Since assuming office, President Biden has nominated many people for cabinet positions and other high government posts. Many of them are members of the tribe, and all of them are highly qualified for their proposed roles.
Well, with one possible exception, the subject of my Ami column of last week, which you can read here.
Our ancestors’ acceptance of the Torah was imperfect: It included an element of coercion.
The Gemara (Shabbos 88a) teaches that “Hashem held the mountain over the Jews’ heads like a gigis (a barrel).” The Maharal explains that the stunning nature of the experience, the terrifying interaction of human and Divine, left no opportunity for full free will. Directly interacting with Hashem, how could one possibly say no?
And that “coercion” remained a moda’ah, a “remonstration,” against Klal Yisrael, the Gemara teaches, until… the events commemorated by Purim.
In the time of Esther, the Jews chose, entirely of their own volition, to perceive Hashem’s presence where — diametric to the Sinai experience — it was anything but obvious. Instead of seeing the threat against them in mundane terms, Persia’s Jews recognized it as Hashem’s message, and responded with prayer, fasting, and repentance. And so, by freely choosing to perceive Hashem’s hand, they supplied what was missing at Sinai, confirming that the Jewish acceptance of the Torah was — and is — wholehearted and sincere.
The Gemara’s image of Hashem “holding the mountain over their heads” at Sinai is a striking metaphor. But why “like a barrel”? Isn’t a mountain overhead compelling enough? Who ordered the barrel?
One of the ways a person’s true nature is revealed is “b’koso” – “in his cup” – in his behavior when his inhibitions are diluted by drink. (Eruvin, 65b).
On Purim, in striking contrast to the rest of the Jewish year, we are enjoined to drink wine to excess. And what emerges from that observance, at least among Jews who approach the mitzvah properly, is not what we usually associate with inebriation, but rather a holy, if uninhibited, mode of mind.
Thus the revelation of our true nature provided by the Purim-mitzvah perfectly parallels the revelation of the Jews’ wholehearted acceptance of Hashem that took place at the time of the Purim events. With our masks (another Purim motif, of course) removed, we show our true selves.
In Pirkei Avos (4:20), Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi teaches us not “to look at the container, but at what it holds.”
A gigis, throughout the Talmud, contains an intoxicating beverage.
Hashem doesn’t look at the container — the coercion symbolized by the barrel held over our ancestors’ heads — but rather at how Jews act when they have imbibed its contents. He sees not our ancestors’ lack of full free will at the Sinai experience but the deeper truth about the Jewish essence, the one revealed by Purim’s wine.
© 2021 Rabbi Avi Shafran
The fundamental struggle of humanity, stripped of all of history’s dross, is between two views: The recognition of a Creator (and the resultant meaningfulness of human life) and the belief that life is the product of mere chance and, hence, essentially meaningless.
It is the worldview-struggle between Klal Yisrael and Amalek, introduced at the end of this week’s parsha in a military showdown.
We read how the Amalekites attacked the Jews after our ancestors’ exodus from Egypt, and how Moshe Rabbeinu, from a distance, influenced the course of the battle.
“When Moshe lifted his arm, Yisrael was stronger; and when he lowered his arm, Amalek was stronger.” (Shemos 17:11)
The name Amalek, whose final letter is“kuf,” can be parsed as “amal kof” — the “toil of a monkey.” (Kuf and kof are spelled identically, and kof meaning monkey is found, in its plural form, in Melachim I, 10:22 and in Divrei Hayamim II, 9:21.)
Ki adam l’amal yulad — “For man is born to toil” (Iyov, 5:7). We humans are here l’amal, for toil, to work to rise above our base natures and serve our Creator according to His will. Our lives have ultimate meaning. This is the credo of Yisrael.
Amalek, by contrast, sees man as a mere product of chance happenings and random mutations, with no more inherent worth than any animal, including his closest “relative,” the ape.
Curiously, and perhaps significantly, only two creatures are able to lift their arms above their heads: apes and humans.
Might Moshe’s raised arms during the Amalek-Yisrael battle signify Yisrael’s anti-Amalek conviction, that there is a G-d in heaven?
Amalek, too, denying the divine, can raise its arms, but its gesture is meaningless. It is a monkey’s mere and quite literal aping of what Yisrael is doing when it raises its arms heavenward.
