It is said in the name of the Vilna Gaon that the essential meaning of any given Hebrew word lies in the word’s first appearance in the Torah.
A traditional hope declared by those gathered for a bris milah after the circumcision is performed is “Zeh hakatan gadol yih’yeh!” – May this small one become a great [literally, “large”] one!
The words for small and large, katan and gadol respectively, first appear in parshas Beraishis, in the context of the creation of the sun and moon, the most prominent luminaries in our sky.
The midrash, quoted by Rashi (Beraishis 1:16), notes how both luminaries are at first called “large,” but then the sun alone retains that adjective, and the moon is called “small.” Both, the narrative goes, were originally equally powerful, but the moon complained, “Is it possible for two kings to use one crown?” To which Hashem replied, “Go, then, and make yourself small.”
The sun did not enter the conversation, allowing the moon its day in heavenly court. And it ended up retaining its “large” status while the moon was diminished.
A baby is entirely self-centered, demanding its food and comfort and oblivious to the needs of others (as many an exhausted parent can confirm). Perhaps our blessing that the newly circumcised boy will go from “smallness” to “largeness” is a hope that he will progress from being a demanding creature, like the example of the moon in the midrash, to a serene one, like that of the sun.
The Talmud (Shabbos 88b) describes such people as “those who are insulted and do not insult, who hear their shame and do not respond, who act out of love and are joyful in suffering.”
And, interestingly, it applies to them the pasuk “And they that love Him are as the sun going forth in its might” (Shoftim, 5:31).
Imagine a man who has spent years waiting for his daughter, his only child, to get married, and then, as he surveys the lavish wedding hall on the day of her wedding, is arrested by police and dragged off to jail. What anguish he would feel.
It would be but the faintest shadow of the agony Moshe must have felt when he was shown the land promised to Klal Yisrael, the land to which he led the people for 40 years, and was told by Hashem that he will not enter it, that he is about to die.
And so, when the Midrash, quoted by Rashi, says (in response to the question of how Moshe could record the fact that he died) that Moshe wrote the words bidema, “in tears,” the simple meaning is that he wrote of his death while still alive. (Torah, being beyond time, allowed for that fact). And that his tears were over his having been deprived of entering Eretz Yisrael.
He cried. Like all us humans, imbued with emotions, do. And the “sin” that prevented him from entering the land, his frustrated hitting of a rock instead of speaking to it, also reflected an all-too-human emotion. Moshe was unique among human beings, to be sure. He was anav mikol adam, more humble than any other person. But a person, all the same; he was a mortal human being.
My rebbe, Rav Yaakov Weinberg, zt”l, would often note that other religions’ heroes are described as faultless superhumans. Not so the personages who are extolled by the Torah, even Moshe Rabbeinu, who was, although closer to perfection than anyone, still human. He erred. He cried.
And that uniqueness of the Torah, Rav Weinberg would stress, is a reflection of the fact that, unlike the “holy books” of various religions, it alone is Hashem’s word, not the product of a fabulist human writer.
A piece I wrote for Haaretz that appeared right after Yom Kippur can be read here. A PDF copy of the piece can be requested at rabbiavishafran42@gmail.com
I used to pass the fellow each morning as I walked up Broadway in lower Manhattan on my way to work. He would stand at the same spot and hold aloft, for the benefit of all passers-by, one of several poster-board signs he had made. One read “I love you!” Another: “You are wonderful!” The words of the others escape me, but the sentiments were similar.
He looked normal and was decently dressed, and he smiled broadly as he offered his expressions of ardor to all of us rushing to our offices. I never knew what had inspired his mission, but something about it bothered me.
Then one day I put my finger on it. It is ridiculously easy to profess love for all the world, but it is simply not possible. Gushing good will at everyone is offering it in fact to no one at all.
By definition, love must exist within boundaries, and our caring for those close to us is of a different nature than our empathy for others with whom we don’t share our personal lives. What is more, only those who make the effort to love their immediate families and friends have any chance of truly caring, on any level, about others.
Likewise, those with the most well-honed sense of concern for their own communities are the ones best suited to experience true empathy for people outside of their communal worlds.
It’s an appropriate thought for this time of Jewish year, as Sukkos gives way, without a second’s pause, to Shemini Atzeres.
Sukkos, interestingly, includes something of a “universalist” element. In the times of the Beis Hamikdash, the seven days of Sukkos saw a total of seventy parim offered on the mizbeiach, corresponding, says the Gemara, to “the seventy nations of the world.”
The families of people on earth are not written off by our mesorah. A mere four days before Sukkos’s arrival, on Yom Kippur, we read Sefer Yonah. That navi was sent to warn a distant people to repent, saving them from destruction. The Sukkos parim, the Gemara informs us, brought divine blessings down upon all the world’s peoples. Had the ancient Romans known just how greatly they benefited from the merit of karbanos, Chazal teach, they would have placed protective guards around the Beis Hamikdash.
And yet, curiously, Sukkos’s recognition of humanity’s worth is juxtaposed with Shemini Atzeres, which expressed Hashem’s special relationship with Klal Yisroel.
