Moshe Dies and We Dance?
Moshe Left Us, but the Torah Did Not
- October 16, 2016
- |
- 14 Tishrei 5777
Rabbi YY Jacobson
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Moshe Dies and We Dance?
Moshe Left Us, but the Torah Did Not
Rabbi YY Jacobson
- October 16, 2016
Inconsistent
Bob Smith was sick of his job and was determined to find work elsewhere. He was a truthful man, never uttered a lie, but he had one vice: he never showed up on time to his job.
So no matter how hard he tried, his reputation as someone who was not dedicated to the job, followed him around. One day the phone rang at his office. Although Bob did not usually pick up the phone, he picked it up and said hello. “Hi” said the man on the line, “I have an unusual question to ask you, I’m looking into a fellow Bob Smith for a position in my company. Do you know this fellow?”
“Sure I know him”, responded Bob with a smile.
“Tell me,” asked the man. “Is he consistent with his work? Does he always show up on time?”
Oy. What should he say? He never said a lie. But if he says the truth, his chances to get this job are null.
So he said this: “Well I’ll be honest with you,” Bob replied, “I’m not so consistent myself, but whenever I’m here he’s here!”
The Final Verses
On Simchas Torah we complete the entire Torah. The Torah comes to its completion with the following verses:
And Moses the servant of the Lord died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the Lord. And He buried him in a valley in the land of Moab, opposite Beth-Peor; but no man knows his grave till this day. And Moses was 120 years old when he died; his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated. And the people of Israel wept for Moses in the plains of Moab thirty days…
And there has not arisen since in Israel a prophet like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face. In all the signs and the wonders, which the Lord sent him to do in the land of Egypt to Pharaoh, and to all his servants, and to all his land. And in all that mighty hand, and in all the great and awesome deeds which Moses performed in the sight of all Israel. (Deut. 34:5 to 34:12)
I can’t help but find myself in tears each year as these final verses of the entire Torah are read. And I am not the only one. For almost a whole year we lived with Moses each and every Shabbos. Moses is the central figure in the Torah, known as the Five Books of Moses. We watched his birth, his rescue, in the hands of the Pharaoh’s daughter, his being raised in the most unlikely of places in the palace of Pharaoh. We followed his courage, caring, and display of leadership, and how he stands up to the Super Power of the time, liberating a nation from bondage. We crossed the Red Sea with him and we escorted him for forty years in the wilderness, as he led his beloved people through every crisis.
And now, this glorious life—one that never was and never would be again—comes to an end. All in one simple verse, almost deceiving in its simplicity: And Moses the servant of the Lord died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the Lord.
Tears
And I will tell you about someone else who cried while learning these verse.
You see, it would be quite an unusual to read an autobiography that describes the author's own death and burial; by the time the author has been buried, he has probably stopped writing... The Chumash, however, defies this premise: while not an autobiography, it was transcribed by one of its major protagonists, Moses, who was nonetheless apparently able to record his own passing and then continue writing for seven more verses, eulogizing himself.
The Talmud[1] addresses this anomaly, and records two approaches in response:
בבא בתרא טו, א: אמר מר יהושע כתב ספרו ושמונה פסוקים שבתורה, תניא כמאן דאמר שמונה פסוקים שבתורה יהושע כתבן, דתניא "וימת שם משה עבד ה'", אפשר משה חי וכתב "וימת שם משה", אלא עד כאן כתב משה, מכאן ואילך כתב יהושע דברי ר' יהודה ואמרי לה ר' נחמיה. אמר לו ר' שמעון אפשר ספר תורה חסר אות אחת וכתיב "לקוח את ספר התורה הזה", אלא עד כאן הקב"ה אומר ומשה אומר וכותב, מכאן ואילך הקב"ה אומר ומשה כותב בדמע...
According to Rabbi Yehudah (or Rabbi Nechemia), these final eight verses in the Torah were actually not written by Moshe, but by Yehoshua. However, Rabbi Shimon objects, noting that Moshe is instructed to “take the sefer haTorah,” and that description would not be used if even one letter were missing. Rather, he asserts, until this point, G-d spoke, and Moshe repeated and wrote; from here until the end, G-d spoke and Moshe wrote the words, in the expression of the Talmud, “bedama,” “with tears.”
Moshe was crying, understandably, while receiving and transcribing the prophecy of his impending death and his own eulogy.
Some commentators[2] explain the Talmud differently. “Moses wrote the words with tears” means that these words were not written with ink but with tears. The tear was actually the writing material, rather than ink.
[The Baal Shem Tov[3] and the Gaon of Vilna[4] maintained that the two views in the Talmud were compatible. They understood the term “dema” differently, as indicating dimua, or intermixture. In this view, Moshe wrote the words, which had not yet been actualized, in a jumbled form that would not be intelligible to the reader. He transcribed the actual letters of these verses, but they were mixed up. So Moshe did write the words in their initial form, while Yehoshua rearranged the letters into a legible form and thus “wrote” them as well.]
As Moses was writing these verses, he was crying. And he wrote these letters with his tears. Is it a wonder that these final verses of Torah trigger such deep emotion?
The Dance
But then, something so strange happens.
As we complete the Torah, we start to dance and dance. The entire tradition of dancing “hakafos” on Simchas Torah is to celebrate the completion of the Torah. But it seems counter-intuitive. Moses’ death and burial was the end of the life of the greatest prophet, teacher and leader who ever lived (as the Torah makes clear in these very verses); it spelled the end of the most glorious era of Jewish history. Moses himself wept when he wrote these verses. These verses were written not in ink, but in tears. Is it even appropriate to dance at this moment?
A Burnt Scroll
But there is a reason do dance. Moses passed away, but the Torah he gave us remained, continuing to invigorate his people for millennia, through thick and thin, through tranquil and turbulent times, through all of their journeys and voyages, for 3300 years. The same exact Torah Moses wrote and bequeathed to the people of Israel still sustains us, empowers us and guides us.
We were reminded of this just a few weeks ago. In the end of September this year, incredible cutting-edge technology allowed archaeologists to finally read the contents of a burned 2000-year-old scroll found near the Dead Sea in 1970.
It is an amazing story.[5] The scroll was first discovered in 1970, when archaeologists were working near Ein Gedi, a natural spring oasis on the shore of the Dead Sea. They discovered the remains of a Jewish community dating back to eighth century BCE, that in middle of the First Temple era.
The small city had thrived until 600 CE, when it was destroyed and the buildings burned. In the remains of the ark of the synagogue, the archaeologists found a parchment rolled up but entirely burned, so damaged by fire that it was impossible to unroll it for inspection without the charred parchment crumbling into ashes.
The scroll was faithfully stored away by the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) with little hope of ever being able to study what was written on them.
Forty years later, in 2015, computer scientists at the University of Kentucky developed software for unraveling damaged and delicate texts. Originally designed for deciphering Roman scrolls, the technique is even more successful with ancient Jewish texts written with ink containing a metal element that shows up more clearly on the X-ray scans.
The researchers scanned 100 sections from the charred remains of the Ein Gedi scroll, which had been rolled five times. Incredibly, they were able to create a digital image of the scroll and “unroll” the image without even touching it, so it would not crumble into ashes. The scan revealed two columns of writing, composed of 35 lines, 18 of which were preserved while the other 17 had to be digitally reconstructed.
