HaRav Yaakov Weinberg zt"l
This piece was originally prepared in 1993.
The yesod hayesod, the basis of the possibility of having an Am Yisroel, the most important thing that children can be taught in cheder, both boys and girls, is Ato bochartonu. If we do not appreciate what it means to be Jewish, the Ato bochartanu, the rest of Torah disappears.
Torah cannot exist until there is an understanding, an acceptance, an awareness and an appreciation of Ato bochartanu. We say it in the posuk, "Torah tzivoa lonu Moshe morasha kehilas Yaakov." The Torah is a morasha Kehilas Yaakov.
If I would ask you: What is the most important single posuk that we Jews have to learn? What is the one single most important posuk in all of Torah that a Jew has to learn and know and keep and do? I think that we would all, everyone of us, say that it is, "Shema Yisroel Hashem Elokeinu Hashem Echod."
Would you agree? What is the first thing we do in the morning, and also in the evening, before we go to sleep? What would a Jew die for? And when he is dying, what does he die with? What posuk does he want on his lips? Shema Yisroel Hashem Elokeinu Hashem echod!
It is the posuk of kiddush Hashem. It is a posuk of commitment, it is the posuk of yiras shamayim, a posuk that includes the all- and-all of being a Yid.
The gemora says no. The halacha is that the first posuk that we teach our children is not Shema Yisroel. Shema Yisroel is the second posuk that we teach our children. The first posuk is Torah tziva lonu Moshe morasha kehilas Yaakov. There is no Shema Yisrael unless there is Torah tziva lonu Moshe morasha kehilas Yaakov. Ve'ato behartonu—asher bochar banu micol ha'amim venosan lonu es Toroso. The reason Klal Yisroel was chosen was to get the Torah. Without the Torah there is no Shma Yisroel. Without the choice of Klal Yisroel, there is nothing.
The first and most important thing we can give over to ourselves and to our children is what it is to be a Jew: that it is something special and that is worth whatever it costs. Because unless there is something very, very special about being a Jew, unless there is something very extraordinary and unique about being a Jew, that we can appreciate and look up to and feel that it is worth it, who would choose to be a Jew?
It is easier to be a goy. It's more pleasant to be a goy. It doesn't cost as much to be goy. And after all a goy chassidei olam yesh lohem chelek beolam habo. I can get olam haba and be a goy. I can travel where I want, and always have what to eat. I don't have to worry. Think what a trip is by us it's a gantze project. It's easy for a goy.
I don't have to worry about relationships. Aishes isho okay-how much is that? Other than that, anything goes. And I can get Olam Habo yet too. Why be a Jew? This will be an appreciation of being a Jew is the yesod and the basis of there being able to be an am yisroel. And the Ata bechartonu is the first and most important thing that all the chadorim have to teach.
In America of course it is the life blood to teach the ata bechartonu, because here you are surrounded by yiden, over there you are surrounded by goyim. Veata bechartonu-to recognize that we were chosen, and are accepted and are special is the heart of being a Jew. But it goes more than that. You have to understand very deeply when the Ribono Shel Haolam came to give us His Torah, he spoke to Moshe rabeinu and he said Go and speak to the Beis Yaakov,right,?? Whatever it is. He told them to go and speak to the Jews and to offer them the Torah. What did He say he should say to them? atem reisem asher osisi lemitzrayim veheveisem alei al kanfei nesharim. He said to them you saw what I did to the Mitzrim. Rashi explains ???.the mitzrim did many aveiros they sinned against Me for all the years. And I didn't mind I let them alone. But when they hurt you, that's when I took to them and sent them the makos. So what is it atem reisem asher osisi lemitzrayim-you saw how much I care for you. How does Rashi know that's what it means and it doesn't mean you saw my powers? Because my powers would have said bemitzrayim. Limitzrayim is because it was they who paid the price.?? The vort is that the Rebono Shel Haolam is saying to Moshe that if you want that Klal Yisrael should become Mine and to be mekabel my Torah I first have to show them how much I love them and care for them and how special they are to me. Veheveisem alai al kanfei nesharim-you remember Rashi says the nesher keeps the child above because the only thing it fears is the arrow and it puts its body between the children and the arrow, and that's the way I feel about you my children, Yisroel. And then that is the reason for what are the consequences vehayisem lesegulah a chosen special thing mikol ha'amim of all the nations.
