Opinion & Comment
The True Identity of Am Yisroel
by HaRav Leib Baron

It seems that they have not learned anything at all from the annals of our history. For the last two thousand years we have been scattered among the nations, blown to all four points of the compass, but beis Yisroel has never lost its genuine image of an independent, unique people, "the nation of the book."

In connection to this I remember the following interesting anecdote: I arrived in New York at the beginning of 5707 (1946), from Shanghai. Two weeks later I took a walk at night in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn, and suddenly I saw a Jew before me saying kiddush levonoh. Totally amazed, I stopped and muttered to myself: "Is it possible that there is still a Jew who says kiddush levonoh in America?"

Today, more than fifty years after that incident, there are thousands and tens of thousands who say kiddush levonoh each month.

How many yeshivos were there then in America? Only a few, and they had a mixed schedule of limudei kodesh together with secular studies. The few yeshivos that concentrated intensively on studying only Torah were called "yeshivos for mal'ochim." Today how many yeshivos exist in America without any admixture of secular studies, yeshivos similar to those in Lithuania before the churban? Boruch Hashem there are, without exaggerating, dozens!

How many kollelim could you find at that time in America for married men who wanted to continue their Torah studies on a full-time basis? Not even one existed. How many are there today? Almost in every location where you find a Jewish community you will find a kollel whose students are engaged day and night in studying Torah. The sound of Torah study can even be heard all over the world: in South America, South Africa, Europe and Australia.

Torah education for Jewish girls has also tremendously improved. How many Bais Yaakov schools are in operation today throughout America? The answer is well known: wherever an institution for Torah study has been established, so too a Bais Yaakov school to teach girls was set up.

All of these institutions have renovated and strengthened the true identity of the Jewish nation. Each one of us can see clearly that during the last fifty years the Jewish community in America has dramatically changed. Instead of a barren desert as far as Torah study is concerned, the United States has become a real mokom Torah. The Israeli Hellenizers can see for themselves that thousands of American boys are currently studying in Eretz Yisroel yeshivos. They can walk into Mirrer Yeshiva in Yerushalayim and see that there alone some two thousand talmidim are studying day and night, many of them from America. How many boys have come from America ever since the State of Israel was established and have remained to live there only for the purpose of protecting their true Jewish identity? The answer is not so hard to find out: there are tens of thousands.

What has happened in the U.S.A. was exactly as R' Chaim of Volozhin ztvk'l, the talmid muvhak of the Vilna Gaon, envisioned with his ruach kodesh. He once remarked that in the future course of our nation's history the Torah will go into golus ten times, and the last golus would be in the U.S.A. We see that his holy words were as good as prophecy, and have in present times been completely fulfilled. The Divine promise that the Torah will never be forgotten from Yisroel has been visibly fulfilled.

I am therefore astonished: How can it possibly be that after almost two thousand years of being in golus -- during which time we have ardently protected our identity -- after we have been zoche to settle our Holy Land, after we are already living there, how can it be that political forces within Israel are now trying with all their power and all the means available to them to alter the true identity of am Yisroel, attempting to make them forget the Torah, Rachmono litzlan, and be like all other nations?

Do they not understand that by forcibly conscripting bnei Torah to the army they are causing the Torah to, chas vesholom, be forgotten from am Yisroel? Do they not realize that by agreeing with the Reform rabbis in halachic matters, of which those "rabbis" are totally ignorant, they are destroying the true identity of our nation?

Moshe Rabbenu, the faithful leader of am Yisroel, at the end of forty years said to bnei Yisroel in the desert, before they entered our promised land, "On this day you have become the nation of Hashem your Elokim" (Devorim 27:9). He emphasized to them that first of all they should not think that just by coming to Eretz Yisroel, settling, and living there like an independent nation they would deserve to be called a nation. "On this day you have become His nation" -- by receiving the Torah at Mount Sinai and later studying it for forty years in the desert, bnei Yisroel would see the Torah penetrate deeply within them and change their very essence (as the Da'as Zekeinim writes at the beginning of parshas Beshalach). Only in this way would they be zoche to be called a nation.

The Ran writes at the end of Pesochim in the name of an aggodoh that when bnei Yisroel were redeemed Moshe revealed to them what HaKodosh Boruch Hu had previously told him: "This will be for you a sign that I have sent you: when you take out the nation from Egypt you shall worship Elokim upon this mountain" (Shemos 3:12). "Yisroel said to him: `Moshe Rabbenu, when will this avoda begin?' He answered: `At the end of fifty days,' and they counted the days, each one separately."