The famous parable:
A king invited his servants to a large feast that lasted a number of days. On the final day of the festivities, the king told the one most beloved to him, “Prepare a small repast for me so that I can enjoy your exclusive company.”
That is Shemini Atzeres, when Hashem “detains” the people He chose to be an example to the rest of mankind, when, after the seventy parim of the preceding seven days, a single par, corresponding to Klal Yisroel, is brought on the mizbeiach.
We Jews are often assailed for our belief that Hashem chose us from among the nations to proclaim His existence and to call on all humankind to recognize our collective immeasurable debt to Him.
And those who are irritated by that message like to characterize the special bond Jews feel for one another as hubris, even as contempt for others.
The very contrary, however, is the truth. The special relationship we Jews have with each other and with HaKodosh Boruch Hu, the relationships we acknowledge in particular on Shemini Atzeres, are what provide us the ability to truly care – not with our mere lips or poster boards – about the rest of the world. They are what allow us to hope – as we declare in Aleinu thrice daily – that, even as we reject the idolatries that have infected the human race over history, one day “all the peoples of the world” will come to join together with us and “pay homage to the glory of Your name.”
With Yom Kippur approaching, I used my Ami column to share a cherished erev Yom Kippur interaction I had a number of years ago with my dear father, a”h. You can read it here.
Although I appreciate most humor, even jokes about Jews, I have always found comedian Alan King’s wry summary of Jewish holidays, “They tried to kill us, we won, let’s eat!” profoundly unfunny.
Not that we Jews don’t deserve a bit of mockery for our… enthusiasm… regarding things culinary. But the “They tried to kill us” introduction is too painfully true to be even part of a bon mot. Whether the “they” tried to kill us spiritually or physically, from ancient times in Egypt and Babylonia and Persia and Greece and the Roman Empire and the Crusades to more recent history including the Holocaust and Soviet Communism, there have been just so many they’s.
Mark Twain famously observed in 1898 – even before the the USSR and the Holocaust – that “Properly the Jew ought hardly to be heard of; but he is heard of, has always been heard of…
“He has made a marvelous fight in this world, in all the ages; and has done it with his hands tied behind him. He could be vain of himself, and be excused for it. The Egyptian, the Babylonian, and the Persian rose, filled the planet with sound and splendor, then faded to dream-stuff and passed away; the Greek and the Roman followed, and made a vast noise, and they are gone; other peoples have sprung up and held their torch high for a time, but it burned out, and they sit in twilight now, or have vanished.
“The Jew saw them all, beat them all, and is now what he always was, exhibiting no decadence, no infirmities of age, no weakening of his parts, no slowing of his energies, no dulling of his alert and aggressive mind. All things are mortal but the Jew; all other forces pass, but he remains. What is the secret of his immortality?”
The secret is Hashem, of course, and the merit of our forefathers. And our eternal survival is encapsulated in the parsha, in the words “I will exhaust my arrows” (Devarim 32:23). Which the Midrash, cited by Rashi, expands upon: “My arrows will come to an end but they [Klal Yisrael] will not.”
A time will come, the Torah warns, when Hashem, as a result of Klal Yisrael’s actions, will seem to “abandon them and hide My countenance from them” and “many evils and troubles will befall them” (Devarim 31:17).
And “on that day,” the people will say: “Surely it is because Hashem is not in our midst that these evils have found us” (ibid).
That common translation, however, isn’t literal. What the pasuk really says is “because my Hashem is not in my midst that these evils have found me.”
The straightforward understanding of that expression of anguish is that Hashem’s “hidden face” will cause the Jewish people to doubt His love for them. The singular possessives and object would then simply be personifications of a collective feeling of abandonment.
But the use of the singular may point to a source of behavior that can lead to the “many evils and troubles,” a singularly personal attitude: Jewish individuals – as individuals – imagining that Hashem, although He is “my Hashem,” isn’t truly in me.
That, in other words, there isn’t within me inherent holiness and the attendant ability to unlock it.
And, indeed, Torah-study and mitzvos, so many Jews think, just aren’t them. They’re fine and doable, but for others.
For rabbis.
“Orthodox” ones.
And the delusion that we don’t have momentous potential isn’t limited to Jews estranged from their religious heritage. Dedicated observant Jews are vulnerable, too, to feelings of despondency born of feeling “unholy,” incapable of what they may know the Torah asks of them, but feel just “isn’t them.”
None of us, though, is “unholy.” Hashem took the trouble, so to speak, to grant each of us existence, and that means His plan includes us as essential players, capable of holiness.
We’re so used to the phrase, we don’t think about what it means.
I speak of “Ultra Orthodox,” the common description of Jews who, like Jews since Sinai, consider Torah divine, halachah sacrosanct and the Jewish mission imperative.
What does “ultra” bring to mind in, say, politics? Does “ultra-conservative” conjure an image of a judicious, reasonable Mike Pence or of a racist, antisemitic Pat Buchanan? Would you invest money into an “ultra-risky” venture? What does it mean when a racing competition is called an “ultra-marathon”?
