This week’s parshah, parshat Bereshit, is the parshah of creation. The very first parshah in the entire Torah. Reaching this parshah is so very special, for it means that the Jewish people have made it through yet another year. We have completed another cycle of reading the Torah, and we begin again.
So, this Shabbat is a Shabbat of new beginnings.
And while we all know that beginnings are difficult, none of us expected a beginning like this. And while the world may look different to us right now, it might feel like we are living in a completely different world than we were living in just a week ago, that is in fact NOT the case. That is not the case. WE as INDIVIDUALS might be different, but the world hasn’t actually changed. Let me show you, by looking at Rashi’s commentary to Bereshit aleph aleph, Genesis 1:1, the very first line of the Torah.
Genesis 1:1
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
Rashi
IN THE BEGINNING — [Why did the Torah begin with] the account of the Creation]?
Because of the thought expressed in the text (Psalms 111:6) “He declared to His people the strength of His works (i.e. He gave an account of the work of Creation), in order that He might give them the heritage of the nations.” For should the peoples of the world say to Israel, “You are robbers, because you took by force the lands of the seven nations of Canaan”, Israel may reply to them, “All the earth belongs to the Holy One, blessed be He; He created it and gave it to whom He pleased. When He willed, He gave it to them, and when He willed, He took it from them and gave it to us.”
Sound familiar? Who here has heard this accusation leveled against us? THIEVES! OCCUPIERS! COLONIALISTS! The exact same meaning, but sometimes our enemies use more sophisticated words. But you see, Rashi, the OG (original gangsta), old school biblical commentator who STARTED the biblical commentary tradition, already knew what people would say when the Jews returned to Israel. In medieval France, over a THOUSAND years ago, Rashi already knew what the world would say.
It’s as if our enemies studied Rashi.
But that’s of course not the case. So, how did Rashi, over a thousand years ago, know the exact arguments that the contemporary antisemitic murderers would in 2023? How? I’ll tell you how. By being a learned Jew, one who knew Jewish history and Jewish religion in and out.
And what is so interesting, is that this extremely Zionist Rashi isn’t found somewhere in the middle of his commentary to the Torah, or on an obscure passage of the Talmud—as Rashi also wrote a commentary to almost the entire Talmud. This prediction, about what our 21stcentury enemies would say about us, is how he opens his commentary to the Torah. The very first line, the very first words! The very first opening of his “Mona Lisa,” his masterpiece!
So, you see, things haven’t changed. Let me give you another example.
Yom HaShoah, the day which we particularly mourn the 6 million Jewish lives taken during the Holocaust, is a very important and solemn day. If you have ever been in Israel during Yom HaShoah, then you know it can be a very moving experience. Whatever anyone is doing, whether they’re eating, working, driving on the highway, as soon as the sirens start blaring, everyone stops in their tracks to pay respect to those precious lives that were cut short. For two minutes, they stop what they are doing and stand for a moment of silence.
The first time that I was in Israel for Yom HaShoah was many, many years ago. However, my experience was quite different. I was sitting in yeshivah, studying Talmud, when the sirens started to go off. I looked to my rebbe, my teacher, to see what he would do. He caught my eye and said “nu, bitil toirah,” and pointed to my Talmud.
“Bitul Torah” is the sin of wasting time on something at the expense of Torah study. So, my teacher’s meaning was that I was not allowed to interrupt my Torah study to stand in a moment of silence.
“It’s as if our enemies studied Rashi.”
Now, I am not saying that this rabbi was right, but for those of you who know about my Hasidic background, it shouldn’t be so surprising. But there is something that you need to understand. This man is a great Torah scholar who lost family in the Holocaust. He was in NO WAY saying that those lost to the flames do not deserve our respect. That was NOT his meaning! Rather, he did not see the Holocaust as something new. In his mind, the world hadn’t changed. Let me explain.
In his mind, the Holocaust was—not to minimize it—simply another atrocity that had been committed against the Jews by those who hate us. The Nazis were just another group of worthless bums who failed at trying to wipe Jews off of the face of the planet. Like the Egyptians, Babylonians, Assyrians, Greeks, Macedonians, Romans, Crusaders…I could go on and on. In his mind, they were just another worthless bunch of stupid, evil, vile bums who tried to exterminate us but couldn’t. They were nothing new.
And in that rabbi’s mind, we already had a day for mourning those of us massacred by worthless bums, Tisha b’Av, the 9th of Av. And in fact, you are NOT allowed to study Torah on Tisha b’Av—you’re not allowed to!— because studying Torah is enjoyable, and you cant do anything joyous on Tisha b’Av.
So, like Rashi and my rabbi in Israel, based upon their long-ranged view of Jewish life throughout the centuries, the world had not changed.
And while we may think my rabbi made the wrong call, and he should have instructed me to interrupt my Torah study to pay my respects, we can understand his mindset. We can understand where he was coming from. Also, I think we can even appreciate it, and and learn something very important from it, that all of us need to ponder today.
The last thing a Nazi, or a Crusader, or an ancient Macedonian—or a modern member of Hamas—all of those bums—the last thing they would ever want to see is a Jew sitting in a Jewish space practicing Judaism. That is the very last thing that they would want to see! And while a moment of silence pays respect to the dead, it does not wage war in the same way that doing a mitzvah does. It is not the same kind of revenge, the same kind of battle cry, as sitting and studying Torah. Studying Torah also keeps our tradition alive—it is forward thinking.
So, I return to my first point. The world hasn’t changed, but we have. Our sense of security and the way we believed that the world worked—all of that has all been violently ripped from us. But perhaps we did not have the most accurate perception of how the world worked. As we say in Yiddish, siz shver tzi zein a yid, “it is hard to be a Jew.” It was true in Rashi’s time in France, a thousand years ago. It was true in Germany, and its true in Israel today. The world has not changed.
But like I said, we have. But we’re just beginning to change. Just like one who reads the Torah for the first time, there is no way one could possibly imagine what is yet to come. If it was your first time reading, you really couldn’t imagine what comes later in Exodus, Deuteronomy, and the other books. Just reading the first parshah, with creation, Adam, Eve, the garden, the snake…no one could imagine the slavery in Egypt, the exodus, standing at Mt Sinai, the golden calf, and then entering the land of Israel.
So too, we cannot imagine how we will be changed from this in the long run. We don’t know. But, we do have some control over it. We have control over who we are going to be. We want to fight, all of us here, in Taiwan, we want to fight. But flying to Israel and picking up a weapon is not the only way to fight. If that is your plan, kol hakavod, thank you for your service, and we honestly could not live a Jewish life like we do without you. So, thank you.
But if you are not going to Israel, you can still wage war here. Maybe come to shul more often, volunteer here more, say a few more prayers at home, learn Hebrew, give money to a Jewish cause, or focus on being a better person. ALL of those things are the LAST things Hamas wants. They are literally so evil that seeing a Jew be a Jew, connect to their tradition, turns their stomach. It is what they hate the most.
So, I urge you to use this new beginning, this new cycle of the Torah, and the new liminal space in which you find yourself, as an opportunity to stick it to Hamas. To fight them by keeping Jewish peoplehood alive.
Shabbat Shalom.
