Category Archives: Holidays

Vilified… Once Again

Ours are times when it isn’t hard to imagine oneself as a Jew in Mitzrayim –  at least according to the way two commentaries understand a word in Devarim.

The word is in one of the pesukim comprising the declaration to be made by those bringing bikurim, the firstfruits of the season, to the Beis Hamikdash. It is, famously, a declaration that the Haggadah expands upon. The word is vayarei’u, often translated as “they [the Mitzri’yim] treated us in an evil way” (26:6).

Abarbanel and the Netziv, however, see the syntax of the word as implying something subtly but decidedly different. They read it as meaning “they ‘eviled’ us” – in other words, they portrayed the descendants of Yaakov as evil. As we would say in English, they vilified us.

Could there be a better way to describe so much of the world’s attitude toward Jews today? To be sure, there are always haters who, as is their wont, hate, for any of an assortment of “reasons” or with no attempt at “justification” at all; that’s nothing new. 

But, as a result of civilian casualties in Gaza – unavoidable deaths and injuries like those that have been part of every war in history – Israel has been vilified to an unprecedented extent, not only by the usual suspects but in broad international circles and media. And, tellingly, all Jews – as Jews, simply for being Jews, our opinions unknown and of no concern to the venomous vilifiers – are targeted as well. 

Attacks on Jews, physical and verbal, abound across the globe. The despicable chants of “Burn the Jews!” and displays of Nazi symbols at “pro-Palestinian” rallies – a British bobby was recently recorded dismissing a distraught Jewish woman’s complaint about swastika flags at a demonstration by saying they needed to be “taken into context” – is evidence enough of how easily empty-headed people can, under the self-righteous guise of what they proffer as principled political positions slide into… vilification of Jews.

And so it’s no great challenge this year to put ourselves in the places of our vilified ancestors in Mitzrayim. The Haggadah’s mandate that we endeavor to see ourselves as if we, too, were redeemed from Mitzrayim logically includes imagining ourselves in the state that our forebears endured before they went free. After all, an appreciation of redemption must include what it has freed one from.

Although we refer to the splitting of the Red Sea as kri’as Yam Suf,  a “tearing” of the waters, that word is not used by the Torah. The Torah’s word for the parting of the waters is vayibak’u – “splitting” or “chopping.”

Noting the use of the same verb to describe Avraham Avinu’s splitting of wood for use in the offering of Yitzchak as an olah to Hashem, Chazal tell us that it was in the merit of that action of Avrohom’s that the sea was able to split. 

What was the essence of that merit? It’s more than plausible that it was the perseverance in the face of hopelessness, the selfless determination with which Avraham undertook to follow Hashem’s unfathomable command. Our forefather’s deepest desire lay in a world-changing future for Yitzchak and his eventual descendants. But, it seemed, in light of the command, that there was no hope left to be hoped. 

Similarly, when Klal Yisrael found itself faced with a sea before them and an approaching army closing in from behind, hopelessness would understandably have seized them. 

And yet, just as the despair Avraham had reason to feel as he split wood for the akeida was later dissipated in a crucial instant, so did the anguish our ancestors experienced at the sea suddenly evaporate, as they watched the waters before them part.

It’s a thought worth pondering these days. Even surrounded by darkening clouds of seemingly mindless, relentless hatred, we do well to remember how hopelessness needn’t be final.
The Egyptian pyramids and the Sphinx, intended to herald the permanence of the power of an ancient dynasty, are today nothing more than tourist attractions, and crumbling ones at that. Our people persists, vibrant and hopeful, looking toward the ge’ulah sheleimah. 

© 2024 Ami Magazine

Pekudei – Panic Today, Joy Tomorrow

The parallel in wordings between the Torah’s account of the universe’s creation and of the building of the Mishkan has been noted by commentaries. I won’t cite examples here but they abound.

The late British Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks well phrased the upshot of that parallel, writing that “Genesis begins with G-d creating the universe as a home for humankind. Exodus ends with human beings, the Israelites, creating the Sanctuary as a home for G-d.”

