We Will Rebuild, Even After This

 

Love at the Western Wall, Jerusalem.

Jewish history seems to be impossible. How can a tiny nation persevere despite centuries of persecution? This question has been posed many times by many observers. Mark Twain wrote the following in an essay for Harper's Magazine in 1898:   All things are mortal but the Jew; all other forces pass, but he remains. What is the secret of his immortality?   Many countries mastered Empire-building. Twain lists the empires that once dominated the world but have since shriveled away: the Egyptians, the Babylonians, the Persians, the Greeks, and the Romans. They had dominating militaries and well-developed economies. But once these empires fell apart, they couldn't rebuild.   On the other hand, Jews have always known how to overcome adversity. The Yiddish phrase mir zaynen du, “we are here,” is both a description of Jewish history as well as the vow of Jewish determination.   After the barbaric Simchat Torah Massacre, we have once again seen Jewish determination in action. Israelis have come together to fight for their country, and the Jewish world has stood in solidarity with their brothers and sisters in Israel. Rabbi Joe Wolfson in Tel Aviv described it this way: “I have lived 100 years in 5 days. If there is one thing I know it's this: If we are like this we are truly undefeatable.”   This courageous response is far from instinctive. Grief is an all-encompassing emotion. The darkness felt after experiencing trauma seems to lead in only one direction: resignation.   Comfort seems unattainable at such times. And this is what happens to Noah. After the flood, after the entire world is wiped out before his eyes, Noah immediately plants a vineyard and drinks its wine. George Bernard Shaw once remarked, “Alcohol is the anesthetic which enables the bereft man to endure the painful operation of living.” Noah is simply searching for a way to numb the pain.   Another Biblical character, Lot, does much the same. After witnessing the destruction of Sodom, including the loss of several family members, he too turns to the bottle and gets drunk.   At first glance, their response is reasonable. The Talmud (Sanhedrin 70a) remarks that “wine was only created in order to comfort mourners.” Noah and Lot are mourners searching for a way to cope with the pain.   Yet the verdict on their drinking is negative. Noah falls into a stupor and lies naked in clear sight of his children; he is later humiliated by his son and grandson. Lot, when he gets drunk, is seduced by his daughters. The outcome of these Biblical episodes is meant as an editorial comment; Noah and Lot’s drinking is implicitly condemned. But the question remains: What did they do wrong? Didn’t the Talmud say that is what wine is for?   The answer can be found in a Midrash (Genesis Rabbah 36:3). It quotes the verse (Genesis 9:20) that says, “Noah, a man of the soil, began to plant a vineyard,” and comments:   Noah, a man of the soil, began [vayaḥel] – he lost his holiness and became ordinary [ḥulin].   Using a play on the Hebrew word vayahel, the Midrash deems Noah’s behavior as merely ordinary, rather than holy. This itself is a bit puzzling; what status of holiness did Noah have? Generally, it is the Kohanim (priests) and sacred items that are considered to be uniquely holy because they are involved in the Temple service.   But that is exactly the point. Kohanim are prohibited from drinking when they are on call to serve in the Temple; they must be fully focused on their divine service. Like the Kohanim, this Midrash argues that Noah also had a divine mission.   Noah’s failure is that he didn’t realize this. Another Midrash criticizes Noah for not wanting to leave the ark. Perhaps for an ordinary person, that would be completely understandable; who would want to go out and witness the destruction the flood left behind?   But more is demanded of Noah. If God selected him to be the only survivor of the flood, that means that Noah is being designated for the mission of rebuilding the world. He must not hide in the ark; and like a Kohen, he must remain focused on his mission and not get drunk and distracted. Noah must go out and rebuild the world.   The Midrash concludes by saying:   And he planted a vineyard.” Should Noah not have planted something else that was constructive, perhaps a fig tree branch or an olive tree branch? Instead, “he planted a vineyard.”   Noah missed his calling.   Jews see rebuilding as sacred. In the previous generation, many of the Holocaust survivors, broken in both body and soul, saw their mission as rebuilding what was destroyed. They fought to create the State of Israel, established Jewish communities, schools, and synagogues, and built beautiful Jewish families.   Here, one can find the elusive secret of Jewish survival: the determination to rebuild.   This belief in rebuilding is part of Israel’s DNA. Even during the worst days of the intifada, Israel moved forward. Greg Myre and Jennifer Griffin, two journalists who lived in Israel between 2000-2007 wrote that:   We were consistently amazed at how quickly Israelis returned to places that had been bombed. The police, the rescue teams, and the cleanup crews restored a bomb site to an outward semblance of normality within hours of an attack. Debris was swept out. Hoses washed away blood from the sidewalk. Shattered windows were replaced. The yellow police tape came down.…. For Israelis, combating terror is not just a security question. It's a social, cultural, and psychological issue and the whole country is required to play its role. It's often measured in small deeds, like going back to a favorite cafe after an attack.   One must never allow destruction to be the final chapter.   Israel today is filled with grief, anxiety, and heartbreak. A cartoon now circulating shows a caricature of the map of Israel lying on the couch, while Sigmund Freud listens. The caption reads: “How does one find a psychologist for 9.3 million people?” So many families have experienced horrific loss; the families of hostages sit helplessly as their loved ones are held by a group of depraved murderers. Every Israeli, and every Jew, is heartbroken.   Even so, Israel is rebuilding. In Kibbutz Be’eri, where Hamas destroyed dozens of homes and murdered over 100 people, the famous printing house, which is the largest business in the area, has reopened. The surviving children, who are now housed in a hotel in the center of Israel, once again have a kindergarten in their hotel. Photos of it were posted online. They look pretty ordinary: toys, books, cheery signs, and sippy cups with each child’s name. Yet that kindergarten is quite extraordinary.   The weddings are also extraordinary. The Talmud says that every rejoicing bride and groom is the equivalent of rebuilding one of the destroyed buildings of Jerusalem; and today in Israel, young couples are coming forward to take part in the heroic act of Jewish rebuilding.   Tamar and Adir had not yet made plans to get married. But once the war broke out, they decided it was time; the future could no longer wait. They had a joyous wedding near the front, and walked down the aisle in their military uniforms. The video of them dancing with their parents into the Chuppah has gone viral in Israel. There are so many weddings of this kind, that one newspaper wrote an article about all of the “Weddings Under Fire.”   Total strangers have come forward to help with these celebrations. Aviva and Yisrael, one of the engaged couples that moved up their wedding date, had decided to have a simple affair; their family, who lived in the South, couldn’t leave their homes to attend. They asked a local rabbi to help with a minyan for the wedding. The Rabbi shared the request on social media.   Aviva explains what happened next:   Two amazing guys from Ramot, Naveh and Ori, stepped in and helped organize everything. A hall, food, a photographer, musicians, and a DJ all materialized seemingly from thin air—the goodwill of Jewish people wishing to celebrate with a brother and sister they’d never met.   Every wedding is another step towards a better future. The Jewish tradition encourages the brokenhearted to find the inner strength to marry, have babies, and build communities, even after they have experienced death and destruction. The Jewish way forward is the way of rebuilding. And that has been the secret of Jewish survival.   We are all uncertain what will happen in the next few months. But one thing is certain: Israel will rebuild. Jews have always been ready to write the next chapter of Jewish History.   Am Yisrael Chai!

