Category Archives: Jewish History

Birth of the Eternal Nation

Posted on April 10, 2017 | Comments Off on Birth of the Eternal Nation

The Pesach Hagadah is dedicated almost exclusively, certainly in the first half, to the redemption from Egypt. Passages that do not quite fit this narrative were not universally recited, like, for example, Dayyenu (yes, that is hard to imagine) or the accounts of the miracles at the Red Sea. But one section seemingly does not relate at all to the Exodus, and yet appears in every Hagadah: V’hi she’amdah. “And this has stood by our forefathers and us; for not only has one enemy risen against us to destroy us but rather in every generation they rise against us to destroy us. And the Holy One, Blessed be He, saves us from their hands.” It is a remarkable passage that should cause us to reflect on the eternity of the Jewish people. Individual Jews, and even large numbers of Jews, have suffered inordinately, but the Jewish nation miraculously endures and thrives. Yet, this passage also does not mention the Exodus at all. So why is it recited – and immediately before we begin our discussion of the events of the Exodus?

Last year, Natan Sharansky celebrated the 30th anniversary of his release from the Gulag after nine years in prison. As reported by the acclaimed journalist, Yedidya Meir, at the dinner of gratitude Sharansky made at the time (as he does every year on the date of his release, Rosh Chodesh Adar)  he told the following story. Over a decade ago, Sharansky was invited by President Bush to the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, and the speakers that morning – politicians, celebrities, etc. – were asked to relate the event in their lives where they most felt God’s presence. Christians call it “bearing witness.”

All the stories were inspirational, some led to born-again moments in their lives, but all followed the same basic pattern. Some shared a low moment when they felt God’s presence lift them up, and others spoke about a dramatic moment when they felt divine intervention saved their lives. A fighter pilot related that a malfunction caused his engines to fail and he was plunging to earth – and he felt a heavenly force just intervene, restart his engines for no explicable reason, as if there was some superior force above him.

When it came time for Sharansky to speak, he said that Jews look at these experiences differently. We look for God’s presence not in the life of the individual but in the life of the nation, i.e., what God does for us as a people. (Sharansky knew well that not everyone present that morning was a lover of Israel.)

He told the audience that you – all Bible-believing Christians – know of the Jews enslaved in Egypt, and how Pharaoh refused to free them, and the plagues, the miracles, and the Red Sea. It was God’s mighty hand and outstretched arm that redeemed us from Egypt and founded our nation.

But not long ago – just a few years ago – there was a mighty evil empire that intimidated the entire world. And everyone was afraid to challenge them. Nations sought accommodation, détente, some arrangement whereby the world would keep the peace and no one would interfere in the domestic affairs of this evil empire.

There was one small group of Jews who arose, reasserted their Jewish identity and reclaimed their membership in the Jewish nation. It was a small group at first – dozens, then hundreds, then thousands – but small compared to the gargantuan size of their enemy of whom everyone else was afraid. And then Jews across the world heard of them and rallied for them, and pressured governments, and then blow after blow was rained on the Soviet Union until it collapsed from within and the Iron Curtain fell and the Jews were liberated, again.

Everyone burst into applause, and he continued. “For Jews, that is how God manifests His presence – in the life of our nation. He reveals Himself through what happens to the Jewish people.” He then told his audience that night, that this demonstration of God’s presence in the life of the Jewish people was greater than anything anyone of them had ever experienced in their lives as individuals.

“And this has stood by our forefathers and us; for not only has one enemy risen against us to destroy us but rather in every generation they rise against us to destroy us. And the Holy One, Blessed be He, saves us from their hands.” The template for our survival and our eternity as a people was drafted in Egypt. The divine presence stands with us in every generation. In every generation we face enemies who wish to destroy us, not just one generation with one foe, but in every generation. “And God saves us from their hands.” and gives us – and the world – another chance.

That is why V’hi she’amdah must begin our recitation of the events of the Exodus. That is the pattern from that moment and throughout history until today. And every day, but especially every Pesach, we acknowledge it, give thanks for it, and promise to live in a way that makes us worthy of it, so that the day will soon come when  we again experience divine wonders such as those that liberated us from the bondage of Egypt and we will again see God’s mighty hand and strong arm on the mountains of Zion and Jerusalem, accompanying the dawn of our redemption.