A little-known Midrash, I believe, also adds to the parallel.  The Midrash Hagadol, on the parsha’s final pasuk (Shemos 40:38) – which states that “For the cloud of Hashem was upon the Mishkan by day, and there was fire within it at night, before the eyes of the entire house of Israel…” – recounts the following:

“When the Jews saw the cloud resting on the Mishkan, they rejoiced… [but] when night came and fire surrounded the Mishkan, they were anguished and cried ‘All our work was for naught!’ When they awoke the next morning and saw the cloud enveloping the Mishkan again, they rejoiced an even greater rejoicing…”

That account is strongly reminiscent of the Gemara (Avodah Zara 8a) that tells of how:

“On the day that Adam Harishon was created, when the sun set upon him, he said: ‘Woe is me, as because I sinned, the world is becoming dark around me, and the world will return to the primordial state of chaos and disorder. And this is the death that was sentenced upon me from Heaven.’ He spent all night fasting and crying, with Chava crying opposite him. Once dawn broke, though, he said: ‘Evidently, the sun sets and night arrives, and this is the order of the world.’ He arose and offered a sacrifice…”

Both  accounts illustrate that, even when it seems that all is lost, that the world is bearing down and no hope is in sight, reason to rejoice may lie around the corner. 

Living as we are in precarious times and headed toward Purim, when we will read of how a seemingly dire, threatening situation was turned on its head, it is a timely and trenchant message.

© 2024 Rabbi Avi Shafran

Mishpatim – Full Moon Danger

On June 6, 1944, D-Day, more than 150,000 Allied troops stormed the coast of Normandy to begin the liberation of France from the Nazis. 

The criteria for choosing that day included a low but rising tide for the seaborne soldiers, a tide that occurred only around the time of a new or full moon. It took place on the latter.

Other military onslaughts throughout history were scheduled based on the moon’s phase – full moons when light was desired; new moons when darkness was needed to limit soldiers’ visibility to the enemy.

Among the 53 mitzvos in parshas Mishpatim is one that, peripherally, involves the moon. And it is one of the most compelling pieces of evidence of the Torah’s divine origin. Because the mitzvah, by all logic, would seem to doom the Jewish people.

On the shalosh regalim, the three “pilgrimage festivals,” all adult Jewish males are commanded to journey to the Beis Hamikdash in Yerushalayim. That, of course, would leave the borders of Eretz Yisrael essentially open to attack by the Jews’ enemies. And two of those festivals were utterly predictable – because they began on the 15th of their Jewish months, one in the spring (Pesach) and one in autumn (Sukkos). Each at the full moon of its month.

Even the most primitive military strategist would have noticed that pattern and would conclude that the land would be most vulnerable to attack on those holidays. Or, in the summer, during the first quarter moon, when the right half of the moon is lit – the holiday of Shavuos. 

Which makes the mitzvah of alyah liregel starkly self-defeating. No human lawmaker would be cruel or dim enough to lay down such a law – only a Legislator who could in fact ensure that the populace would not perish as its result. And, of course, it didn’t.

© 2024 Rabbi Avi Shafran

Nitzavim – Turning Pain to Gain

The Midrash (Yalkut Shimoni) at the start of parshas Nitzavim sees in the parsha’s opening words, “You are standing today” the message that, despite the sins and travails of Klal Yisrael up to that point, and the klalos enumerated in parshas Ki Savo, the nation is still standing. Indeed, the Midrash continues, “the curses strengthen you [ma’amidos es’chem].”

The Second Law of Thermodynamics states that physical systems naturally degenerate into more and more disordered states. 

Living systems, though, seem to act otherwise. A domeim, a non-living item like a rock or mineral, is indeed entirely subject to entropy. A tzomei’ach, though, a plant, which grows, less so. And an animal, a chai, even less so, as it can also move around to promote its wellbeing.

And a living human is even more able to defend against entropy, manipulating his environment, using intelligence, tools and creativity to protect himself.