The new technology, called ‘virtual unwrapping,’ is a complicated and difficult process based on the technology used in medical CT scans, allowing scientists to read the Ein Gedi Scroll, a charred, ancient parchment discovered in an ancient destroyed synagogue on the shores of the Dead Sea more than forty years ago which has sat on a shelf, untouchable and indecipherable, ever since.
Studies based on historical handwriting placed it at around the first century CE, the century when the Second Temple still existed. This means they were holding onto the earliest Torah scroll to ever be found in a synagogue, in an Aron Kodesh, in a Holy Ark.
When the researchers saw the first results, it made for a startling revelation: all of the words and paragraph breaks were absolutely identical to the Torah text still used today, in 2016.
“This is quite amazing for us. In 2,000 years, this text has not changed,” Emmanuel Tov, a participant in the study from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, told the Times of Israel,
“It can’t be coincidental that the synagogue in Ein Gedi that was burned in the sixth century housed an early scroll whose text was completely identical with medieval texts. The same central stream of Judaism that used this Levitical scroll in one of the early centuries of our era was to continue using it until the late Middle Ages when printing was invented.”
Until 1947, the oldest known Biblical texts dated only to the tenth century. The Dead Sea Scrolls, written in approximately the third century BCE, provided a rare and exciting glimpse into even earlier ancient Jewish texts. But these texts were buried in caves and were indeed different than the texts we have. Now, the Ein Gedi scroll is filling out that picture and confirming the authenticity of present-day texts.
Of course, none of this was surprising to us. Jewish scribal tradition ensures that discrepancies in reproduction do not occur. Holy texts are hand-copied letter for letter from accepted originals. Strict guidelines are given for writing techniques, shapes of letters, and breaks in the text, striving to maintain an unbroken chain from Sinai. The latest discovery is the closest Jews have yet come to proof to secular scientists that the chain has remained fully intact. There is not even A SINGLE LETTER CHANGED between our Torah’s todays and that Torah scroll from 2000 years ago.
Optional Section
Einstein the Muslim
Contrast this to other cultures, where historical truth is irrelevant.
Here is something that happened last week, the same week when UNESCO decided that the Temple Mount has nothing to do with Jews.
Israel Radio reported that an Iranian cleric claims the “irrefutable truth” that Albert Einstein, the great 20th century scientist who developed the Theory of Relativity, was actually a Shiite Muslim.
In a video featuring Ayatolla Mahadavi Kani, identified as the head of the Assembly of Experts in the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Ayatollah says that there are documents proving the Jewish scientist embraced Shiite Islam and was an avid follower of Ja'far Al-Sadiq, an eighth-century Shi'i imam. In the video, Kani quotes Einstein as saying that when he heard about the ascension of the prophet Mohammed, "a process which was faster than the speed of light," he realized "this is the very same relativity movement that Einstein had understood." The ayatollah adds: "Einstein said, 'when I heard about the narratives of the prophet Mohamad and that of the Ahle-Beit [prophet's household] I realized they had understood these things way before us.'"
Ditto with UNESCO. Mohammed was born in the seventh century. Yet Palestinians see no logical inconsistency in proclaiming themselves as the original and sole sources of sanctity for a city chosen by David as capital of Israel a thousand years earlier, designated by David’s son Solomon as site for the first Jewish Temple, and rebuilt and renewed by their descendants when they returned from their exile in Babylon hundreds of years before the common era.
Our response should be identical to our response to disciples of the “earth is flat” notion. The UNESCO document is so outlandish in its conclusions that it ought simply to be branded for what it is without further discussion – another racist and anti-Semitic product of an organization so committed to irrational hatred of Israel and the Jewish people that it has lost any justification for its continued existence.
End of optional section
The Same Unchanged Torah
And that is why we dance on Simchas Torah, when we complete reading the Torah.
Moses died. But did he really die and fade away into a distant past? No! Here we are holding on to the Torah—the EXACT SAME TORAH that Moses wrote, dictated by G-d, and gave to the Jewish people. This Torah has been copied, with tender, love, and care, by each generation, letter by letter, word by word, portion by portion. We studied it, we practiced it, we preserved it, we lived it, we breathed it, we taught it to our children, we created our identity around it, and it has preserved us throughout.
Or as the famous camp song puts it:
We've existed so long
For the Torah kept us strong
And the Torah will never disappear- oh, no
Through the ages it was broughtBy the children, who were taught
To follow it and constantly declare
I'm a Jew and I'm proudAnd I'll it out loud
'Cuz forever that's what I'll be
I'm a Jew and I'm proud
And it's without a doubt
That hashem is always
Watching over me
The Torah Scroll from Poland
To understand how this came to be, let me share this little episode with you.
Around 1990, a group of pre-twelfth grade girls from Pelech high school in Israel, went on what is now the school's annual trip to Poland. One day, while in Krakow, they noticed a young man selling dolls. They were "Jew dolls," made to look like traditional Jews. Some of the girls noticed that the "books" that these dolls were holding looked remarkably authentic. They looked closely, and became convinced that these "books" had been cut from a real Torah scroll.
They asked the doll-maker where he'd gotten the parchment, and he told them that his uncle had a big scroll of it in the nearby town, Luminova. Asked where the uncle had gotten the scroll, he told them that during the war, it had been in the house of a Jew, and his uncle had taken it after the Jew disappeared. "Could they see it?" they wanted to know. He agreed to bring it back the next day.
True to his word, he showed up the next day and showed them what he had left. The girls instinctively knew what they had to do. They pooled their relatively limited pocket money, and bought the Torah from the man for whatever they could scrounge together.
They carried the now destroyed and unusable Torah with them for the remainder of their trip. As the time to depart Poland grew closer, however, they were faced with a dilemma. All Jewish property from before the war now belonged to the State. The doll-maker had had no right to sell it, they had no right to buy it, and they certainly had no right to take it out of the country.
If Israeli kids were caught smuggling Polish government property, matters would be most unpleasant, to put things mildly.
They talked it over, and after a while decided to smuggle the Torah out of Poland and to bring it home to Jerusalem.
At the airport, however, each of them was required to put all their bags onto the x-ray machine. The first girl in the line, when she was told to put her bags on the belt, passed the Torah to the next girl in line. When that girl was told to do the same thing, she surreptitiously passed it to the girl behind her. And so forth. For the next few minutes, the Torah silently made its way back the line, until it seemed that they were not going to get it out.
And then, the belt broke. The machine just quit. The Polish authorities, too concerned with fixing the belt to inspect all the bags being brought through, just ushered the remaining girls by, and the Torah made it out. They brought the Torah to a place in Jerusalem where such scrolls are repaired, but the work is exceedingly expensive, and with time, the girls moved on. The Torah remained un-repaired.
Fourteen years later, another group of girls from the same school finished what the earlier group had begun. They raised the rest of the money to restore the Torah and it was rededicated with Song, Study, and dance to the school’s synagogue, where, instead of being carved up for dolls, it is used regularly, read by young men and women who actually understand it, and who live by it.
This is how Jews, since the day Moses passed, treated the Torah.
Dance with Me
One of the many great heroic personalities to emerge from the Holocaust was Rabbi Yekusiel Yehuda Halberstam, the Chassidic grand rabbi of Klausenberg, Romania.
But he was not broken, and he did not surrender to despair. Before, after and even during the most hellish experiences he suffered at the hands of the Nazis, the Klausenberger Rebbe was loved and revered for his wisdom, his selfless devotion to the welfare of the most unfortunate, his piety and his courageous leadership.
