Parshas Bo 5770

Rabbi YY Jacobson

• March 26, 2010
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• 11 Nisan 5770
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  Chad Gadya—Victim or Villain?

  Why Did the Dog Bite the Cat?

  Rabbi YY Jacobson

  • March 26, 2010

  Excommunication over Chad Gadya?

  
  The song of Chad Gadya, sang at the end of the Passover seder in most Ashkenazic communities, is one of the most intriguing and interesting in the Pesach Haggadah. For many, it is a favorite, a memorable highlight worth “sticking it out” at the Seder table for until the very end.

  
  Basically, the song relates the tragic and comedic tale of a young kid goat that “my father bought for two zuz.”

   

  חַד גַּדְיָא, חַד גַּדְיָא דִּזְבַן אַבָּא בִּתְרֵי זוּזֵי. חַד גַּדְיָא, חַד גַּדְיָא וַאֲתָא שׁוּנְרָא, וְאָכְלָה לְגַדְיָא, דִּזְבַן אַבָּא בִּתְרֵי זוּזֵי. חַד גַּדְיָא, חַד גַּדְיָא וַאֲתָא כַלְבָּא, וְנָשַׁךְ לְשׁוּנְרָא, דְּאָכְלָה לְגַדְיָא, דִּזְבַן אַבָּא בִּתְרֵי זוּזֵי. חַד גַּדְיָא, חַד גַּדְיָא וַאֲתָא חוּטְרָא, וְהִכָּה לְכַלְבָּא, דְּנָשַׁךְ לְשׁוּנְרָא, דְּאָכְלָה לְגַדְיָא, דִּזְבַן אַבָּא בִּתְרֵי זוּזֵי. חַד גַּדְיָא, חַד גַּדְיָא וַאֲתָא נוּרָא, וְשָׂרַף לְחוּטְרָא, דְּהִכָּה לְכַלְבָּא, דְּנָשַׁךְ לְשׁוּנְרָא, דְּאָכְלָה לְגַּדְיָא, דִּזְבַן אַבָּא בִּתְרֵי זוּזֵי. חַד גַּדְיָא, חַד גַּדְיָא וַאֲתָא מַיָּא, וְכָבָה לְנוּרָא, דְּשָׂרַף לְחוּטְרָא, דְּהִכָּה לְכַלְבָּא, דְּנָשַׁךְ לְשׁוּנְרָא, דְּאָכְלָה לְגַדְיָא, דִּזְבַן אַבָּא בִּתְרֵי זוּזֵי. חַד גַּדְיָא, חַד גַּדְיָא וַאֲתָא תוֹרָא, וְשָׁתָה לְמַיָּא, דְּכָבָה לְנוּרָא, דְּשָׂרַף לְחוּטְרָא, דְּהִכָּה לְכַלְבָּא, דְּנָשַׁךְ לְשׁוּנְרָא, דְּאָכְלָה לְגַדְיָא, דִּזְבַן אַבָּא בִּתְרֵי זוּזֵי. חַד גַּדְיָא, חַד גַּדְיָא וַאֲתָא הַשּׁוֹחֵט, וְשָׁחַט לְתוֹרָא, דְּשָׁתָה לְמַיָּא, דְּכָבָה לְנוּרָא, דְּשָׂרַף לְחוּטְרָא, דְּהִכָּה לְכַלְבָּא, דְּנָשַׁךְ לְשׁוּנְרָא, דְּאָכְלָה לְגַדְיָא, דִּזְבַן אַבָּא בִּתְרֵי זוּזֵי. חַד גַּדְיָא, חַד גַּדְיָא וַאֲתָא מַלְאַךְ הַמָּוֶת, וְשָׁחַט לְשׁוֹחֵט, דְּשָׁחַט לְתוֹרָא, דְּשָׁתָה לְמַיָּא, דְּכָבָה לְנוּרָא, דְּשָׂרַף לְחוּטְרָא, דְּהִכָּה לְכַלְבָּא, דְּנָשַׁךְ לְשׁוּנְרָא, דְּאָכְלָה לְגַדְיָא, דִּזְבַן אַבָּא בִּתְרֵי זוּזֵי. חַד גַּדְיָא, חַד גַּדְיָא וַאֲתָא הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא, וְשָׁחַט לְמַלְאַךְ הַמָּוֶת, דְּשָׁחַט לְשׁוֹחֵט, דְּשָׁחַט לְתוֹרָא, דְּשָׁתָה לְמַיָּא, דְּכָבָה לְנוּרָא, דְּשָׂרַף לְחוּטְרָא, דְּהִכָּה לְכַלְבָּא, דְּנָשַׁךְ לְשׁוּנְרָא, דְּאָכְלָה לְגַדְיָא, דִּזְבַן אַבָּא בִּתְרֵי זוּזֵי. חַד גַּדְיָא, חַד גַּדְיָא.

