Hatred Revealed
By Rabbi Pinchos
Lipschutz
Anti-Semitism is a thing of the past.
When the Jews were poor and the Christians were needy back in Europe, the Jews
were convenient scapegoats for everything.
When the Jews in the shtetlach were destitute, their neighbors looked down upon them.
When the Jews were defenseless and the Christians were illiterate, pogroms
would regularly erupt. Jews would be killed, pillaged, beaten and robbed.
Today, with everyone educated, such
things could never happen, right? When the Jews spoke their own language and kept
to themselves in the old country, their neighbors looked down upon them because
they kept apart and did their own thing. Today, Jews are part of society,
everyone loves and respects us for our achievements. When we lived in hovels
and shanties, we were mistreated and unwanted, but now that we have large, nice
homes, we have come a long way. Society no longer abhors us.
We are advanced and with-it. We dress
well, live well, shop well, drive nice cars, earn money, and speak the
country’s language without an accent. Jews are lawyers, doctors, congressmen,
senators, and presidential candidates. We are enmeshed in society. Nobody looks
down upon us anymore, viewing us as disloyal parasites. That’s all in the past.
No more.
Jews get killed in Israel because the
Arabs there want their land. Here we live freely, with all the rights man can
desire. Jews get killed in France because Arabs live there and brought their
hatred with them. Here, that could never happen.
Admit it. It Didn’t Really Affect You.
By now, we ought to know how fallacious
such thinking is. Jews were killed in Pittsburgh just because they were Jews. A
Jew was killed in a shul in Poway,
California, for committing the sin of being a Jew. But admit it: You were never
in Pittsburgh and couldn’t find Poway on a map, so it didn’t really affect you.
Last week’s murder of two Satmar chassidim across the river from New York
City hit home, because it happened around the corner. Or did it? How many of us
no longer feel safe here? How many of us look over our shoulder when in public?
How many stopped wearing their tallis
in the street, as prescribed by the Mogein
Avrohom for Jews in golus, and
how many feel that this is their home and that they can dress as they please
because those halachos were written a
long time ago and are no longer applicable in our world today?
Listen to this crazy story and think
about it, because it’s not crazy at all.
Rebbetzin Zlata Ginsburg was a daughter
of Rav Yecheskel Levenstein. She was also the mother of my aunt, Rebbetzin
Esther Levin shetichyeh. She was in
my parents’ home and told the following story.
When they were still living in Poland
before the war, she became ill and was recommended to a specialist in Germany.
A young girl, she traveled with her father aboard a train to the German city.
All they had was the doctor’s name and address, but they had no idea how to get
there.
They asked a German man how to get to the
given address. He looked at them and realized that they were foreigners. He
told them that it was too complicated to explain, so he would accompany them to
their destination.
When they arrived at the doctor’s office,
they thanked him profusely for his assistance and he smiled and left. Zlata
turned to her father and commented on how gentlemanly the man was and how a
Polish person would never have been that courteous.
Rav Chatzkel admonished her and said that
if there would be a law to kill Jews, that same gentleman would not hesitate to
kill them.
Time would prove how correct he was.
How do we explain the relentless,
unfathomable hatred?
If Looks Could Kill
We walk in the street and eyes of hatred
follow us. We fly on an airplane and those same eyes of hate are on us. We
can’t get rid of them. We go to a park and those same eyes are there. We move
in to a new house and those eyes are there. Even in a place of justice, we
can’t take anything for granted. If looks could kill, there wouldn’t be many
places we could safely go.
We wonder why. We see the world turning
against us, as it hasn’t since the Holocaust, and we wonder why. We see the
Democrat Party in this country swing against the Jews. The American president
is the friendliest ever towards Jews and Israel, yet it is glossed over and
haters see him as an enemy of all types of people. He issues a proclamation
about fighting rising anti-Semitism on college campuses and is criticized.
Why the hatred? Why the lies? Why is
Judaism blamed for the sorry lives of losers? How is it that stereotypes are
being strengthened and resurrected instead of going the way of archaic
philosophies, capricious and implausible, to be trashed in the dustbin of
illiteracy and irrational absurdity?
We don’t like to be reminded that we are
in golus. We don’t like to be
reminded that it is mipnei chata’einu
that we have to contend with wicked people and their hypocrisy. We don’t want
to be prompted to realize that the way to halt this double standard is to
increase our Torah learning and give more tzedakah
to deserving people and causes.
Too many people are so preoccupied with
mundane things in life that they resist the need to ponder life in a more
serious way. People whose priority is shopping and traveling have a false sense
of security. Too many people think that we really belong here.
