Simchas Torah 5770

Rabbi YY Jacobson

• October 6, 2009
• |
• 18 Tishrei 5770
• |
• 5 views

• Print

  Dancing with G-d

  A Tale of Four Simchas Torah's

  Rabbi YY Jacobson

  • October 6, 2009

  Two Kids

  Two little kids are in a hospital lying on stretchers next to each other outside the operating room.

  The first kid leans over and asks, "What are you in here for?"

  The second kid says, "I'm in here to get my tonsils out, and I'm a little nervous."

  The first kid says, "You've got nothing to worry about. I had that done when I was four. They put you to sleep and when you wake up they give you lots of Jell-O and ice cream. It's a breeze!"

  The second kid then asks, "What are you in for?"

  The first kid says, "A circumcision."

  The second kid says, "Whoa! I had that done when I was born. Couldn't walk for a year…”

  Imagine…

  Imagine the following scene [adopt to the country you are living in.]

  The Chief Justice of the Unites States of America, John Roberts, together with his Associate Justices -- Samuel Alito, Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Anthony Kennedy, Antonin Scalia, David Hackett Souter, John Paul Stevens and Clarence Thomas -- decide that we must pay special honor to the Constitution of the US. Ever since it was adopted in September 1787, it has been the foundation and source of the legal authority underlying the existence of the United States of America,  it provides the framework for the organization of the US Government, and for the relationship of the federal government to the states, to citizens, and to all people within the US.

  So Justice Roberts and his “chevrah” resolve to set aside a day each year to celebrate the Constitution. They write poems and compose songs in its honor. When the day comes, they each take a constitution and dance around the Supreme Court building in Washington DC, singing the songs and reciting the poems. Justice Roberts together with Justice Ginsburg and Justice Thomas jump up and down for hours and hours dancing away with the Constitution, while thousands stand around, clapping their hands and saying L’chayim!

  What would you think about our dear Supreme Court judges behaving this way?

  Imagine if all doctors would once a year take the basic medical text-books they use in their practice of medicine and start dancing around the hospitals corridors? If all lawyers after passing the Bar would lift their law text books and dance around the court houses? How about if psychologists and psychiatrists would hold the books of Freud, Skinner, Adler, and Jung and dance with their patients in the clinics?

  I think we would deem them all insane. (“Meshugah af toyt,” as our grandmothers would say.)

  Yet this, more or less, is what Jews do at this time of the year, on the festival called Shmini Atzeres and Simchat Torah. We take the scrolls of the Torah (the Law) from the Holy Ark and dance round the synagogue, singing love songs to G-d for His gift, His holy words. For hours upon hours, in Shul and in streets, Jews hold on to a scroll and dance non-stop.

  And the funny thing is -- we think we’re normal…

  Four Scenes

  I want to invite you on a journey. Let us go revisit four moments. They all occurred on Simchas Torah: 1944. 1945. 1965. 1985 (choose the year which works for you.)

  [You can of course delete one or more of the images if needed.]

  Auschwitz 1944

  First image:

  One of the many great heroic personalities to emerge from the Holocaust was Rabbi Yekusiel Yehuda Halberstam (1905-1994), the Chassidic grand rabbi of Klausenberg, Romania. Before, after, and even during the most hellish experiences he suffered at the hands of the Nazis, the Kloisenberger Rebbe was loved and revered for his genius, his selfless devotion to the welfare of the most unfortunate, his piety, and his courageous leadership.

  Rabbi Halberstam was taken to Auschwitz with his wife and 11 children. They were all gassed. He survived, one man alone. He eventually remarried and rebuilt his Chassidic dynasty from the ashes, with large centers in Netanyah, Israel (where he built the famous Loniado hospital) and in NY, till his passing in 1994.

  Due to his pre-war reputation as a great rabbi, people were attracted to the Kloisenberger Rabbi and sought his advice and guidance even within the camps. This was not lost on the Germans and they treated the Kloisenberger Rebbe with special beatings and particular cruelty. Some of his admirers and followers sought to protect their Rebbe and would risk their lives to help him in any way that they could. They would often make it possible for him to keep Shabbos and Jewish holidays by taking on his workload in addition to their own.

