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Friday Night
Who knows how many
Germans that Hitler, ysv”z,
sent to their deaths in the name of his ego? The Nazis could
have surrendered earlier, and might have, had Heir Hitler not insisted on
pretending that there was still hope for his Third Reich…just to keep his
own ego inflated.
Then again, it was
ego that helped to push Hitler to war in the first place, a world war
that eventually caused the death of 72 million people, including the
systematic death of six million plus Jews from across Europe. It had been
a young and brash Hitler who had a terrible time accepting the defeat of
Germany in World War I, and the humiliating terms of surrender imposed
upon the Weimar Republic (even though he was born Austrian).
Ego is important
for self-confidence and productivity, but too much of it destroys a
person and usually others around them. A lot of “others” around them,
especially if the egotist is devious enough to make it seem as if they
are fighting the “good fight,” and on behalf of good people. That’s the Erev Rav for you,
deception the entire way, taking advantage of the intellectually and
emotionally vulnerable.
That’s only one
part of the destructive equation. We have known world peace, more or
less, for a long time now in the West. Even in Israel, it has been
relatively quiet, thank
God, enough that most have forgotten wartime. A lack of
wartime death usually results in a reduced appreciation of life, and more
liberal values. Wars tend to make people more conservative in outlook.
Another part of the
equation is technology. Personally, I love and enjoy technology, but I
also see the negative effect it has had on an entire generation. There is
a certain amount of spiritual desensitization that has accompanied it,
and dumbing down as well. Empowerment is a double-edged sword, leaving
many intellectual and emotionally vulnerable.
If this can be true
even of people who still believe in God and in absolute morality, then it
is certainly true about those who don’t. A person might deny the
existence of God and of their soul, but they can’t deny their decision
making process. We can’t help but make decisions based upon what we personally think is
“good” or “bad,” and if a person doesn’t believe in an absolute version
of both, then both can only be personal opinion. Hitler also thought he
was doing mankind a favor, and there are still a lot of people who agree
with him.
The ironic thing is
how selfish people can band together when they have a common cause. It’s
not that they care about each other. It’s more that helping one another
means getting what they want more expediently. It’s a common selfish
desire that (temporarily) unifies them, something the Torah calls, “b’leiv echad k’ish echad,”
with a single heart and like a single person, a very Amalekian approach
to life.
Purim is about the opposite. It is not called Kabbalas HaTorah,
Part 2, for no reason. At Mt. Sinai, to receive Torah, we had to achieve
the opposite of k’ish
echad b’levi echad, to become like a single person with a single heart.
Selfish people have a difficult time accepting Absolute Truth because of
the obvious implications. So God sent in Amalek to humble us in
preparation for receiving Torah. Nothing protects against Amalek better
than humility, which is the acceptance of God’s truth.
Shabbos Day
BUT I PREACH to the
choir, no? Can you can’t talk to egotistical people about dissenting
opinions? Remember Pharaoh? Even after his own people told him, “Hey,
this Moshe fella might be right. It might actually be God Who is
destroying our country,” Pharaoh held out. There’s a wall of ego that
truth just bounces off.
It is not ironic
that Parashas Zachor
coincidences with Parashas
Tetzaveh, because a kohen,
and how much more so the Kohen
Gadol, is supposed to be the antithesis of Amalek. A kohen is supposed to
give his life over to the service of God and on behalf of the Jewish
people. It doesn’t get much more selfless than that.
Furthermore, kohanim are supposed
to be rodeif shalom,
peace-pursuers, not war mongers like Amalekians, past and present. And if
they ever reverse that role, like Pinchas ben Elazar ben Aharon HaKohen did when he killed Zimri, it
would be to uphold Torah values, not tear them down. As the Torah
testifies, Pinchas was zealous on behalf
of God, not against
Him, as Amalekians are. Before someone opposes Torah values they should
make sure they aren’t from God, not just assume it.
As mentioned in an
earlier Perceptions, it was an eyeopener for me to learn how our fast
day, the 10th of Teves, was a day of celebration for the Iraqis for the
same reason we mourn. While we recall Nebuchadnetzar’s successful attack
against Jerusalem with sadness, they celebrate it. Nebuchadnetzar was our
enemy, but he was their hero, and still is even thousands of years later.
The same thing is
true today all over the world. One person’s hero is another’s enemy, and
often for the same reasons, depending upon each person’s value system. A
religious person sees those who wish to limit or abolish Torah laws as
the enemy. A secular person trying to catch up with the rest of the
secular world sees it just the opposite way. Who is right? What is the
truth?
Peeling away all
the heated emotions usually reveals the driving force behind each group.
The non-religious side might argue that they are fighting for what they
believe is right, but based upon what? What the rest of the secular world
thinks? And that opinion is based upon what ultimate value? They may be the
majority, but so were they in Noach’s time…until the Flood came along.
The religious side
is full of opinions as well, but the core driving force is not an
opinion. It is a belief that God is real and Torah is His truth, His absolute
non-negotiable truth. They too have a yetzer
hara with desires and which barks out orders, but at the end
of the day, they know they have to answer for capitulating to it.
