VAYISHLACH5784 The World We Build Rabbi Andrew Shaw Chief Executive, Mizrachi UK I spent this week in Israel. It was my first time since Oct 7th. Thankfully El Al is still flying and after an uneventful and very full flight we landed in the Holy Land. I was immediately struck by the absence of tourists. At passport control, I normally have to wait in snaking queues. All the other passengers with Israeli passports went straight on. I was the solitary person who turned right to foreign passports. There were two booths to choose from, they both got excited when I walked in. Finally, contact with someone! I felt bad letting one of them down! Mizrachi UK are now working with World Mizrachi to allow individuals, families and communities to come on or join solidarity missions to Israel. The missions involve doing Bikur Cholim, visiting an IDF base, volunteering, meeting families of hostages and seeing the site of the atrocities. Please be in touch with us if this is something you want to organise for yourself, your family or your community. I was in Israel for a variety of reasons. First, and in many ways the most important and meaningful, to see and learn with my son in Yeshiva – it doesn’t get much better! Second, to stay in a hotel, eat in restaurants, buy stuff in shops, to help the struggling tourist industry. The third reason I went was to see my dear friend Rav Doron Perez who is still has no information about his son Daniel. We continue to pray for Daniel Shimon ben Sharon and all those still in captivity. And finally, to work, to meet with our wonderful young men and women studying in Yeshiva and Sem. Some of whom will be our mentors and leaders for our Yehudi programme next year. They are really the cream of our community, and we should be very proud of them. It was an emotional and inspiring trip, but the thing that got me thinking the most was not while I was in Israel. It was in the cab home from Heathrow! I was tired, sitting in the back, thinking about the five days I had just experienced, I had no intention to start a conversation with my Uber driver. He asked me how my
trip was and where I can come from? I answered, told him I had just returned from Israel and sat back for a quiet journey. However, he then asked the question I always dread. ‘So can I ask you a question?’ ‘Sure’ I hesitantly said as I geared myself up for some tough questions about Israel. ‘How on earth do people not get it, how can they not support Israel 100%?’ We then had a deep and fascinating conversation about the global situation. He is a Romanian Orthodox Christian who has lived in the UK for eight years. He told me he and his wife are looking to move back to Romania. When I asked him why, his answer shocked me. ‘We want to have children, many children, but the UK does not reflect the values we want our children to be raised in.’ When I asked him about those values, he told me. ‘Family, community, God, tradition, hard work, two parent families, the unique role of a mother and a father, morality’. The Orthodox Jew and the Orthodox Christian were in 100% agreement. The only difference was that I had raised two children in the UK! Thankfully despite the collapse of so much that the UK and the West used to stand for, my children have benefited from all the areas my Uber driver spoke about. I informed him of the goal of so many of us, that our children should spend a year or two immersed in Jewish learning in Israel. He thought it was a remarkable idea! I then decided to give him a Dvar Torah to explain the Jewish idea when it comes to the western world. He knew the bible, so we got straight into this week’s parsha! After Yaacov’s struggle with the angel he finally meets up with his brother Esau who offers him a partnership.
‘Let us travel on and I will walk as your counterpart’Bereishit 33:12 The Rabbis explain that Eisav was tempting Yaacov with a huge amount of power and wealth. For the two brothers to work in partnership and share the bounty of the physical world. Yaacov answered him: ‘Let my master pass on ahead until I come to my master to Seir’ Bereishit 33:13 On his reply, the Medrash makes a fascinating point – Yaacov in his entire life never went to Seir – so what did Yaacov mean? What he was referring to was the messianic era – the end of history. Devarim Rabbah Yaacov was demonstrating histories most famous delayed gratification. And in these few short verses of Vayishlach, Yaacov established the framework of Yisrael and the West. We the Jewish people would stand aside as the Western world took centre stage at the cutting edge of history. Because we have a different mission to complete. Even the names of the brothers’ hint at the ideas at play. Yaacov’s new name, Yisrael, given after the battle with the angel of Eisav, means ‘to grapple, to struggle’. Eisav translates as ‘already made’.
When the two first meet after years of separation Eisav tells Yaacov – Yesh li rav – I have plenty. Rashi tells us that Rav – plenty implies much much more than I need. Yaacov says Yesh li Kol – I have all – Rashi tells us, ‘all that I need.’ Eisav will never be satisfied, if the agenda is ‘much, much more than I need’. His possessions are external to him, they remain superficial. To Yaacov what matters is the connection and the relationship, demonstrated beautifully by another period of delayed gratification in his life, the seven years of toil for his beloved Rachel. Listen to the way the Torah describes this episode. ‘And Yaacov served seven years for Rachel and they seemed to him like a few days so did he love her’ Bereishit 29:28 What do we see here, the more he loved her, the less painful was the time he needed to wait for her. The investment itself, the work itself was an act of love, fulfilling and satisfying in itself. The Uber driver liked the dvar Torah – it was slightly abridged to what I wrote here, but he understood where we get our values from and how we as Orthodox Jews will never give in to secular progressive liberalism as it continues to eat away at the western world as well as give support to the enemies of Israel. To watch this week a council meeting in Oakland, a bastion of far left policies, was shocking – openly defending Hamas and accusing Israel of unspeakable crimes. And it is not just Oakland, many other councils across America are following suit. My uber friend has a legitimate concern to raise children in this type of world, when there are other options. In 1996, when Samuel Huntingdon wrote his famous book, The Clash of Civilisations. I don’t think even he, could have imagined that the clash would not be between two civilisations, but between civilisation and barbarism – and that the west would choose to support barbarism, it is truly shocking. We got to my home, and I was sad to see the Uber driver go. ‘I think we are going to move back to Romania, buy back our family dairy farm, live there, work the land, and raise our family. It will be a simple life, but it will be a life dedicated to the values we know to be true and we don’t have to listen to the idiocy of the West. What do you think?’ he asked. ‘I think you will be a great dad!’ I replied. Five days in Israel and on my return, Hashem gives me an Uber driver to remind me of what Israel stands for and what Yaacov Avinu and his descendants have given to the world. The world may be going mad – but we are completely sane. Baruch Hashem Shabbat Shalom
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