In my podcast today I discuss the tragic stabbing of Dafna Meir by a Muslim terrorist in front of her house as she defended her children. Otniel where the event occurred is only a 15 minute drive my community. I also discuss the comparison many candidates for the Republican nomination have made between Israel’s security wall and the need for a wall on America’s Southern border.
“You shall safeguard the matzot, for on this very day I will have taken your legions out of the land of Egypt; you shall observe this day for your generations as an eternal decree. In the first, on the fourteenth day of the month in the evening shall you eat matzot, until the twenty-first day of the month in the evening.” (SHEMOT 12:17-18)
“Matzot shall be eaten throughout the seven-day period; no ḥametz may be seen in your possession, nor may leaven be seen in your possession in all your borders.” (SHEMOT 13:7)
The Maharal of Prague teaches in Gevurot HaShem that “matzah is simple as it is not combined with additional ingredients such as leaven, which would compound and complicate it. Simplicity in essence denotes independence, for an independent being is free and not bound together or dependent upon others. A slave is bound to his master and completely dependent upon him while a free man stands independently, not bound to anyone else. Hence, matzah specifically is an appropriate symbol for the Exodus.”
The Maharal’s explanation of matzah as simplicity and ḥametz (unleavened bread) as complexity provides an essential insight into the mentality of Diaspora Jewry. The word ḥametz shares the root letters of l’haḥmitz (to miss), symbolizing the idea of missing an opportunity. Because it includes leaven, ḥametz is complex and therefore prone to miss out.
When a person defines himself according to his complexity – by what he has acquired in life – he is naturally blocked from fully expressing his inner essence. Each of us is a soul – a unique expression of G-d – playing a character with a distinct purpose in history. And our ability to fully realize our individual missions in life is largely dependent upon our self-identification as souls who, like actors, play roles in the story of man. The more we define ourselves as the actors rather than as the characters we play, the more our characters can actually succeed at fulfilling their roles in the story. But one who defines himself according to the external factors his character has acquired in life (wealth, status, academic credentials, etc.) becomes complex like ḥametz and trapped by these external factors, frightened to jeopardize them in pursuit of his true inner calling.
In the years leading up to the Holocaust, for example, many Jews in Europe had possessions and professions that they were not prepared to abandon. Their complexity kept them psychologically trapped until it became too late for a physical escape. Jewish community leaders in America, meanwhile, were frightened to sacrifice the success they had achieved and were therefore powerless to save their brothers overseas. They feared accusations of disloyalty if they were to focus on the “Jewish aspect” of America’s war effort against Germany. And some even feared that a great influx of Jewish refugees would bolster anti-Semitic attitudes within the United States. Partially due to the complexity of the Jewish Diaspora mentality, an opportunity was missed and six million were lost.
A complex person – one who defines himself as the character and not as the actor – is generally not ready for sacrifice because he is frightened to lose that which his character has acquired. While external factors alone do not automatically cause a person to be complex, how that person relates to these factors can easily reveal the extent of his complexity. A rich man fearful of becoming poor is not yet ready for redemption. In times of crisis, such a person would be unwilling to part with his material wealth and comfortable lifestyle.
A wealthy man in touch with his true inner self, however, is willing to risk losing everything he owns. Although he may know how to appreciate worldly goods, they do not define, trap or complicate him. Such a Jew is ready to sacrifice his money at any moment in order to express his inner essence and assume responsibility for the Nation of Israel’s historic mission. Instead of viewing himself as a wealthy individual, he is simply a unique piece of Knesset Yisrael – the giant collective Hebrew soul that reveals itself in space and time through millions of bodies called the Jewish people.
Matzah represents simplicity, which is the true essence of a soul. While the demands of a healthy society often necessitate that people become doctors, soldiers, builders and plumbers, these are only talents acquired in life and not a person’s actual essence. Practicing medicine, fighting wars, constructing homes and installing pipes are things that Jews must often do – especially when rebuilding Hebrew civilization in our homeland – but they can never define who or what a person is. Being simple is therefore the self-awareness of one’s deepest and truest inner essence as a unique spark of the timeless ultimate Reality without end.
