Category Archives: Holidays

The Baal Shem Tov offered a parable. There was a king who, through some very adept magic, built a palace that appeared to have many walls  that protected him from his people. The walls were very high, straight and  curved, one higher than the other in a maze leading up to a mountain. And from  the outside, through this sleight-of-hand, it also appeared that the palace had  many rivers and moats, and armed guards, and bears and lions and other wild  animals. And so no one dared approach the king, and the king was feared throughout his kingdom, and his glory filled the provinces.

One day, the king issued a proclamation that whoever enters the palace to greet the king will be granted honors and riches, and serve the king as a trusted minister. Some people came, saw what appeared to be the multiple walls, were intimidated and retreated. Others penetrated the first and second layers, and despite seeing no great obstacles – no rivers, no walls, no ferocious animals, and the king’s retinue dispensing great riches to all visitors, they still shied away from approaching further.

Only one person persisted – the king’s son, who yearned to see his father. And so he forced his way into the palace, past the magical walls and the bears and the lions and the guards – he fought and struggled until he arrived at his father’s inner sanctum. When the king saw his son’s dedication, he removed his
sleight-of-hand, and the son saw that there were really no walls, nor any
partitions or separations – just gardens and orchards and all the delights one
could imagine – and the king sitting on his throne, surrounded by his retinue.

And the son cried out to his father – why did you hide from me ? Why did you conceal yourself – “you concealed Yourself and I trembled” (Tehillim 30:8)? And the king answered that it was all done for you, to test you, to reveal
what is in your heart, the extent of your love and reverence for me.

There are times when we sense a distance between us and G-d – when G-d appears remote and inaccessible, when we feel forlorn and abandoned to a chaotic and unruly world. “You concealed Yourself and I trembled” – we tremble at the distance, at the concealment. It is when we call out to G-d – “to You, G-d, I call out, to G-d, I supplicate” (ibid 30:9) – that we realize that the barriers
are illusory and the obstacles are all of our own making. G-d is wherever we
let Him in.

Why does man build walls – why does man resist surrender to G-d’s will ? Primarily fear. Fear that our lives will be less enjoyable, fear that we will have fewer friends, fear that we will lose our jobs and our money, fear that the nations of the world will oppress and persecute us. We run from the covenant, or we attempt to re-define it on our terms.

We conclude – “I can’t learn Torah (no background, no time, no fun); I can’t observe Shabbat as a complete day of sublime holiness for 25 hours (I have to commingle it with the activities and deportment of the weekdays); I can’t give charity, I can’t make aliya, I can’t avoid speaking lashon hara, I can’t dress appropriately, I can’t behave in shul, I can’t treat others with respect and courtesy, or I can’t feel G-d’s presence in my life…” Each “can’t” is a wall, a moat, a roaring lion, a mighty soldier that blockades the door to the palace. King David said “my soul thirsts for G-d” (ibid 42:3). We might say – “I don’t want to thirst for G-d; I want to retain my autonomy, my independence – I don’t want to surrender, I want to engage G-d on my terms. I don’t want to feel a spontaneous gratitude to G-d – too limiting, too demanding.”

But, if we choose, we can dismantle these barriers on our own – one by one. Or, sometimes, the barriers fall away by themselves, because we are left with no choice. We fear the consequences of sin, we’re adrift, we sense something is amiss, and we finally want to enter the palace. Our fears are replaced by a yearning – “as a father has compassion on his children, so too G-d has compassion on us.” And we finally admit that “there is nothing but  Him” (Devarim 4:35).

The Rogatchover Gaon said the blessing for the commandment of shofar is “to hear the sound of the shofar,” rather than to “blow the shofar” because we don’t all hear the same thing. And it is not the technical “hearing” of the shofar
that fulfills the mitzvah, but rather the mitzvah is to listen to the sound of
the shofar that breaks through the walls of our creation, the figments of our
imagination, the sources of our rebellion. If one hears the shofar and is not
moved, and the walls don’t crumble, and the heart is not bent, then there is no
mitzvah. It is the sound we hear, each and every one of us, that defines the
mitzvah, and our surrender to G-d on the day of judgment.