Chag kasher v’sameach to all!

 

 

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Posted in Current Events, Holidays, Israel, Jewish History

Womb with a View

Posted on January 30, 2017 | 4 comments

In the special haftara for Shabbat Rosh Chodesh several days ago, we read the stirring words of the prophet Yeshayahu: “Who has heard of anything like this? Who has seen anything like these? Can a land be born in one day, can a nation be born at once, as Zion went into labor and bore her children at once? Will I bring [Yerushalayim] to the birth stool and not cause her to give birth?… Should I now shut the womb, says your G-d?” (Yeshayahu 66:8-9)

Israel has been freed of Barack Obama’s heavy hand and unsympathetic heart but now faces an even more problematic adversary: itself. After years – to some extent, decades – of Israel’s leaders avoiding tough decisions and eschewing what some deem “provocative” actions, all out of fear of the “American” reaction, the tide has now turned dramatically, and an American president is asking Israelis, in effect, what do you want? What are your objectives? What are your goals? An American president is allowing Israel to write its own destiny, and being told, wait. We haven’t quite figured it out. The womb of redemption is opening, and Israel’s leaders are saying, again, “not so fast.”

This has become most clear in the tiptoeing around the issue of the proposed move of the American embassy in Israel to Yerushalayim. Despite a Congressional act mandating such a move that dates back to the 1990’s, no president has carried it out, despite several promising to do so. President Trump has made similar promises and now seems to be hesitating, quite uncharacteristically it should be added. Why?

It is time to realize that the obstacles to the move of the embassy are not in Washington but in Yerushalayim, and, it seems to me, this same Israeli reluctance bedeviled President Bush (41) who also would have moved the embassy but was rebuffed by Israel. In essence, Israel plays a game – declaring Yerushalayim to be its eternal, undivided capital and demanding that the world acknowledge that fact and then, behind the scenes, working to ensure that it does not happen for fear of whatever the fear of the moment is.

To be sure, the location of the American embassy in Israel is not the most critical issue facing Israel or the world today but it is an important symbol. David Ben Gurion located the Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv because he thought it unwise to place military headquarters in Yerushalayim, what was then a border town. But no other country on the globe has its capital so disrespected by all other nations, and there is no American embassy elsewhere in the world that is not located in that country’s designated capital. However it is rationalized, it is bizarre, and the claim that such will “pre-judge the negotiations” is even more bizarre and risible. Life cannot be put on hold indefinitely, and there are no negotiations on the horizon that will ever result in Arab recognition of Yerushalayim as Israel’s capital. So how long should Israel wait? Seventy years since independence? Fifty years since reunification? Maybe 150 or 200 years? Enough is enough. It is either important or it is not important, and if it is not important enough to demand it, then Israeli leaders should stop using the Yerushalayim cliché as an applause line at speeches to American Jews.

The subtext here is the assertion that moving the embassy will constitute a provocation and inflame the Arab world. But the Arab world is already aflame, if anyone has been paying attention, and moving the embassy can be added to a long list of “provocations.” That list includes Israel’s declaration of independence, victories in battle, the original settlement of the land, and pre-emptive raids against terrorists. One of the most common excuses for inaction in Israel is fear of provocation. Arab prisoners must be treated royally or the Arab street will be provoked; building in Ramat Shlomo, Har Homa, Hevron or really anywhere in Judea and Samaria is a provocation; not releasing the bodies of Arab terrorists (even as Hamas holds the bodies of IDF soldiers) would be a provocation; and even demanding payment from the Palestine Authority for water, electricity and the like is considered a provocation. Cutting off funding to the PA terror apparatus can’t be done, as that too would be a provocation. There is a pattern; some people must be easily provoked.

