This week in Israel is very different beginning with last night’s Yom-Ha’zikaron-Day of Remembrance. It is a night when the entire country stops whatever it is doing and pays tribute to all who have given their lives for the people and the land of Israel. It is a chance to recognize the sacrifice soldiers and families as well as victims of Arab terror have made so that we can live in this land as a free Jewish people. Most will be taking the time for Hakarat Hatov-recognizing the good that has been and continues to be done for us by those who we have lost, those who keep us safe and most of all, the Creator of All Things. There will be segments of society that will not show this sort of gratitude on both sides of the political aisle. I won’t delve too much into that, but there is a greater point I wanted to write about today.
Please understand. When I write these words below I am primarily talking to myself. Yes, it addresses our society as a whole, but the main subject of this piece is me and the things I must do to fix the issue that follows.
It is no secret that the world around us is closing in on the Jewish people. Lift your head up and keep your eyes open and you can see it happening without too much effort. Historically speaking, when anti-semitism is no longer a secret, but is instead out on the street in open dialogue, it never goes away. You can simply ignore it is happening and pretend it will, but I don’t rely on optimistic utopia, I deal with historical facts. I fear this will not get any better for our people and usually when this kind of thing happens it culminates with something drastic, G-d forbid, before the world belatedly pauses to acknowledge their complicity. However, this time the main driver of the hatred is not being driven by any western country with a history of Judeo-christian values. Those countries, albeit on rare occasions eventually, if only for a moment, snap the world back into a moral place of retrospection. This time the main disseminator of this hatred is coming from Muslims. This happens to be a whole different kind of hate. They are not the only participants in this tragedy but between cash they have spent on podcast proxies, bots and a naive ignorant public, the muslim world has laid the groundwork for decades investing tens of billions, if not hundreds of billions into this moment and they will not let it pass without attempting to do away with our people once and for all (Heaven forbid). They spread easy debunk-able lies amongst a willing social media public and before you know it, many of our own people have fallen for the subterfuge dressed up as progressive moral superiority.
While we must fight back on those same platforms, there is something that we are obligated to do which is far more important. We need to hold our Jewish leadership accountable both in Israel and outside of it. We need to demand they stop bickering like children and coalesce around each other. We need to stop attacking one another and stand together as one people with one voice. We have no more time for the petty squabbles over funding or allocations. Figure it out in the spirit of a loving family trying to help and work with and for each other not a miserable one against ourselves. We have no more time for virtue signaling and pompous holier than thou speeches. We have reached an us against them moment. Us being the Jewish people across the globe against everyone who wants to destroy us in both word and deed. If you don’t want to acknowledge it or join us in this fight feel free to leave, but don’t get in the way. The time for attacking our fellow Jews to score political points or for your own ego to applaud you because “you told that guy what you needed to say and that’ll shut him up,” is over. October 8th is here and it demands your attention. We need to unify and do it right quick. ENOUGH IS ENOUGH.
I am reminded of a story about a chassidic rabbi who wouldn’t go to the mikvah (purification bath) but for one time a year. Not even before Rosh Hashanah or Yom Kippur. He only went the friday of Parshat Bahaloscha and he did so with the whole community following behind him complete with a marching band and song. He chose that specific week because in that parsha, the Torah says Hashem spoke good about the Jewish people. That is how important he felt it was to only speak good about your fellow Jews. We need to follow his lead. Unfortunately, you will hear some people who are considered holy and/or even profess to be speakers on behalf of the Jewish people, say some things about their fellow Jews that are cruel and wicked. No matter what, no matter who they are, no matter what spiritual or political position they hold, know THEY ARE WRONG. Let me be very clear. Be wary of anyone who speaks ill of the Jewish people. Yes, we have our problems and we speak about them in-house as a means to work to fix it not to hang it as some kind of albatross around someone else’s neck. Even then you must be careful what you say about the Jews. To air our dirty laundry in public for the sole purpose of speaking against a fellow Jew is flat out wrong and anyone who does so is playing with fire in Heaven.
I found this in the holy book Eim Habanim Semaycha regarding a comment by the Rebbi of Belz who said this: “…it is of utmost importance that the Jew love one another. One must love even the lowliest Jew as himself. One must engender unity and keep far away from anything that causes disunity. The salvation of the Jewish people during times of trouble rests on this.”
A few years back I saw this story as told by Howard Schultz CEO and Founder of Starbucks. It is a life lesson we need to pay attention to and need to do it starting right now. “When I was in Israel, I went to Mea Shearim, the ultra-Orthodox area within Jerusalem. Along with a group of businessmen I was with, I had the opportunity to have an audience with Rabbi Finkel, the head of a yeshiva there. I had never heard of him and didn’t know anything about him. We went into his study and waited ten to 15 minutes for him. Finally, the doors opened.”
“What we did not know was that Rabbi Finkel was severely afflicted with Parkinson’s disease. He sat down at the head of the table, and, naturally, our inclination was to look away. We didn’t want to embarrass him. We were all looking away, and we heard this big bang on the table: “Gentlemen, look at me, and look at me right now.” Now his speech affliction was worse than his physical shaking. It was really hard to listen to him and watch him. He said, “I have only a few minutes for you because I know you’re all busy American businessmen.” You know, just a little dig there.”
“Then he asked, “Who can tell me what the lesson of the Holocaust is?” He called on one guy, who didn’t know what to do-it was like being called on in the fifth grade without the answer. And the guy says something benign like, “We will never, ever forget?” And the rabbi completely dismisses him. I felt terrible for the guy until I realized the rabbi was getting ready to call on someone else. All of us were sort of under the table, looking away-you know, please, not me. He did not call me. I was sweating. He called on another guy, who had such a fantastic answer: “We will never, ever again be a victim or bystander.”