The day he was transported to Auschwitz, he lost his wife and 11 children, who were sent to the gas chambers. He survived a lone man.
Due to his pre-war reputation as a great rabbi, people were attracted to the Klausunberger rebbe and sought his advice and guidance even within the camps. This was not lost on the Germans and they treated him with special beatings and particular cruelty. The Klausunberger Rebbe risked his precarious health by not eating any food that wasn't kosher or which may have been prepared together with non-kosher food and would regularly use his tiny allotment of drinking water to wash his hands before eating bread, all the while urging others to preserve their own lives by eating anything they could get their unwashed hands on, kosher or otherwise. His admirers and followers sought to protect him 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 Klausunberger 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 Rebbe 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 Rebbe in a broken heap on the barracks floor.
As night fell, the Jewish prisoners were marched back into their barracks expecting to mourn the rebbe's brutal death by the hands of the SS despicable evil monsters. 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." Rabbi Halberstam was moving around the post, in circles, doing “hakafos” in Auschwitz.
That night, I promise you, he was doing hakafos with the Torah. He was the Torah scroll! How did he dance? I do not know. He saw not only Moses die, but his entire family and community perish. He saw an entire world go up in flames. Yet he danced and danced! I assume, he knew that the story was far from over.
And he survived the war. He remarried, rebuilt a family, and recreated his community. At his death in 1994, he had tens of thousands of disciples and students. He built the Laniado hospital in Netanya and dozens of other Jewish institutions.
The Oldest Jew
On this Simchas Torah, I think of another Jew, who is still with us today.
The world’s oldest living man, Yisrael Kristal, is a Holocaust survivor who lives in Haifa, Israel. On Sep. 25, 2016, or 22 Elul 5776, he turned 113—biz hundred eun achtzik, till 180, or more!
This birthday marked full 100 years since he began wearing tefillin during daily prayers, at his bar mitzvah 113 years ago.
In an interview a few weeks ago, Kristal said that since his 13th birthday, he has wrapped tefillin every day, except for extreme circumstances during the two great wars, the First and Second World Wars.
In his own words: “Instead of being acclaimed as the world’s oldest man, I’d rather be known as the oldest and longest daily wearer of tefillin in the world.”
Yisrael Kristal was born in Zarnow, Poland, on 22 Elul 5663 (Sept. 15, 1903), that the year the Wright Brothers invented the airplane!
His mother passed away when he was 7 years old. His father was drafted into the Russian army during World War I and subsequently killed, leaving Yisrael on his own at the young age of 11. However, his father had provided him a solid traditional Jewish education, and that helped him remain a man of deep faith and religious commitment throughout his life.
His 13th Jewish birthday, in 1916, ordinarily celebrated as a joyous milestone, passed without fanfare due to the First World War, which was raging all around him. Yet, like generations of Jewish men before him, he began wearing tefillin every weekday.
In 1920, Kristal moved to Lodz, Poland, to join the family confectionery business, where they made and sold candy and other sweets. He worked there for 20 years, becoming a master of the craft.
Kristal lost his wife and two children to the Germans, as well as his other relatives. He survived Auschwitz, in addition to the Wustegiersdorf, Dornau and Schotterwerk Nazi concentration camps. When he was rescued by Allied forces in May 1945, he weighed 37 kilos (81.4 pounds) and was on the brink of death.
He left for Israel in 1950 with his second wife, Batsheva, also a survivor, and their baby son Hayim, settling in Haifa. They were soon blessed with another child, a daughter, Shulamit, and opened the Kristal Candy Factory in 1952. It became increasingly successful over the years until his retirement in 1970. He has today dozens of grandchildren and great grandchildren.
One hundred years after his solemn bar mitzvah, on this past Sep. 25, 100 family members and friends gathered for a belated bar mitzvah in which they sang, dances and wished him a hearty “mazal tov.” And this Simchas Torah, Yisrael Cristal will dance, as he does every year.
Moses died—but the Torah did not. Which means that Moses also lives on.
- Comment
Class Summary:
I can’t help but find myself in tears each year as these final verses of the entire Torah are read. For almost a whole year we lived with Moses each and every Shabbos. We watched his birth, his rescue, in the hands of the Pharaoh’s daughter, his being raised in the most unlikely of places in the palace of Pharaoh. We followed his courage, caring, and display of leadership, and how he stands up to the Super Power of the time, liberating a nation from bondage. We crossed the Red Sea with him and we escorted him for forty years in the wilderness, as he led his beloved people through every crisis. And now, this glorious life—one that never was and never would be again—comes to an end. All in one simple verse, almost deceiving in its simplicity.
And yet something strange happens. As we complete the Torah, we start to dance and dance. How? Is it even appropriate to dance at this moment when we read of Moses’ death?
Just a few weeks ago, scientists finally managed to develop the technology that allowed them to decipher an ancient Torah scroll, 2000 years old that was burnt. It was the oldest Torah they ever discovered in a Synagogue situated in the Aron Kodesh. The scroll was found in a burnt down shul in Ein Gedi. In the remains of the ark of the synagogue, the archaeologists found a parchment rolled up but entirely burned, so damaged by fire that it was impossible to unroll it for inspection without the charred parchment crumbling into ashes, until Kentucky University figured out how to do it.
What they discovered when they managed to unravel the scroll was startling.
The story of Israeli girls who smuggled out a Torah from Poland; the story of a Rebbe who pulled himself around a beam in Auschwitz on Simchas Torah to perform Hakafos; the story of the oldest living man in the world who celebrated his bar mitzvah three weeks ago—all explain to us why Jews read about Moses’ passing and they start dancing.
Inconsistent
Bob Smith was sick of his job and was determined to find work elsewhere. He was a truthful man, never uttered a lie, but he had one vice: he never showed up on time to his job.
So no matter how hard he tried, his reputation as someone who was not dedicated to the job, followed him around. One day the phone rang at his office. Although Bob did not usually pick up the phone, he picked it up and said hello. “Hi” said the man on the line, “I have an unusual question to ask you, I’m looking into a fellow Bob Smith for a position in my company. Do you know this fellow?”
“Sure I know him”, responded Bob with a smile.
“Tell me,” asked the man. “Is he consistent with his work? Does he always show up on time?”
Oy. What should he say? He never said a lie. But if he says the truth, his chances to get this job are null.
So he said this: “Well I’ll be honest with you,” Bob replied, “I’m not so consistent myself, but whenever I’m here he’s here!”
The Final Verses
On Simchas Torah we complete the entire Torah. The Torah comes to its completion with the following verses:
And Moses the servant of the Lord died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the Lord. And He buried him in a valley in the land of Moab, opposite Beth-Peor; but no man knows his grave till this day. And Moses was 120 years old when he died; his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated. And the people of Israel wept for Moses in the plains of Moab thirty days…
And there has not arisen since in Israel a prophet like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face. In all the signs and the wonders, which the Lord sent him to do in the land of Egypt to Pharaoh, and to all his servants, and to all his land. And in all that mighty hand, and in all the great and awesome deeds which Moses performed in the sight of all Israel. (Deut. 34:5 to 34:12)
I can’t help but find myself in tears each year as these final verses of the entire Torah are read. And I am not the only one. For almost a whole year we lived with Moses each and every Shabbos. Moses is the central figure in the Torah, known as the Five Books of Moses. We watched his birth, his rescue, in the hands of the Pharaoh’s daughter, his being raised in the most unlikely of places in the palace of Pharaoh. We followed his courage, caring, and display of leadership, and how he stands up to the Super Power of the time, liberating a nation from bondage. We crossed the Red Sea with him and we escorted him for forty years in the wilderness, as he led his beloved people through every crisis.