Then what are the requirements, the first things that the Rebono Shel Haolam says to us in order to enable us to accept this yoke, in order for us to be able to say to Him naase venishma I love You, I care for You, You are special to me. The basis. If He needs that in order for us to be able to say to Him naase venishma is that not we need now in order to remain His people? Therefore to appreciate what it is to be a Jew, is the yesod and basis of kabolos hatorah kabolos hamitzvos is the iker of the acceptance on ourselves of the inevitable burden of remaining Jews whatever the cost.
Make no mistake it isn't only in the past that we have had to pay a heavy price for being Jews. We continue to pay that price today. In the past there were times our blood was being hefker lekol ha'amim. Today it is still hefker to a large extent. The nations of the world will become indignant at the loss of any human life unless it happens to be a Jewish life, then it is acceptable. Am I exagerrating or am I stating the facts? Facts. Some men in the United Nations ??outrageous?? and kill a couple of Jews and what do you expect? That's the fact, that is the way it is. Our lives are still hefker to the goyim. We pay for it in so many other ways. And the truth is that if anybody pays for it, the noshim tzidkonios on whom we depend for our existence, for our yeshua in the zechus of noshim tzidkonios nigalu may w??What it means is noshim tzidkonios are the source of our existence in the past and the source of our continuity for all times in the future. Because the noshim of Klal Yisroel are those who make possible the physical continuity and existence of Klal Yisroel.
I don't mean that they bear the children, that is absolutely true. I don't mean that they nurture the children, that is absolutely true. I mean that they create the setting and the bayis out of which their husbands and their sons are able to accept the burden by which to maintain their existence as yiden. That is the nondramatic, it is the non spiritually stimulating life that the woman has to lead and teach that is the basis of Jewish existence. They pay the price of giving up the great prestige, of giving up the dramatic undertaking, fancy careers, the enormous satisfactions of being equal, to being attorney general of the United States and without any doubt, very very soon, she will be a president of the United States. There's no question about that. It's a matter of one generation, two generations, but within a very short time we will see a woman elected as a president of the United States. What delight! What glory! What kovod! What an exciting life. And what does the Yiddishe woman have to do? She cannot be a president of the United States. She cannot take the time off her relationship with family, or the building of her home. She has to be involved in the petty nonglamorous, nondramatic, non-driving day to day pettiness of making a Jewish reality.
We Jews have been accused through all the ages by the great and wise neighbors of whom we live amidst "You Jews are a kitchen religion." You heard that. We Jews are a kitchen religion. The christian is a religion of love, of brightness, of inspiration. What of the Jews? Whether you have a milchige there. Kitchen, kitchen. Did you shecht it? Did you not shecht it? Did you salt it? Wasn't it salted? A kitchen religion. So much of our efforts and energies go into is it kosher? Is it not kosher? What can you eat? What can't you eat? Who cares?
Chazal tell us in several places Ein Hakodesh Boruch Hu nosen gedula leodom ad hotmahu??bedovor koton. Hashem Yisboroch does not give greatness or all his powers to a man until he tests him with little things. Before Moshe Rabeinu is appointed as the leader of all Jewry and the one who is going to take them out of Mitzrayim and give them the Torah, and guide them in the midbar, G-d tested him, Chazal tell us, with small things. To see whether he would take his sheep out far away where there was no chance of them being oiver gezaila, of their taking other people's grass to eat. Harav Tzadik Hacohen, the Lubliner asked the kasher which all of us would automatically ask. If you are going to give greatness, if you're going to make Moshe the teacher and leader of Klal Yisroel, Dovid, the Melech of Klal Yisroel you try him out whether he is going to steal? You try him out with whether he is prepared with mesiras nefesh. Is he then ready to give his life? That's what you test him with. You test him with whether he is a gazlan or not? And he says the profound test of faith he says the teretz to test with mighty, glamorous, dramatic, undertaking this means everyone can draw out of himself for a moment, the power and the courage to give life itself away. That's glamorous. That's dramatic. We have a spiritual adrenalin that runs through our??? and in a time of danger we are physically capable of so much more than we are capable normally. No the test is can you stand the drudgery, the nondramatic, nonglamorous drudgery of day in, day out, doing the things that are right? Going far away into the desert, day in day out to let your sheep not wander into a stranger's field? That is the test of a godol beyisroel. That is test of how a Klal Yisroel can continue to exist. The drudgery, the irritants, the pettiness, of day in day out. Of day in day out worrying about getting up in time for the davening, about what we eat, about how we prepare the food, about what you can prepare on shabbos and what you can't, about what the children can wear, about how long the sleeve is, about how long the skirt is. Day in day out. Nonglamorous, nondramatic, drudgery, pettiness, slowness. That's where the koach and the power of a life dedicated to the Ribone Shel Haolam is to be found. That's where the strength of Klal Yisroel is to be derived. That is the chiyuv of the existence of Klal Yisroel. That is the particular koach and power of the Isha, the noshim tzidkonius who give existence and continuity to Am Yisroel.