Saeb Erakat, who functions today as the PA Minister to Christiane Amanpour, declaimed that such a move of the embassy would constitute the end of all of Israel’s agreements with the PA (agreements, he failed to note, that the PA has routinely breached, including, most recently, seeking unilateral disposition of the conflict before the United Nations). He added that the PA would go out of business, and Israel would then be forced to assume responsibility for all the salaries and services provided by the PA. But this is petulance, a tantrum masquerading as a policy. The reality is that the PA is sustained by the billions of dollars funneled its way by the EU, UN, US and other world bodies. It generates little revenue on its own. If the PA would disappear (it won’t, of course), that same foreign money could be provided directly to Israel that could then administer those lands. And with Israel not siphoning off tens of millions of dollars into private bank accounts, as the PA leadership is rumored to do, perhaps that money would even filter down to the average person, and, one can only hope, actually build new housing for Arabs still languishing in refugee camps after more than twenty years of rule by their own leaders. One can only hope. But of course it won’t happen because the PA business is too lucrative.

The broader point is not merely that succumbing to the threats of violence and terror only rewards and encourages the bully but that Israel finds itself (again!?) at a crossroads. The friendly Trump administration enters with no illusions that peace is possible under present circumstances, and well aware that Israel is both a friend and cherished ally. The real question then becomes: what does Israel want?

People generally become so attached to the status quo that any attempt to change it, at all, evokes gasps of horror. (Change the one-China policy? Oy vey! Really?) Netanyahu has become adept at managing the status quo but strategic thinking is also in order. Life also cannot be put on hold pending a resolution of the Iran problem, and to assert that the embassy move should be postponed (forever) because Iran must be dealt with is a non sequitur. Nations can defend themselves, build homes, manage an economy and maintain a capital at the same time. And an American embassy in Yerushalayim would send a powerful message to the world, Arab and European, that the State of Israel exists, will continue to exist, and its just demands deserve recognition.

Why then would Israel be reluctant to insist that now is the time for the fulfillment of what is the elementary right of every nation – to designate its capital? Perhaps it reflects the ongoing struggle over Israel’s Jewish character and its biblical past, a reality that is not universally appreciated in Israeli society. We must return to Israel’s official disinclination as a sign of its current reluctance to see itself as the fulfillment of Yeshayahu’s vision cited above. But that too can and should change.

“Who has heard of anything like this? Who has seen anything like these?” Has a people ever returned from the dead, from millennia of exile and reconstituted itself? No. It is miraculous, notwithstanding that we are living through it.  “Will I bring [Yerushalayim] to the birth stool and not cause her to give birth?… Should I now shut the womb, says your G-d?”

One stage in the redemptive process is world recognition of Yerushalayim, the capital of G-d’s kingdom, which will be transformed into a magnet for seekers of G-d. Should we continue to procrastinate and hinder the next stage of the redemptive process?

“Should I now shut the womb, says Your G-d?” The prophet then continues: “Rejoice with Yerushalayim, exult in her, all those who love her. Gladden with her, with complete joy, all those mourn over her” (66:10). The opening of the womb – the renaissance of Jewish national life after the dormancy of almost two millennia – naturally culminates in the establishment of Yerushalayim as the center of spirituality and the reign of G-d. We are on the verge of that era, if only we want it.

There are moments in the history of nations when the status quo causes stagnation and becomes harmful. It should be obvious that this new President, not tethered to old policies that haven’t worked and not encumbered by the diplomatic shibboleths of the past, presents new opportunities for Israel to advance its destiny. It should embrace it, not run from it. The location of the embassy is not the most significant issue (building, settling, defending and prospering are more meaningful) but it is an important symbol. In a few months, Jews and other lovers of Yerushalayim will celebrate fifty years since the reunification of the city. One-half century, time enough to proclaim that Yerushalayim is Israel’s eternal capital, and to act like it is so. Those who continually kick the can down the road eventually run out of road.

An appropriate 50th anniversary gift would be the relocation of America’s embassy to the city that has been the center of Jewish life for more than 3000 years. The brief tumult it will cause will quickly recede, we will wonder what took so long, and Jewish destiny will edge ever closer to its glorious climax.

