Tag: exodus

Posted on

Out of the Darkness of Egypt Burst forth the Light of the Creator

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 suffocating paradigm imprisoned the spirit of man in an absolute bondage to the fetters of nature, with no possibility of breaking free and transcending its restrictive 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 dominate 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 the very existence of HaShem. 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 the Holy One. 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 marked “the springtime of the entire world” because out of the darkness of Egypt burst forth the Light of HaShem. Through the birth of Israel and the civilization we are meant to create, mankind would discover that it is possible to establish a strong and prosperous nation founded on eternal values of morality, justice, purity and Divine good beyond what the limited human intellect can conceptualize. With the liberation 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 ruling 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 that encompasses yet 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. We must 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.

Posted on

Passover – The Story of the Exodus Continues

Between Israel’s slavery in Egypt and the final redemption in Jerusalem, the story of the Exodus continues throughout time. In every generation we find challenges and heroes in our unbroken struggle for complete liberation as we inch ever closer towards history’s ultimate goal.

The festival of Pesaḥ (Passover) is the holiday of Israel’s initial emancipation, marking the birth of the Hebrew Nation and HaShem’s great love for us. It was on this day that the Kadosh Barukh Hu (God) took Israel out from Egyptian slavery in order that we become His human representative in this world. We were brought from subjugation to freedom in order that we establish the kingdom meant to express His Divine Ideal and bless humanity with the light of His Truth – a light that can only be illuminated through Israel experiencing complete independence in our entire historic homeland. It is therefore precisely on Pesaḥ – on the birthday of the Hebrew Nation – that we must educate ourselves to the true value of freedom.

Rashi teaches that the miracles of the Exodus began on the tenth of Nisan, a few days preceding the festival. It was on this date that Israel overcame our fears and psychologically freed ourselves from our chains of bondage. Each household prepared to slaughter a lamb, one of Egypt’s most prominent national deities, and displayed it defiantly for our oppressors to see. Although the Egyptians would naturally seek to punish their Hebrew slaves for such an offense, the Children of Israel remained miraculously unharmed. This was therefore the day on which the miracles of redemption truly began and when Hebrew courage was first demonstrated after so many years of persecution.

On Pesaḥ of 5707 (1947), the last year of British rule over our country, an important seder took place in the Jerusalem central prison. A few days before their scheduled executions by the foreign regime, six young men were conducting the Pesaḥ seder with Rabbi Yaakov Goldman. They were Dov Gruner, Mordekhai Alkaḥi, Yeḥiel Drezner, Eliezer Kashani and Meir Feinstein from the Irgun Zvai Leumi(National Military Organization) and Moshe Barazani from the Loḥamei Ḥerut Yisrael (Fighters for the Freedom of Israel). Dressed in their red death row jumpsuits, these boys were provided with haggadot and food so that they could sit together and celebrate the holiday of their people’s freedom for the last time.

The young men eventually arrived at the part of the haggadah which relates Rabbi Akiva and other Sages discussing the Exodus from Egypt all night in B’nei Brak. When dawn broke, their students came to inform them that it was time to say “Shema Yisrael.”

The prisoners sitting around the table discussed where these rabbis might have been that they could not see the light of day in order to know the time. It is well known that these Sages had supported the Bar Kokhba Revolt against the Roman Empire and that Rabbi Akiva had even served as Bar Kokhba’s personal arms bearer. Acting as the spiritual leader of the insurrection, Rabbi Akiva had gone so far as to proclaim Bar Kokhba the Messiah. These rabbis must have been hiding in caves from where they were organizing the revolt against Rome. They were discussing the Exodus – the importance of freedom – all night long and when dawn broke, their students came to tell them that it was time for “Shema Yisrael” – time to sanctify G-D’s Name through liberating the Land of Israel from foreign rule.

Nearly two thousand years later, these six boys – Jewish freedom fighters captured and sentenced to death – were reading the story of the rabbis in B’nei Brak. Dov Gruner said to the others, “It is a shame that our political leaders do not learn what Rabbi Akiva said, that if the Egyptians had not received fifty makot (plagues/strikes) and another two hundred and fifty makot at the sea, they would never have granted the Hebrews their freedom. If Rabbi Akiva understood that in order to become free, there had to be makot, then why is it so difficult for Israel to understand now that we must give makot to the British in order to win our freedom?”

Dov Gruner – ready to be executed by the British administration – internalized the teachings of Rabbi Akiva, who had himself been brutally executed by Rome. Now, after nearly two thousand years of terrible degradation, the students of Rabbi Akiva had at long last arrived. The students that history had been waiting for had come to proclaim that dawn was finally braking. The students – all dressed in red and eating a prison seder only days before their executions by a modern incarnation of Rome – had arrived to reestablish a sovereign Hebrew state – even if at the expense of their lives. These were men who walked in the path of Rabbi Akiva, knowing that it was their final Pesaḥ seder before singing HaTikvah and mounting the British gallows. And without fear or regret, they questioned why the official Jewish leadership of their generation had not understood the eternal teachings of redemption.

Prior to his execution, Dov Gruner wrote a farewell letter to his commander, Menaḥem Begin:

Sir,

From the bottom of my heart I thank you for the encouragement that you have given me during these fateful days. Be assured that whatever happens I shall not forget the principles of dignity, generosity and resolve. I shall know how to uphold my honor, the honor of a Jewish soldier and fighter.

