Throughout the generations Jews have sat like kings at the
head of the Seder table, surrounded by their family.
After the children ask the Four Questions and the father
answers "We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt," the father
heartily expresses his happiness by proclaiming, "Blessed is
He who abides by His promise to Yisroel" -- HaKodosh
Boruch Hu fulfilled what He had promised to Avrohom
Ovinu. Immediately afterwards he raises his wine cup and
sings out: ". . . for not one [tyrant] only has risen up
against us to destroy us, but in every generation [tyrants]
seek to destroy us, and HaKodosh Boruch Hu delivers us
from their power."
The satisfaction of knowing that Hashem ultimately saves us
from tyrants is quite understandable. But why are we happy
that in every generation enemies rise up to destroy us?
Also, what is the connection between the three parts of the
prayer: "for not one tyrant only," "but in every generation,"
and "HaKodosh Boruch Hu delivers us from their hands"?
Why are they all sung together, and with the same degree of
happiness? Only through the pure Jewish outlook, so different
from the usual way a person thinks, can we find the correct
explanation.
There is nothing like a tree in wintertime to
dampen a person's feelings. All of its once-green leaves that
delighted us have fallen and withered. The tree stands
entirely naked, dried up and lifeless. Any feeling of
despondency, however, is to be found either in someone who
has never seen the summer following the winter, or someone
who for whatever reason does not believe that the trees and
flowers will blossom again. A person who is aware that after
the winter naturally comes summer knows that the tree will
soon burst into glorious colors.
Yeshaya the novi said: "As the days of the tree shall
be the days of My people" (Yeshaya 65:22). R' Yisroel,
the Tchortkover Rebbe zy'a, explained: "Trees wither
during winter. They dry up and shed their leaves, and only
their bare trunk remains. Nevertheless, during the cold
season the trees are storing the sustenance they will later
need. When spring arrives they will once again blossom,
sprout new branches, and flourish. Just so the Jewish People
need to strengthen themselves in their faith. Although we
have been sitting in dark exile for almost two thousand
years, our hope that Hashem will remove us from our exile and
redeem us soon should not, chas vesholom, weaken.
Furthermore, although we are suffering greatly, being in an
exile within an exile, we must strengthen our faith and
wholeheartedly believe our redemption is near. `For as the
days of the tree shall be the days of My people' -- just as
with a tree it is precisely in the icy time, when its sap has
sunk down out of sight and it is dried up, that it is
preparing what it needs for its future new life, so also in
the darkness of exile, when our bones are dried up, we must
muster hidden energy and prepare ourselves to attain new
vigor. In this way we will be able to arise from the exile's
dung heap and be a strong nation" (Ginzei Yisroel
3:143).
This is the special Jewish outlook that stems from am
Yisroel's unique essence: not only in times of redemption
and satisfaction are we joyful, but in every event that
happens to us -- according to the manner and time that the
Creator determined -- we find its eternal aspects. A Jew says
on the Seder night, "but in every generation tyrants
have sought to destroy us." The fact that there are those who
still seek to destroy us shows that we have not lost our
uniqueness because of the golus, and most assuredly
HaKodosh Boruch Hu will "deliver us from their
hands."
"It is a time of distress for Yaakov, and from it he shall be
saved" (Yirmiyohu 30:7). The distress itself indicates
that we will later be saved -- "and from it he shall
be saved." This promise of future salvation imparts joy to a
Jew, as shown when he sings "this [promise] has been our
fathers' support and ours." We emphasize "and ours" -- a
promise for all generations until the last redemption, may it
come speedily, in our days.
Faith and Trust in The Da'as Torah Of Gedolei
Yisroel
There is an ironclad rule concerning the eternity of Jewry, a
rule actually inherent in the world's creation. During the
dreadful Holocaust of European Jewry no trace of light could
be detected by any standard tool. Everything seemed, chas
vesholom, destined to final annihilation -- "They have
said: `Come and let us cut them off from being a nation'"
(Yeshaya 83:5). At that tragic time (5704) the
Ponevezher Rav, HaRav Yosef Sholom Kahaneman zt'l,
delivered his historic speech at the Conference of Agudas
Yisroel of Eretz Yisroel, in Petach Tikvah.
Europe was going up in flames. The blood of millions of Jews
flowed like water and reddened the earth. There were no days
more bitter than those. Who was able in those days to find a
source of comfort, when everything looked as if it were
crumbling and as if, chas vesholom, Hashem's promise
to us would never materialize? At that time the Ponevezher
Rav, the Torah giant who helped reestablish Torah in Eretz
Yisroel, cried out "Alas! for that day is great so that none
is like it; it is a time of distress for Yaakov, and from it
he shall be saved." (Yirmiyohu 30:7).