While matzah is the bread of affliction, it is also the bread of freedom. One who views himself as simple can never become trapped by complex external factors. He recognizes himself as part of a larger Hebrew collective and, through a perspective psychologically grounded in Jewish history, is able to identify danger on the horizon before it reaches the maturity to strike. So long as one understands his true essence in its simplicity, he cannot be enslaved and is ready for redemption.
The courage of simplicity stems from the understanding that a person has absolutely nothing to lose. He is prepared to risk everything in order to take responsibility for the future of his people. This willingness to sacrifice oneself for the Hebrew Nation and its mission is born out of a love that elevates a soul from the level of the individual to that of the collective. The Maharal explains in Netzaḥ Yisrael that fear is the shell of love and that the stronger a person’s love grows the weaker his fears become.
Fear and selfishness are both symptoms of complexity while love and courage are actually products of simplicity. Fear results from a lack of compassion and paralyzes a person into irresponsible dormancy. But the less fear a person suffers, the more he is willing to sacrifice and the stronger his inner light can shine to the world. The freedom of simplicity that the matzah represents makes him capable of daring action in the face of adversity.
When the Hebrew Nation received a chance to be born out from Egypt, the majority of our people had viewed themselves to be “Egyptian Jews.” They defined themselves according to their complexity and therefore had to perish in the ninth plague of darkness, missing the opportunity to participate in Israel’s national birth. The minority, who defined themselves simply as Israel, snatched the opportunity to experience liberation and receive the Torah at Sinai. They realized that they had nothing to lose because all they really were was Israel and one cannot truly live up to being part of Israel while subsisting in the exile separate from the Hebrew mission. As the redemption process continues to unfold and we are confronted with newer and greater challenges to overcome, we must learn to properly define ourselves and strive to attain a genuine simplicity in order that we may succeed in ingathering our people back to our homeland, establishing the kingdom destined to manifest the Divine Ideal and fulfilling our national mission of shining G-d’s blessing to all of mankind.
“Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power.”
-1984, George Orwell
What does one do when the person they have elected views the office they hold as merely a means to gain even more power. They can either dismiss the chorus of complaints as racist, conspiratorial, or downright mad, but the facts won’t change and the fleeing of self responsibility won’t reverse the course.
When Americans elected Barack Hussein Obama in 2008 and again in 2012, they made a choice between the sovereignty of the many and sovereignty of the State. For Obama it has never been about the Change he promised as that was a sugar coated pill for the masses. The revolution Obama has wrought in the USA is the revolution of the State against its citizens. This is the bureaucratic dictatorship the founding fathers warned against. It is the unseen hand that controls all, but cannot be found out for it is the state itself and not a single person.
Obama though is not satisfied with his revolution in the United States, because Obama has always aspired to more. For Obama he is the revolution in and of itself. For if he can so fundamentally transform America, why not be the great unifier of the world itself. Afterall, for Obama the USA has a flaw. The Amendments the 13 original states agreed to ratify (after some wrangling between them) are too strong a component to the cultural ethos of the USA to disregard and complete the revolution Obama would like to see.
Breaking Israel News reports that Al –Jarida, an Arabic language Kuwaiti magazine, published an article on Friday claiming that US President Barack Obama has set his sights on becoming the next Secretary General of the United Nations when he leaves the Oval Office in one year.
For Obama the revolution will be complete, the global security state, the one that rights the wrongs of the past, equalizes the rich with the impoverished, and heralds peace at the expense of personal freedom will be his creation. Once again he is both the revolution and its goal.
Between the Rule of the Individual and the Rule of the State
The Torah teaches us that each individual is a Divine spark, a map of the universe in miniature. We are in this world for a specific purpose only we can fulfill. It is true, the Kingdom Israel that is waiting to burst through the darkness will have a King, but the King and the Kingdom are not meant to rule over us. They are meant as a means to give full freedom to the individual and at the same time provide the inspiration and motivation for each of us to attain our Divine goals.
Statists believe the State is the all powerful and it is the individual’s purpose and goal to pledge loyalty to the State. That allegiance and handing over of personal freedoms is the catalyst for global and societal transformation.
