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ACHAREI MOT 5784
Darkness and Light
Rabbi Andrew Shaw
Chief Executive, Mizrachi UK
I have just come back from a wonderful Pesach programme in Brighton.
One of the wonderful things about Shabbat and Chag is the ability to focus on the things that matter, family, friends, shul, learning, God etc. You switch off from the world and can just connect to the essence of these sacred days.
With the way the world is at the moment – that truly is a blessing!
We look with incredulity and disgust at the recent scenes on university campuses at Columbia and UCLA, spreading now to universities here in the UK.
Two days ago, Israeli Ambassador Gilad Erdan gave an impassioned speech at the United Nations General Assembly – it is well worth watching https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=Q3tu1HkWYOw
He speaks about the situation on US Campuses.
Just as Germany was the world capital of science and culture, yet it was there that Nazism was born and spread, history is now repeating itself. Elite universities, supposed bastions of liberalism and academia, have now become the breeding ground for the most heinous racism and bigotry. Those that carry on the Nazi’s race theory, today are resorting to violence,
shattering windows, attacking Jewish students and calling for their removal from campus The images that have come out of Colombia University are reminiscent of Kristallnacht!
Over Pesach one of our guests, a Holocaust survivor, shared similar thoughts, as he sees worrying parallels between now and the 1930s.
The fact that this Sunday is Yom Hashoah makes these comments even more worrying.
Worrying times indeed.
However, I disagree. Not that there isn’t a real and major problem out there, but rather, that our attitude should not be one of fear but one of strength and pride.
Let me explain
Pesach celebrates our Exodus from Egypt, and Shavout the receiving of the Torah. For over 3000 years, only the Omer and Pesach Sheini occurred between the two chagim That Omer changed from a positive journey of growth, into days of semi-mourning after the destruction of the 2nd temple and the resulting exile of Jews from Eretz Yisrael by the Roman Empire following the Bar Kochba revolt.
For those ensuing centuries we were surrounded by our enemies, constantly harassed, persecuted, expelled and killed. There were occasional bright spots, but on the whole the thousands of years since the fall of Beitar in 135 CE were a constant battle with the ruling power of the local area where Jews were, with constant antisemitism, horri c laws and restrictions and no place to call home. The centuries of this repeated agenda eventually reached an appalling climax and culminated in the Shoah – which we recall on Sunday
Yet look at us today.
We are a transformed people.
We just need to look to the Omer, a symbol of national destruction in our past, that has now become a symbol of our rebuilding in the present, with the celebrations of both Yom Haatzmaut and Yom Yerushalayim.
In 1956 Rav Soloveitchik, talking about the impending redemption, gave a speech at Yeshiva University which sent shock waves throughout the Jewish world.
It was titled “Kol Dodi Dofek. – the Beloved knocks”. He told Shir Hashirim’s tragic story of a couple deeply in love. A story we read on Shabbat Chol Hamoed Pesach.
One night, the young lover knocks on his beloved’s door, but she is too tired and tells him sleepily to go away and come back tomorrow.
She awakens the next day and goes searching for him but eventually realizes he has gone forever, lost to her for all time because she missed her opportunity.
The Rav argued that each of us is given a chance to reach for something, to become great and to actualise our potential. We learn from Shir HaShirim that we must not let apathy, feelings of inadequacy or laziness spoil this opportunity.
The Rav then spoke of six knocks on the collective door of the Jewish people which is calling us all to awaken to our responsibilities as Jews and reach for greatness.
These knocks were the six miraculous events accompanying the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948.
The rst was political; How could Israel have been created? Both the United States and the USSR voted for the creation of a Jewish state, enemies united! Could you imagine today the United Nations voting for a Jewish state!
The second was military; A tiny Jewish ghting force, handicapped by an arms embargo and massively outnumbered and outgunned, staffed by holocaust survivors, somehow emerged victorious
The third was theological; For thousands of years throughout the exile, our religion had been ridiculed by the church The failed religion, the pathetic religion, the expelled religion. Now, Christian doctrine was refuted by the Jewish people re-emerging as a vibrant player on the world stage.
The fourth was sociological; Jews, especially young people from around the world, felt proud to be Jewish and free to re-engage with their Jewish identity. Israel has given us pride.
The fth was attitudinal; As the international community realised that with the birth of Israel the Jews now had a homeland and Jewish blood could no longer be shed freely and without fear of retribution. October 7th has happened many times in our history, but before 1948, there was nothing we could do Today we can ght back and we are strong
The sixth knock was the in ux of exiles; Jews returned to Israel from around the world. We prayed every day for thousands of years for Hashem to ingather the exiles, and it happened!
But the Rav was speaking in 1956.
That was before the miracle of 1967, the return of Yerushalayim
That was before the incredible impact of Israel as a country throughout the world on medicine, agriculture, security and so much more It is a true Or La Goyim, light to the nations.
So yes, I look at what is happening in the world and I see hatred, I see darkness and I see evil.
However, I look at my people and I see love, light and goodness.
I was inspired this week with a video from UCLA. Across the road from the pro Hamas protests, where all we saw was hatred, barricades and darkness, we saw Israeli ags ying, there was joy, there was unity and they were singing Am Yisrael Chai
We have to stand tall, stand strong and realise who we are and what we stand for.
I think Ambassador Erdogan summed it up perfectly in his conclusion to the despicable, antisemitic, Hamas enabling, United Nations General Assembly when he said:
“On Passover the Jewish people commemorate our Exodus from Egypt. Egypt was a world superpower, yet we were victorious.
This has been the story of the Jewish people from that day forward. We all recite this every Passover ‘God's promise is what has stood b your ancestors and us for it was not only one man that rose up to destroy us but in every generation people rise up to destroy us and God Saves us from their hands’
Remember many have tried to destroy us from the most powerful of Empires to the most evil of decrees, but all have failed, we are the Eternal people and Israel is here to stay. Thank you Mr President.”
We must continue to be strong, to be proud, to defend Israel and the Jewish people. To ght against our enemies and pray for the defeat of Hamas and the release of all the hostages. However, we must never forget the bigger picture, of who we are, where we have come from and where we are ultimately going.
Shabbat Shalom
WATCH: Dvar Torah from Rabbi Benjy Rickman >
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