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Posted in Contemporary Life, Current Events, Israel, Jewish History

Two-State Illusion

Posted on December 29, 2016 | 13 comments

The Jewish people have been “refuseniks” long before Jews from the former Soviet Union heroically gave that designation such honor. Rav Soloveitchik explained that Yosef, nearly falling into the lecherous clutches of Potiphar’s wife, extricated himself in a way that the Torah (Breisheet 49:8) described in one word: “And he refused.” That word is set apart from the rest of the verse by a psik, a sort of bracket, after which Yosef offers several explanations to the trollop who pined for him. But those disparate explanations are not essential to the narrative. What is essential is that one word: “Va’y’ma’ein.” And he refused. Period. The refusal matters more than the reasons.

Avraham refused to follow the debauched trends of his generation and ushered in a new era for mankind. Yitzchak and Yaakov both refused to buckle to their enemies and their inner strength and courage inspires us until today. Jews have always been refuseniks, and we would not be celebrating Chanukah this week but for a group of refuseniks called Maccabees who defeated a powerful Syrian army, rejected Greek culture, and overcame the Hellenist Jews of their generation who were trying to curry favor with the hostile, anti-Jewish establishment. Jews can refuse the enticements of sin, whether moral, physical or financial.

Herzl, Ben Gurion and Begin were all refuseniks in their own way, and today, we too are again called upon to be refuseniks, as the world community (read: UN) spearheaded by an American government led by a president, for whom so many Jews are still enamored, who has been waiting for an opportunity to stick it to Israel since his favorite preacher schooled him in the perfidies of the Jews. Yes, yes, this US government has provided Israel with $25B in military assistance in the last eight years, most of it spent in America; the same government has also furnished Iran with $100B to spend as they wish on terror, mayhem and the development of nuclear weapons.

Some Jews are irredeemably leftists and Obama supporters and nothing can happen that will change their minds. They have a unique capacity to be spat upon and then to exclaim with joy that it is raining. Gishmei Beracha. Or maybe Gishmei Kelala. Those “Jews” – make no mistake; a disproportionate number of them are not halachic Jews but the product of the scourge of intermarriage that is devouring American Jewry – would sooner blame Israel than open their eyes to Obama. Spare me the crocodile tears of those Obama supporters, some of whom voted for Obama twice, who now castigate him and offer platitudes of support for Israel, and of course would have voted for him a third time given the opportunity.

Obama is as much a product of his background – anti-Israel, liberationist theology – as John Kerry is of his: grandson of an apostate Jew who changed his name from Kohn to Kerry to try to pass himself off as Irish. We are now, indeed, being encircled by the rings of Kerry who does not even recognize his delusions. For example, 2.75 million Palestinians do not live under “Israeli military occupation,” as Kerry claims. Even ignoring the inflated number of Arabs living in Judea and Samaria, more than 90% live under an autonomous Arab government. If they cannot vote, it is because the brutal Arab dictatorship under which they live does not allow elections. And if those Arabs cannot enter “Israel” at will, it is because Israel is supposed to be a separate country, especially according to Kerry, and countries have the right to determine who can and cannot enter. That should be obvious.

Obama’s treachery was widely predicted, including in this space, and it is still entirely possible that he will recognize a “Palestine” before he is shown the door. But, as is the case with almost everything that Obama did as president, certainly domestically, it can all be reversed and erased. That is not to say that it will be easy. It is entirely in keeping with Obama’s world view that he has alienated Israel (and other US allies) and befriended Iran and Cuba. He hates Netanyahu and loves Castro. He has a fierce hatred of the fulfillment of Jewish destiny in the land of Israel even as he has bolstered and promoted the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood and presided over the spread of Islamic terror across the globe. What a legacy.

UN Resolution 2334, orchestrated by the Obama administration, is similar in many respects to another act of treachery by Jimmy Carter, later exposed to be a rabid Jew hater. On March 22, 1979, Carter abstained on UNSC Resolution 446 that condemned Israeli settlements, including Jerusalem (!), stated they had no legal validity, violated international law, and deplored … yada yada yada. But Jews are refuseniks, and since 1979, almost 500,000 Jews have populated Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem. May the current resolution result in similar growth!