The coming conflagration is not really about Islam versus the West. Rather, it is about the role of the individual in relation to the State. Slavery comes in many ways. Sometimes it is a Pharaoh and his task masters who rule relentlessly over a powerless Israelite people. Other times it is the quiet rule of law administered, not for the sake of justice, but rather to uphold the power of the few and the system that serves them over the masses who have traded away their freedom for the short term injection of false happiness.
These are the times our sages spoke about. Those of us who are G-d fearing must not give in to the false promises of politicians or the machinations of soon to be ex-Presidents who believe they are the Change everyone wants and needs. We in Israel and those of our supporters around the world who believe in the individual rights and freedom of thought must yearn and be prepared to defend the freedom of man and his divine mission against the totalitarianism of the State.
This war has no specific location, but rather it is a war over the hearts and minds of humanity itself.
The culture of Egypt had dominated the world, casting its dark and oppressive shadow over all of civilization while abandoning the hope for any ethical or moral progress. Ancient Egyptian philosophy pictured life as fixed and recurrent cycles of materialism determined by the immutable laws of nature that all human endeavors must serve. Their gods were the sun, the Nile and the animals. The sun created the cycle of the year. The Nile provided water and was the source of life. The animals represented the basic fundamental life forces. This comprehensive perspective was the very basis of ancient Egyptian civilization.
The danger of this idolatrous worldview was that it related to human beings as nothing more than products of nature. Trapped in the matrix of natural law, man was seen as having no choice but to go with the inexorable flow of reality. Although acknowledging that man possessed the ability to make decisions, Egyptian philosophy claimed that those choices were in essence no different than those of a beast. Human psychology – our desires, motivations and weaknesses – was viewed as a product of nature. Negative emotions such as anger, jealousy, lust and the will to dominate others were understood to be natural and ordinary features of existence, prompting man to live no different from the animal predators that devour and plants that overrun their weaker competitors. The world was seen to reach a natural ecology of forces in conflict, balanced between the strong and the weak – the masters and the slaves.
This idolatrous conception imprisoned the spirit of man in an absolute bondage to the fetters of nature, with no possibility of breaking free and transcending its restrictive and suffocating boundaries. All of humanity’s higher yearnings were denigrated and debased under the pernicious influence of this toxic worldview, until mankind was entombed in pyramids of darkness and spiritual decay. Egypt is referred to as the “house of bondage” not merely on account of its large slave population. Egypt was a “house of bondage” through and through. All were mentally enslaved to the fixed laws of nature that determined the fate of individuals and groups alike. No slave even imagined that escape from bondage was possible because slavery was simply a condition of life.
We learn that “had the Kadosh Barukh Hu not taken Israel out of Egypt, we and our children and our children’s children would still be enslaved to Pharaoh” (Haggadah). While one can assume that over the course of thousands of years, other geopolitical factors might have led to Israel’s freedom, this is actually not the point our Sages are making. Had HaShem not taken us out then, we would have remained slaves in our essence. Human civilization would have remained stagnant, sunk in the mire of Egypt’s slave mentality. Even had Egypt’s dominance on the world stage declined later in history due to natural circumstances, the Pharaonic worldview would have continued to rule the thinking of man.
“Pharaoh replied, ‘Who is HaShem that I should heed His voice to send out Israel? I do not know HaShem, nor will I send out Israel!’” (SHEMOT 5:2)
When the Kadosh Barukh Hu dispatched Moshe and Aharon to demand that the Hebrews be permitted to serve Him in the wilderness, the Egyptian monarch responded with contempt. Pharaoh not only rejected the demand to send out his slaves but also denied HaShem’s very existence. The Egyptian view of life limited his ability to fathom a Divine Author and purpose to history. G-D then informed Moshe what would transpire next.