And then, every once in a while, we get a
painful reminder that we are still in golus.
Clips proliferated of people blaming what
happened in Jersey City on white supremacists, the government, and of course
the Jews.
People wondered what to tell their kids.
What to tell your kids? Did you ever tell them before that we are in golus? Did you ever tell them the halacha of Eisov soneh l’Yaakov? Did you ever tell them that we don’t belong
here, that we belong in a place far away, with the Bais Hamikdosh at its center? Or did you think that was old
fashioned, as today we don’t have to teach kids about such things? After all,
everything here is cool and calm and homey.
There are people who buy an apartment in
Yerushalayim. People ask them why. Why? Because Yerushalayim is our home,
that’s why. Why? Because we belong there, not here. Why? Whose Jewish heart
doesn’t feel that its real place is Yerushalayim? Why? Because soon Moshiach will come and they want to have
a place in Yerushalayim.
Don’t Ask Why. Ask What?
The Netziv,
famed rosh yeshiva of Volozhin, wrote
a classic treatise on anti-Semitism. In it, he writes:
“In every generation, the enemies of the
Jews are prepared to destroy us and eradicate us from among them, but Hashem
mercifully saves us from them. And although in every generation the hatred is
not the same and the salvation is different, we need to know that the love that
they express for us, even if it lasts a while, cannot last forever, and in
every generation, even when things look good and the hatred is buried well, we
need to know that it exists and is ready to burst out when Hashem decides that
we need to be chastised. It is only when we are totally dedicated to Hashem, as
Yaakov was when Lovon sought his destruction, that we are protected from all
evil.
“Since this steady hatred is the way of
the world, we should not seek reasons to explain why the nations want to
destroy us, for they always do. And if we are in a generation when they
actually act upon that latent hatred, we do not ask what caused them to act in
that way. Rather, we must ask what we
did, for Hashem to cause the hidden hatred to now be revealed, and what we
did to cause Hashem to be upset with us and unleash those who dislike us.”
Wherever we have been, we have always had
to look over our shoulders. Our pursuers have found us during the narrow
straits of the Nine Days and the wide berths of chagim and zemanim lesasson.
They have found us on Yomim Tovim,
Shabbosos, and regular weekdays.
The parsha
recounts (35:21) that following the passing of Rochel Imeinu, Yaakov and his
sons traveled on, setting up camp near Migdal Eider, where they enjoyed a rare
moment of tranquility and relative quiet. Targum
Yonasan Ben Uziel writes that this place, “meiholah leMigdal Eider,” is the location from where “Moshiach will reveal himself.”
Yaakov’s rest symbolizes our respite from
the bitterness and pain of golus.
After the battles, after the wars, after enduring the chicanery of Lovon and
the depravity of Eisov, Yaakov merits some tranquility. And so shall we.
Chazal teach at the
beginning of this week’s parsha, “Bikeish Yaakov leisheiv beshalvah,” that
Yaakov sought to achieve a measure of tranquility in his life. After enduring
constant travail, from dealing with his brother Eisov and his murderous wrath
to Elifaz robbing him of everything he owned, to escaping to the home of Lovon
and facing his thievery and greed, it never ended for him. Each day brought a
new round of trouble and daunting nisyonos.
Instead of growing despondent, Yaakov looked at each new day as a fresh
opportunity to learn more Torah, establish a holy family, and serve Hashem in
the ways of his father and grandfather. Thus, he was successful in what he did,
fulfilling his mission as he prospered and prevailed.
The pattern of Yisroel bein ha’amim is
symbolized by the struggle between Yaakov and the malach of Eisav, which ended when the sun rose. The Torah reports,
“Vayizrach lo hashemesh, vehu tzolei’a al
yereicho - The sun rose and Yaakov was limping.”
The limp reminded Yaakov of the travails
he had experienced throughout his life and overcame. The sun was shining. “Al kein lo yochlu Bnei Yisroel es gid
hanosheh.” Therefore, we don’t eat the gid
hanosheh, which Eisov’s malach
had injured.
By not eating it, we remind ourselves
that the torment we endure is a sign of strength and victory. Our enemies can’t
defeat us with the force of argument and veracity, so they kill us, hurt us,
break our windows, spray swastikas on our walls and graves, and call us
demeaning names. We are reminded that it is a sign of strength to be hounded
and persecuted, as we have been throughout the ages. We are tested again and
again. Our enemies are weak and impotent, and we have the wounds to prove it.
Near
Migdal Eider, Moshiach waits to
reveal himself. May he do so soon in our days.
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