  
  The young goat is unfortunately eaten by a cat, which is then bitten by a dog. Then the dog is beaten by a stick, which is burnt by a fire, which is extinguished by water. The water is drunk by an ox. The ox is in turn slaughtered by a Shochet (a ritual slaughterer), who then dies at the hand of the Angel of Death. Climactically, the song ends when G-d Himself purges the Angel of Death.

  
  Although the author of Chad Gadya is unknown, it is a very old  song, which was already published in Ashkenazic Haggados of the 1500’s. It contains great depth and meaning. Literally hundreds of explanations have been written on to this single song. Rabbi Chaim Yosef David Azulei, one of the great rabbis and authors of the 18^th century known as the Chida (1734-1806) writes that the Vilna Gaon (1730-1798) alone wrote more than 10 different explanations to Chad Gadya.

  
  In a classical scenario of Jewish communal life in the days of yore, the Chida in his book of halachik response [1] tells the story of a group of Jews at a seder singing the Chad Gadya, while an onlooker was mocking the song. A rabbi at the location present ex-communicated the man. Now, another person present at the time asked the Chida whether this ex-communication was valid or it was in itself a mockery?

  
  The Chida responded that to poke fun of this song was truly inappropriate, as the song had a sacred tradition and profound meaning. He demanded that the scoffer apologize and all shall end well.

  
  The most basic interpretation is: the kid goat bought for two zuz is Israel whom G-d “acquired” as His people, with the two tablets at Sinai. In the spirit of Pesach, the song is acclaiming that though at times we—the goat who G-d acquired with His two tablets—may have been eaten by the cat, ultimately our punishers have been punished, and in the end G-d Himself will mete out final justice.

  
  Another fascinating interpretation believes that Chad Gadya symbolizes the different nations that have inhabited The Holy Land: The kid being the Jewish people, the cat—Assyria, which exiled the ten tribes of Israel; the dog is Babylon; the stick, Persia; the fire, Greece; the water, Rome; the ox, the Arab Muslims; the slaughterer, the Christian Crusaders; the Angel of Death—the Turks. At the end, G-d returns to give the Jews back their ancient homeland (first through the British, who opened the doors of Palestine before they closed them… and then through Jewish self determination.)

  
  Where is Justice?

  
  Yet today, I am going to be a “nudnik.” I Know most people are too exhausted or inebriated at the end of the seder to do even simple math, but if we are to play this equation out with you until its logical end, we discover something astonishing and profoundly disturbing: G-d, seemingly, is on the wrong side!

  The first one to do wrong is the wild cat who eats the goat. The dog is thus acting nobly, for the cat deserved to be punished, so then the stick hitting the dog is wrong. So the fire burning the stick is right, and the water extinguishing the fire is wrong. The ox drinking the water is the “good guy” and the slaughterer who kills the ox is the “bad guy.” If so the Angel of Death himself is in the right!

  
  But that means that G-d who punished the angel of death is seemingly acting unjustly. How can this be? In the words of Abraham: “Will the Judge of the earth not act justly?”

  
  [You may want to take answers from your crowd.]

  
  There are two answers to this question. One captures the moral and historical perspective; the other captures the theological and philosophical vantage point. [2]

  
  When Justice Is an Excuse

  
  The first answer was presented by Rabbi Nosson Adler (1742-1800), the Rabbi of Frankfurt, Germany. Yes, it is true that the cat was wrong for devouring the goat. But the reason the dog has bitten the cat was not because it was sensitive to the pain of the goat and aghast by the criminal wrongdoing of the cat, but rather because the dog was looking for a good fight and a good bite. The death of the goat merely presented a good excuse for the dog to attack the cat.

  
  True, the cat had no right to eat the goat, but the dog bit the cat not because the dog feels like G-d’s emissary on earth and is tormented by the anguish of the goat, and out of sincerity he regretfully must bite. No! The dog is a biter who enjoys biting. He hears a story about a goat and a cat, and he right away gets involved… Who asked you to get involved? Why are you the one always present when someone needs to be bitten?