I could have written in high-sounding phrases something like the old Roman ‘Duce est pro patria mor.’ But words are cheap, and skeptics can say ‘after all, he had no choice.’ And they might even be right. Of course I want to live. Who doesn’t? But what pains me, now that the end is so near, is mainly the awareness that I have not succeeded in achieving enough. I too could have said ‘let the future take care of the future’ while enjoying life and being content with the job I was promised upon my demobilization. I could even have left the country altogether for a safer life in America. But this would not have satisfied me, neither as a Jew nor as a Zionist.

There are many schools of thought as to how a Jew should choose his way of life. One way is that of the assimilationists who have renounced their Jewishness. There is also another way, the way of those who call themselves Zionists – the way of negotiation and compromise, as if the existence of a nation were but another transaction. They are not prepared to make any sacrifice and are therefore forced to make concessions and accept compromise. Perhaps this is a means of delaying the end but, in the final analysis, it leads to the ghetto. And let us not forget that in the ghetto of Warsaw alone there were five hundred thousand Jews.

The only way that seems, to my mind, to be right, is the way of theIrgun Zvai Leumi, the way of courage and daring without renouncing a single inch of our homeland. When political negations prove futile, one must be prepared to fight for our country and our freedom. Without them the very existence of our nation is jeopardized, so fight we must with all possible means. This is the only way left to our people in our hour of decision: to stand on our rights, to be ready to fight, even if for some of us this way leads to the gallows. For it is a law of history that only with blood shall a country be redeemed. I am writing this while awaiting the hangman. This is not a moment at which I can lie, and I swear that if I had to begin my life anew I would have chosen the same path, regardless of the consequences.

Your faithful soldier,

Dov

Dov Gruner embodied the teachings of Rabbi Akiva and understood the struggle for freedom in Eretz Yisrael as the highest and truest service to HaShem. After receiving Gruner’s letter, Menaḥem Begin wrote:

“Great is the courage in Israel at a time of destruction and in this time of resurrection. We will be proud of them all and in all of them we will recognize holiness. But in the ladder of Jewish heroism, there is one level that is supreme. And from that level arises those who areHarugei Malkhut (martyrs of the kingdom). They were fighters whose fighting was not passive. It was active. They were revolutionaries whose revolution was not without choice but initiated. They went to the gallows and their heroism was not once. It is eternal. From their bleeding hearts, a song of freedom was sung. The song that sang how there is no purpose in being slaves anymore and that freedom would win and justice would arrive. And now, G-D of Israel, I tell You: Because You have given Israel such children as these, I say ‘Yitgadal V’Yitkadash Sh’mei Rabbah.’”

Begin declares “Yitgadal V’Yitkadash Sh’mei Rabbah” – “May His Great Name be exalted and sanctified.” The evidence that G-D’s Name is exalted and sanctified is that Israel has sons who are prepared to give their lives – boys ready to sacrifice themselves on the alter of Israel’s freedom so that the next generation would see a Hebrew flag over Jerusalem.

The legendary tzadik of Jerusalem, Rabbi Aryeh Levine, came to see Yeḥiel Drezner before he was taken to the gallows. When Drezner asked the pious sage for help with the confessional prayer before death, Rabbi Levine began to cry. He told the young fighter not to worry about death and that the confessional prayer is not necessary for martyrs.

And dawn broke. The British retreated from Eretz Yisrael shortly after the execution of these courageous boys. A Hebrew flag signifying renewed Jewish independence once again soared over portions of our homeland, initiating the first flowering of Israel’s redemption.

The Talmud (Brakhot 20a) asks why Israel experienced less open miracles in Talmudic times than in Biblical times. The Sages question if it might be because the Jewish people in Talmudic times were less immersed in the study of Torah. But the Talmud dismisses this and answers that it can be proven that there were Biblical generations that studied less Torah yet still experienced greater miracles. The Talmud continues by revealing that the difference is not due to a distinction in scholarship but rather to a distinction in self-sacrifice for the Hebrew mission. Israelis in Biblical times were more willing to give their lives for the sanctification of G-D’s Name. The Talmud therefore concludes that miracles are a result of courage and selfless devotion. When Israel is ready to meet HaShem half way, we are rewarded with assistance and great Divine kindness.

So dawn breaks not when Rabbi Akiva has students who merely study the Torah but rather when he has students who actually live the Torah and are willing to give their lives for the advancement of Jewish history. The young death row inmates understood what the haggadahmeans when it proclaims that next year the Jewish people will be free. In blood and fire Hebrew sovereignty fell and in blood and fire it would again rise. The haggadah is not simply a book that teaches us what took place once upon a time in Egypt. Nor is it merely an instruction manual for properly conducting the rituals of a seder. The haggadahin every generation is meant to teach Israel how to liberate our people and to understand the basic values of our freedom. The heroic martyrs of the pre-state Jewish underground were not simply fighters. They were educators – educators for a generation who did not yet understand the true meaning of freedom. And when the Jewish people will understand the true significance and value of Hebrew liberation, there will no longer be any necessity for such martyrs.

The lesson is clear. Freedom is a miracle and miracles require valor. History demands that Israel establish a kingdom that will manifest the Divine Ideal in all spheres of national life in order to liberate humanity from profane cultures and false dogmas. But in order to accomplish this lofty mission we must first psychologically free ourselves, as did our ancestors in Egypt on the tenth of Nisan. The sooner we believe in ourselves and in our ability to stand proud as a strong moral force among nations, the closer we will come to expressing the full grandeur of HaShem’s Ideal for this world and ushering in an era of total blessing for humankind.