  It once happened that the Kloisenberger Rebbe was able to avoid working on the last days of the Sukkot holiday due to the creative designs of his devoted bunk mates. But somehow the Germans got word of the ruse and forced his followers to watch as they proceeded to administer a savage beating, so violent that no one thought the Rabbi could survive its ferocity. The Nazis would not allow anyone to go to Rabbi Halberstam's assistance, even after they were done with him, and they marched everyone out to work, leaving the Rabbi in a broken heap on the barracks floor.

  As night fell, the Jewish prisoners were marched back into their barracks expecting to mourn the Kloisenberger Rebbe's murder. Instead, they found that their master had miraculously dragged himself over to a post, clawed his way up until he was nearly standing and was swaying back and forth while moving his lips in the hoarsest of whispers. "Rebbe, what are you doing?!" his followers exclaimed. "Let us help you down so you can rest”!

  The Rebbe waved them off. "Children, tonight is Simchat Torah," he murmured. "Come dance with me."

  Vilna 1945

  Second image:

  A Jewish boy, Abraham, was born in 1940 in the Polish town of Baranovitch (now in Belarus) to his parents Helene and Joseph.

  During the Second World War, fourteen members of his family perished. But young Abe was saved. You see, before being transported to the ghetto, Abe’s parents gave him to his nursemaid, a devout Catholic, who baptized him and raised him as a full-fledged Catholic in the Lithuanian city of Vilna.

  When the war ended, much to the nursemaid's surprise, the young boy's parents had survived the Holocaust and returned to claim their son Abraham.

  Although they were eternally grateful to the nursemaid for risking her own life by hiding their son from the Nazis for four years, a conflict ensued. The nursemaid, a devout Catholic, was not very fond of losing a Christian 'saved' by baptism. After all, she gave her life for this lad and deserved to hold on to him. Yet the boy’s Jewish parents wanted their child back.

  They went to court in order to regain custody of their son.  The decision was: the little boy, five year old Abe, needs to make the decision. In the meantime, he would stay with the Christian woman.

  Abe, who had just spent four years living as a Christian, was not sure whether he wanted to remain Christian or return to his Jewish roots, to his own parents. You can imagine how his parents felt. After all they had been through, they might now lose their son too.

  Abe’s father decided to take his child to shul On Simchat Torah 1945, only a few months after liberation. Abe accompanied his father to the main synagogue in Vilna, where thousands of survivors of the Holocaust who lost their entire families had gathered to celebrate the holiday of Simchas Torah. Abe was so imbued with Christianity that when they passed a church on their way to the synagogue, little Abe let go of his father's hand and made a cross over his chest.

  The experience in the synagogue that Simchas Torah was something special. Jews who lost everything in the war, came together and just danced for hours. For the first time in five years they were free. For the first time in so many years they could celebrate life rather than focus on how to avoid death. For the first time in so long they could celebrate their identity, gaze at the SS and declare: Despite you, we are here! Despite you, we will dance, live, celebrate, move on.

  Yes, there were many tears in the shul. These were broken people who have been through the hell of Hitler’s death camps. Yet coupled with their tears, they were also dancing away….

  And then something happened. A Jewish Russian soldier who had come to the shul in Vilna observed a young five year old boy standing in shul, confused, bewildered. It was young Abe who, for the first time, was between so many Jews dancing.

  The Russian soldier lifted Abe on his shoulders and they began dancing together…

  On the shoulders of this soldier, the boy made up his mind. When he returned to the nursemaid's home he announced that he wanted to be Jewish because he liked the "Jewish Church."

  “Why?”

  "There," he said, "they love and celebrate life…"

  These were the words of a five year old kid.

  The boy bid farewell to his loyal nanny, joined his parents, and soon arrived to the US, where Abe was enrolled in the Yeshiva of Flatbush.

