And there was hail, and fire flaming within the hail, very heavy, the likes of which

 had never been throughout the entire land of Egypt since it had become a nation.

(Shemot 9:24)

 

within the hail - Our rabbis did not interpret within [betokh] as in betokh Bneu Yisrael [within the Israelites], where its meaning is like the word bein - "between" - marking a division between two things. Rather it is like kol asher betokho - everything within it - which refers to the inside and middle of something, for the hailstones were hollow in the middle, which was full of fire, like the seeds inside the peel of a pomegranate. From the outside, the fire looked like a candle inside of a lamp.

(HaKtav VeHaKabbala, loc cit)

 

The Song of Songs of Solomon - Of Him Who possesses peace and Who deals peacefully with His creations; the sun shines on the righteous and on the wicked and He makes peace between the angels, as it is said, He Who makes peace in His heights, that the water does not extinguish the fires of lightning, and the lightning does not burn the water. The sun and the moon and the stars are formed of fire and they rush and move yet there is peace between them and they do not harm each other. And so you find, fire flaming within the hail - that they both [the fire and the hail] would descend together as one and would not harm each other. And similarly at Mount Sinai its clouds dropped hail and burning coals on the earth. It is impossible for an ox to even look at a lion, but in the heavens the ox and the lion appear together in the Chariot.

(Yalkut Shimoni Shir haShirim 980)

 

The Experience of History and Impatience

Yaakov (Jeffery) Green

In memory of our dear son Asher Ze'ev

Who fell to his death a year ago at the age of 28.

Think for a moment about the tens of thousands of Hebrew slaves born after the rise of the Pharaoh who did not know Joseph but who died before the Exodus from Egypt. Those Israelites missed the redemption; they missed the foundational event of Jewish history.

We can know what we missed by being born too late, but we cannot know what we will miss by dying too soon. The way we experience the historical events that take place in the course of our lives is dependent upon various circumstances, most of which we do not choose or have any control over: when and where we were born, to which parents, into which social class, and so on. It is rare that a person can choose and shape his fate as the Israelites did upon their Exodus from Egypt.

Such is the nature of life within the framework of history, and throughout the generations, Jewish thinkers have been aware of this aspect of the human predicament. It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of the temporal dimension in Judaism. We believe in a God Who interferes in history. He is reflected in history and our relationship with Him changes in the course of history. However, this understanding of God's role in the changing world of historical events creates a theological paradox: How can a perfect and unchanging God create and administer an imperfect and ever-changing world?

The Torah is untroubled by this paradox. The Torah is aware that we change. Every year the Jewish People arranges for itself a new encounter with the Torah, and we - as individuals and as a corporate body - are not who we were in previous years. We have undergone events in our private lives - successes and failures, joyous occasions and mourning - as well as broader historical events: 5769 will be remembered as a year of global economic crisis, as the year in which an African-American was elected to serve as president of the USA, as the year of Israel's war in Gaza - and yet more may be on its way. In such a year we seek certain messages in the Torah and we find them.

There is no absolute Torah. There is only the Torah which comes to light when we read it in our own changing context; it is precisely because we see ourselves - both as individuals and as the corporate Jewish People - in the Torah that it remains relevant. Acting as a mirror, the Torah has always shown us and continues to show us different figures according to whoever stands before it and how they look into the "mirror."

When I read our parasha's opening verses in the light of my interest in changes of personal and historical contexts, the reciprocal and changing relations between God and the Israelites come forth as their central topic. When God speaks to Moses He emphasizes the link with the past - He is the God of the Patriarchs - but He also announces certain changes in His status vis-à-vis the people.

The parasha opens with a formulation that is often repeated throughout the Torah: And God spoke to Moses, and said to him. Instead of continuing to read, let us stop here and consider the meaning of those words. Today God no longer speaks directly to people. No one conducts direct negotiations with his Maker. A deep and significant change has taken place in the history of our relationship with God.

In a seemingly unnecessary move, God immediately identifies Himself: I am the Lord. Moses is supposed to know who was talking to him, but God wants to make sure he will not err. That is why He continues to mention His connection with the Patriarchs; He appeared before them as El Shaddai - a different dimension of Divinity whose nature is a matter for disagreement among the commentators.

But My name the Lord I did not make known to them - the revelation of the Lord's Name - the Tetragrammaton - to Moses is a matter of the greatest importance; it is a sign of the move from God's earlier relationship with the Patriarchs to His future relationship with the People Israel.

