A friend asked me why I have not written anything about what is going on. The answer in short is כּשׁם שׁמקבּלים שׂכר על הדרישׁה כך מקבּלים שׂכר על הפּרישׁה. It is sometimes too challenging to not go negative, so better to spend the time doing other things. Still, it's before shabbos, a new parsha, so here comes a disaster of a post.
Someone at work who asked about my family in Israel asked whether we could get a flight to bring my daughter, who lives in Yerushalayim, home. The answer to that question, which I think I managed to explain in a way that even this gentile understood, is that my daughter IS home -- it is we who are displaced.
That is the message that we in the diaspora need to absorb and internalize and teach to out young people.
Are we really doing that?
When you sign up for a cruise, you get a choice of a first class cabin with all the luxuries, or a second class berth, etc. down the line. When you are in a lifeboat in an emergency, there is no first class. You do the bare minimum for survival and try your best to get someplace better. Galus is a lifeboat. Sometimes the lifeboat is a leaky wreck, sometimes the lifeboat is comfortable, almost as good as a real ship. But only a fool makes himself at home on the lifeboat.
Things are difficult now, but that doesn't mean we should make ourselves at home in the lifeboat. It means we need to work harder at repairing what needs to be fixed in our real home.
I have a kashe on myself that I can't answer, but I'll share it with you just in case you want to think about the same kashe.
Rashi comments on וַיִּקַּח ה׳ אֱלֹקים אֶת הָאָדָם וַיַּנִּחֵהוּ בְגַן עֵדֶן לְעׇבְדָהּ וּלְשׇׁמְרָהּ (2:18) that ויקח – לקחו בדברים נאים ופתהו ליכנס. Hashem had to entice and seduce Adam to get him to enter Gan Eden.
How does that make sense? Gan Eden is the best place imaginable. Why should Hashem have to seduce Adam to get him to go there?
Good question, isn't it?
כִּי נִחַם ה׳ צִיּוֹן נִחַם כׇּל חׇרְבֹתֶיהָ וַיָּשֶׂם מִדְבָּרָהּ כְּעֵדֶן וְעַרְבָתָהּ כְּגַן ה׳ שָׂשׂוֹן וְשִׂמְחָה יִמָּצֵא בָהּ תּוֹדָה וְקוֹל זִמְרָה.
And yet we expect Hashem to twist our arm to get us to even think about moving.
This is not kashya. It's teiuvta. Game, set, match. I don't have an answer.
What saddens me is that so many people are not even bothered by the question.
At the end of the parsha we read וַיִּנָּחֶם ה׳ כִּי עָשָׂה אֶת הָאָדָם בָּאָרֶץ וַיִּתְעַצֵּב אֶל לִבּוֹ. The Midrash comments that אֵין עֲצִיבָה אֶלָא אֲבֵלוּת. Netziv asks why Hashem was in aveilus here. The mabul had not yet started, so what was He mourning over?
Netziv answers:
אלא הענין, דבכל משך מאה ועשרים שנה מתו כמה צדיקים שהיו בעולם והמה מכונים בשם ׳לב הבריאה׳, כי הוא תכליתו,... והנה בכל דור ודור הצדיק נאסף אל עמיו וזרח צדיק אחר, אבל במשך מאה ועשרים שנה אלו מי שמת לא הניח תמורתו וממלא מקומו, משום הכי שייך לומר ויתעצב אל לבו שהתאבל על מות הצדיקים, שאין עוד אדם שיהא ראוי לקיים העולם לצוות לו.
People die all the time, even under tragic circumstances, and people are born every day too. But sometimes a death is so tragic that it's like your heart has been ripped out. Something irreplaceable has been taken. That was this past week.
I think many people lost their naivete and had their illusions shattered as they discovered this past week just how horrible college campus hatred against Jews is, as they hear the deafening silence of corporate America so willing to stake a stand on so many issues except the slaughter of Jews, etc.
אֵלֶּה תוֹלְדוֹת הַשָּׁמַיִם וְהָאָרֶץ בְּהִבָּרְאָם. Rashi comments לימדך כאן שהעולם הזה נברא בה״י. רמז שירדו למטה לראות שחת, כה״י זה שסתום מכל צדדין ופתוח מלמטה לרדת דרך שם The world was created with the letter 'hey' because it has a big opening on the bottom for the evildoers to fall out of down to where they belong.
Shem m'Shmuel asks: Why did Hashem not create the world with a letter that has a big opening on top so that the tzadikim could go up to shamayim? The elevator goes in both directions, doesn't it?
What the pasuk is telling us is that olam ha'zeh by its very nature is cruel and barbaric, Tennyson's "nature red in tooth and claw." Left unchecked, what comes out is the worst in man, not the best. Don't be fooled and think that because we live in the year 2023/5754 things are any different. Rashi in his ruach ha'kodesh had in mind most of what you read about Jews on Twitter when he wrote that comment.
Of course there is a way up, but that way is למעלה מן הטבע. Chazal darshen that בְּהִבָּרְאָם is the same letters as Avraham, for whom the world was created. The 10 tests that Avraham faced proved that a human being can rise above his nature, the nature of olam ha'zeh, to reach amazing heights.
We have seen a lot of that this past week too. Unbelievable heroism, unbelievable chessed. Our nation lives למעלה מן הטבע, the very fact that we continue to exist is למעלה מן הטבע.
Even small things can restore your belief in the power of mankind in general to rise above its nature. It is something you will rarely see if you spend too much time in the cesspool of online social media. I was sitting outside at lunchtime one day this week in a small park near my office when a total stranger came over and said to me, "I hope if you have family in Israel that they are doing alright. I just want to let you know that."
Don't completely lose hope. There are still sane people left in the world out there.
The Midrash writes (42:4, in Lech Lecha) אָמַר רַבִּי אֶלְעָזָר בַּר אֲבִינָא אִם רָאִיתָ מַלְכֻיּוֹת מִתְגָּרוֹת אֵלּוּ בְּאֵלּוּ צַפֵּה לְרַגְלוֹ שֶׁל מָשִׁיחַ The Imrei Emes explained (not exactly in these words : ) that when there is war, your job is not to check every arutz station for updates all day, or monitor social media, or to discuss who is to blame, or to map out strategy of what the gvt should do next just in case you get the call to be Defense Minister tomorrow. Instead of looking at all those things, רָאִיתָ..., instead of looking at every crumb of news and commentary about the fighting and what is going on, what you should look at is צַפֵּה לְרַגְלוֹ שֶׁל מָשִׁיחַ. What can I learn, what can I daven for, what chessed can I do, to help bring mashiach closer.
Today happens to be my mother-in-law's yahrzeit. Years ago she did a video interview, along with one of my wife's uncles, for the Chabad group that collects stories that have to do with the Rebbe, in which she recounts how the Rebbe's bracha brought a yeshu'a for one of her siblings as a baby. Here is a link if you want the whole story, but I just want to focus on one detail. When my wife's grandfather called the Rebbe to say his baby was basically at death's door, the Rebbe said to him, "You're a Rav. The job of a Rav is to make sure the standards of kashrus are upheld, the standard of chinuch where you live is good. You do you job, and Hashem will do His job. The baby will be OK." Today this aunt baruch Hashem has many, many children and grandchildren of her own.
צַפֵּה לְרַגְלוֹ שֶׁל מָשִׁיחַ. We each have a job to do. Some folks are doing it on the front lines of Gaza. Some have a job to do in the beis medrash. Some do it in chessed programs.
Let's do our job, and Hashem will do His.
No comments:
Post a Comment