  You may know who this little Abe is. His last name is Foxman. Abe Foxman is the national director of the Anti-Defamation League, dedicated to fighting Anti-Semitism, bigotry, racism and hatred.  Abe, an observant Jew living today in Teaneck, New Jersey, dedicated his life to ensuring that children will never again have to be separated from their parents for the sin of being Jewish.

  1965 Moscow

  Third image:

  It is 1965. Elie Wiesel makes his first trip to the Soviet Union, where the Communists have successfully rooted out every vestige of Jewish life and community. For almost 70 years there was no Yom Kippur, no Passover, no schools, no community, no shuls, no education, no matzah, no tefilin, no Chanukah in Stalin’s “paradise.” Millions of Russian Jews were deprived of their freedom and of their identity. Most rabbis and spiritual leaders had been executed or exiled to the Gulag. The tiny remnants of Jewish life which still existed in the USSR were all underground.

  But the night of Simchat Torah has arrived in Moscow. What happened then, Elie describes, he will never forget.

  “The event,”  Weisel writes, “began at dusk. Suddenly the center of the capital shifted from Red Square to dusty Archipova Street, to the alley next to the synagogue. Thousands and thousands of Jewish youngsters filled the alley.

  “College students and laborers, soldiers and musicians, they arrived alone or in small groups, at first hesitant, then elated, hair tousled by the wind, balalaikas swung over their shoulders. And they all began dancing.

  “Caught in the frenzy of the dance, they seemed to float on air, transfigured, torn from their shadows, rising above the present, as though climbing Jacob's ladder, the one that reaches into the seventh heaven and perhaps higher still.

  “I had not felt so strong in a long time or so proud. Before the courageous and valiant political dissidents, these youngsters dared to brave the brutality of the Kremlin and its secret police by claiming their kinship with the Jewish people everywhere. Watching them, I let myself drift into the past, into the future, into the clouds; luminous waves carried me to a unique place where words became songs.”

  A Symphony of Souls

  A fourth image:

  This one I saw with my own eyes. It is the most vivid memory I hold of my childhood, adolescent, and young adult years [Adjust the following according to your age. If you were not present, you can share it as another image related by others.]

  The central Lubavitch synagogue at 770 Eastern Parkway. 8,000 people are standing in a shul which is made to hold 3,000. People are hanging on every nook and cranny, onto every beam, on anything sticking out of the walls. If you would drop a pin, it would not fall to the ground.

  All eyes are fixed on the “ches,” – the bimah, a platform in the center of the shul. The Lubavitcher Rebbe, 85 years old, is holding a small Torah saved from the Russian Pogroms. Near him stands his older brother-in-law, Rabbi Shmaryahu Gourari, also holding a Torah scroll.

  The two men place their hands on each other’s shoulders and they begin to dance…

  How can I describe it? Close to 8,000 people in shul standing in their place begin to sing and dance. [Sing the Simchas Torah song the Rebbe would begin.]

  The vapor from the heat rises, it looks like a cloud engulfs the entire assembly. The Rebbe, dancing in a circle, makes eye contact with each of the 8,000 people. Thousands and thousands of people, young and old, five-year-olds and eighty-year-olds, are now dancing.

  And the dancing goes on for hours and hours, non-stop. Like a faithful conductor, the Rebbe himself jumps, dances, sways his hands, and would not cease to dance.

  One Story

  Four images, friends. From very different times and very different places: Auschwitz. Vilna. Moscow. New York. But they all tell the same story. And it is the essence of today’s holiday – Shmini Atzeres and Simchas Torah.

  What is the nature of the celebration of these two days, the only holiday whose reason the Torah does not explain? The Midrash says, that G-d tells the Jewish people “Come let us roll [dance] together.” For 48 hours, G-d asks the Jew to just “rock and roll” with Him in joy and dance.