And it is that which the ??? of a man is not really able to do. He needs stimulation, he needs growth, he needs a feeling of accomplishment, he needs a feeling of great things that are being done, of building, learning, of expanding. He cannot live with the day in day out which is the basis of a Jewish existence. Ishti zu baisi tesovev????? - if he is to be able to continue to exist on the basic power of his daily life given to him by his wife or his mother. That is where he derives the ability to continue to be. Inspite of disappointment, despite days in which we are not really so extraordinary, accomplishmentful. She is the source of the koach and the commitment of that ultimate mesiras nefesh. Because mesiras nefesh does not mean to be ready to die. Mesiras nefesh means I give my life to the Ribone Shel Haolam. If necessary I will die too because I give it to Him without reserve but I give it to Him better to live, than to die. I give it to Him to use for His purposes to use for his desires, to use for his wishes. That is mesiras nefesh and that is the particular koach of the noshim of Yisroel. That they take that ultimate and the grandest of the ways of mesiras nefesh as being able to serve Him. In what the rest of us call pettiness-they are not pettiness. They are the actual life of Klal Yisroel. They are the lungs and the heart of which klal yisroel maintains its existence. And though that is how to appreciate it. How to appreciate it what seems to be so pedestrian and so small. The answer of course is to recognize and to know that these smallnesses are very very great. They encompass a bina they encompass an awareness and an understanding of past of that which animate, which motivate. There is required for it a deep understanding of oneself and of other human beings. There is required in this so great a need of balance and judgement, of balancing the needs of my family with the needs of chesed, of balancing that which will contribute to the health of my children, and my husband and those dependant on me. The balancing to make sure that there is no selfishness, that there is a full acceptance of the need of chesed and rachamim to others as well. There is a tremendous burden of judgement that she has to bear. A daily ongoing of measuring and balancing. The doing for others against the doing for self. The appreciating of others. The recognition of gadlus for others. The recognition of helping other children not only her own, and helping her own primarily because that is her first responsibility and one should not enroach upon the other. The need of understanding, the need of judgement. The need of a continuous ongoing decision making process. That is the lot by which she can manage to do so much, by which she can manage to give chinuch to klal yisroel.
To recognize that the task that she has been given is the task that is not only the most important but also the most meaningful, the most significant. To find the Ribone Shel Haolam, the kedusha, and sanctity of the daily ongoing reality of a human existence. Sefer Kedusha in the Rambam on Hilchos Isurei Biya, Hilchos Maachalos Asuros Kedusha is to be found only in those areas that are the areas of the guf and its needs. It is only there that we can lift the world up on to the olamos elyonos to give sanctity to give kedusha holiness to our lives. Not in the learning of Torah. No. Not in the Kiddush Hashem that we are capable of. No. But in the carefulness in which we act out our tzinius, the carefulness in which we preserve our daily physical existence, eating and drinking. There in those most physical areas in which we are immersed. There you find true kedusha. To recognize that this is the fact, which is the ultimate holiness by which we raise ourselves to the shaarei shamayim. That is a difficult task but the most inspiring one the Ribone Shel Haolam has offered to the Jews. To recognise that betocha haguf one finds the neshoma. And to the maintenance on the lowest level one is lifted up to the highest levels of kedusha and to the highest level of ashroyos hashechina itself. That is why the shechina is in loshen nekaiva. It is in these areas that we achieve it. It is these areas which the Rebona Shel Haolam gave to the noshim of Klal Yisroel. To recognize and realize what these obligations and burdens and duties signify and do, is to appreciate what it is to be a Jew. To recognize the true meaning of ata bechortonu it is through this that the rest of Klal Yisroel hope to maintain an ongoing existence.