Asked HaRav Kahaneman, "Why is that day so great, and if it
is great, why does the novi cry out `Alas'?"
The Rav, who had just lost his family, his renowned yeshiva,
and his beloved community, explained that "precisely because
`it is a time of distress of Yaakov' -- just as today is a
tremendous time of distress for am Yisroel -- and
`none is like it' -- as it truly is today, because of this I
am consoled. We have now reached the moment when the entire
world has despaired of the Jewish Nation's survival, when our
enemies are, chas vesholom, about to destroy the whole
nation. This day is a `great day,' the greatest day in
Creation, because on this day the eternity of Klal
Yisroel will be revealed as Yirmiyohu promises: `But I
will not entirely annihilate you' (v. 11).
"Where is the spark that will light the hope of salvation and
console us with our redemption? . . . At that moment the
power of Klal Yisroel's eternity and the reality of
the unfolding prophecy is revealed.
"Some argue that we have lost our sensitivity, since in Eretz
Yisroel we continue living unperturbed, and it does not at
all appear that we sense the hardship suffered by the rest of
Jewry . . . What does it mean that we do not feel their
hardship? Are we not Jews too? This is surely our hardship
too!
"Nevertheless we continue our lives as before: we eat, smile,
seek glory . . .. How can this be explained?
"It shows our inner trust in Hashem, that nothing will happen
to am Yisroel. We do not make any reckoning. We are at
peace with ourselves, and when we ask ourselves why, it seems
we have no answer. The truth is that this itself is the
answer! It is not an artificial, made-up answer, but the
true, natural answer. . . . With this same way of thinking we
have been living untroubled since the day after the
Destruction of the Beis Mikdash."
This is also the reason why a Jew sits on the Seder
night with such great trust for the future redemption, and
why he must be prepared for it at any moment. The Ponovezher
Rav describes this in his speech: "How much trust and
tranquility was there three or four hundred years ago, when
Jews were being exiled from every place in the world, and
Klal Yisroel was only about a million and a half Jews,
and a Jew would open the door on the Seder night and
call out: `Pour out Your wrath upon the nations that do not
know You . . . ' When he closed the door he gave the eternal,
precise answer: `Next year in Yerushalayim!' This is the
decisive answer to all our questions: whence do we draw such
a miraculous trust in Hashem?
"Both tranquility and trust in Hashem are connected, they
have a common cause. In both is revealed the essence of a
Jew: the neshomoh, the Jewish instinct -- the eternity
of Yisroel, and the eternity of Eretz Yisroel for Yisroel.
How is this possible? It is the creation's nature. . . When
the creation of the heaven and earth took place, when the
laws of nature were created, Yaakov and Yisroel were created
among the other creations. Together with the land, the world,
also Eretz Yisroel was created. It was also a creation, a
creation at the beginning of the world. Just as a person at
night does not fear that perhaps the sun will not shine
tomorrow, . . . so one does not have to fear about the
existence of Yisroel and Eretz Yisroel."
This quality of the creation is a Divine statute, a
chok, as the Tchortkover Rebbe explains: "This too is
implied in the Torah. Bnei Yisroel were parched in the arid
desert, `and he cried out to Hashem and Hashem showed him a
tree" (Shemos 15:25). On the contrary, they must
continue, since their nature is like a tree. At the winter's
end a tree changes over to new life; just so bnei
Yisroel will be comforted from their suffering, and from
their darkness they will emerge to brilliance. This is what
is meant at the end of the posuk: "He made for them
there a statute (chok) and an ordinance." Hashem
implanted in their nature, to be a chok, that the
Jewish Nation is different from all the rest. Other nations,
if they have begun to fall, will eventually be wiped out, but
for us, am Yisroel, on the contrary! We draw power and
new life from the suffering itself, to again become a strong
and courageous nation."
The Root Of Our Fear Of Losing Eretz Yisroel
This is the genuine, Torah-oriented outlook about the history
of Klal Yisroel. It is important to emphasize this
outlook today, since a cloud of despondency again hovers over
us. We should think neither as "rightists" or "leftists."
This is so even if we again saw our nation's enemies deciding
to annihilate us, and if the State of Israel were fighting a
taxing war that the Arabs had proclaimed against us.