Despite the Tears, A Shehecheyanu

 

Defense Minister Yoav Gallant meets troops on the Gaza border, October 10, 2023

There are times when the grief-stricken must recite a Shehecheyanu.   This blessing is meant for joyous occasions and thanks God for having "kept us alive, sustained us, and brought us to this moment.”   When one is grieving, this blessing seems out of place. But Jewish law expects mourners to recite this blessing when they are the beneficiaries of a gift. We don’t ignore the good, even in the worst circumstances.   This past week, I was thinking about a Shehecheyanu that was recited 80 years ago.   In Hassidic Tales of the Holocaust, Yaffa Eliach recounts when the Bluzhever Rebbe, Rabbi Israel Spira, recited this blessing on a Chanukah evening in the Bergen Belsen Concentration Camp:   ….a wooden clog, the shoe of one of the inmates, became a hanukkiah; strings pulled from a concentration camp uniform, a wick; and the black camp shoe polish, oil.   Not far from the heaps of the bodies, the living skeletons assembled to participate in the kindling of Hanukkah lights.   The Rabbi of Bluzhov lit the first light and chanted the first two blessings…When he was about to recite the third blessing, he stopped, turned his head, and looked around as if he were searching for something.   Immediately, he turned his face back to the quivering small lights and in a strong, reassuring, comforting voice, chanted the third, Shehecheyanu blessing: "Blessed art Thou, 0 Lord our God, King of the Universe, who has kept us alive, sustained us, and brought us to this moment."   Among the people present at the kindling of the lights was Mr. Zamietchkowski, one of the leaders of the Warsaw Bund….Afterward, he turned to the rabbi and said, "I can understand your need to light Hanukkah candles in these wretched times. I can even understand the historical note of the second blessing, 'Who brought miracles for our fathers in days of old, at this season.' But the fact that you recited the third blessing is beyond me. How could you thank God and say 'Blessed art Thou, 0 Lord our God, who has kept us alive, sustained us, and brought us to this moment'? How could you say it when hundreds of dead Jewish bodies are literally lying within the shadows of the Hanukkah lights …and millions more are being massacred? For this you are thankful to God? For this you praise the Lord? This you call 'keeping us alive'?"   "Zamietchkowski, you are a hundred percent right," answered the rabbi. "When I reached the third blessing, I also hesitated and asked myself, what should I do with this blessing? … But as I turned my head, I noticed that behind me a throng was standing, a large crowd of living Jews, their faces expressing faith and devotion... I said to myself, if God, blessed be He, has such a nation that at times like these ... stand and … listen to the Hanukkah blessing, … if, indeed, I was blessed to see such a people with so much faith and fervor, then I am under a special obligation to recite the third blessing.”   What the Bluzhever said is particularly relevant now, as we search for hope while engulfed by tragedy.    Yes, our grief is overwhelming. A friend of mine in Israel told me that his children who serve in the IDF have lost more friends in the past few days than he did in his lifetime. Entire families have been wiped out. The loss is so severe, that Israeli cemeteries are calling for volunteers to dig graves. The Jewish people are in mourning, just two degrees of separation from someone who was murdered or kidnapped.   Analogies fail when it comes to this attack. To call it a pogrom is a dramatic understatement. Even 9/11, which remains a deep American trauma 22 years later, pales in comparison to this attack; the Simchat Torah massacre is the equivalent of thirteen 9/11s. The only proper analogy for the two days of horror is the Holocaust.   The barbarism of Hamas is incomprehensible. They murdered individuals by shooting them at point-blank range with rocket-propelled grenades. They slit throats. They massacred 40 babies. They took such pride in their depravity that they videotaped what they did.   Actually, incomprehensible is the wrong word to describe Hamas’ crimes. Good people simply have a failure of imagination, and they often refuse to understand the mindset of those who are evil. And that is a flaw. It hobbles democracies when they have to take on dictatorships; they imagine they can negotiate with those who are ruthless, and “bring out the best” in them. One who desires love finds it difficult to imagine that there are people who have a passion for cruelty.   Our Torah reading introduces us to Lemech, the first person who takes joy in violence. He boastfully recites the following poem to his wives:   For I have killed a man as soon as I wounded him, Even a young man as soon as I hurt him. If Cain shall be avenged sevenfold, Then Lamech seventy-sevenfold.   