And now, this glorious life—one that never was and never would be again—comes to an end. All in one simple verse, almost deceiving in its simplicity: And Moses the servant of the Lord died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the Lord.
Tears
And I will tell you about someone else who cried while learning these verse.
You see, it would be quite an unusual to read an autobiography that describes the author's own death and burial; by the time the author has been buried, he has probably stopped writing... The Chumash, however, defies this premise: while not an autobiography, it was transcribed by one of its major protagonists, Moses, who was nonetheless apparently able to record his own passing and then continue writing for seven more verses, eulogizing himself.
The Talmud[1] addresses this anomaly, and records two approaches in response:
בבא בתרא טו, א: אמר מר יהושע כתב ספרו ושמונה פסוקים שבתורה, תניא כמאן דאמר שמונה פסוקים שבתורה יהושע כתבן, דתניא "וימת שם משה עבד ה'", אפשר משה חי וכתב "וימת שם משה", אלא עד כאן כתב משה, מכאן ואילך כתב יהושע דברי ר' יהודה ואמרי לה ר' נחמיה. אמר לו ר' שמעון אפשר ספר תורה חסר אות אחת וכתיב "לקוח את ספר התורה הזה", אלא עד כאן הקב"ה אומר ומשה אומר וכותב, מכאן ואילך הקב"ה אומר ומשה כותב בדמע...
According to Rabbi Yehudah (or Rabbi Nechemia), these final eight verses in the Torah were actually not written by Moshe, but by Yehoshua. However, Rabbi Shimon objects, noting that Moshe is instructed to “take the sefer haTorah,” and that description would not be used if even one letter were missing. Rather, he asserts, until this point, G-d spoke, and Moshe repeated and wrote; from here until the end, G-d spoke and Moshe wrote the words, in the expression of the Talmud, “bedama,” “with tears.”
Moshe was crying, understandably, while receiving and transcribing the prophecy of his impending death and his own eulogy.
Some commentators[2] explain the Talmud differently. “Moses wrote the words with tears” means that these words were not written with ink but with tears. The tear was actually the writing material, rather than ink.
[The Baal Shem Tov[3] and the Gaon of Vilna[4] maintained that the two views in the Talmud were compatible. They understood the term “dema” differently, as indicating dimua, or intermixture. In this view, Moshe wrote the words, which had not yet been actualized, in a jumbled form that would not be intelligible to the reader. He transcribed the actual letters of these verses, but they were mixed up. So Moshe did write the words in their initial form, while Yehoshua rearranged the letters into a legible form and thus “wrote” them as well.]
As Moses was writing these verses, he was crying. And he wrote these letters with his tears. Is it a wonder that these final verses of Torah trigger such deep emotion?
The Dance
But then, something so strange happens.
As we complete the Torah, we start to dance and dance. The entire tradition of dancing “hakafos” on Simchas Torah is to celebrate the completion of the Torah. But it seems counter-intuitive. Moses’ death and burial was the end of the life of the greatest prophet, teacher and leader who ever lived (as the Torah makes clear in these very verses); it spelled the end of the most glorious era of Jewish history. Moses himself wept when he wrote these verses. These verses were written not in ink, but in tears. Is it even appropriate to dance at this moment?
A Burnt Scroll
But there is a reason do dance. Moses passed away, but the Torah he gave us remained, continuing to invigorate his people for millennia, through thick and thin, through tranquil and turbulent times, through all of their journeys and voyages, for 3300 years. The same exact Torah Moses wrote and bequeathed to the people of Israel still sustains us, empowers us and guides us.
We were reminded of this just a few weeks ago. In the end of September this year, incredible cutting-edge technology allowed archaeologists to finally read the contents of a burned 2000-year-old scroll found near the Dead Sea in 1970.
It is an amazing story.[5] The scroll was first discovered in 1970, when archaeologists were working near Ein Gedi, a natural spring oasis on the shore of the Dead Sea. They discovered the remains of a Jewish community dating back to eighth century BCE, that in middle of the First Temple era.
The small city had thrived until 600 CE, when it was destroyed and the buildings burned. In the remains of the ark of the synagogue, the archaeologists found a parchment rolled up but entirely burned, so damaged by fire that it was impossible to unroll it for inspection without the charred parchment crumbling into ashes.
The scroll was faithfully stored away by the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) with little hope of ever being able to study what was written on them.
Forty years later, in 2015, computer scientists at the University of Kentucky developed software for unraveling damaged and delicate texts. Originally designed for deciphering Roman scrolls, the technique is even more successful with ancient Jewish texts written with ink containing a metal element that shows up more clearly on the X-ray scans.
The researchers scanned 100 sections from the charred remains of the Ein Gedi scroll, which had been rolled five times. Incredibly, they were able to create a digital image of the scroll and “unroll” the image without even touching it, so it would not crumble into ashes. The scan revealed two columns of writing, composed of 35 lines, 18 of which were preserved while the other 17 had to be digitally reconstructed.
The new technology, called ‘virtual unwrapping,’ is a complicated and difficult process based on the technology used in medical CT scans, allowing scientists to read the Ein Gedi Scroll, a charred, ancient parchment discovered in an ancient destroyed synagogue on the shores of the Dead Sea more than forty years ago which has sat on a shelf, untouchable and indecipherable, ever since.
Studies based on historical handwriting placed it at around the first century CE, the century when the Second Temple still existed. This means they were holding onto the earliest Torah scroll to ever be found in a synagogue, in an Aron Kodesh, in a Holy Ark.
When the researchers saw the first results, it made for a startling revelation: all of the words and paragraph breaks were absolutely identical to the Torah text still used today, in 2016.
“This is quite amazing for us. In 2,000 years, this text has not changed,” Emmanuel Tov, a participant in the study from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, told the Times of Israel,
“It can’t be coincidental that the synagogue in Ein Gedi that was burned in the sixth century housed an early scroll whose text was completely identical with medieval texts. The same central stream of Judaism that used this Levitical scroll in one of the early centuries of our era was to continue using it until the late Middle Ages when printing was invented.”
Until 1947, the oldest known Biblical texts dated only to the tenth century. The Dead Sea Scrolls, written in approximately the third century BCE, provided a rare and exciting glimpse into even earlier ancient Jewish texts. But these texts were buried in caves and were indeed different than the texts we have. Now, the Ein Gedi scroll is filling out that picture and confirming the authenticity of present-day texts.
Of course, none of this was surprising to us. Jewish scribal tradition ensures that discrepancies in reproduction do not occur. Holy texts are hand-copied letter for letter from accepted originals. Strict guidelines are given for writing techniques, shapes of letters, and breaks in the text, striving to maintain an unbroken chain from Sinai. The latest discovery is the closest Jews have yet come to proof to secular scientists that the chain has remained fully intact. There is not even A SINGLE LETTER CHANGED between our Torah’s todays and that Torah scroll from 2000 years ago.
Optional Section
Einstein the Muslim
Contrast this to other cultures, where historical truth is irrelevant.
Here is something that happened last week, the same week when UNESCO decided that the Temple Mount has nothing to do with Jews.