The covenant between God and the Patriarchs was concerned with the right to live in the Land: to give them the land of Canaan, the land of their sojournings in which they sojourned. Now, however, the covenant will not be limited to the dwelling place of the Patriarchs and their families (true, these were not merely nuclear families consisting of parents and children, but rather large households which included servants and other hangers-on). God says: And also, I heard the moans of the children of Israel. This is no longer a matter of elite individuals with whom God has a personal relationship; rather, God is talking about an entire people: whom the Egyptians are holding in bondage.

God continues: and I remembered My covenant. This is yet another new historical development. For quite some time, perhaps during the period in which the Israelites did not moan or complain but instead submissively accepted servitude, God chose not to remember His covenant. Next God tells Moses exactly what he should say to the Israelites: I am the Lord - God identifies Himself just as He had identified Himself to Moses. Then He describes what He has set out to do, stage by stage. First, He will put an end to the suffering of servitude: I will take you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will save you from their labor. He describes the means He will use to achieve these ends, i.e., "personal intervention": and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great judgments. This will result not only in cessation of the burdens of the Egyptians, but also in a change of status for the Israelites: And I will take you to Me as a people, and I will be a God to you. This will also involve a change of consciousness: and you will know that I am the Lord your God, Who has brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. Finally, God links the distant past of the Patriarchs with the promised future: I will bring you to the land, concerning which I raised My hand to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, and I will give it to you as a heritage; I am the Lord.

God concludes by repeating His opening words: I am the Lord. This conclusion emphasizes the deep change of status to be undergone by the people. God's Name had been unknown until He revealed it to Moses but now it will be known to all.

This impressive promise is followed by deep disappointment: Moses spoke thus to the children of Israel, but they did not hearken to Moses because of [their] shortness of breath and because of [their] hard labor. Just as God is capable of not remembering His covenant, so too, human beings can fail to hear God's word because they are troubled, because of shortness of breath. They are not yet ready for the intimate connection with God that will develop later in the wilderness of Sinai. Indeed, here God's word is just a single example of a broad category of things that shortness of breath keeps them from hearing, which includes messages from other people, from nature, and from their own consciences.

Here, by the way, we can glimpse Moses' greatness. In the end of last week's parasha he complained: yet You did not save Your people. Given that negative impression, it is surprising that Moses did not quit his mission and return to Midian. God understands Moses' psychological state - shortness of breath - and that is why He identifies Himself in the beginning of our parasha. The condition of shortness of breath can keep one from hearing at all; it can also cause one to mistake messages coming from a non-authoritative source for the word of God.

We, of course, do not live in a period in which God speaks words of truth directly to prophets. We live in a period in which each individual message must be judged on its own merits and in terms of criteria which are neither always clear nor fixed. Our placement in the stream of history involves a lack of certainty. Often, the historical importance of a deed only becomes clear after quite some time. What would appear more important: an Egyptian royal dynasty or a family line of shepherds in Canaan? We have already received a definite answer to that question, but we will have to wait a long time to receive answers to other existential questions; perhaps we will not receive the answers during our short stay in this world.

I began my remarks by mentioning the case of the Hebrew Slave who died before the Exodus from Egypt, thus missing out on the redemption. That is only one kind of missed opportunity. Since the significance of events changes in the light of later events and in the light of how they are interpreted by each new generation, in our generation we are also limited in our ability to understand both the past and the present. We must accept that limitation with humility and not allow it to cause us shortness of breath.

Jeff Yaakov Green is a translator

 

A Tribute to Micky Rosen

On 11 Kislev (December 7th 2008), Rabbi Micky Rosen, the founder and moving spirit of Yakar, died after a brief illness.

Micky Rosen (he was called thus by all) was a man of many parts. He was a deeply religious person - a strictly observant Jew, a Torah scholar deeply involved in learning and teaching, a man of prayer; a man who loved the Western humanistic tradition, and had a lively interest in art, music, literature; a person deeply committed to the values of democracy, tolerance, and the dignity of every human being. Yakar, which he founded in London in the early 1980's and in Jerusalem a decade later, and most recently in Tel-Aviv, reflected these concerns. It was (and is!) a "Center for Tradition and Creativity" - a place that combined the functions of synagogue; Beit Midrash/learning community; a center for the arts, music and culture; and an arena for social concern.