  משל למלך שעשה סעודה שבעה ימים וזמן כל בני אדם שבמדינה לשבעת ימי המשתה. כיון שעברו שבעת ימי המשתה, אמר לאוהבו: כבר יצאנו ידינו מכל בני המדינה - נגלגל אני ואתה במה שתמצא, ליטרא בשר, או של דג, או ירק. כך אמר הקדוש ברוך הוא לישראל ביום השמיני עצרת תהיה - לכם, גלגלו במה שאתם מוצאים - בפר אחד ואיל אחד (מדרש רבה פינחס).

  You see, all year we argue with G-d, we pray to Him, we ignore Him, we are angry at Him, we make up with Him, we love Him, we have issues with Him, we are grateful to Him, we complain to Him, we do His Mitzvos, we schmooz with Him, we learn His wisdom, and so forth.

  But one day a year, we dance with G-d…

  But how can we dance with an imageless object-less G-d? How do you dance with a non-physical G-d?

  By holding on to the Torah! G-d invested His very essence in Torah (Anochi: Ana Nafshi Kesavin Yehavis.) When we hold the Torah and dance we are not just dancing with a scroll containing laws, wisdom, history, culture, tradition, rituals, and stories. We are dancing with G-d Himself.

  That is why Rabbi Halberstam danced in the death camps. That is why the survivors danced in Vilna. That is why the Soviet Jews danced in Moscow. And that is why the Rebbe did not stop dancing in Brooklyn.

  When they danced with the Torah, they transcended history and tapped into eternity. They were dancing with Hashem. They were dancing with the one living G-d, who would outlive Hitler, Stalin and Achmadinejad. For those special moments, they were beyond the world. They were now sitting on the shoulders of their ancestors for three thousand years and dancing with the same exact Torah they danced with.

  Yizkor

  When say Yizkor, we too climb on too the shoulders of our fathers and mothers and ask them to be here for us, to dance with us and with our children. As we remember our loved ones who are not here with us any longer, we also need to make sure that that the gift they have bestowed upon us we will cherish and pass on to our families just as they have passed it on to us.

  What was the great gift our parents, grandparents, and great grandparents gave us over thousands of years? Many things. But the greatest of them all was the ability to once a year forget about everything: Forget about our problems, our challenges, our obstacles, our issues, our doubts, our skepticism, our conflicts, our agendas, our egos, our self-consciousness, our fear, guilt, insecurity, and just dance away with G-d.

  ~~~~~~~

  Additional Story and Sermon

   In Russia, there was a unique synagogue known as a Cantonist Shul. 

  The Cantonists were Jews who from 1825-1840 were forcibly conscripted into the Russian Czar's army from as early as the age of 10, and obligated to serve for 25 years. They would be kidnapped from their parents' home, tortured repeatedly until they either accepted Christianity or died of their wounds.

  They were starved, beaten and lashed, often with whips fashioned from their own confiscated tefillin. In their malnourished states, the open wounds on their chests and backs would turn septic and many boys, who had heroically resisted renouncing their Judaism for months, would either perish or cave in and consent to the show baptism. The Czar would have only reliable Christian Russians defending the motherland.

  To avoid this horrific fate, some parents actually had their sons' limbs amputated in the forests at the hands of local blacksmiths, and their sons -- no longer able bodied -- would avoid conscription. Many other children tragically committed suicide rather than convert. It is one of the darkest, most ragic stories in our long history.

   Some 40,000 young Jewish boys were forced into Czar Nicholas' army, and very few emerged alive as identifiable Jews.

   The brave few survivors who secretly maintained their faith and managed to return to their families 25 years later, found it hard to integrate into the regular community. They were illiterate, uneducated, have lived among gentiles for 25 years. So they build their own shuls in order to things “their own way.”

   My grandfather once shared that he once attended the Cantonist Shul on Simchat Torah. The Cantonists could dance like Cossacks. They were huge, strong men, and the heavy Torah scrolls would seem like toothpicks in their arms. They effortlessly danced on for hours on end. Many Jews from different synagogues came to see them dance. Truth be told, some of these Jews sadly and foolishly looked a little down at these soldiers. They looked like Cossacks, and in a way, they were very crass and uncultured. It was not their fault, they had no education, they were drafted into a hostile army at such a young age. But you know how some Jews are sometimes judgmental: “he is not my type…” and some Jews, scholarly and well educated Jews, looked down at them. (Some of you recall the “welcome” some of our service men received upon returning from Vietnam, as though it was their fault.)

   Then for the final hakafah (circuit around the synagogue's central lectern), the Cantonists, as if on cue, suddenly removed their shirts in unison. With the Torahs held tightly to their bare skin which was covered with the most horrible welts and scars you ever saw, they danced around even more energetically. Their smiles and joy were now giving way to streams of tears flowing from the cheeks of the learned Jews who came to watch them.

  The learned Jews were now filled with deep shame. They were all thinking the same thoughts: We may have studied and observed this Torah, but these holy Jews gave their bodies and lives for it. The Torah is theirs, far more than it is ours!

   Theirs was not a Torah of sermons and words; it was a Torah of life, of experience, of self sacrifice. For them, Torah and their bare skin have become ONE.

  Today, we live in freedom. Most of us have never been beaten for being Jewish. Today our challenge is to internalize Torah in liberty and make it part of our lives.