Israel Radio reported that an Iranian cleric claims the “irrefutable truth” that Albert Einstein, the great 20th century scientist who developed the Theory of Relativity, was actually a Shiite Muslim.
In a video featuring Ayatolla Mahadavi Kani, identified as the head of the Assembly of Experts in the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Ayatollah says that there are documents proving the Jewish scientist embraced Shiite Islam and was an avid follower of Ja'far Al-Sadiq, an eighth-century Shi'i imam. In the video, Kani quotes Einstein as saying that when he heard about the ascension of the prophet Mohammed, "a process which was faster than the speed of light," he realized "this is the very same relativity movement that Einstein had understood." The ayatollah adds: "Einstein said, 'when I heard about the narratives of the prophet Mohamad and that of the Ahle-Beit [prophet's household] I realized they had understood these things way before us.'"
Ditto with UNESCO. Mohammed was born in the seventh century. Yet Palestinians see no logical inconsistency in proclaiming themselves as the original and sole sources of sanctity for a city chosen by David as capital of Israel a thousand years earlier, designated by David’s son Solomon as site for the first Jewish Temple, and rebuilt and renewed by their descendants when they returned from their exile in Babylon hundreds of years before the common era.
Our response should be identical to our response to disciples of the “earth is flat” notion. The UNESCO document is so outlandish in its conclusions that it ought simply to be branded for what it is without further discussion – another racist and anti-Semitic product of an organization so committed to irrational hatred of Israel and the Jewish people that it has lost any justification for its continued existence.
End of optional section
The Same Unchanged Torah
And that is why we dance on Simchas Torah, when we complete reading the Torah.
Moses died. But did he really die and fade away into a distant past? No! Here we are holding on to the Torah—the EXACT SAME TORAH that Moses wrote, dictated by G-d, and gave to the Jewish people. This Torah has been copied, with tender, love, and care, by each generation, letter by letter, word by word, portion by portion. We studied it, we practiced it, we preserved it, we lived it, we breathed it, we taught it to our children, we created our identity around it, and it has preserved us throughout.
Or as the famous camp song puts it:
We've existed so long
For the Torah kept us strong
And the Torah will never disappear- oh, no
Through the ages it was brought
By the children, who were taught
To follow it and constantly declare
I'm a Jew and I'm proud
And I'll it out loud
'Cuz forever that's what I'll be
I'm a Jew and I'm proud
And it's without a doubt
That hashem is always
Watching over me
The Torah Scroll from Poland
To understand how this came to be, let me share this little episode with you.
Around 1990, a group of pre-twelfth grade girls from Pelech high school in Israel, went on what is now the school's annual trip to Poland. One day, while in Krakow, they noticed a young man selling dolls. They were "Jew dolls," made to look like traditional Jews. Some of the girls noticed that the "books" that these dolls were holding looked remarkably authentic. They looked closely, and became convinced that these "books" had been cut from a real Torah scroll.
They asked the doll-maker where he'd gotten the parchment, and he told them that his uncle had a big scroll of it in the nearby town, Luminova. Asked where the uncle had gotten the scroll, he told them that during the war, it had been in the house of a Jew, and his uncle had taken it after the Jew disappeared. "Could they see it?" they wanted to know. He agreed to bring it back the next day.
True to his word, he showed up the next day and showed them what he had left. The girls instinctively knew what they had to do. They pooled their relatively limited pocket money, and bought the Torah from the man for whatever they could scrounge together.
They carried the now destroyed and unusable Torah with them for the remainder of their trip. As the time to depart Poland grew closer, however, they were faced with a dilemma. All Jewish property from before the war now belonged to the State. The doll-maker had had no right to sell it, they had no right to buy it, and they certainly had no right to take it out of the country.
If Israeli kids were caught smuggling Polish government property, matters would be most unpleasant, to put things mildly.
They talked it over, and after a while decided to smuggle the Torah out of Poland and to bring it home to Jerusalem.
At the airport, however, each of them was required to put all their bags onto the x-ray machine. The first girl in the line, when she was told to put her bags on the belt, passed the Torah to the next girl in line. When that girl was told to do the same thing, she surreptitiously passed it to the girl behind her. And so forth. For the next few minutes, the Torah silently made its way back the line, until it seemed that they were not going to get it out.
And then, the belt broke. The machine just quit. The Polish authorities, too concerned with fixing the belt to inspect all the bags being brought through, just ushered the remaining girls by, and the Torah made it out. They brought the Torah to a place in Jerusalem where such scrolls are repaired, but the work is exceedingly expensive, and with time, the girls moved on. The Torah remained un-repaired.
Fourteen years later, another group of girls from the same school finished what the earlier group had begun. They raised the rest of the money to restore the Torah and it was rededicated with Song, Study, and dance to the school’s synagogue, where, instead of being carved up for dolls, it is used regularly, read by young men and women who actually understand it, and who live by it.
This is how Jews, since the day Moses passed, treated the Torah.
Dance with Me
One of the many great heroic personalities to emerge from the Holocaust was Rabbi Yekusiel Yehuda Halberstam, the Chassidic grand rabbi of Klausenberg, Romania.
But he was not broken, and he did not surrender to despair. Before, after and even during the most hellish experiences he suffered at the hands of the Nazis, the Klausenberger Rebbe was loved and revered for his wisdom, his selfless devotion to the welfare of the most unfortunate, his piety and his courageous leadership.
The day he was transported to Auschwitz, he lost his wife and 11 children, who were sent to the gas chambers. He survived a lone man.
Due to his pre-war reputation as a great rabbi, people were attracted to the Klausunberger rebbe and sought his advice and guidance even within the camps. This was not lost on the Germans and they treated him with special beatings and particular cruelty. The Klausunberger Rebbe risked his precarious health by not eating any food that wasn't kosher or which may have been prepared together with non-kosher food and would regularly use his tiny allotment of drinking water to wash his hands before eating bread, all the while urging others to preserve their own lives by eating anything they could get their unwashed hands on, kosher or otherwise. His admirers and followers sought to protect him 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 Klausunberger 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 Rebbe 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 Rebbe in a broken heap on the barracks floor.
As night fell, the Jewish prisoners were marched back into their barracks expecting to mourn the rebbe's brutal death by the hands of the SS despicable evil monsters. 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." Rabbi Halberstam was moving around the post, in circles, doing “hakafos” in Auschwitz.
That night, I promise you, he was doing hakafos with the Torah. He was the Torah scroll! How did he dance? I do not know. He saw not only Moses die, but his entire family and community perish. He saw an entire world go up in flames. Yet he danced and danced! I assume, he knew that the story was far from over.
And he survived the war. He remarried, rebuilt a family, and recreated his community. At his death in 1994, he had tens of thousands of disciples and students. He built the Laniado hospital in Netanya and dozens of other Jewish institutions.
The Oldest Jew
On this Simchas Torah, I think of another Jew, who is still with us today.
The world’s oldest living man, Yisrael Kristal, is a Holocaust survivor who lives in Haifa, Israel. On Sep. 25, 2016, or 22 Elul 5776, he turned 113—biz hundred eun achtzik, till 180, or more!
This birthday marked full 100 years since he began wearing tefillin during daily prayers, at his bar mitzvah 113 years ago.
In an interview a few weeks ago, Kristal said that since his 13th birthday, he has wrapped tefillin every day, except for extreme circumstances during the two great wars, the First and Second World Wars.
In his own words: “Instead of being acclaimed as the world’s oldest man, I’d rather be known as the oldest and longest daily wearer of tefillin in the world.”