This posuk was said when Moshe Rabbenu was shepherding his father-in-law's sheep in the desert, before the whole episode of yetzias Mitzrayim. The Torah does not say that HaKodosh Boruch Hu commanded Moshe to tell this to bnei Yisroel. It seems that Moshe himself decided that it was necessary to tell them that fifty days after leaving Egypt they would receive the Torah.

What was the reason for Moshe's decision? The Torah and its mitzvos would be a weighty burden for the nation, as Rashi writes (Rosh Hashanah 28a): "Mitzvos were not given to Yisroel for their pleasure but rather as a yoke on their necks." Why was it necessary to tell them while they were being redeemed from Egypt that in another fifty days they would receive a heavy yoke onto their necks?

It cannot be that Moshe told the nation so that they could prepare themselves for Matan Torah, since the three days beforehand should have been sufficient.

Moshe wanted to stress to bnei Yisroel that their redemption from bondage in Egypt was not really the redemption which Hashem had intended for them. Even entering Eretz Yisroel and managing to be a self-reliant nation, not dependent on any other nation, was not the full redemption. "Only a person engaged in Torah study is a free person" (Tanna Devei Eliyahu, ch. 17). Physical redemption without a spiritual redemption is not genuine freedom.

Moshe Rabbenu wanted them, even in the midst of being redeemed, to understand this well. Bnei Yisroel had been idol worshipers just like the Egyptians, as the midroshim point out. Bnei Yisroel needed to effect a drastic change, from being idol worshipers to reaching the level of people enveloped in spirituality, people who have perfected their character traits. This was possible to do only by advancing in Torah study.

Chazal tell us, "if that contemptible one accosts you, drag him to the beis midrash" (Succah 52b). Even if a person fulfills mitzvos he cannot succeed in controlling and ridding himself of his faulty middos without studying Torah. "The yetzer of a man's heart is evil from his youth" (Bereishis 8:21). Since Moshe was a faithful leader of his people he immediately notified them when they left Egypt that their simcha was not yet complete.

Although they had just been freed from physical servitude, and although man's nature is to be unruly after being released from hard work over many years, as we see from history, this must not be the case with bnei Yisroel. When Moshe informed them that in another fifty days they would receive the Torah, each person cheerfully counted the days left until Matan Torah, just as a kallah anxiously awaits her chuppah and counts each day as it comes nearer.

If we look into Chazal's teaching we will see that the physical redemption from slavery to freedom really took place six months prior to the exodus from Egypt. "On Rosh Hashanah [slave] labor discontinued from our fathers, and in Nisan they were redeemed" (Rosh Hashanah 11b). Bnei Yisroel were probably awarded equal rights and citizenship in Egypt, and perhaps even, as is common with gifted Jews, after being emancipated they became rich. There is no greater physical freedom than this.

Moshe Rabbenu, however, continued his intense efforts, negotiating with Pharaoh about our redemption, until Nisan. Hashem had already told Moshe that the redemption's principal aim was spiritual, and that it would be fulfilled fifty days after their leaving Egypt, "near Mt. Sinai."

Now we can thoroughly understand what Rashi writes in parshas Bo about the plague of darkness. He writes that there were reshoim in that generation who did not want to leave Egypt. These reshoim died during the three days of darkness, so that the Egyptians would not see their demise and conclude that the Jews were suffering like them.

It is surely difficult to understand those reshoim, who wanted to remain in Egypt. After suffering for so many years, after undergoing so many harsh decrees, why would they want to remain there, when all they could expect was to harm themselves and continue suffering at the hands of the Egyptians?

According to the gemora, which teaches us that their slavery had already terminated and they had been freed from physical enslavement, their decision was quite understandable. Probably in a short while these reshoim had become friendly with the Egyptians and succeeded in their endeavors. They did not feel any need to leave Egypt, since in their opinion they had gained the redemption -- the physical one -- that they needed. They were therefore called reshoim and Hashem killed them during the three days of darkness.

This explanation is actually explicitly mentioned in the pesukim. Even in the first six months of the last year in Egypt, when Moshe began working towards obtaining their redemption, he never mentioned to Pharaoh the Jews' suffering, or their independence as promised by Hashem to our Patriarchs. Moshe only said: "Send my people out and they will worship Me." Each time he met Pharaoh he emphasized that freedom for bnei Yisroel is chiefly spiritual. That is the true identity of am Yisroel.