Resolution 2334 differs substantially in only two respects: it calls on the world to “distinguish in their relevant dealings” between Israel “proper” and Judea and Samaria, effectively lending support to a boycott of Israel. And it refers repeatedly to the “two-state solution” and how settlements impair the “two-state solution.” It is time for that narrative change.

The problem is as much branding as it is politics and Jew hatred. There are problems and there are solutions, even if sane, realistic people recognize that not every problem has a solution. The very phrase “two-state solution” is the kicker. If there is a solution to a problem, only a nut would reject the solution and allow the problem to fester. It hasn’t dawned on the geniuses in the striped pants world (although it certainly motivates those who favor Israel’s demise) that the two-state “solution” is no solution at all. No reference was made to a two-state “solution” in Resolution 446 because it was then a dead letter. No rational person believed then that partitioning Israel and awarding its sworn enemies half its territory would be a solution to anything, except to those who perceive Israel’s existence as a problem. No rational person should believe it today.

We have to change the brand. Every time someone says “two-state solution” just write, blurt out or yell “two state illusion.” It is an illusion – indeed, a delusion – to think that an independent “Palestine” will bring peace. There never was an independent “Palestine,” there is no such political identity, no historic Palestinian figures from the 19th century going back to creation, and no means for even a peaceful “Palestine” to sustain itself as a state on territory that lacks material resources and infrastructure. It is a fabricated identity, fabricated not to buttress Arab claims but merely to suppress and eliminate Jewish claims. It is therefore not surprising that the “Palestinians” refused a state before 1948, made no effort to create a state when Jordan and Egypt controlled these territories from 1948-1967 and have rejected several ill-advised attempts to award them a state in the last 15 years. Let’s get real.

“Two state illusion” rolls off the tongue, and when uttered repeatedly, it makes a “two-state solution” sound much less appealing or even sensible. And it is a tribute to a number of Jewish activists that the Republican Party platform this year withdrew its support for the “two-state illusion,” and the incoming Trump administration seems presently disinclined to advocate it. And why would it? It can’t work, and if it could work, it would have worked already.

Much of the chatter makes it seem as if the “two-state illusion” was long-standing American and Israeli policy. It is not. Even the Oslo Accords did not endorse a “Palestinian” state, and the US only signed on to it at the urging of Ariel Sharon in 2004. Sharon encouraged the Bush Administration to support such a state in exchange for recognition of the settlement blocs as legal. This, sadly, was another disastrous legacy of Ariel Sharon. George W. Bush issued such a letter in June 2004, but US support of the settlement blocs was repudiated by Hillary Clinton in 2009 even as she pocketed the “two state illusion” as US policy conceded by Israel. Well, times have changed, and as Einstein noted, only the insane keep repeating the same actions and hope for different results.

Judea and Samaria represent Israel’s past and future. It is immoral to say that Jews can live in Shiloh, Illinois and not the original Shiloh. To articulate that sentiment is to be on the wrong side of history and to mock the Bible. Obama and Kerry are on the wrong side of history. In the story of Chanukah, it is distressing to note that most Jews sided with the enemy, the Syrian Hellenists who tried to stamp out Jewish sovereignty in the land of Israel and eradicate the Torah itself. Those Jews were on the wrong side of history. Many of the battles of the Maccabees were fought on land that neither Obama nor Kerry recognize as Jewish. But it was then and is now.

Those Jews who are turning on Israel are also on the wrong side of history. It is patently clear that the closer Jews are to Torah the greater is one’s commitment to the land of Israel, whose possession by Jews is obviously a major element of the Torah.  Of course, there are observant Jews who are still enthralled with the two-state illusion but they are an ever declining minority of the Torah world. So be it.

The battles that are being waged now for the land of Israel during the celebrations of Chanukah are reminders to us that the old antagonisms still exist in every generation, and that the spirit of the Jewish refusenik that has animated us throughout history will give us the strength and courage to refuse even the entreaties of people who perceive themselves as well-meaning in their quest to hound, diminish and weaken Israel.

That light still shines in every truly Jewish home, and will shine forever.