Rav Saadia Gaon wrote that we listen to the shofar and surrender to G-d, because that is the nature of the shofar, the instrument of coronation.

May the sounds of the shofar this year cause G-d to ascend, and enable us to break down all the barriers, and confer the blessings of life and health, prosperity and tranquility, on us and all Israel.

Shana tova  to all !

    Imagine your son asks a simple question at the seder, like “why must you have such a long discussion of the Exodus from Egypt?” and you respond: “rasha, evil child, you said ‘why must you have ?’ Does that mean that you are not part of the seder ? You deserve to be shunned, ostracized, and banished from the family, if we don’t knock your teeth out altogether.” And then you tell him how you really feel: “you don’t deserve to be redeemed, if you had been in Egypt, we would have left you behind, you’re just no good.”

     This colloquy must sound familiar to some people – because that is how we treat the “wicked” son. He just asks a simple question – “what is this service to you?” – and he is lambasted for it. But on the surface, it doesn’t seem like such an aggressive, antagonistic, heretical question. He did say lachem (you) – but that is not much different from the “wise” son’s style of questioning, who also said you (etchem). And are we trying to drive away the wicked son, who at least came to the seder ? Shall we assault his dignity –  tell him we will break his teeth, call him an atheist, tell him he wouldn’t have been redeemed?” Why are we so hard on him?
    The whole seder revolves around questions – so how wise is it to rule some questions out of bounds? Undoubtedly – and this has been verified statistically – young Jews have been turned away from a life of Torah because their questions were ridiculed, or dismissed, or not answered – or worse – their questions generated a vicious counterattack on the part of the person question – whether Rabbi, teacher, parent: “Only a heretic would ask such a question!”

    And at the end of the day, that question of the wicked son – “what is this service to you?” – was never answered. So why are we so harsh on this child ?

     Rav Meir Simcha Hakohen of Dvinsk (the Meshech Chochma) explained that the answer can be found in the verses themselves. The Torah emphasizes the “wise” son’s question: “When your son asks you ‘what are these laws and testimonies, etc.’”(Devarim 6:20) Concerning the “simple” son’s query, the Torah relates: “When your son will ask you tomorrow, ‘what is this?” (Shmot 13:14) But the “wicked” son’s question is not really a question: “And it will be that your sons say to you, what is this service to you?’” (Shmot 12:26)

     What a difference! The wise and simple sons ask – and then “leimor,” saying – they anticipate and desire a dialogue, they want an answer. The “wicked” son doesn’t ask – he says. Sure, he puts his statement in the form of a question, like on Jeopardy, but he doesn’t really want an answer. It is “ki yomru”, he says it – and there is no “leimor,” saying – there is no sense that this is a discussion or a dialogue. His mind is already made up. He doesn’t ask – he makes pronouncements.

     A heretic once visited Rav Chaim Brisker and said that he has some questions on Judaism he would like answered. Rav Chaim said to him: “if you really had questions, we could answer them. But you don’t have questions – to you, your questions are really answers. You have teirutzim, not kushyot. You don’t want to observe Mitzvot, so you look for “questions” that for you constitute “answers,” rationalizations for your lifestyle. There is no answer for that.”

     That is why the Hagada says “because he separated from the group, he denied G-d” – not that he denied G-d and then separated from the group. His ideology is b’diavad, post-facto; it just seeks to justify the decisions he has already made.

      There are many people who ask questions – and don’t really want answers. Answers can be very limiting, very inhibiting, and even very challenging. Answers can cause us to re-think, re-evaluate, perhaps admit error, and even sometimes to change. Some people are more comfortable with questions than with answers.

    The true servant of Hashem is not the person without questions – such a person might not be a servant of Hashem at all. The true servant of G-d has questions – and seeks answers. He looks for solutions. With such a child – and adult – we can dialogue, interact, fall and rise together, and embark on the lifelong quest of Torah study. Through such children, Jewish communities are built; and through such communities, the nation redeemed 3333 years ago reminds itself why Hashem chose us, and sanctified us from among all the nations, and prepares itself for our own journey from servitude to redemption, speedily and in our days.

 A happy and kosher Pesach to all !