  ~~~~~~

  How To Confront Anti-Semitism

  Dancing with G-d

   

  The Eighth and Ninth Innings

  This Saturday and Sunday, Oct. 10 and 11, 2009, mark the two-day Jewish festival of Shemini Atzeres and Simchas Torah (meaning "the eighth day of assembly" and "the joy of Torah"), during which Jews the world over sing and dance with Torah scrolls in their arms. This holiday, celebrated in Israel in a single day (1), immediately follows the seven-day festival of Sukkos (literally, "huts"), when we sit in booths covered with branches to celebrate G-d's protection of His people (2).

  A fascinating passage in the Midrash (3), an anthology of oral rabbinic traditions passed down from generation to generation, captures the theme of this holiday, whose function and purpose is -- unlike every other festival -- not stated in the Bible. The Midrash understands the significance of this festival of Shemini Atzeres as a divine response to the problem of anti-Semitism (what else is new, right?).
  
  The Torah instructs the Jewish people to offer 70 bulls during the festival of Sukkos (4). On day number one — 13 bulls; on day number two — 12; on day three — 11; on day four — 10; on day five — nine; on day six — eight; on day seven — seven. Together they made up the number 70.
  
  Following this seven-day holiday, comes the festival of the eighth day, Shemini Atzeres. Based on the pattern outlined above, we would expect the Torah to instruct us to offer on this day six bulls.

  Yet, surprisingly, the Torah gives us very different instructions (5): "The eighth day [following the seven days of Sukkos] shall be a day of assembly for you; you shall not engage in any labor. And you shall offer an offering, a delightful aroma to G-d, one bull..."
  
  Why, suddenly, this drastic change from seven bulls just one day earlier, on the seventh day of the holiday, to one bull on the eighth and final day of the holiday? Why the drop from seven to one?
  
  This is the question that perturbs the Midrash mentioned above.
  
  Honoring all peoples

  To answer this question, the Midrash first addresses why the Jewish people were instructed to offer 70 bulls during the seven-day holiday of Sukkos. Why the number 70?
  
  It was our way, explain the sages (6), of paying honor and tribute to the other 70 nations of the world. As we might recall from Genesis (7), Noah's fathered 70 children and grandchildren who, following the great flood, dispersed over the earth and recreated civilization. These 70 "founding fathers" became the progenitors of all nations, cultures and civilizations existing to this very day. On the festival of Sukkos, Jews are called on to focus on all of the nations of the world, to pray for them, to beseech G-d to bestow peace, security and happiness upon all the peoples of the globe.
  
  Judaism never believed that "there is no salvation outside of Judaism." On the contrary, the Torah does not encourage conversion and actually prohibits Jews from proselytizing gentiles. Why? Because Judaism sincerely believes that a gentile need not be Jewish in order to maximize his or her potential and find genuine fulfillment in life. "The pious among all the nations of the world have a share in the world to come," declares the Talmud (8). Maimonodes writes (9) that every single human being – Jew or gentile – can become "the holy of holies."
  