This passage is enigmatic and difficult to interpret, and commentators offer multiple approaches. But the above translation is based on the commentary of Umberto Cassuto, who follows the approach of Rabbeinu Bachya. Lemech is the one who popularizes violence; his son is the inventor of the sword. Lemech sings about how strong he is, how easily he killed a young boy who displeased him; as Cassuto puts it, Lemech “boasts with great bravado of this cruel murder.”   There are always people who love violence. Lemech, and his son Tubal-Cain, refine the brutality of their ancestor Cain. While most people compose songs of love and inspiration, Lemech sings a song of death. And the Torah wants to show us, up close, that there are evil human beings like Lemech in this world.   It is fascinating that Lemech refers to God’s protection of Cain. This reminds us that forgiveness is not endless. Perhaps Cain deserved God’s mercy; he had committed a then-unfamiliar crime and did so in extreme jealousy. But Lemech mocks God’s kindness towards Cain by expecting the same for himself. This violent murderer has the brazen chutzpah to demand forgiveness afterward.   What Hamas and its helpers in the international community do is pretty much the same. They expect all of their brutal crimes to be completely forgiven and any mistake by Israel to be severely punished. Our dear member Gilad Erdan has to combat the endless lies disseminated in the United Nations; dictatorships that murder their own people come forward to criticize Israel, and everyone sits and listens seriously to their prattling propaganda. But Hamas’ constant lying shouldn’t surprise us; if you're willing to murder babies, how difficult is it to lie?   For the tragedies of this past week we all weep, and our eyes flow with tears. Yet even so, we must make a Shehecheyanu, just like the Bluzhever Rebbe.   We must make a Shehecheyanu on exceptional kindness. A friend described what is happening in Israel as a “balagan of chesed,” or a chaotic whirlwind of kindness. Everywhere people are running and doing what they can for those in need. One Chabad in Jerusalem packed 25,000 sandwiches for the soldiers. There are hours-long waits at hospitals to donate blood, because so many people have come forward. Hundreds of volunteers have come to Soroka Hospital to help the wounded and their families with laundry, prescriptions, and rides. And here in New York, a lone man stood inside Kennedy Airport, buying plane tickets for soldiers returning home.   We have to make a Shehecheyanu on the beautiful unity. This was not the case at all a few weeks ago; but now, in a crisis, Israel has once again pulled together. (But why does it have to wait for a crisis?) Yotam and Assaf Doctor, who own the aptly named “Brothers Restaurant” in Tel Aviv, started delivering thousands of meals to the front lines. But many soldiers wouldn’t eat them, because the restaurant wasn’t kosher. What did the Doctor brothers do? They called in the Rabbinate, and for the first time, became a kosher restaurant. The Jewish people are brothers and sisters; and family must stick together, in good times and in bad.   We have to make a Shehecheyanu because of extraordinary courage. Perhaps, as the Haggadah says, in every generation someone comes to destroy the Jewish people. But more important to remember is that in every generation we have found the courage to overcome those enemies. They have been tossed into the ash-heap of history, and we are still here.   This brings me to another Shehecheyanu story, from just a few days ago. Israeli media shared a video of David, a soldier in camouflage netting, holding his smartphone. David was participating in his son’s bris, and saying his blessings while in the field of battle. Following the Sephardic tradition, David recited the Shehecheyanu blessing.   A pessimist might object to his Shehecheyanu, and see this as a moment of extreme disappointment. A young father should be with his family, not on the front lines endangering his life. A young mother should have her husband at her side, rather than worrying about if he will ever get to hold his baby boy.   Even so, David’s Shehecheyanu is a meaningful blessing, and expresses the destiny of the Jewish people. For much of Jewish history, we were defenseless. That ended with the establishment of the State of Israel. That’s why, despite the circumstances, David can say Shehecheyanu.   At the end of the bris, David and his fellow soldiers recited the words from Ezekiel (16:6), “And I said to you in your blood you shall live, and I said to you in your blood you shall live." Some of the soldiers began to cry. It is a time of bloodshed; these soldiers have witnessed the aftermath of Hamas’ atrocities. But the message of Ezekiel is that even in the worst times, Jews know that there will be better days ahead. Even amidst the blood, there shall be new life.   And for that, we can all make a Shehecheyanu.   Am Yisrael Chai!