Amalek’s “toil” is amal kof, that of a monkey, using its arms only to swing from vine to vine, without any higher aim than getting from here to there.
The pan-historical Yisrael-Amalek struggle is thus a pitting of dedication to Hashem, signified in our parsha by Moshe’s raised arms, against the meaningless toil of human creatures who deny what being human truly means.
While we cannot know the identity of the Amalekites today, the philosophy identified with that people is everywhere around us. But Yisrael and its understanding of life’s meaningfulness will prevail in time.
© 2021 Rabbi Avi Shafran
Chazal describe the Jewish people as a miracle. Our foremothers, for instance, were physically incapable, the Midrash informs us, of bearing children. Yet, despite the laws of nature, they did.
Jewish history, no less, testifies to the miraculous existence of Klal Yisrael. Despite the vicissitudes of our history, our repeated scatterings and exiles, and the insane but ever-present desire of some to wipe us out, we have persevered, and persevere, as a people.
The alpha-point of our peoplehood is in our ancestors’ exodus from Egypt, their leaving behind of their servitude to men for the holy calling of servitude to Hashem. And in this week’s parshah, we read of the preparation for doing that, which includes the first Pesach sacrifice and, perplexingly, the placing of some of the animal’s blood on each Jewish home’s doorposts and lintel — a ritual referred to as an ōs — a “sign” (Shemos, 12:13).
But ōs can also mean a letter of the aleph-beis, the Hebrew alphabet.
The celebrated 16th century Torah luminary, Rabbi Yehudah Loew ben Betzalel, the Maharal, famously associates the number seven with nature, and the next number, eight, with “above” or “beyond” nature — what we would call the miraculous.
Picture the Jewish doorways in Egypt just before the exodus. Imagine away the edifice itself, leaving only the sign of the blood, in two vertical parallel lines along the doorposts and one horizontal one, above and connecting them.
The image is that of a ches, the eighth letter of the Hebrew alphabet.
© 2021 Rabbi Avi Shafran
The vaccines are here, baruch Hashem. But are there reasons to be wary about availing oneself of the injection? To read my answer, please click here.
Only one of the Ten Plagues visited upon Par’oh and Mitzrayim elicits a declaration of guilt and admission of Hashem’s righteousness from the Egyptian leader.“
This time I have sinned,” Par’oh admits. “Hashem is the righteous One, and I and my nation are the wicked ones.” (Shemos 9:27).
It is the plague of hail. Why, of all the other punishments, that one?
What occurs is that the answer may lie in the Midrash brought by Rashi (ibid, 24), that each piece of hail contained a flame, and that water and fire “made peace with each other” in order “to do the will of their Creator.”
Par’oh was an idolater. The Egyptians worshipped the Nile and, according to historians, the sun. Idolatry entails choosing a “team” to be on. One can be on Team Nile, Team Sun, Team Water, Team Fire…
Monotheism entails the recognition that all the “teams” (elohos) are subservient to the one Creator of all the elements (Elohim).
Perhaps Par’oh was forced to confront and internalize that fact by having witnessed, during the plague of hail, the “partnership” of opposites.
Truth be told, we are all comprised of opposites: souls and bodies. Each has its own desideratum. The only way to “make peace” between them is doing the will of our Creator, which requires both elements to work together.
© 2021 Rabbi Avi Shafran
As the Jewish population in ancient Egypt swelled, the Torah tells us that vayakutzu — The Egyptians “were disgusted” (Shemos 1:12). Rashi explains that “they were disgusted with their [own] lives.”
A superficial reading of vayakutzu would lead to a simpler understanding, that the Egyptians, out of fear (as pesukim 8 and 9 describe), found the Jews, not themselves, disgusting. What is the significance of Rashi’s comment?
The Mei Marom (Rabbi Yaakov Moshe Charlop, 1882-1951) posits that the pasuk is teaching a psychological truth: It is impossible to embitter the life of another unless one is embittered with himself. Anyone who appreciates and cherishes his own life will perforce be concerned about the lives of others.
And so, Rabbi Charlop concludes, if one sees someone oppressing another, one can surmise that the oppressor’s cruelty is fundamentally sourced in self-loathing.
© 2021 Rabbi Avi Shafran