  So on the holiday of Sukkos, it is our duty to extend our prayers, focus our meditations and make sacrifices for all of the nations scattered across the globe. Each day of Sukkos, Jews offered a particular number of animals, focusing their thoughts and prayers on particular nations. After seven days, all "70 bases" were covered.
  
  Why Do They Hate Us?

  The Midrash now proceeds to tell us about a conversation between the Jewish people and G-d:
  
  "During the holiday of Sukkos, the Jewish people offer 70 bulls, dedicated to the welfare of the 70 nations. Said the Jews to G-d: 'Master of the universe! We offered 70 bulls for the benefit of the 70 nations. Naturally we would expect them to appreciate us. Yet in reality they loathe us! As the Psalmist states (10), 'They substitute my love with hate'"!
  
  This is no small question. It's the lament of the Jewish people for more than 3,000 years: Why do so many people seem to despise them? What have they done to deserve contempt and derision?
  
  Jews, deep in their hearts, know that they never wished to conquer the world; that they never poisoned wells, nor placed curses on non-Jews, nor used Christian or Muslim blood for Passover matzah. All they craved for was to live peaceful lives, dedicated to their families and communities. What is more, almost throughout their entire history, they fought for the underdog, for civil justice, for human rights. Whenever they had the opportunity, they served their countries loyally and stretched out a helping hand to gentiles in need.
  
  So why, instead of gaining sympathy, understanding and appreciation from the non-Jewish world, have they, for the most part of their history, been rewarded with extraordinary hatred, mistrust and envy? Why has almost every country that housed Jews ultimately expelled them and targeted them for torture or complete annihilation?
  
  "Are we really that bad?" Jewish children have been asking their parents for millennia. "Are we really an incarnation of the devil?"
  
  Anti-Semitism in 2009

  This is the big question Jews are, sadly, asking once again in the 21^st century. In the decades following the Holocaust, it seemed to us, anti-Semitism became unpopular. We believed that the world, becoming more liberal and tolerant and seeing what Nazi Germany had done, was beginning to appreciate Jews for who they were and are: law-abiding citizens who wish to live peaceful lives, building careers, families and communities. The American Dream of true equality was materializing before our eyes.
  
  But, suddenly, with the outbreak of the second Intifada, anti-Semitism sprung up again all over the world, especially in Europe, the continent that silently absorbed endless rivers of Jewish blood. In editorials, cartoons, country-clubs and at dinner tables, Jew-bashing has become the norm. In recent years, Jews were beaten and killed while synagogues were set aflame. Much of the Arab world, if we are to take their own testimony seriously, craves for the destruction of Israel and the extermination of its Jews. Much of the West is united against the only Jewish State in the world. The Unites Nations gives a voice to a man who denies Auschwitz but who vows to make another Holocaust as well as to a man who blames us for the murder of JFK. The UN also recently received a detailed investigative report that during the last Gaza operation Israel committed international war crimes – crimes against humanity, almost completely ignoring eight years of missiles against civilians.
  
  Behold, once again, Jews ask a simple question: What have we done to deserve this? The state of Israel has been seizing every opportunity to make peace with its Arab neighbors. Time and time again, Israel was ready to make painful concessions to the Arabs for the sake of mutual co-existence and peace. In Oslo, Yitzhak Rabin resurrected the PLO, gave it autonomy in most of the West Bank and Gaza, and helped it build a police force, giving it ammunition and finance. In September 2000, Ehud Barak offered Yasir Arafat a Palestinian state, with its capital in East Jerusalem, as well as 100 percent of Gaza and 98 percent of the West Bank.
  