Yisrael Kristal was born in Zarnow, Poland, on 22 Elul 5663 (Sept. 15, 1903), that the year the Wright Brothers invented the airplane!
His mother passed away when he was 7 years old. His father was drafted into the Russian army during World War I and subsequently killed, leaving Yisrael on his own at the young age of 11. However, his father had provided him a solid traditional Jewish education, and that helped him remain a man of deep faith and religious commitment throughout his life.
His 13th Jewish birthday, in 1916, ordinarily celebrated as a joyous milestone, passed without fanfare due to the First World War, which was raging all around him. Yet, like generations of Jewish men before him, he began wearing tefillin every weekday.
In 1920, Kristal moved to Lodz, Poland, to join the family confectionery business, where they made and sold candy and other sweets. He worked there for 20 years, becoming a master of the craft.
Kristal lost his wife and two children to the Germans, as well as his other relatives. He survived Auschwitz, in addition to the Wustegiersdorf, Dornau and Schotterwerk Nazi concentration camps. When he was rescued by Allied forces in May 1945, he weighed 37 kilos (81.4 pounds) and was on the brink of death.
He left for Israel in 1950 with his second wife, Batsheva, also a survivor, and their baby son Hayim, settling in Haifa. They were soon blessed with another child, a daughter, Shulamit, and opened the Kristal Candy Factory in 1952. It became increasingly successful over the years until his retirement in 1970. He has today dozens of grandchildren and great grandchildren.
One hundred years after his solemn bar mitzvah, on this past Sep. 25, 100 family members and friends gathered for a belated bar mitzvah in which they sang, dances and wished him a hearty “mazal tov.” And this Simchas Torah, Yisrael Cristal will dance, as he does every year.
Moses died—but the Torah did not. Which means that Moses also lives on.
Categories
Shemini Atzeres/Simchas Torah 5777
Rabbi YY Jacobson
- October 16, 2016
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- 14 Tishrei 5777
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- 36 views
Moshe Dies and We Dance?
Moshe Left Us, but the Torah Did Not
Rabbi YY Jacobson
- October 16, 2016
Inconsistent
Bob Smith was sick of his job and was determined to find work elsewhere. He was a truthful man, never uttered a lie, but he had one vice: he never showed up on time to his job.
So no matter how hard he tried, his reputation as someone who was not dedicated to the job, followed him around. One day the phone rang at his office. Although Bob did not usually pick up the phone, he picked it up and said hello. “Hi” said the man on the line, “I have an unusual question to ask you, I’m looking into a fellow Bob Smith for a position in my company. Do you know this fellow?”
“Sure I know him”, responded Bob with a smile.
“Tell me,” asked the man. “Is he consistent with his work? Does he always show up on time?”
Oy. What should he say? He never said a lie. But if he says the truth, his chances to get this job are null.
So he said this: “Well I’ll be honest with you,” Bob replied, “I’m not so consistent myself, but whenever I’m here he’s here!”
The Final Verses
On Simchas Torah we complete the entire Torah. The Torah comes to its completion with the following verses:
And Moses the servant of the Lord died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the Lord. And He buried him in a valley in the land of Moab, opposite Beth-Peor; but no man knows his grave till this day. And Moses was 120 years old when he died; his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated. And the people of Israel wept for Moses in the plains of Moab thirty days…
And there has not arisen since in Israel a prophet like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face. In all the signs and the wonders, which the Lord sent him to do in the land of Egypt to Pharaoh, and to all his servants, and to all his land. And in all that mighty hand, and in all the great and awesome deeds which Moses performed in the sight of all Israel. (Deut. 34:5 to 34:12)
I can’t help but find myself in tears each year as these final verses of the entire Torah are read. And I am not the only one. For almost a whole year we lived with Moses each and every Shabbos. Moses is the central figure in the Torah, known as the Five Books of Moses. We watched his birth, his rescue, in the hands of the Pharaoh’s daughter, his being raised in the most unlikely of places in the palace of Pharaoh. We followed his courage, caring, and display of leadership, and how he stands up to the Super Power of the time, liberating a nation from bondage. We crossed the Red Sea with him and we escorted him for forty years in the wilderness, as he led his beloved people through every crisis.
And now, this glorious life—one that never was and never would be again—comes to an end. All in one simple verse, almost deceiving in its simplicity: And Moses the servant of the Lord died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the Lord.
Tears
And I will tell you about someone else who cried while learning these verse.
You see, it would be quite an unusual to read an autobiography that describes the author's own death and burial; by the time the author has been buried, he has probably stopped writing... The Chumash, however, defies this premise: while not an autobiography, it was transcribed by one of its major protagonists, Moses, who was nonetheless apparently able to record his own passing and then continue writing for seven more verses, eulogizing himself.
The Talmud[1] addresses this anomaly, and records two approaches in response:
בבא בתרא טו, א: אמר מר יהושע כתב ספרו ושמונה פסוקים שבתורה, תניא כמאן דאמר שמונה פסוקים שבתורה יהושע כתבן, דתניא "וימת שם משה עבד ה'", אפשר משה חי וכתב "וימת שם משה", אלא עד כאן כתב משה, מכאן ואילך כתב יהושע דברי ר' יהודה ואמרי לה ר' נחמיה. אמר לו ר' שמעון אפשר ספר תורה חסר אות אחת וכתיב "לקוח את ספר התורה הזה", אלא עד כאן הקב"ה אומר ומשה אומר וכותב, מכאן ואילך הקב"ה אומר ומשה כותב בדמע...
According to Rabbi Yehudah (or Rabbi Nechemia), these final eight verses in the Torah were actually not written by Moshe, but by Yehoshua. However, Rabbi Shimon objects, noting that Moshe is instructed to “take the sefer haTorah,” and that description would not be used if even one letter were missing. Rather, he asserts, until this point, G-d spoke, and Moshe repeated and wrote; from here until the end, G-d spoke and Moshe wrote the words, in the expression of the Talmud, “bedama,” “with tears.”
Moshe was crying, understandably, while receiving and transcribing the prophecy of his impending death and his own eulogy.
Some commentators[2] explain the Talmud differently. “Moses wrote the words with tears” means that these words were not written with ink but with tears. The tear was actually the writing material, rather than ink.
[The Baal Shem Tov[3] and the Gaon of Vilna[4] maintained that the two views in the Talmud were compatible. They understood the term “dema” differently, as indicating dimua, or intermixture. In this view, Moshe wrote the words, which had not yet been actualized, in a jumbled form that would not be intelligible to the reader. He transcribed the actual letters of these verses, but they were mixed up. So Moshe did write the words in their initial form, while Yehoshua rearranged the letters into a legible form and thus “wrote” them as well.]
As Moses was writing these verses, he was crying. And he wrote these letters with his tears. Is it a wonder that these final verses of Torah trigger such deep emotion?
The Dance
But then, something so strange happens.
As we complete the Torah, we start to dance and dance. The entire tradition of dancing “hakafos” on Simchas Torah is to celebrate the completion of the Torah. But it seems counter-intuitive. Moses’ death and burial was the end of the life of the greatest prophet, teacher and leader who ever lived (as the Torah makes clear in these very verses); it spelled the end of the most glorious era of Jewish history. Moses himself wept when he wrote these verses. These verses were written not in ink, but in tears. Is it even appropriate to dance at this moment?