”The rabbi said, “You guys just don’t get it. Okay, gentlemen, let me tell you the essence of the human spirit. “As you know, during the Holocaust, the people were transported in the worst possible, inhumane way by railcar. They thought they were going to a work camp. We all know they were going to a death camp.
After hours and hours in this inhumane corral with no light, no bathroom, cold, they arrived at the camps. The doors were swung wide open, and they were blinded by the light. Men were separated from women, mothers from daughters, fathers from sons. They went off to the bunkers to sleep.”
“As they went into the area to sleep, only one person was given a blanket for every six. The person who received the blanket, when he went to bed, had to decide, ‘Am I going to push the blanket to the five other people who did not get one, or am I going to pull it toward myself to stay warm?’”
And Rabbi Finkel says, “It was during this defining moment that we learned the power of the human spirit, because we pushed the blanket to five others.”And with that, he stood up and said, “Take your blanket. Take it back to America and push it to five other people.””
I read this story and was amazed not so much at his retelling of it, but at the strength of character of the Jews who pushed the blanket over. Think about it for a moment. After all Rabbi Finkel described, the Jews cared for one another, they sacrificed their own comfort for someone else’s. While we all have our own issues, we spend so much time worrying about everything else except what is important, we forget the most important thing IS the most important thing. Who are we as a people? What do we believe in? What is our most important value? Not what does the world tell us should be our most important value, what does Judaism, Torah tell us is our most important values? If we are being honest with ourselves, Torah is why we are who we are and it is Torah that defines our people, our nation and our most important values. More often than not, especially recently, our values are very much at odds with those of the rest of the world. We just have to be brave enough to acknowledge it.
It is the Torah that has defined our people and it is the Torah that has kept our people. But if we are to learn from history, it is Tanach, the word of our prophets, that retells our story of our becoming one people and due to our senseless hatred and arguing, splitting us into two separate kingdoms. Power, ego, hatred drove us away from each other, and away from who we are and who we were meant to be moving forward. We refused to do the right thing when the right thing was required. And we knew better, but we chose poorly because we wanted to be right, more than we wanted to do right, and it cost us dearly. We ignored our prophets, ridiculed them and even went so far as to kill them. In turn we lost our land, we lost our Beit Hamikdash, we lost our tribes and were banished from our home. When Ezra returned, there were still Jews, holy Jews, who refused to come back home with him. So we remained a fractured people and continue this fracture to this day. As my four year old granddaughter tells me in hebrew all the time, Di-stop.
Haven’t we been through enough? Aren’t you sick of what is happening? We have tried the arguing, the virtue signaling, the soapboxing, the blaming of “them”. Look at where it has led us. When will we learn? If the murder of 1200 of our people in broad daylight, the kidnapping of more than 250 others, the world as a whole denying the atrocities took place, being attacked and having to defend ourselves from at least three different entities doesn’t get your attention and show you that what we have done up until now has not worked, what will? When will we stop being so impressed with ourselves and start being part of something more important, something bigger? We need to get our house in order. This one is offended by that one, that one doesn’t recognize the other one, the other one disparages everyone else…DI!
To my people, the Lubavitcher rebbi said the moment you are born is the very moment Hashem said this world can no longer exist without you in it. THAT is how important you are. Remember that the T’zelem Elokim (essence-image of Hashem) runs through you. You are so very holy. Because of that do not fear. As Rabbi Nachmun of Breslov said “Kol haolam kulo gesher tzar meod, V’haikar lo lefached klal-The whole world is a very narrow bridge, but the most important thing is to not be afraid.” Have no fear. Step out of your comfort zone and have faith that Hashem will guide you and lead you where you need to go. Look only to Israel and see that in spite of everything that has happened to us, He has kept his promise to His people and returned them to their home.
We, the Jewish people, were chosen for moments like this. It is going to get harder, more intense, more difficult and be prepared because as you have seen, not many will be there for us. All we have are each other. But this is why He chose you. Because you “a man are accustomed to pain” and survived it, not only that, but you thrived after it, regardless of where and when or what circumstance. You are a stiff-necked nation for a reason. Moshe, our teacher of blessed memory, told us we would be a small nation. A nation no one would want to associate with. That day and time the Torah spoke about has arrived. We were built for these difficulties, this hatred. The time is now. We have no more time to attack each other. We need to fend off attacks against us, together, not apart. Today is not the day to address those Jews who work against our people and bring aid and comfort to our enemies. They have, by their actions, separated themselves from our people. Yet what makes us unique is we are still required to love them, while we disapprove of their behavior.
I will leave you with this from Maimonidies (Rambam) (Hilchos Dayos 6:4) who illustrates this point far better than I have done above. “Every person is commanded to love each and every one of Israel as he loves himself, as it is said, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18). Therefore, one should speak positively about his neighbor and be just as concerned for the good of his neighbor’s assets, just as he would care about his own wealth and his own honor.”
By Tuesday evening, the country will convert from a day or memory, mourning and sadness to joy and celebration with the anniversary of Israeli Independence Day. This is why we were chosen. The ability to take sadness and turn it into joy is the story of our people. To see beyond the present and look to the future. We celebrate the reality of two thousand years of now answered prayers from generations that could only dream they would be on the holy soil we are living on today. Hashem has brought us back home and in spite of the world’s wishes, we can take comfort in the words of our Prophet Amos who wrote of this very day some 2700 years ago. “And I will plant them upon their land, and they shall no more be taken out of their land which I have given them, said the L-RD, your G-d. (Amos 9:15)
May Hashem bless us with peace in our land, peace in the world and most importantly, peace among each other.