  
  We humans often fall prey to this type of behavior. Some people are always ready to jump on “the cat” when it might have done something wrong. When someone has to be condemned, they are first to attack. When they smell blood or strife, they are sure to become the “conscience of the world.” They are all-too-eager to share with others the horrific behavior of this particular human being, to yell at him, to humiliate him, blacklist him, and penalize him in every possible way. They of course tell themselves and others that they are doing it “for the cause;” that they are motivated by idealism. Yet Chad Gadya teaches us that every individual must ask himself what is truly my motivation? Is it altruistic, or am I only using this as smokescreen for my own unrefined and crude nature?

  
  Justice must be served? Certainly. One of the seven Noahide laws is to set up courts where justice will be served. But why are you always the one ready to bite? Why are you always the first one to be involved? That usually has nothing to do with his or her ill behavior, but rather with your own coarse and vulgar nature. Go work on yourself.

  
  Noble Anti-Semites

  
  How acutely does this describe the ongoing story of our people. Over millennia, when a Jew has done something wrong, or it could have been said that he did something wrong, suddenly countless noble and sophisticated people of all races and shapes emerged on the scene to protest the horrible, immoral and inhumane behavior of the Jew. One day earlier, crimes 1000 times worse were disgracefully ignored. Today, the Jew made a wrong move, perhaps by mistake, and the whole world is up in arms about the travesty and horror of this Jewish behavior. Is it really the “goat” that perturbs them, or is it the opportunity to bite the Jew? [3]

  
  In 1994, in merely 100 days, 800,000 human beings were butchered in Rwanda, and the world barely uttered a pips. Imagine: 800,000 people exterminated in a little more than two months and miniscule efforts were made to stop it! Beginning in 2003, the Darfur genocide has killed more than 400,000 civilians and displaced 2.5 million people from their home. Who talks about it? But when Israel sent two missiles to destroy a home from where rockets were being launched every day to kill innocent civilians, and by mistake these rockets veered off their path and tragically killed two Arab children, within six hours there were condemnations of the United Nations and the entire world!

  
  The Gaza Story

  
  For eight long years, Hamas fired from Gaza thousands of missiles, mortars and rockets on nearby Israeli cities. Year after year, as these missiles were deliberately hurled at our civilians, not a single UN resolution was passed condemning those criminal attacks. We heard nothing, absolutely nothing from the UN Human Rights Council.

   

  In 2005, hoping to advance peace, Israel unilaterally withdrew from every inch of Gaza. It dismantled 21 settlements and uprooted over 8,000 Israelis. We didn't get peace. Instead we got an Iranian backed terror base fifty miles from Tel Aviv. Life in Israeli towns and cities next to Gaza became a nightmare. You see, the Hamas rocket attacks not only continued, they increased tenfold. Again, the UN was silent.

   

  Finally, after eight years of this unremitting assault, Israel was finally forced to respond. But how should Israel have responded? Well, there is only one example in history of thousands of rockets being fired on a country's civilian population. It happened when the Nazis rocketed British cities during World War II. During that war, the allies leveled German cities, causing hundreds of thousands of casualties. Israel chose to respond differently. Faced with an enemy committing a double war crime of firing on civilians while hiding behind civilians, Israel sought to conduct surgical strikes against the rocket launchers.

   

  That was no easy task because the terrorists were firing missiles from homes and schools, using mosques as weapons depots and ferreting explosives in ambulances. Israel, by contrast, tried to minimize casualties by urging Palestinian civilians to vacate the targeted areas. Israel dropped countless flyers over their homes, sent thousands of text messages and called thousands of cell phones asking people to leave. Never has a country gone to such extraordinary lengths to remove the enemy's civilian population from harm's way.

   

  Yet faced with such a clear case of aggressor and victim, who did the UN Human Rights Council decide to condemn? Israel. A democracy legitimately defending itself against terror is morally hanged, drawn and quartered, and given an unfair trial to boot.

   

  The Story of Rachel Corrie

   

  Then there is the story of Rachel Corrie. “My Name is Rachel Corrie,” is a 2005 English play based on the writings of the young American radical who was accidentally killed by an Israeli bulldozer, while she was protesting the demolition of a Gaza home where weapons were stored to use in order to murder Jews.