Rabbis Roundtable: The Meaning of the High Holy Days

I joined Rabbi Angela Buchdahl of Central Synagogue and Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove of Park Avenue Synagogue in a wide-ranging discussion about what the holidays mean, the challenges of preparing sermons, the moments that are most meaningful, and more. Below is the link to the entire broadcast.

Why Would You Want to Visit Poland?

 

Eliyahu haNavi Synagogue, Nabi Daniel Street, Alexandria, Egypt

For the past few months, I have been promoting our synagogue mission to Poland, which took place in July. Every time I announced the mission from the pulpit, people would approach me and pose variations of the same question: Why would you want to visit Poland? Those who oppose visiting Poland offer a straightforward argument. First, they wonder what is to be gained in visiting concentration camps and reliving the agony and pain of six million martyrs. They also carry a sense of resentment against Poland; many focus on the Poles who betrayed their Jewish neighbors, and at times, participated in the murders of Jews themselves. The blood-stained soil upon which millions of Jews were murdered should be abhorred. This perspective is not new; its roots go back to the Bible. The Torah issues a command to the King that he "must not acquire great numbers of horses for himself or make the people return to Egypt to get more of them, for the Lord has told you, “You are not to go back that way again.” (Deuteronomy 17:16.) The simple reading of this verse implies that God had issued a command (which was previously unrecorded), that the Jews must never return to Egypt. Multiple commentaries grapple with why there is such a prohibition. Rabbi David Tzvi Hoffmann actually rereads this passage as a curse; that if the King buys too many horses from Egypt, it will lead to the Jews returning there and being enslaved. He bases his interpretation on a verse later on in the book of Deuteronomy (28:68), where the Jews are told that if they violate the Torah they will be cursed: “And the Lord will take you back to Egypt in ships, by the way of which I said to you, ‘You shall never see it again.’ ’’   Returning to Egypt is not a prohibition, it’s a punishment. Rabbeinu Bachya offers a different rereading. In his view, this prohibition was only in force for the generation that left Egypt. The former slaves and their children were not to return to a land that, at the time, had a corrupt and perverse civilization. The purpose of this prohibition was to avoid a culture that was the very opposite of the Torah. But the consensus view is that there is a prohibition against returning to Egypt. (The Talmud Yerushlami (Sukkah 5:1) says that there are actually three prohibitions recorded in the Bible against returning to Egypt.) The Talmud (Sukkah 41b) writes about the Jewish community in Alexandria, which thrived during the first two centuries of the Common Era. In the years 115-117, nearly 200,000 members of the Jewish community were killed by Roman Emperor Trajan after riots in the Jewish quarter. This catastrophe is seen by the Talmud as a punishment for the sin of settling in Egypt, A permanent prohibition against living in Egypt requires a broader explanation. Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch sees the rationale as having to do with the geopolitics of the ancient world, where Egypt, as a local power, had a significant influence throughout the region. This is clear from the Bible and the Talmud, where various people, from Abraham to Jeremiah, sought refuge in Egypt during times of crisis. Israel could easily become dependent on Egypt for supplies, which would lead to a loss of autonomy. Jews should strive to build their own country, not to return to Egypt. Yet even Rabbi Hirsch’s explanation depends on which historical era you live in; for example, his explanation would not hold true today. But the simplest understanding of this prohibition is that one should never return to a place of ugliness and horror where Jews were enslaved, tormented, and murdered for 400 years. Unlike Lot’s wife, we should never look back at what needed to be destroyed. That is why there is a permanent prohibition against returning to Egypt. Bans on places of persecution do not end with Egypt. Although there is no clear source for it, there is a persistent tradition that after the expulsion in 1492, the Jews of Spain instituted a prohibition against returning there. Similar traditions relate to the cities of Trent and York, where ugly blood libels took place. These later bans were almost certainly inspired by the prohibition against returning to Egypt. One could conclude that Poland and Germany are today's Egypt; one is a country that perpetrated the Holocaust, and the other is where it took place. For Jews, these countries are places of torment and horror, and should never be returned to. Before returning to this argument, it should be noted that the prohibition against returning to Egypt was a rule more