That said, then
there are really only two possibilities. Either the Torah world is
correct, and everyone else only thinks they are right and entitled based
upon ignorance and subjugation to a yetzer
hara they don’t even know they have. Or, the Torah world is
delusional, and it is imposing its world on others with no justification.
If the latter is true, then there can only be war and the strongest will
win. If the former is true, and the secular world doesn’t come around, it
will have to be resolved by God Himself. Is that why the world is
shaking?
Seudas Shlishi
IF YOU DON’T
believe in the Torah as God-given, and you have problem with its account
of history, then the story of the Flood is no threat. Since the stories
of Purim
and Chanukah
are part of the Oral Law, which many outside Orthodox circles do not
trust, they can’t be relied upon as signs of Divine involvement in the
affairs of man. Hester
panim, God’s hiding of His providence, makes history murky at
best, and easy for Amalek to do his thing and mislead man.
Can billions of
people be so wrong, and only a handful get it?
That’s a good
question, with an even better answer, if you’re willing to go the full
distance to get to it. The fullest answer means learning some Kabbalah, and that’s
something you can really only do after you have learned a certain amount
of the levels before it. Anyone can read the words, but only a
God-fearing person gets to know what they really mean:
The secrets of God to those who fear Him. (Tehillim 25:14)
Nevertheless, one
thing is for sure, it is a mistake to think that you can’t know the truth
about the Truth, as Amalek would have many believe. It’s like someone
saying that good food no longer exists because it stopped being delivered
to their door, and they’re not prepared to go out and find it. The
fundamental reason why people believe in Torah, and others do not, is
because the former has the knowledge and the latter does not. It is
because the latter is not prepared to go after that knowledge.
It’s not imaginary
truth, as Amalek says. It’s not made-up knowledge, as the yetzer hara likes to
argue. It’s real, and here, as many ba’alei
teshuvah have found out for themselves, willingly and
unwillingly. Some religions may exist only on blind faith. But Torah
Judaism, as God Himself told us, is something you can be SHOWN to KNOW
that there is none other than God.
But there are two
parts to this knowing. The first is you have to want to know, and
the second is, you have to be willing to go in pursuit of that knowledge.
The Gemora
assumes that a person does not like to live with doubt, but it is amazing
how they are willing to so when the doubt allows them to live the life of
the yetzer hara.
It’s quite Amalekian.
When this is the
case, compromise does not seem possible between the two sides. Neither
side seems able to give up too much to calm the situation down, the
religious side because they fight for God-given values, and the secular
side beside they want to live the unrestricted life to which they believe
they are entitled. How will all this end, and when?
Ain Od Milvado,
Part 41
WHEN MOSHE RABBEINU
led the counterattack against Amalek, what did he think? To the average
soldier fighting the battle below (Moshe was up on a hill overseeing the
action), there was only the enemy. He was human and had a will of his
own. He was armed and had a desire to kill or be killed. He warred
against God, so God was obviously on their side. What more was there to
know.
But how did it
appear to Moshe Rabbeinu?
Ain od Milvado
meant that Amalek had no power of his own, which meant God was giving
Amalek what he needed to fight the Jewish people. We may have hated
Amalek and were disgusted by them, but they were God’s Creation, part of
a world that God not only made, but He controls. Unless He says so,
Amalek doesn’t exist. Unless God says so, Amalek doesn’t fight. So who do
we really fight against when we fight against the “enemy”?
It’s easy to
forget. It’s easy to get distracted. Here’s one example of someone who
didn’t:
[The Romans] sent Neron Caesar
against the Jews. When he came [to Jerusalem], he shot an arrow to the
east and it fell in Jerusalem…to the west and it also fell in Jerusalem.
He shot an arrow in all four directions, and each fell in Jerusalem. He
said to a child: “Tell me a verse.”
He told him: “‘And I will lay My vengeance
upon Edom by the hand of My people Israel’ (Yechezkel 25:14).”
He said: “The Holy
One, Blessed be He, wishes to destroy His Temple, and to wipe his hands
with that man [who does it].”
So he fled and
became a convert, and Rebi Meir descended from him. (Gittin 56a)
For some reason,
this Roman, a gentile, was able to see past his human enemy and instead
see God. He then chose
to not carry out what he had been sent by his superiors to do, and
instead fled to the very side he had been sent to destroy. He realized
that he became his own worst enemy if he ignored the Divine signs, and
did the unthinkable for a Roman general.
Yes, the Jewish
people have enemies, and yes many of those enemies exist within the Jewish
people these days. But part of Parashas
Zachor is
to recall not just what Amalek did to us, but Who sent Amalek in the
first place, God Himself. It was part of the process to prepare the
Jewish people to receive Torah by first humbling them.
God sent Haman too,
also as part of the process of Kabbalas
HaTorah, Part 2. It was mostly to bring out something in the
Jewish people that needed to be brought out of us at that time, a
potential whose time for actualization has arrived. If it wasn’t for the
crises, we might never accomplish very much in life or grow spiritually.
We may not be able
to figure out what’s on God’s mind, what He wants from us individually or
as a nation at any given time. But by at least being open to the idea
that He wants something from us…for our own good…and that this is what is
driving history at the moment, is usually enough to get the Heavenly help
we need to go the next step, as Purim
came to teach us. Purim Samayach.
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