Happy Chanukah!

 

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Posted in Chumash, Contemporary Life, Current Events, Holidays, Israel, Jewish History

Honored Guests

Posted on October 14, 2016 | 4 comments

Every year we welcome into our Succot some of the most distinguished guests in Jewish history – the “Ushpizin” – Avraham, Yitzchak, Yaakov, Yosef, Moshe, Aharon and David. It is the Jewish dream team and a mystic’s delight, but for the rest of us – why are they here and what do they teach us?
Rav Jonathan Sacks, the former Chief Rabbi of the UK, once told the following story. In the year 2000, he was invited to deliver the annual St. George Lecture at Windsor Castle, the first Jew ever so honored. He was overwhelmed by the thought of it – and what he would say – especially considering that Windsor Castle is the oldest royal castle in the world in continuous use since its construction in the 1070’s by William the Conqueror, a decade after the Norman Conquest. Kings and queens have used that residence ever since and much happened to us while they were there.

In the almost 1000 years since, Jews underwent great hardship in the UK – starting with the blood libel in Norwich in 1144, the massacre in York in 1190 (there’s a kinah that describes that), and the expulsion of Jews in 1290 by King Edward I. Jews did not return legally to Britain until Oliver Cromwell permitted them in 1657. And Rabbi Sacks wondered: if those Jews could talk, what would they say now?

What he did say was this: I’m trying to put myself in the mindset of someone who inherits this castle and who lives here. The place is saturated with history. Every royal who lives here sees this home as his personal history, but also as the history of a nation. The residents therefore have moral obligations to the past and the future, and not just the present. Every resident becomes part of that history, the history of Windsor Castle, and he has to preserve it for the next generation of Windsors, the next generation of royalty. This is life lived not just an individual but in an historical context.

Jews, he said, do not have castles. We do not have castles but our history, our memory, is built through words. In context, he meant the hagada – the lecture occurred before Pesach – words that emanate from the commandment of “and you shall relate to your children on that day,” to impart the story of Israel to every new generation. We don’t need buildings of brick and stone if we know the words, and the words are transmitted from generation to generation, century after century, millennium after millennium, frequently under conditions of hardships and travails. And every child is taught the words, because that is his legacy – to transmit those words to his children.

Edmund Burke wrote that “a partnership is not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead and those who are to be born.” Burke meant that everyone in society is part of the partnership – but we mean it as referring to the great Jewish odyssey. Indeed, the venerable Labor ideologue Yitzchak Tabenkin told David Ben Gurion not to accede to the partition demands of the Peel Commission, because he had “consulted” both his grandfather and his grandson, and neither would tolerate one generation’s surrender of the ancestral land of the Jewish people. No individual generation has the right to betray the past or the future.

I would take it a step further. Jews don’t have Windsor Castles; those do not represent our essence. We have our words but I would expand that too: what we have our experiences – experiences that we cherish, that define us, that keep us connected to G-d and to our people and that we transmit from one generation to the next.

We don’t need a fancy castle because we have a Succa – and in that Succa we hear the echoes of the giants of our history. The beauty of our history is that they – the Ushpizin – are the constants; we are transient. In our Succa, the guests are always the same – the Ushpizin; only the hosts change from year to year.

And what we convey most to our children are those experiences – of the Succa and the seder, of Shabbat and the shofar, of prayer and Torah study, of the innumerable acts and cherished values – that will both shape them and fully equip them with the means to live not just in the moment but in history, to see themselves as partners in the grand plan of the Creator in history.

“So that generations will know that I caused you to dwell in Succot when I took you out from the land of Egypt, I am G-d.” We dwell in the Succa so that we can transcend the generations – so that all generations will know that G-d has preserved us from time immemorial until this very day. Those Succot in the wilderness began our journey, which will culminate, as the prophet Zecharia taught, when all nations will come to Yerushalayim to celebrate Succot, in the era when G-d’s kingship will appear on earth and the entire world will pay homage to G-d, “and He will be One and His name will be One.”

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Posted in Contemporary Life, Holidays, Jewish History, Machshava/Jewish Thought