honored in the breach than in the observance. (The same is true of the tradition against resettling Spain.) Generations of Jews lived in Egypt for over two millennia. Maimonides, who unequivocally asserted in his Mishneh Torah that “it is permissible to live anywhere in the world, except for Egypt,” was living in Alexandria when he wrote those words. Later authors sit and puzzle at this striking contradiction; there's even an invented tradition that Maimonides signed his letters with the confession that he “violates three prohibitions every day” because he lived in Egypt. Despite this prohibition, Jews never gave a second thought about living in Egypt; instead, rabbinic authors came up with multiple interpretations of Halakhah that could explain Jewish practice. One opinion that is particularly relevant to our discussion is offered by the 13th century rabbi, Yom Tov ben Abraham of Seville. He writes that the only prohibition against living in Egypt is when there is a Jewish state in Israel; in such a case, it is essentially a choice to move from a place of redemption and return to the very symbol of the bitterness of exile. But after the destruction of the Temple, when the entire Jewish experience was one of exile, there was no longer a prohibition against living in Egypt. By the logic of this argument, once the State of Israel was established, the prohibition against living in Egypt would restart. This offers a second argument against visiting Poland: Why emphasize a country of exile when we can visit Israel? Many have said precisely this. Shmuel Rosner wrote in The New York Times (February 14, 2018) that Israel should stop bringing students on Holocaust education trips because they will “contribute to a misperception by many Jews that remembering the Holocaust is the main feature of Judaism...a healthy society cannot be defined by the memory of a tragedy...”. Others have berated the community to stop obsessing over the Holocaust. In 1992, Rabbi Ephraim Buchwald warned that “obsessing over the Holocaust is exacting a great price. It is killing America’s Jews." This critique sees Holocaust education as replacing Judaism and Zionism with guilt and death. Rosner concludes that student visits to the concentration camps in Poland should end. And so do the others who ask: Why would you want to visit Poland? I disagree. On our mission there were quite a few 'reluctant’ participants, people who came because their spouses or friends pressured them to join. Yet on the final night, everyone had changed their mind. There is something profoundly spiritual about visiting Poland. One of the more fascinating explanations of the prohibition against returning to Egypt comes from the great (Egyptian-educated) kabbalist, Rabbi Isaac Luria. He writes (Shaar Hamitzvot, Reah,) that everything spiritual that could be accomplished by living in Egypt had already been completed; in the language of Kabbalah, all of the sparks of holiness in Egypt had already been absorbed by the Jewish people. There is no spiritual work left to be done there, and that is why it is prohibited to return there. But this is not true of Poland. There are sparks of holiness to be found everywhere. There are lost Jews there. Avi Baumol, the Rabbi of Krakow, told us a remarkable story. A young woman saw him in a store and noticed his kippah. She introduced herself and mentioned that her maternal grandmother was Jewish. Rabbi Baumol explained to her that meant that she too is Jewish, and handed her his card; she was shocked, having never thought that way before. A week later she appeared at Rabbi Baumol’s office and said: “OK, I’m Jewish. Tell me what I need to do now,” and quickly enough, she became a regular member of the community. There are six million souls there. Jews believe in an “ethics of memory”; this is why we visit graves, recite Kaddish, and tell stories about our grandparents. We have an obligation to make certain that the six million are not forgotten and that their burial places are visited. One of our stops on our trip was Zbylitowska Góra, a mass grave where thousands of people are buried, including the 800 children from the local orphanage. This spot is visited by student groups, and some of them leave behind notes. I found one written to those 800 children, which said: “I will remember you and I will love you.” That is our responsibility as well. There are Jews from around the world there. In Poland, Jewish groups visit not just death camps, but historic synagogues, schools, and neighborhoods. On Shabbat morning we went for prayers at the Rama Synagogue, which was built 500 years ago; every seat was taken with yeshiva and seminary students. And even in the death camps, these students carry the flag of Israel on their backs, a powerful testament to Jewish survival. Their very presence defiantly declares that “We are here.” Why would a Jew want to visit Poland? Because the story of redemption is still ongoing, and there are so many sparks of holiness for us to connect to.