Many presume that lack of peace for those who live in Eretz
Yisroel forecasts danger, chas vesholom, for the
existence of the entire Jewish Nation.
This painful speculation about our nation's future
continually reappears. Not only leftists -- whose dismissal
of their feelings of Jewishness has caused them to love
Yishmoel and hate their own people -- question our future,
but among entirely sensible people, too, the present period's
instability has eaten away their remnant of trust in the
Jewish People's eternity. A devoted Zionist, a veteran
journalist who happens to have some link with religion,
wrote: "This country is backtracking from independence to
golus." He reached this fatalistic conclusion due to
the collapse of the Oslo Accords and the bloody terrorist
attacks at the time. In the wake of this he wrote, "The
fortitude of soul that stood by you [the Jewish nation] for
the two thousand years of your golus does not exist
any longer. Neither the trust, nor the faith, nor the hope
for redemption that eventually comes although it tarries,
exists today."
What this "devout" Zionist wrote is shocking, though this is
actually a natural conclusion for someone who exchanged his
faith in Heavenly redemption for faith in flesh and blood. He
inevitably realizes that man, who is powerless, can be a
great disappointment. Above all, this man's message is
unmistakable: though the Zionist founders were almost
completely certain in their conviction that they would adapt
a type of existence for us like that of other nations, and
through it remedy our historical fate of golus until
the Creator has pity on us, this certainty has now been
smashed. Those who believed and trusted in Zionism are now
depressed. Now that the gamble they made by establishing the
State seems to have been lost, they sink into depression. How
magnificent is what the Ponevezher Rav said in the historic
speech in which he even diagnosed our present condition of
despair. How clear his message was:
"Lack of peace in Eretz Yisroel has only arisen in the last
fifty years. Until then they were at peace here! The
Chovevei Tzion Movement effected a pachad Tzion
(fear in Zion). We also see this wonderful thing reflected in
halocho. The Rambam rules that if a Cohen knew
nowadays to which watch [in the Beis Hamikdash] he
belonged, he would be forbidden to drink wine, since perhaps,
`Suddenly the Beis Hamikdash might be built, and maybe
it would be his watch just then, and he would be intoxicated,
and an intoxicated person is not allowed to do the
avoda. We must therefore always be ready for the
moment that the Beis Hamikdash will be built . . ..'
The Rambam writes about Eretz Yisroel with such concrete
faith! Eretz Yisroel is ours to such a degree that it is only
a question of moments . . .."
As The Days Of Heaven Above The Earth
How much clarity do we gain from what the Ponevezher Rav
taught us! His teachings are all imprinted with the
perspective that the Torah wants us to know and follow. What
he said also reveals to us the reason for our current
instability: the pachad Tzion is a result of the
Chovevei Tzion movement. It was they who arose and
waved the flag of Zionism who sowed the fear that, chas
vesholom, the Creator's promise of "To your children I
will give this land" (Bereishis 12:7) would not be
fulfilled. To prevent our losing Eretz Yisroel they decided
to "redeem" their hapless nation. The fateful mistake of this
movement was their evaluating the bond of the Jewish People
to Eretz Yisroel according to the relationship of other
nations with their lands.
In fact, HaKodosh Boruch Hu has eternally implanted a
unique order in the Creation. "That your days. . . may be
many upon the land which Hashem swore to your fathers to give
you, as the days of heaven above the earth" (Devorim
11:21). The Ponevezher Rav explained that "the land" is
always called our land, just like "the days of heaven above
the earth" -- ever since the beginning of the creation it has
been called our land. Even if the entire world refuses to
give us Eretz Yisroel, no one can deny it to us.
How did the Chovevei Tzion sow pachad Tzion? By
claiming that our connection with Eretz Yisroel is merely a
natural one -- just like the connection every nation has to
its land. They therefore reached the unavoidable conclusion
that "we must decide our own fate." They wanted to act like
all the nations that fight with swords and spears. They
proudly sang, "with blood and fire Judah will be
established."
If the return to Eretz Yisroel is to be a natural one,
certainly the opposite event can, chas vesholom,
happen in a natural way, too. So when an enemy arises and
threatens them, despair envelops them -- pachad
Tzion.
The Torah's eternal viewpoint is based upon other foundations
altogether. A Jew who opens his Chumash to its first
parsha, or any Jewish child who starts studying about
the world's creation, sees what Rashi teaches us. On the
first posuk Rashi writes that "... The entire world
belongs to HaKodosh Boruch Hu. He created it and gave
it to whomever He deemed fitting."