  Then, in the very same month, the second Intifada broke out. Israel sustained hundreds of dead civilians, among them many children. Yet it responded lightly. It took a year and half of thousands of Jews being killed and maimed, their guts strewn over the pizza shops and cafés of their homeland and a March 2002 Passover massacre in Netanya killing Auschwitz survivors, until Israel finally sent its troops into the territories it conceded a number of years earlier to stop the mini-holocaust against Jews.
  
  Yet the world condemned Israel.

   

  In august 2005, Ariel Sharon gave the Arabs all of Gaza, evacuating every Jew from the entire terrain. What did Israel get in return? Thousands of rockets launched at its cities, schools and homes, and a Gaza, turned into a terror-state. Yet the world continues to blame Israel for its occupation. 
  
  So we stand there and wonder, does the world have such a short memory? Why are we forever condemned as the Satan? Why are we loathed unconditionally, even when we have stretched out our necks for peace?
  
  This, the Midrash suggests, is the question the Jews ask of G-d. We, the Jews cry, are consistently making sacrifices for our fellow nations; we are placing our children on the altar just to give peace a chance. We are attempting to help them out of their own misery. Yet they continuously respond with vile hatred. How ought we to deal with this?

   

  Standing Proud

  Now, let us continue studying the Midrash, to encounter the divine response to this Jewish outcry.
  
  "Thus says G-d to the Jewish people: 'Now it is time to make an offering only for yourselves.’” This, says the Midrash, is the meaning of the biblical verse, 'The eighth day shall be a day of assembly for you; you shall not engage in any labor. And you shall offer an offering, a delightful aroma to G-d, one bull.' “Let us celebrate and 'roll' together, you and I," G-d tells His people. No more the 70 bulls for the sake of 70 nations, as you did throughout the holiday of Sukkos. Now it is time for you to offer one bull for one nation – the nation of Israel.
  
  What is the meaning behind these words? Is G-d suggesting that we forget about "international opinion” and fend for ourselves, because as nice as we will try to be, we will be rejected regardless?
  
  Perhaps this is part of the message. It is certainly true that if Israel, for example, would follow instructions by the United Nations and "show restraint," there would be around 5,000 Jews dead in Israel each week. There comes a point where you must muster the courage to do what is morally right, not what is acceptable to people who could not care less if another million Jews die, just as they could not care less if a million Sudanese die and did not do a thing to stop the genocide of 800,000 innocent Rwandans slain in 100 days.
  
  Yet, I think, there is a deeper and more optimistic message contained in these words.
  
  G-d is not explaining to Israel the reason for anti-Semitism. Jew-hatred is a disease, universal and multi-cultural, generated by the evil existing in many a human being. WhatG-d is telling the Jews is this:
  
  In the presence of anti-Semitism, make sure to stand tall and proud. Make sure to teach your children that being hated is testimony to their virtue, not their vice. "Now it is time to make an offering only for yourself." One bull for one nation. It is time to fortify your own identity, to understand that you are loathed because of your timeless commitment to a G-d of morality, of goodness and compassion. This is not a time to doubt yourself; rather it is a time to sand up for yourself and your faith.

   

  The Origin of Jewish Self Hatred

  One of the most tragic side-effects of anti-Semitism has been Jewish self-hatred and self-shame. Many of our brethren, especially during the last 200 years since emancipation swept Europe, have come to believe that our greatest haters were not as bad as they appeared, that something was really wrong with the Jews, justifying at least some of the hatred toward the people of the Book. After all, went their line of thinking, if your child is loathed in every school he ever attends, is chastised by the principals and despised by most of his classmates, wouldn't the family therapist blame the child instead of the schools and all of the other children?
  
  Should this logic not hold true regarding anti-Semitism as well? If almost every single culture and civilization saw the Jew as the embodiment of evil, should we not look in the mirror and discover the blemishes within, causing such animosity?
  
  Thus, the phenomenon of Jewish self-hatred was born. Albeit, in their minds, it is merely an exercise of extreme self-examination, the self-appraisal of these self hating Jews often reaches super rational proportions, where they begin to view their people, their country and their heritage as the cause of all evil and horror in the world.