The Secret of Jewish Resilience

 

Thank offering unto the Lord, offering of first fruits, as in Deuteronomy 26:1-11, illustration from a Bible card published by the Providence Lithograph Company between 1896 and 1913

Totalitarians don’t like the truth. In the Soviet Union, reality was consistently denied, and bad news was ruthlessly censored. Josef Stalin’s declaration in 1935 that “Life is getting better, comrades! Life is getting merrier!” was turned into a full propaganda campaign, including a hit song. This joyous slogan was coined just a year after a four-year famine that claimed the lives of 8,000,000 people. A year later Stalin would launch the Great Purge, which would claim the lives of over 700,000 people. Life certainly wasn’t getting merrier.   Throughout history, authoritarian regimes from the Pharaohs down to Putin have hidden their failures. Ancient Egyptian records carry no mention of defeats; much the same is true in contemporary China and Russia, where disinformation has been turned into an art form. Bad news is a challenge to the authority of dictators.   The Tanakh is very different. Joshua Berman writes that “the Bible displays a penchant for judging its heroes harshly, and for recording Israel’s failings even more than its successes. No other ancient Near Eastern culture produced a literature so revealing of fault….”   The Tanakh’s willingness to grapple with bad news launches a culture of authenticity and responsibility. Even more astounding is the obligation, found in Deuteronomy (26:5-9), to revisit the worst moments in our history at the most joyous of times. “Parshat HaBikkurim,” or the “The Declaration of the First Fruits,” was a short proclamation read by farmers when bringing their offering of first fruits to the Temple. In it, a short precis of Jewish history is offered:   My father was a wandering Aramean, and he went down to Egypt and dwelt there, few in number; and there he became a nation, great, mighty, and populous. But the Egyptians mistreated us, afflicted us, and laid hard bondage on us. Then we cried out to the Lord God of our fathers, and the Lord heard our voice and looked on our affliction and our labor and our oppression. So the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and with an outstretched arm, with great terror and with signs and wonders. And He has brought us to this place and has given us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey....   While thanking God for the new harvest, a farmer recites a proclamation that tells the Jewish story, starting from the patriarchs. It is a narrative of wandering and slavery, with equal space allotted to the misery of exile and the blessings of redemption.   Parshat HaBikkurim also becomes the central text of the Passover Haggadah, where it is punctuated with additional commentary. The Mishnah states that the Haggadah follows a format that “begins with disgrace and concludes with their glory.” There are two theories in the Talmud about what this phrase means; but Rabbi David Tzvi Hoffman offers convincing arguments that the Mishnah is actually referring to the reading of Parshat HaBikkurim at the Seder, which emphasizes the humiliation of slavery before turning to the story of redemption.   The Seder starts with an extended retelling of the years of slavery. This is particularly notable because being a slave was considered a stigma in the ancient world. Yet for Jews, this section was of such importance that the Talmud says that one should recite the story of disgrace and slavery “in a loud voice.” (Sotah 32b)   But why? What exactly is the point of revisiting slavery?   “Beginning with disgrace and concluding with glory” is certainly an effective narrative tool; one truly appreciates freedom after enduring slavery. The Zohar remarks that “one doesn’t understand a sweet taste until they have tasted bitterness.” Starting the narrative in the midst of the agony of slavery is a far more meaningful and dramatic way to tell the story of redemption.   Remembering the disgrace of slavery also keeps one grounded. Maimonides explains that the shared lesson of the holidays of Pesach and Sukkot is that “man ought to remember his worst days in his days of prosperity. He will then offer a great deal of appreciation for God’s gifts, and learn the importance of a modest and humble life.” Success can corrode the soul, and allow people to imagine that they are invulnerable. The memories of slavery are meant to be humbling, a way to present the comfortable and prosperous with a more authentic picture of life.   A third possibility is that recalling the years of slavery can, paradoxically, make us more resilient. Nicolas Taleb in his book Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder, notes that the opposite of being fragile is not being strong; it is being able to adapt to threats and overcome them. He uses the example of Hormesis, which is the ability of organisms to become stronger when exposed to low-dose stress. In humans, exposure to small doses of poison increases the body’s ability to cope with larger doses of that poison in the future; similarly, vaccines expose people to a weakened or dead form of a virus that triggers the immune system and readies it to fight off future threats. On a psychological level, the same thing occurs when retelling family stories. Marshall Duke, a psychologist at Emory University, and his colleague Robyn Fivush, director of Emory’s Family Narratives Lab, have found that the most resilient children are those who are deeply familiar with their family's history and are taught an “oscillating narrative”: that the family has had challenges in the past, but then were able to overcome them. Knowing their family history of adversity made the children psychologically stronger.   Resilience is psychological hormesis, where one learns how to transcend their personal challenges by remembering past challenges endured by their parents and grandparents.   Resilience is why we begin the Exodus story with an extended discussion of slavery. The traumas of exile over us an important lesson: We have transcended slavery in the past, and we can do so in the future. As Michael Walzer puts it: “Wherever people know the Bible and experience oppression, the Exodus has sustained their spirits and inspired their resistance.” We retell the story of slavery because it strengthens us, and helps us transcend future challenges.   Parshat HaBikkurim’s narrative about the Exodus from Egypt stands in marked contrast to the ways of ancient Egypt, which exaggerated its victories and hid its defeats. But that is precisely the secret of Jewish resilience to this day; and these former slaves are still going strong, while their masters have long disappeared from the world stage.   Jews continue to draw incredible strength from the Passover Seder. Natan Sharansky, who was imprisoned by the Soviet Union for nine years after he applied for a visa to emigrate to Israel, has spoken often about the meaning the Seder held for him in his years of imprisonment. During endless KGB interrogations, Sharansky would tell himself: “Your history did not begin with your birth or with the birth of the Soviet regime. You are continuing an exodus that began in Egypt. History is with you.”   Sharansky would explain that he first learned about the Seder when he joined the Zionist movement at 24: “As part of my Zionist activities, I began to learn Hebrew in secret, in an underground ulpan. I celebrated the first Passover Seder of my life with my fiancé at the time, Avital (then Natalia), in Moscow. … As we didn’t know Hebrew well enough to read from the Haggadah, our teachers gave each of us a short part to memorize.”   A few years later when Sharansky was in solitary confinement, he continued to celebrate the Seder. As he put it, “Recalling the lines I had learned for my first Seder, I felt that our struggle continued…. I repeated the words of the Haggadah: ‘This year we are slaves, next year free men; this year we are here, and next year in Jerusalem.’... And I found out that this is the great place to …enjoy thinking that….next year we could be free people in Jerusalem.” Here is the secret of Jewish resilience on full display. Sharansky draws strength from the Seder, which tells a story that “begins with disgrace and concludes with glory.”   The same holds true for all of us. No matter how awful the situation, we must remember that Jews have overcome worse in the past. And at the most difficult of times, we must never forget that tomorrow we could be free again.

Concluding Words for Tisha B’Av Evening 2023

Traditionally, this moment is used to offer words of consolation.

But there is no comfort this year. The sins of the past are being repeated in the present.

The Second Temple was destroyed because of unnecessary hatred. That is not just a Talmudic homily, It is a historical fact. 