His social and political concerns were particularly unusual within the Israeli Orthodox world. Within a milieu that tends to be nationalistic and "hawkish" on the Arab-Israel conflict, he was an outspoken advocate of peace with the Palestinians and of their rights as human beings. An important facet of Yakar was its Center for Social Concern that served as a forum for public discussion of controversial issues, and invited spokesmen from all viewpoints, both Jew and Arab. As such, it was a place where Palestinian spokesmen were regularly invited to participate in discussions of the burning national conflict; at one point, Yakar also held a joint Midrasa/Bet Midrash, at which Jews and Muslims together studied sources of both traditions, at an effort at mutual understanding. The Center is headed by a former South African, militantly anti-apartheid journalist, Benjamin Pogrund. Micky believed in tolerance, and had a great deal of curiosity about different people and their world-views. He seemed to enjoy inviting diverse people to Yakar, and enjoyed the role of interviewer, which he performed with great aplomb.

Mickey was drawn towards Hasidism, but of a very specific type - without the personality cult of rebbes, and without the complex Kabbalistic superstructure. He found a home of sorts in the school of Psyshkhe (Przysucha), a school which demanded a rigorous spirit of truth, of honesty with one's self, of authenticity, and eschewing conventional models of external "frumkeit" (piety) or ecstasy. In recent years, he was much engaged in writing a book on the thought of Reb Simhah Bunim, which was published less than a year before his death: The Quest for Authenticity: The Thought of Reb Simhah Bunim (Jerusalem - New York: Urim, 2008).

Prayer constituted a central part of who he was. Under his leadership, a special style of prayer was developed within the Yakar community, one in which song and melody played an important role in preparing the soul for prayer. Micky constantly stressed the importance of sincerity and authenticity in prayer; when leading the davening at Yakar, he tried with all his being not to strike a false note, steering a path between the Scylla of superficial enthusiasm and the Charybdis of rote reading of the words or cloying sentimentality. For him, the essence of prayer was not so much beseeching God for one's needs, nor praising and extolling God as such, but the yearning for communion, the quest for God's presence. This approach is perhaps best summed up in the words of Psalm 139, which served him as a kind of motto:

It is beyond my knowledge;

It is a mystery; I cannot fathom it.

Where can I escape from Your spirit?

Where can I flee from Your presence?

If I ascend to heaven, You are there;

If I descend to Sheol, You are there too!

פליאה דעת ממני, נשגבה לא אוכל לה

אנה אלך מרוחך ואנה מפניך אברח

אם אסק שמים שם אתה, ואציעה שאול הנך...

In addition to all this, there was a little-known element of real heroism in the way he conducted his life. For many years, indeed, throughout most of his adult life, he struggled with a serious degenerative disease. Yet despite the restrictions this imposed upon him, he never felt sorry for himself: he saw life as an arena for action, for working, for doing things - and those of us who were privileged to know him saw him thus as well - as a dynamic, vital person, full of life.

He was his own man, who possessed his own inner compass; he was a non-conformist - if you will, a kind of "English eccentric" in Rabbinic garb. Oblivious to "trends," he had a clear vision of what Yakar was meant to be - a center for a certain type of Jewish cultural, religious and ethical renewal (in this respect joining, in his own modest way, the tradition of such people as Rav Kook and Hillel Zeitlin). May his life-work continue to yield fruit after him, and may his memory be a blessing.

Yehonatan Chipman

 

Subjugation of the Subjugators

Why did He bring frogs upon the Egyptians? Because they had subjugated the Israelites, ordering them "Bring us abominations and crawling things." Therefore He brought upon them frogs, and when they would pour into their glasses, they would fill up with frogs.

(Shemot Rabbah 10:4)

 

If we examine the places that were disturbed so disrespectfully by the frogs, we find reference to all the instances in which the Egyptian masters embittered the lives of their Jewish slaves. As slaves, our fathers had no homes, no private family rooms, no sleep, no proper bread (our own lekhem oni - "bread of affliction" reminds us of this), in all these places these timid creatures promenaded and showed the Egyptians what it means not to be able to quietly enjoy one's house, one's bed, one's bread, without having to fear every moment disturbance by annoying entries.

(Rabbi Shimshon Rafael Hirsch, Shemot 7:28)

 

A Time for Peace or a Time for War?

In contrast to many of the parashat hashavua sheets distributed in synagogues, we try to involve ourselves with Torah rather than current political issues. At the same time, we also choose to present and emphasize the values of justice, peace, respect for human beings, and love of the stranger from a Torah perspective. We feel that this perspective is not otherwise given clear expression. Furthermore, Shabbat Shalom is printed well ahead of the week in which it is distributed, so that we cannot react to current events in "real time."

In any case, as these lines are being written the war in the south of the country has not yet ended. We hope and pray that by the time this issue of Shabbat Shalom reaches its readers that all of the residents of southern Israel and also all of our neighbors who are not involved in terror, will have been able to return to their normal lives, free of disturbances and threats.

Pinchas Leiser, Editor

 

 

 

 

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