   

  You read Noam Chomsky and you wonder how a Jew can write such words about a people he supposedly knows so intimately. You read Norman Finkelstein and you are astonished on the words a fellow Jew uses concerning the Holocaust. You read Jewish essayists in the New York Times and in the Los Angeles Times, you listen to Jewish journalists on NPR or CNN, you reflect on lectures by Jewish academics, and you wonder: How can Jews become so shamelessly "objective" as to view Israel and its neighbors as morally equivalents, when Israel never killed a single Arab civilian intentionally, and the Arabs proclaim clearly that their goal is to exterminate every Israeli civilian alive?
  
  Be More Jewish

  This, then, is G-d's message to the Jewish people for Shemini Atzeres.
  
  At a time of raging anti-Semitism, do not become insecure, apologetic and defensive. Do not view yourself in the way your antagonist sees you. Make sure you know who you are from the inside; learn what it means to be a Jew, not from people who hate you. Learn what it means to be a Jew from your own texts, from your own heritage, from your own grandparents, from your own Torah.
  
  At a time of explosive Jew hatred, G-d calls out: You must do one thing — be more Jewish!
  
  We cannot cure the plague of anti-Semitism. The anti-Semites need to do that. We can and must monitor anti-Semitism, warn against it and fight it, but we cannot rid the world of it. What we can and must do is to never allow ourselves to be defined by it.
  
  Rolling with G-d

  So during these two days of Shemini Atzeres and Simchas Torah, we take a good look at the Muslim countries, at the UN, at the State Department, at the Hague court, at the EU, and we say:
  
  "We will be there for you and with you the moment you sober up and are ready for genuine peace. Israel is a country of peace and it is ready for peace at a moment's call. We crave life, peace and goodwill. But till you guys get your moral act together, until you start hating the bad guys and protecting the good guys, we will never despair, nor will we blame ourselves for the evil still existing in the world.
  
  "Instead, we will, for the next 48 hours, take the Torah and dance with the Divine. We will 'roll' with G-d, celebrating a people and a tradition dedicated as much as ever to peace, love, morality and goodness. We will celebrate with the knowledge that evil will be defeated and good will prevail. We will reinvigorate ourselves with the faith that redemption is merely one step away."
  
  And yet, paradoxically, G-d's response to us holds part, though not all, of the cure for anti-Semitism. For the world could ultimately only love a people that loves itself. When Jews will begin to respect themselves, they will win the admiration of the world.

  ~~~~~~~~

  Footnotes:

  1) In Israel, Shemini Atzeres is a one-day festival, culminating this coming Thursday night. But in all Jewish communities outside the land of Israel, Shemini Atzeret is observed for two days, Thursday and Friday. Why the
  discrepancy?
  The simple reason is this. In ancient times, the Jews living in Israel were privy to accurate information as to the day the new month began, established following testimony of witnesses who observed the new moon. The Jews of Israel thus knew the proper day of each holiday. The Jews living in further distances, however, lacked this information. Not knowing the exact day of the month, they celebrated each holiday two days. Even after a calendar was established, the Jewish Supreme Court instructed that outside of Israel we maintain the tradition of our parents and celebrate each holiday for two days.
  On a mystical level, the issue is far deeper. Energy that can be internalized in the Holy Land in 24 hours requires double the time to be internalized in other places less spiritually acute. Thus, we require 48 hours for what Jews in Israel can accomplish in 24 hours (Derech Metzvosecah Mammar Einyan Yom Tov Shani Shel Galeyos).
  2) Leviticus 23: 42-43.
  3) Midrash Rabah Bamidbar 21:24.
  4) Numbers 28: 13-34.
  5) Ibid. 35-36.
  6) Cf. Talmud Sukkah 55b.
  7) Genesis chapter 10.
  8) Tosefte Sanhedrin.
  10) Rambam, end of Hilchos Shmitah and Yovel. Cf. Likkutei Sichos vol. 13 Hosafos to 12 Tamuz.
  14) Psalms 109.

  ~~~~~~
• Comment