No less than three factions of “baryonim”, zealots, took control of Jerusalem at that time: Eleazar ben-Simon’s group held the Temple itself. John of Gischala (Gush Chalav) and his faction occupied the outer courts of the Temple as well as a portion of the lower city. Simon ben-Giora retained control over the entire upper city. 

And even with the Romans standing at the gates of Jerusalem, these men fought a vicious, bloody civil war, killing each other whenever they could. The hatred they had for their fellow Jews destroyed the Temple.

This year the nightmares of history have returned to the headlines. Israel is filled with anger, hostility, and strife. There is no spirit of brotherhood, no interest in consensus. Israel's enemies laugh at her, and these internal conflicts threaten to undermine the Jewish State. 

It is difficult to find comfort when old wounds have been ripped open again. What consolation is even possible?

Yet I still have hope; perhaps the very essence of this day, Tisha B'Av, will lead us back onto the path of unity. It is true that one of the lessons of Jewish history is division is a direct cause of destruction. But there is a second lesson of Tisha B’Av as well: shared loss can inspire unity.

Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, in his essay Kol Dodi Dofek, explains that a common fate has brought Jews together during their years of exile. We have always been one nation and one family; unfortunately, this has been ignored all too often. But even though discord often arose among Jews, the indiscriminate persecution they shared was a constant reminder that Jews are one family with one fate.

This lesson was brought home to me on our recent KJ mission to Poland. During the trip there were some very difficult moments when we felt profound grief; the heartbreak experienced beside a mass grave where 800 children were murdered is indescribable. But what gave us hope and inspiration was that our group was not alone. Multiple Jewish groups of all different ideologies and backgrounds were there as well, with black kippahs, knitted kippahs, and no kippahs at all. And everywhere we went there were large cohorts of Israeli students, proudly wearing Israeli flags on their backs.

Walking through the valley of the shadow of death we realized how important it is for us to love our brothers and sisters unconditionally.

This year on TishaB’Av, I pray that the Jewish people will remember this lesson: After a churban, after destruction, love is the only way forward. 

On the final day of the trip, I told a story from Yaffa Eliach’s Hasidic Tales of the Holocaust, one that has been retold many times before.

In it, the Bluzhever Rebbe, Rabbi Israel Spira, recounts what happened one day when he was in the Janowska labor camp.

The Rebbe had befriended an irreligious freethinker, who quickly became his daily companion.

One day the Nazis made a cruel selection. They dug a vast pit and said that in order to survive, the starving Jews, whose bodies had been beaten and broken, must jump across the pit to reach the other side. Those who fell into the pit were to be shot immediately.

The Bluzhever’s friend turned to him and said: “Spira, all of our efforts to jump over the pits are in vain. We only entertain the Germans. Let’s sit down in the pits and wait for the bullets to end our wretched existence.” 

The Rebbe refused to accept this suggestion and insisted to his friend that they both must jump. And so they did.

Moments later, they were both on the other side. The Bluzhever’s friend said to him:  “Tell me, Rebbe, how did you do it?”

The Bluzhever responded: “I was holding onto the coattails of my father, and my grandfather and my great-grandfather, of blessed memory.” 

But then the Bluzhever turned to his companion and asked:

“Tell me, my friend, how did you reach the other side of the pit?”

“I was holding on to you,” replied the rabbi’s friend.

This is what we must learn today: no matter how different we are from each other, no matter how many differences we have with each other, we can only survive if we hold on to each other. We will only find strength in unity, and only find comfort when embracing our brothers and sisters.

May God inspire us to do so.

You Can't Say You Can't Play

 

