what someone who ostensibly is immersed in Torah would need a large screen TV for. Here too, Lavan was saying to Yaakov Avninu, “You claim to be so anxious to leave here and return to your holy father’s house. Avodah zarah is an anathema to your father! So why did you walk out with my idols in your trunk?” It’s the hypocrisy which stings and stinks more than theft itself.
You don't have to actually walk out with the TV to be guilty of theft. Sometimes it's the deyos and ideas of the outside world that we steal and bring into our world even though they are completely incongruous with what our lifestyle should be.
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Listening to the murmuring of Hamas and the PA... Oh wait, they already have the pitchforks out.
ReplyDeleteSo, leshitaskha, where would someone run.... New Zealand?
https://www.cjnews.com/living-jewish/the-vibrant-jewish-community-of-panama
Deleteor
https://izusplace.com/
or
https://www.jweekly.com/2019/12/04/why-this-brazilian-island-is-expecting-5000-israeli-tourists-this-summer/
or
https://www.worldjewishcongress.org/en/about/communities/it
The Jew in galus has no army to defend him, and therefore, when the power of the state or the mob turns against him, he is forced to run.
ReplyDeleteNot so in our own homeland
I'm actually surprised I would have to spell that out, but that's just me.
"2) "...So why did you walk out with my idols in your trunk?" "
ReplyDeletewhat had Yaakov done to suffer such an anomalous challenge*? had he, by his claims at 30:29-30, stepped into a mess? did Lavan work his additional animals on Shabbos? did a son of the Aramean get too fresh with an added sheep one cold night behind a dune? were any animals from 'the surge' sacrificed to stars? in other words, had Yaakov by his claims accused himself of remote complicity in misconduct?
*whether Lavan's own challenge, or one placed in his mouth
Galus Yavan occurred not only when we had an autonomous state in Yehudah, but we even had a Beis haMiqdash functioning for much of the period!
ReplyDeleteGalus is a chalos, a metaphysical state, and doesn't require being in diaspora.
As for Tzahal... It isn't כל הכבוד לצה"ל or מי ימלל גבורות ישראל, it's מִי יְמַלֵּל גְּבוּרוֹת ה' יַשְׁמִיעַ כָּל תְּהִלָּתוֹ. Having a Tzahal is an issue of hishtadlus; success still depends on siyata dishmaya.
Running away from people who are speaking with increasing animosity to people who are actually attacking you is also a matter of hishtadlus.
Now if you want to talk the Paris, where r"l it is dangerous to WhatsApp your father in Hebrew... But you didn't. You spoke of England and the US. There is little tachlis to making Aliyah to avoid anti-Semitism form these countries.
Your argument, like the argument to make Aliyah to avoid tuition, even if either were valid, are akin to arguing that people keep kosher to avoid trichinosis and other diseases. There are only two real arguments for Aliyah:
1- Hashem said so.
2- It's where anything you do as part of the Jewish People is likely to have a future. (Because -- see #1.)
(old question: why didn't Yaakov destroy the idols at 35:4, rather than bury them? because! when he'd requested of his household (beiso,35:2) surrender of objectionable items, Rachel silently handed her husband the missing "terafim". thought Yaakov, 'if I now destroy the idols, then the one whom I unwittingly cursed at 31:32 must likewise be destroyed; but if the idols survive, then maybe she too can survive' [otherwise said, the terafim were not to be 'found' with Rachel, but lay ownerless under a tree. were Lavan's gods instead destroyed at once in a massive bonfire, then they'd have been possessed to the end by his second daughter])
ReplyDelete