A Burnt Scroll
But there is a reason do dance. Moses passed away, but the Torah he gave us remained, continuing to invigorate his people for millennia, through thick and thin, through tranquil and turbulent times, through all of their journeys and voyages, for 3300 years. The same exact Torah Moses wrote and bequeathed to the people of Israel still sustains us, empowers us and guides us.
We were reminded of this just a few weeks ago. In the end of September this year, incredible cutting-edge technology allowed archaeologists to finally read the contents of a burned 2000-year-old scroll found near the Dead Sea in 1970.
It is an amazing story.[5] The scroll was first discovered in 1970, when archaeologists were working near Ein Gedi, a natural spring oasis on the shore of the Dead Sea. They discovered the remains of a Jewish community dating back to eighth century BCE, that in middle of the First Temple era.
The small city had thrived until 600 CE, when it was destroyed and the buildings burned. In the remains of the ark of the synagogue, the archaeologists found a parchment rolled up but entirely burned, so damaged by fire that it was impossible to unroll it for inspection without the charred parchment crumbling into ashes.
The scroll was faithfully stored away by the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) with little hope of ever being able to study what was written on them.
Forty years later, in 2015, computer scientists at the University of Kentucky developed software for unraveling damaged and delicate texts. Originally designed for deciphering Roman scrolls, the technique is even more successful with ancient Jewish texts written with ink containing a metal element that shows up more clearly on the X-ray scans.
The researchers scanned 100 sections from the charred remains of the Ein Gedi scroll, which had been rolled five times. Incredibly, they were able to create a digital image of the scroll and “unroll” the image without even touching it, so it would not crumble into ashes. The scan revealed two columns of writing, composed of 35 lines, 18 of which were preserved while the other 17 had to be digitally reconstructed.
The new technology, called ‘virtual unwrapping,’ is a complicated and difficult process based on the technology used in medical CT scans, allowing scientists to read the Ein Gedi Scroll, a charred, ancient parchment discovered in an ancient destroyed synagogue on the shores of the Dead Sea more than forty years ago which has sat on a shelf, untouchable and indecipherable, ever since.
Studies based on historical handwriting placed it at around the first century CE, the century when the Second Temple still existed. This means they were holding onto the earliest Torah scroll to ever be found in a synagogue, in an Aron Kodesh, in a Holy Ark.
When the researchers saw the first results, it made for a startling revelation: all of the words and paragraph breaks were absolutely identical to the Torah text still used today, in 2016.
“This is quite amazing for us. In 2,000 years, this text has not changed,” Emmanuel Tov, a participant in the study from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, told the Times of Israel,
“It can’t be coincidental that the synagogue in Ein Gedi that was burned in the sixth century housed an early scroll whose text was completely identical with medieval texts. The same central stream of Judaism that used this Levitical scroll in one of the early centuries of our era was to continue using it until the late Middle Ages when printing was invented.”
Until 1947, the oldest known Biblical texts dated only to the tenth century. The Dead Sea Scrolls, written in approximately the third century BCE, provided a rare and exciting glimpse into even earlier ancient Jewish texts. But these texts were buried in caves and were indeed different than the texts we have. Now, the Ein Gedi scroll is filling out that picture and confirming the authenticity of present-day texts.
Of course, none of this was surprising to us. Jewish scribal tradition ensures that discrepancies in reproduction do not occur. Holy texts are hand-copied letter for letter from accepted originals. Strict guidelines are given for writing techniques, shapes of letters, and breaks in the text, striving to maintain an unbroken chain from Sinai. The latest discovery is the closest Jews have yet come to proof to secular scientists that the chain has remained fully intact. There is not even A SINGLE LETTER CHANGED between our Torah’s todays and that Torah scroll from 2000 years ago.
Optional Section
Einstein the Muslim
Contrast this to other cultures, where historical truth is irrelevant.
Here is something that happened last week, the same week when UNESCO decided that the Temple Mount has nothing to do with Jews.
Israel Radio reported that an Iranian cleric claims the “irrefutable truth” that Albert Einstein, the great 20th century scientist who developed the Theory of Relativity, was actually a Shiite Muslim.
In a video featuring Ayatolla Mahadavi Kani, identified as the head of the Assembly of Experts in the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Ayatollah says that there are documents proving the Jewish scientist embraced Shiite Islam and was an avid follower of Ja'far Al-Sadiq, an eighth-century Shi'i imam. In the video, Kani quotes Einstein as saying that when he heard about the ascension of the prophet Mohammed, "a process which was faster than the speed of light," he realized "this is the very same relativity movement that Einstein had understood." The ayatollah adds: "Einstein said, 'when I heard about the narratives of the prophet Mohamad and that of the Ahle-Beit [prophet's household] I realized they had understood these things way before us.'"
Ditto with UNESCO. Mohammed was born in the seventh century. Yet Palestinians see no logical inconsistency in proclaiming themselves as the original and sole sources of sanctity for a city chosen by David as capital of Israel a thousand years earlier, designated by David’s son Solomon as site for the first Jewish Temple, and rebuilt and renewed by their descendants when they returned from their exile in Babylon hundreds of years before the common era.
Our response should be identical to our response to disciples of the “earth is flat” notion. The UNESCO document is so outlandish in its conclusions that it ought simply to be branded for what it is without further discussion – another racist and anti-Semitic product of an organization so committed to irrational hatred of Israel and the Jewish people that it has lost any justification for its continued existence.
End of optional section
The Same Unchanged Torah
And that is why we dance on Simchas Torah, when we complete reading the Torah.
Moses died. But did he really die and fade away into a distant past? No! Here we are holding on to the Torah—the EXACT SAME TORAH that Moses wrote, dictated by G-d, and gave to the Jewish people. This Torah has been copied, with tender, love, and care, by each generation, letter by letter, word by word, portion by portion. We studied it, we practiced it, we preserved it, we lived it, we breathed it, we taught it to our children, we created our identity around it, and it has preserved us throughout.
Or as the famous camp song puts it:
We've existed so long
For the Torah kept us strong
And the Torah will never disappear- oh, no
Through the ages it was broughtBy the children, who were taught
To follow it and constantly declare
I'm a Jew and I'm proudAnd I'll it out loud
'Cuz forever that's what I'll be
I'm a Jew and I'm proud
And it's without a doubt
That hashem is always
Watching over me
The Torah Scroll from Poland
To understand how this came to be, let me share this little episode with you.
Around 1990, a group of pre-twelfth grade girls from Pelech high school in Israel, went on what is now the school's annual trip to Poland. One day, while in Krakow, they noticed a young man selling dolls. They were "Jew dolls," made to look like traditional Jews. Some of the girls noticed that the "books" that these dolls were holding looked remarkably authentic. They looked closely, and became convinced that these "books" had been cut from a real Torah scroll.
They asked the doll-maker where he'd gotten the parchment, and he told them that his uncle had a big scroll of it in the nearby town, Luminova. Asked where the uncle had gotten the scroll, he told them that during the war, it had been in the house of a Jew, and his uncle had taken it after the Jew disappeared. "Could they see it?" they wanted to know. He agreed to bring it back the next day.
True to his word, he showed up the next day and showed them what he had left. The girls instinctively knew what they had to do. They pooled their relatively limited pocket money, and bought the Torah from the man for whatever they could scrounge together.