The highest rung on the hierarchy, according to sefarim, is Yisrael, the Jewish nation. Perhaps we are particularly entropy-resistant – especially able to turn challenges that would naturally wear away other people, leaving them feeling dejected and hopeless, into not just perseverance but renewed strength. Haklalos ma’amidos es’chem.

The churbanos of the Batei Mikdash, for example, were followed with determined and successful Jewish renewal, as was the most recent churban, that of Jewish Europe. Parts of Klal Yisrael have returned to Eretz Yisrael, and Torah study and practice thrive throughout the world.

And in our personal lives, too, as Rav Dessler writes, our failings and fallings can, through our pain and teshuvah, become fuel for our determination to reach even greater heights. 

A timely thought during these waning days of Elul.

© 2023 Rabbi Avi Shafran

Ki Savo – Schrödinger’s Moon

Seizing on the fact that the Hebrew word for a granary – osem – shares two letters with the word for “obscured” – samui – Chazal make an intriguing assertion: Blessing [i.e. increase in volume] is common only in things that are “obscured from the eye” (Bava Metzia 42a).

The pasuk on which that truth is based is in our parsha: “Hashem will order the blessing to be with you in your granaries [ba’asamecha]…” (Devarim, 28:8).

Rav Dessler (first chelek of Michtav M’Eliyahu, pg. 178 in my ancient edition) explains that what we call cause and effect, the essence of physics, is really an illusion; only Hashem’s will is operative, even in what we call physical nature. And so, when something is out of sight, where cause and effect cannot be perceived, His will can cause bracha in the hidden. 

That idea of natural law’s suspension in the case of something beneath perception is vaguely, but tantalizingly, reminiscent of quantum physics’ “Schrödinger’s cat” thought experiment, where direct cause and effect is seemingly suspended – on the subatomic level, but with theoretical implications for the macroscopic world. The issue underlying Schrödinger’s paradox remains an unsolved problem in physics.

Be that as it may, though, something important will in fact be “obscured from the eye” in a few weeks: the moon, on Rosh Hashana. The moon is Klal Yisrael’s timekeeper, and time is the most fundamental element of nature. Klal Yisrael’s clock will not be visible on the first of the days of teshuva.

And time itself, in a sense, will be suspended then. Because we can interfere with its natural, relentless march forward – or, at least, with its unreachable past. Through the bracha of teshuva, which Chazal tell us can change the very nature of our pasts, traveling back, in a way, in time – turning past wrong actions done intentionally into actions done inadvertently; even, with the deepest teshuva, repentance born of pure love of Hashem, into meritorious acts. 

© 2023 Rabbi Avi Shafran

Shavuos – The Matter of Meaning

The average price paid to climb Mt. Everest – for permits, equipment and guides –  is between $35,000 and $45,000. And hundreds have died in that exploit. 

What impels people to undertake so expensive and dangerous a quest? A misguided search for meaning.

Philosophers argued about what ultimately motivates humans. Nietzsche said power; Freud, pleasure.

Both tapped into something real. The power to, through our choices, change our lives and history, is a manifestation of gevurah, “strength.” In Jewish eyes, though, that doesn’t mean subjugating others; rather, as Ben Zoma in Avos (4:1) defines it, “hakovesh es yitzro,” one who, by force of will, overcomes his nature.

And Freud was on to something too; the Ramchal begins Mesilas Yesharim with the surprising statement that the goal of life is the pursuit of pleasure. Not physical, but rather ultimate, pleasure: “basking in the radiance of the Shechinah.” 

The Danish thinker Søren Kierkegaard was insightful. He wrote of the human “will to meaning” – the yearning to achieve something truly meaningful as life’s ultimate goal.

Some imagine “meaning” in climbing Everest. Others envision meaningful accomplishment in meriting mention in the Guinness Book of World Records, for, say, the most slices of pizza eaten while riding a unicycle and simultaneously juggling balls. 

For those who recognize our divine mandate, though, the ring for which to reach is a spiritual one, achieved through Torah and mitzvos. 

All good fortune to the Everest climbers.

Come Shavuos, we look to a different mountain.

© 2023 Rabbi Avi Shafran