In all those cases, “ultra” implies something extreme, something abnormal. No, world, we’re not freaks. We’re observant Jews, Orthodox Jews. If distinguishing adjectives are indicated, invent them to describe other Jews.
It’s widely and properly accepted in our country that racial, ethnic and religious groups have the right to determine how they wish others to refer to them. “Negro” has been replaced with “African-American”; “Oriental,” with “Asian-Americans.” But “ultra” seems to stick to journalistic and public discourse like mud. And, unlike “Negro” and “Oriental,” the term is inherently pejorative.
Examples abound of subtle disdain for traditional Orthodox Jews. Like how, when we dare to buy homes in new neighborhoods, we are portrayed as invaders. Neighborhoods change. That’s life. And are we bringing crime, drugs and gangs with us – or increasing the worth of current homeowners’ properties?
Then there’s how we vote in “blocs.” Creepy word, that, redolent of things like “Communist bloc” or “Arab bloc.”
Other identifiable groups’ members also tend to vote in tandem. There’s the “black vote” and the “Hispanic vote.” Why are only we “ultras” a “bloc”?
Astoundingly, the New York Times, in its recent hit piece on chassidishe yeshivos, sees nefariousness even in yeshivos encouraging parents to vote. The promotion of a civic duty is somehow suspect? That there are candidates favored by yeshiva communities is unethical? Doesn’t the Times regularly offer lists of its own endorsements to its “talmidim,” the readers who respect it as much as, lihavdil, a Satmar chasid respects his Rebbe?
We make no apologies for taking our civic responsibility and legitimate self-interests seriously. Or for voting in higher-than-average proportions. We embrace certain values and goals, and seek to promote them at the ballot box. Pardon, but isn’t that how the American democratic process is supposed to work?
And why is focus placed upon us almost exclusively when a member of our community has done something wrong (or even been accused of such)? Where is coverage in the general Jewish media and non-Jewish media of our community’s abundant and incredibly positive endeavors and accomplishments?
And then there are the stories that gleefully manufacture guilt out of idealism.
Like the aforementioned New York Times’ recent hit piece, which spent part of the paper’s front page and four additional full ones disparaging the chassidishe community, cherry-picking data and haphazardly generalizing. The journalistic jeremiad’s headline, implying financial chicanery, read: “Failing Schools, Public Funds.”
The largest, most striking, of the accompanying photographs shows a chassidishe boy with a look of fear on his face. The intent may have been to imply that he fears his hopeless future or an abusive teacher. More likely, it was the result of the photographer’s sticking a large camera in the boy’s face.
The incredibly negative piece accused yeshivos of – shudder – “censoring” texts. As if a private school, in line with parents’ expectations, has no right to edit material that Times reporters may find innocent but might be seen differently by actual students’ parents.
There are larger issues here. Like parental autonomy over children’s education. And the First Amendment’s guarantee of free exercise of religion; we consider intensive Jewish education, after all, to be nothing less than a religious requirement.
But a diatribe in the guise of journalism constitutes a singular ugliness. And fits the pernicious pattern.
The writers of the recent Times offering, by their surnames, are likely Jews. And the paper’s publisher has Jewish roots. None of them can be accused of antipathy toward Jews.
As a whole, that is.
But there is clear disparagement here, aimed, as in so many instances, by some Jews against some other Jews.
Monitoring media and public discourse has been part of my job at the Agudah for nearly 30 years. I long ago came to realize that haredi Jews have become “the Jews’ Jews.”
“Hashem… will return and gather you in from all the peoples to which [He] has scattered you… and He will bring you to the land that your forefathers possessed and you shall possess it…” (Devarim 30: 3-5).
“The land.”
Eretz Yisrael isn’t its name. It is our description of the fact that it was bequeathed to Klal Yisrael.
But it did have a name: Cna’an. We don’t call it that anymore, but that was its name, and presumably has some meaning. And its meaning must be meaningful.
In his sefer Nachalas Tzvi, Rabbi Meshulam Fayish Tzvi Gross (who had a weekly chavrusa in Kabbalah with Rav Yosef Yitzchok Schneersohn and whose sefarim had haskamos from some of the greatest Gedolim of his time; and who, as Herman Gross, patented several inventions) ventures an answer.
He sees the name rooted in the Hebrew noun hachna’ah, “deference” or “submission.” While other lands, he explains, are overseen by malachim – divine middlemen, not Hashem Himself – Eretz Yisrael is different; hence the palace of the King demands a special degree of hachna’ah.
He cites the fact that the phrase “me’od me’od” is used both to refer to the goodness of the land (Bamidbar 14:7) and to the degree to which we are to feel shfal ruach, lowly (Ravi Levitas in Pirkei Avos, 4:4).
What occurs to me as well is the idea that, when in possession of Eretz Yisrael, we Jews are to be constantly cognizant that it is a yerushah, a bequeathal, to us from Hashem. And that, even when we rightly tell the world that the land is divinely meant for us, we must ourselves always fully and humbly remember that it isn’t our political or military power that maintains our possession of the Holy Land, but Hashem’s kindness in having allowed us to return to it.