They carried the now destroyed and unusable Torah with them for the remainder of their trip. As the time to depart Poland grew closer, however, they were faced with a dilemma. All Jewish property from before the war now belonged to the State. The doll-maker had had no right to sell it, they had no right to buy it, and they certainly had no right to take it out of the country.
If Israeli kids were caught smuggling Polish government property, matters would be most unpleasant, to put things mildly.
They talked it over, and after a while decided to smuggle the Torah out of Poland and to bring it home to Jerusalem.
At the airport, however, each of them was required to put all their bags onto the x-ray machine. The first girl in the line, when she was told to put her bags on the belt, passed the Torah to the next girl in line. When that girl was told to do the same thing, she surreptitiously passed it to the girl behind her. And so forth. For the next few minutes, the Torah silently made its way back the line, until it seemed that they were not going to get it out.
And then, the belt broke. The machine just quit. The Polish authorities, too concerned with fixing the belt to inspect all the bags being brought through, just ushered the remaining girls by, and the Torah made it out. They brought the Torah to a place in Jerusalem where such scrolls are repaired, but the work is exceedingly expensive, and with time, the girls moved on. The Torah remained un-repaired.
Fourteen years later, another group of girls from the same school finished what the earlier group had begun. They raised the rest of the money to restore the Torah and it was rededicated with Song, Study, and dance to the school’s synagogue, where, instead of being carved up for dolls, it is used regularly, read by young men and women who actually understand it, and who live by it.
This is how Jews, since the day Moses passed, treated the Torah.
Dance with Me
One of the many great heroic personalities to emerge from the Holocaust was Rabbi Yekusiel Yehuda Halberstam, the Chassidic grand rabbi of Klausenberg, Romania.
But he was not broken, and he did not surrender to despair. Before, after and even during the most hellish experiences he suffered at the hands of the Nazis, the Klausenberger Rebbe was loved and revered for his wisdom, his selfless devotion to the welfare of the most unfortunate, his piety and his courageous leadership.
The day he was transported to Auschwitz, he lost his wife and 11 children, who were sent to the gas chambers. He survived a lone man.
Due to his pre-war reputation as a great rabbi, people were attracted to the Klausunberger rebbe and sought his advice and guidance even within the camps. This was not lost on the Germans and they treated him with special beatings and particular cruelty. The Klausunberger Rebbe risked his precarious health by not eating any food that wasn't kosher or which may have been prepared together with non-kosher food and would regularly use his tiny allotment of drinking water to wash his hands before eating bread, all the while urging others to preserve their own lives by eating anything they could get their unwashed hands on, kosher or otherwise. His admirers and followers sought to protect him 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 Klausunberger 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 Rebbe 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 Rebbe in a broken heap on the barracks floor.
As night fell, the Jewish prisoners were marched back into their barracks expecting to mourn the rebbe's brutal death by the hands of the SS despicable evil monsters. 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." Rabbi Halberstam was moving around the post, in circles, doing “hakafos” in Auschwitz.
That night, I promise you, he was doing hakafos with the Torah. He was the Torah scroll! How did he dance? I do not know. He saw not only Moses die, but his entire family and community perish. He saw an entire world go up in flames. Yet he danced and danced! I assume, he knew that the story was far from over.
And he survived the war. He remarried, rebuilt a family, and recreated his community. At his death in 1994, he had tens of thousands of disciples and students. He built the Laniado hospital in Netanya and dozens of other Jewish institutions.
The Oldest Jew
On this Simchas Torah, I think of another Jew, who is still with us today.
The world’s oldest living man, Yisrael Kristal, is a Holocaust survivor who lives in Haifa, Israel. On Sep. 25, 2016, or 22 Elul 5776, he turned 113—biz hundred eun achtzik, till 180, or more!
This birthday marked full 100 years since he began wearing tefillin during daily prayers, at his bar mitzvah 113 years ago.
In an interview a few weeks ago, Kristal said that since his 13th birthday, he has wrapped tefillin every day, except for extreme circumstances during the two great wars, the First and Second World Wars.
In his own words: “Instead of being acclaimed as the world’s oldest man, I’d rather be known as the oldest and longest daily wearer of tefillin in the world.”
Yisrael Kristal was born in Zarnow, Poland, on 22 Elul 5663 (Sept. 15, 1903), that the year the Wright Brothers invented the airplane!
His mother passed away when he was 7 years old. His father was drafted into the Russian army during World War I and subsequently killed, leaving Yisrael on his own at the young age of 11. However, his father had provided him a solid traditional Jewish education, and that helped him remain a man of deep faith and religious commitment throughout his life.
His 13th Jewish birthday, in 1916, ordinarily celebrated as a joyous milestone, passed without fanfare due to the First World War, which was raging all around him. Yet, like generations of Jewish men before him, he began wearing tefillin every weekday.
In 1920, Kristal moved to Lodz, Poland, to join the family confectionery business, where they made and sold candy and other sweets. He worked there for 20 years, becoming a master of the craft.
Kristal lost his wife and two children to the Germans, as well as his other relatives. He survived Auschwitz, in addition to the Wustegiersdorf, Dornau and Schotterwerk Nazi concentration camps. When he was rescued by Allied forces in May 1945, he weighed 37 kilos (81.4 pounds) and was on the brink of death.
He left for Israel in 1950 with his second wife, Batsheva, also a survivor, and their baby son Hayim, settling in Haifa. They were soon blessed with another child, a daughter, Shulamit, and opened the Kristal Candy Factory in 1952. It became increasingly successful over the years until his retirement in 1970. He has today dozens of grandchildren and great grandchildren.
One hundred years after his solemn bar mitzvah, on this past Sep. 25, 100 family members and friends gathered for a belated bar mitzvah in which they sang, dances and wished him a hearty “mazal tov.” And this Simchas Torah, Yisrael Cristal will dance, as he does every year.
Moses died—but the Torah did not. Which means that Moses also lives on.
- Comment
Class Summary:
I can’t help but find myself in tears each year as these final verses of the entire Torah are read. For almost a whole year we lived with Moses each and every Shabbos. We watched his birth, his rescue, in the hands of the Pharaoh’s daughter, his being raised in the most unlikely of places in the palace of Pharaoh. We followed his courage, caring, and display of leadership, and how he stands up to the Super Power of the time, liberating a nation from bondage. We crossed the Red Sea with him and we escorted him for forty years in the wilderness, as he led his beloved people through every crisis. And now, this glorious life—one that never was and never would be again—comes to an end. All in one simple verse, almost deceiving in its simplicity.
And yet something strange happens. As we complete the Torah, we start to dance and dance. How? Is it even appropriate to dance at this moment when we read of Moses’ death?
Just a few weeks ago, scientists finally managed to develop the technology that allowed them to decipher an ancient Torah scroll, 2000 years old that was burnt. It was the oldest Torah they ever discovered in a Synagogue situated in the Aron Kodesh. The scroll was found in a burnt down shul in Ein Gedi. In the remains of the ark of the synagogue, the archaeologists found a parchment rolled up but entirely burned, so damaged by fire that it was impossible to unroll it for inspection without the charred parchment crumbling into ashes, until Kentucky University figured out how to do it.
What they discovered when they managed to unravel the scroll was startling.
The story of Israeli girls who smuggled out a Torah from Poland; the story of a Rebbe who pulled himself around a beam in Auschwitz on Simchas Torah to perform Hakafos; the story of the oldest living man in the world who celebrated his bar mitzvah three weeks ago—all explain to us why Jews read about Moses’ passing and they start dancing.
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