The Husiatiner Rebbe, in his Oholei Yaakov, points out
that even if the nations were to hear what Rashi wrote about
Hashem's taking Eretz Yisroel from them and giving it to the
Jews they would still not be convinced, nor would they stop
complaining that the Jews had taken away their land. It is
obvious that Rashi's explanation of the posuk is
intended as a lesson only for us, am Yisroel.
This lesson is also aimed at those who warn against conceding
territories for the sake of peace. They argue that by doing
so we have lost the eternal right to our land, and even those
who make a "religious" version of "We will decide our own
fate" by adding a Be'ezras Hashem before it.
There is almost no need to show the difference between the
living words of the Ponevezher Rav (who was an "anti
Zionist") about Eretz Yisroel, built upon the principle of "I
will wait for [the Moshiach] every day to come," and the
alternative of "We will decide our own fate." Instead of
learning that "HaKodosh Boruch Hu took it from them
and gave it to us" some "learn" that the powerful USA gives
and takes. We forget and are made to forget the real
conditions under which Eretz Yisroel is ours: if we protect
its kedusha and observe the Torah and mitzvos, it is
impossible to take it from us.
At this point the Ponovezher Rav reached the summit of his
prophecy at the Agudas Yisroel Conference. He proclaimed to
all assembled that one day a yeshiva would be established in
Ein Charod (a leftist kibbutz).
"A chareidi Jew in Eretz Yisroel must concentrate on his
spiritual efforts to attain trust in Hashem. This is a
natural attribute of Klal Yisroel; it is the way of
Yiddishkeit. Assimilation raised a generation
interested in building new worlds. This was, however,
contrary to nature and the Creation of heaven and earth. It
cannot continue to exist. May Hashem give us the privilege to
prepare roshei yeshivos for Ein Charod! May we be able
to prepare mezuzas and tefillin for Klal
Yisroel and soon see Jews all over the world putting on
tefillin! Someone who does not believe that this will
happen is as if he has committed suicide in front of Hitler.
Such a person does not really believe in the nature of the
Jewish Nation."
We Do Not Live By The Sword
The historical lessons of recent years join with all that has
occurred to us in Eretz Yisroel ever since the confrontation
with the Arabs began, some hundred years ago. The sum total
teaches us a decisive moral: it is impossible for Klal
Yisroel to live by the sword. It almost seems that Heaven
prevents us from doing this. Hashem does not allow any
distorting of the uniqueness of Yaakov. Living by the sword
is the inheritance of Esav. Yaakov's nation sits in tents of
Torah that give him life and sustenance.
Although we apparently have all the material prerequisites to
live by the sword, we are unsuccessful. The sword does not
allow us to do what it allows the whole world to do: depend
upon force and guarantee our existence by its means. Everyone
can accomplish that, but not us! What Yechezkel writes,
"Beis Yisroel will not be like all the nations," is
not a warning; it simply spells out reality.
It is especially essential to emphasize this point today.
First of all we need to strengthen ourselves. Furthermore, we
are obligated to proclaim loudly to our nation, as it sinks
low in despair, that "the Eternal One of Yisroel does not lie
nor renege" (I Shmuel 15:29). This nation arose and
was born in a different way altogether from any other people.
It does not live off of its sword. Only through the power of
its torch of faith, through the power of the proclamation of
Avrohom Ovinu that "there is a Master of the world," does it
exist. Not only is this nation's revival based on this
foundation, but its entire existence and continuance is,
too.
For this point history is also the eternal proof. The Jewish
Nation has survived throughout most of its history without a
homeland, without living on the yearned-for land Divinely
promised to us. In the last fifty years, despite our being in
Eretz Yisroel, despite being a sovereign nation, despite
having an armed military force and all the rest, our
existence is not only in terrible danger, but many have begun
to doubt if this dream has at all justified itself. This
ideological bankruptcy includes all types of Zionists.
Our stand, based upon the da'as Torah of the
gedolei Yisroel throughout the generations, draws its
nourishment from responsibility to Klal Yisroel and
true ahavas Yisroel. It is not pachad Tzion
that guides us, but rather our solid faith in Jewish
existence, based upon our Torah and mitzvos -- the faith that
we can right now make, "Today, if you would hearken to His
voice" (Tehillim 95:7) come true. Because of this
stand we advise our brethren not to despair. The realization
of our fate and responsibility strengthens our hope in the
complete Redemption: "As in the days of your coming forth
from the land of Egypt will I show you marvelous things"
(Michah 7:15).