   

  I am not the expert to say if perhaps the driver of the bulldozer was partially guilty. Rachel Corrie’s death was a tragedy. But here is my question: Other Rachels have lost their lives as well – Jewish victims of the Intifada. Does anyone remember them? In Britain, where the play was staged, how many people even know the name of Rachel Thaler, a British citizen who was murdered by an Arab suicide bomber in an Israeli shopping mall at the age of 16? Rachel Corrie died as she was busy defending terrorists; but the more than one thousands Jews whose guts were strewn over the streets of Israel after every suicide bombing, were just trying to live their lives. No one wrote a play about them.

   

  Is it the goat they are trying to defend or the cat they are trying to bite?

   

  The Dubai Assassination

   

  It just happened this week yet again. England expelled an Israeli diplomat, Arie Regev, in connection with the assassination of a master terrorist in Dubai—and the verdict is still out if Australia will do the same.

   

  You all know the story: Hamas weapons procurer Mahmoud Mabhouh was found dead in his room at the five-star Al Bustan Rotana Hotel in Dubai on Jan. 19. The Mossad is suspected to have done the job. Britain booted Mr. Regev, widely believed to be the head of the Mossad in England, over the forging of British passports thought to have been used by the Mossad in the assassination.

   

  Many leading government officials, politicians, journalists and thinkers condemned Israel for killing of Mabuouh within the borders of another country and through forging passports and identity theft. “Oy vey,” the world screamed. How can a responsible government enter another country illegally and just kill someone in middle of the night as he is sleeping peacefully in their hotel room?

   

  I am not equipped to pass judgment on the Mossad and its chief Meir Dagan. Was it a good move? Was the identity theft a good idea? Should the Mossad be applauded for what it did in Dubai?

   

  I am sure there are various perspectives. It seems to me clear that if America would forge a passport and capture Osama Bin Laden in Dubai, the US would not be condemned. Do people not realize that by killing this terrorist, Israel saved the lives of countless innocent human beings who he was likely to murdere in the future?

   

  Are you morally not obligated to forge a passport and enter another country illegally in order to save even one life? Would you not forge a passport to save the life of your child?

   

  But even if you dissagree with the Mossad's move at this time, one thing is clear to me: The outcry is one big farce—an excuse to delegitimize the Jewish State. Mabhouh was a senior Hamas commander who personally murdered innocent Jews. In 1989 he disguised himself as an orthodox Jew, abducted and murdered two Israeli soldiers, Avi Sasportas and Ilan Sa'adon, whose murders he celebrated by standing and dancing on one of the corpses! Imagine: Standing and dancing on a dead Jewish body… Mabhouh smuggled lots of weapons and explosives into Gaza from which rockets were sent to murder innocent people. He was a key player in the relationships between Hamas and Iran.

   

  Why did all of these moralists not scream, holler and condemn, when this terrorist was dancing on a Jewish corpse which he tortured and murdered? Where were all the great defenders of human rights?

   

  My friends, you know the answer to these simple questions. It is not moral sensitivity which is at the core of the protests and condemnations; it is not compassion for the “goat” which is at play here. Rather, it is the animosity toward the “cat” which does not desist.

  
  Even if you think that Meir Dagan made a mistake, do not join the dog in jumping the cat, as some Jews have been disgracefully doing during recent years. The dog is motivated by hatred and envy, and it must be called to task, as the Chad Gadya song articulates so clearly.

   

  On the Nature of Faith

   

  There is yet another philosophical explanation for the apparent absence of justice in Chad Gadya, in which at the end it seems that G-d “got it wrong.”
  
  Passover is the holiday of questions and answers. The entire structure of the seder revolves around our children asking questions and we trying to provide answers. And yet, after it is all done, at the conclusion of the entire seder, when we sing Chad Gadya, we acknowledge that after all the answers, there is something that does not add up. At the end, it seems, G-d is behaving unjustly.

   

  These are the big questions that do not let go. Why do so many innocent people suffer? Why do parents have to bury a child? Why are children orphaned at a young age? Why so much pain suffering, agony, challenges? [You can mention some events close to home in your own community]. Why? Why? Why? Where is justice in life?

   

  On Passover we celebrate our intimate relationship with G-d: How he did for us that which he did for none other; how He took us out of Egypt and made us His people. He punished our oppressors. We remember the miraculous revelations at Sinai that forever serve as testimony of G-d’s covenant with us. Passover is a time when we feel safe and protected. The world seems right, just, and peaceful.