“‘Pharaoh will not heed you, and I shall put My hand upon Egypt; and I shall take out My legions – My nation the Children of Israel – from the land of Egypt, with great judgments. And Egypt shall know that I am HaShem, when I stretch out My hand over Egypt; and I shall take the Children of Israel out from among them.’” (SHEMOT 7:4-5)
Due to his ability to enslave and persecute the Hebrew tribes, Pharaoh was certain that there was no G-D of Israel. To him – as to most of Israel’s persecutors throughout history – the very degradation of the Jewish people appeared as proof of the Kadosh Barukh Hu’s weakness or non-existence. The ability of gentiles to persecute Israel is the ultimate profanation of HaShem’s Divine Ideal, which is inseparably connected to Israel’s stature on the world stage. Even in a situation where the Jewish people are guilty of serious transgressions, our honor is still intrinsically united with the honor of G-D. The main purpose of the plagues was to reveal the Divine unity of HaShem’s Oneness over all and to show that there is value and meaning to human history. In order that the worldview of the Egyptians be shattered, it was necessary that they directly experience HaShem’s power.
“‘For this time I shall send all my plagues against your heart and upon your servants, and your people, so that you shall know that there is none like Me in all the world. For now I could have sent My hand and stricken you and your people with the pestilence and you would have been obliterated from the earth. However, for this have I let you endure, in order to show you My strength and so that My Name may be declared throughout the world.’” (SHEMOT 9:14-15)
The plague of hail is described here as “all My plagues” because it begins the collapse of Egyptian faith in false gods. This was the purpose for all of the plagues – the destruction of idolatry and the revelation that everything in Creation is subordinate to HaShem. Pharaoh was permitted to survive the fifth plague – disease – only in order that he would be forced to recognize HaShem’s sovereignty over all and proclaim it to the world.
“‘You still tread upon My people, not to send them out. Behold, at this time tomorrow I shall rain a very heavy hail, such as there has never been in Egypt, from the day it was founded until now. And now send, gather in your livestock and everything you have in the field; all the people and animals that are found in the field and are not gathered into the house – the hail shall descend upon them and they shall die.’ Whoever among the servants of Pharaoh feared the word of HaShem chased his servants and his livestock into the houses. And whoever did not take the word of G-D to heart – he left his servants and livestock in the field.” (SHEMOT 9:17-21)
The sanctification of G-D’s Name – His Ideal for this world – comes about through the revelation of His might and the degradation of false deities. The plague of hail was the first time HaShem granted the Egyptians an opportunity to spare themselves. Through the very experience of making such a choice, they would have essentially been rejecting the Pharaonic worldview. Were they to heed Moshe’s warning, it would have constituted acknowledgment that the Kadosh Barukh Hu encompasses and directs everything in existence and that their idols would be powerless in protecting them from His plagues. The Egyptians would only be saved through abandoning their faith in false gods, transcending their society’s worldview and acknowledging HaShem’s all-encompassing sovereignty over all.
According to Rabbi Avraham Yitzḥak HaKohen Kook, Israel’s Exodus from Egypt marked “the springtime of the entire world” because out of the darkness of Egypt burst forth the Light of HaShem. With the Exodus of the Hebrew tribes from the bondage of Pharaoh and the revolt against further servitude to mortars and bricks, the world saw that there was Divine value to history, a Guiding Hand which ruled over the forces of the universe, and that it was in the power of mankind to rise up and transcend its baser instincts and passions.
Because HaShem is the timeless and boundless ultimate Reality without end that both encompasses all existence and is beyond all existence, ascribing any genuine power to false deities or human rulers prevents one from truly recognizing His Divine unity over all. Viewing idols or human rulers as having any power independent from HaShem therefore diminishes our awareness of G-D’s Oneness and profanes His Name. It is through the story of Israel, as it unfolds throughout time, that humanity sees history as possessing Divine meaning and purpose. Because the Children of Israel are the earthly human expression of HaShem’s Ideal in this world and the weakness of the Jewish people appears to the nations as the weakness of our G-D, Israel must strengthen our resolve and advance our national mission without fear of human rulers or the power they ostensibly wield. The Jewish people must stand strong against those seeking to obstruct the attainment of our aspirations so that we may bring this world to its destiny of ultimate good through establishing the Hebrew Kingdom that will manifest HaShem’s Ideal while shining blessing and light to all of Creation from Jerusalem.
Daniel Luria and I discuss the mental exile that plagues the leadership in Israel. We touch on security issues and the focus of Ateret Cohanim’s work in helping to reclaim stolen Jewish property and the settling of strategic areas in Jerusalem. Daniel and I also touch on some of the deeper and more positive facets of Jewish Nationhood.