The Punishment of the Rebels, Detail of a fresco, Sandro Boticelli, 1481 - 1482

We all carry the nicks and scratches of childhood. I vividly remember an incident in the third grade. After a spat, two classmates ignored me all through recess. As we were walking back into school, one of them pointed to me and said, “We aren’t talking to Chaim; he’s not normal, you know. He doesn’t have a father, and anyone who doesn’t have a father must be crazy.” The remark really hurt; being an orphan was something I was terribly self-conscious about. The cruel schoolyard teasing poured salt into an open wound, and this insulting rejection made me feel profoundly lonely. No one likes being excluded. To have others judge you as undesirable is extremely painful. And while exclusion is challenging for individuals, social divisions are toxic for communities.   Korach is the paradigm of the community divider. The Talmud says, “Anyone who perpetuates a quarrel violates a prohibition, as it is stated: “And he should not be like Korach and his assembly”; the importance of unity is derived from the negative example of Korach.   To fully understand this imperative, one must first consider how Korach’s quarrel started. The narrative begins with the vague words "and Korach took"; but what exactly Korach took is unclear. Perhaps, as the Midrash and the Netziv suggest, he took the hearts of his followers through persuasion. The Ramban sees it as referring to Korach taking a particular opinion; it is a reference to the inner workings of Korach's mind, when he took the decision to mount a battle against Moses. Rashi offers a very different view. He explains that the phrase means that Korach "took himself to one side" to separate from the rest of the community. Korach is creating social distance even before he comes with his complaint. Rabbi Yoseph Bechor Shor adds that the Hebrew letters for Korach are the same letters as the word for distant; the root of Korach’s rebellion is when one man decides to stand a distance from the community.   While this debate between Rashi and the Ramban is about the interpretation of one word, it offers as well an insight into the genesis of disputes, an issue that is frequently discussed by contemporary political scientists. Are the social divisions of polarization simply a product of intense disagreement, or does polarization itself begin with social distance, which then fosters disagreement? The Ramban focuses on the intellectual aspects of a community quarrel: two sides have conflicting views (and interests,) and for that reason are in conflict. Rashi offers a different account. Before Korach mounts his insurrection, he first and foremost separates himself, and stands alienated from the rest of the community. He's no longer part of what they're doing. Only then does the quarrel begin.   Rashi reminds us that polarization is often a product of social divisions and not the other way around. Local communities frequently forge strong individual bonds, and thereby avoid polarization despite political disagreements. Polarization arises when the conversation becomes global, and strangers, inflamed by TV talking heads, debate each other on Twitter; then it contaminates every community, no matter how tight-knit.   In short, distance fosters dispute and division. Similarly, small schools are less likely to form cliques than large ones; the intimacy of constantly being together with other students prevents exclusion.   The importance of community is critical in Jewish thought. The Talmud (Keritot 6b) says that any public fast day, (such as Yom Kippur,) that does not include the sinners of Israel is not a true fast day. The entirety of the community needs to come together as one, even if some have acted improperly and imperfectly. No person should be left behind.   This is easier said than done. Large synagogues can sometimes feel like train stations; everybody boards at the same time and take their seat, but outside of friends, have no interest in anyone around them. Gary Rosenblatt relates how a friend told him that when he was sitting shiva, he couldn’t identify someone who visited the shiva house several times. "He looked familiar but I couldn't place him….I finally asked him who he was and he said, 'I'm the guy who's been sitting in your row in shul on Shabbat for the last six years."   That’s what it’s like praying in a train station. You don’t know the other commuters. You can sit far apart, even while sitting in the very same row. And in that distance, exclusion emerges.   The most worrisome impact of these social distances is how they impact our kids. Even if the school mandates it, students will refuse to show up at the Bar Mitzvah of someone who isn’t part of their clique; they’ll simply mail in the reply card, and then claim to be sick that day. The empty seats at the Bar Mitzvah lunch speak of an ugly social divide. Birthday parties will exclude some of the children in a class; parents will thoughtlessly push aside the kids they think “don’t belong.”   I have thought for a long time about how to address this issue. A quick review of Pirkei Avot makes it clear that exclusion is against fundamental Jewish values. Pirkei Avot teaches the importance of loving all people (6:6), greeting others warmly (1:15), bringing people together (1:12), carrying the burden of others (6:6), and not separating from the community (2:4). It should be easy to preach against exclusion.   But I had to pause for a moment. If we are honest, we need to accept that it may be instinctual to exclude. The teacher and researcher Vivian Gussin Paley, in her book You Can’t Say You Can’t Play, describes an experiment in her Kindergarten classroom. She explains that she began to lose patience with the voices of exclusion in her classroom. So she put up a sign that said: You can't say you can't play. As she describes it: “I announced the new social order and, from the start, it is greeted with disbelief. Only four out of 25 in my kindergarten class find the idea appealing, and they are the children most often rejected.” There is enormous resistance in Paley’s classroom.   One child said it straight: “It will be fairer, but how are we going to have any fun?” This is not just how a kindergartener thinks; adults consider what is exclusive as being far more desirable. But exclusivity often begins by excluding others; one needs a bouncer to make any gathering truly unique. The allure of exclusivity is that it separates the elite from the ordinary; and there is no greater balm for a fragile ego than to imagine that one is something other than ordinary. (Yes, excluders are often quite insecure.) Exclusion is part of a quest to feel special; and doesn’t everyone want to feel special? If we are honest, we will recognize that exclusion is instinctive.   But there is more to humanity than instinct; and even these young children in Paley’s classroom were able to listen to the better angels of their nature. She explains that after a short while, inclusion became the norm in her classroom; the new culture had a powerful effect on every child. They recognized it was the right way to do things and eventually embraced You can't say you can't play.   But for many children, it took an effort to be inclusive. In a later interview, Paley talked about Lisa, the kindergartener who at the time offered the most strenuous opposition to the You can't say you can't play rule. Lisa eventually understood how important it was. But as Paley explained: “All the years later, whenever Lisa…met me in the hallway, she would always stop and ask me how is the rule doing, and give me an example of something she had done that showed she was still trying to follow the rule. The last time I met her was in the grocery store with her mother, and she said, "Mrs. Paley, it's still pretty hard for me, but I know I can do it, and I always try." And her mother nodded, and said, "She really does, you know."   Yes, inclusion is possible if we really try. And try we must, because it changes who we are. Life is diminished when lived in a tiny corner. To be clustered into a tiny clique of the like-minded impoverishes the soul; it is like living in black and white, unable to appreciate the true color of the world around us. More significantly, separating into little social factions weakens our sense of community; and that hurts our synagogues and schools.   Above all it is wrong. To take yourself to one side and create a distance between yourself and others is hurtful. The pain of the child who gets left out is very real, and I can personally attest to that. The echoes of exclusion linger, even decades later.   Perhaps exclusion is an inborn tendency. But even so, there is no question that all of us can do better. Kindergartners can learn the rule You can't say you can't play; so why can’t their parents?