   

  And it is precisely for that reason that the Seder finishes, and perhaps in a way climaxes, with Chad Gadya. Because in Chad Gadya we do not understand G-d’s justice. In Chad Gadya, we are not left with answers, we are left with questions. And that is the true secret of Jewish survival, of Jewish belief, of the Jewish story.

   

  To Live with the Question

   

  A story:

   

  The Chassam Sofer, Rabbi Moshe Sofer (1762-1839), the Rabbi of Bratislava (in German: Pressburg) was one of the leading Rabbis of European Jewry in the first half of the nineteenth century. His books on Halacha and Jewish thought are still extremely popular today. He was a teacher to thousands and a great defender of Judaism in the Austria-Hungarian Empire where he lived.

   

  Once, his son asked him an extremely serious question, a question that was torturing him, questioning the very foundations of Jewish belief. His father, the scholar who authored volumes of responsa on every possible issue, remained silent. Only a few agonizing days later, he called his son into his office, and at length, patiently and lucidly, he clarified the matter, leaving no stone unturned and putting his young son’s mind at ease.

  His son asked, “Father, certainly you could have answered this all to me immediately when I asked. Why did you wait a few days? Why did you leave me to struggle with my inner darkness, doubts, and cynicism for longer?”

   

  And his father answered: “I wanted to teach you something even more important than the answer to your questions. I wanted to teach you that a Jew can live with a question.”

   

  A “Sixth Sense”

   

  What is faith?

   

  Faith, in the Jewish perspective, is not about blindly accepting rationally unfounded facts. Faith in Judaism is never a replacement or contradiction to intellectual scrutiny and honesty. Faith is not a passive acceptance of irrational truths. Rather, faith is a “sense” within the human soul which when cultivated allows us to experience ultimate reality.

   

  G-d is not a logical concept—He created intellect, and He cannot be captured by His own creation. Just as a metal-detector will beep when a gun is passed through it, but it cannot pick up a person's thoughts or intentions, intellect can grasp logic and rationale, but it cannot detect the Divine. An ear cannot absorb a piece of art nor can an eye listen to a symphony. Each sense has the ability to detect a certain dimension of reality: the nose—smell, and the mouth taste. The mind, too, internalizes logical concepts and equations, but it cannot allow you to experience a reality which is not a logical equation. The mind can perhaps prove that there is an existence of a Creator, but the mind cannot experience G-d, any more than a deaf man can experience Beethoven’s Ninth, or net holes large five inches could catch a goldfish. They simply lack the instrument to experience this reality.

   

  How then do we experience G-d? Because we have a “sixth sense,” called Emunah, faith. Faith in Judaism is the “skill” within our soul which allows us to see and experience G-d. the eye allows us to experience sight, the ear allows us to experience sound, the mind allows us to absorb logic, the nose allows us to experience smell. Then we have another sixth “sense” called faith which when cultivated allows us to experience G-d.  

   

  The mind we must use, and logic must be celebrated. But our minds can take us till a certain point in life. At some point, the mind lacks the ability to take us further. Here is where we need to cultivate faith, that dimension of our self which can experience the Divine. [4]

   

  Faith is something which questions do not weaken, and answers do not strengthen. [5] Because faith originates not in the mind, not in the rationality of intellect, but in the soul, in the very fiber of our identity.
  
  And that is why as we conclude a night of answers, with the Chad Gadya. Sometimes we do not, cannot, understand. Yet we remain Chad Gadya, G-d’s one kid goat whom He irrevocably acquired for two zuzi, with the two tablets of our Torah.

   

  Notwithstanding all of the questions and challenges we remain stead fast in our relationship and in our hope that "Next year in Jerusalem!"

   

  ---

  [1]Shalos Uteshovos Chaim Sheal 1:28.

  [2]The first answer is quoted in the name of Rabbi Nosson Adler. The second is from sefer Emunas Etecha.

  [3]This also works according to the simple explanation that the goat symbolizes the Jew. Many of the nations that have offered us assistance at times of persecution, who have come to attack the cat who was hunting down the goat, have done so solely out of self-interest. The moment they judge our presence to be a nuisance and a brother, they have promptly made an about face and expelled us. Spain, Poland and Turkey are a few examples of countries that have graciously offered us hospitality for economic and academic considerations, only to eventually persecute us vengefully and reject us by expulsion.

  [4]See Tanya ch. 18-19. Maamar Veatah Tetzaveh 5741.

  [5] Maamar Mishpatim 5711.
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