Shabbat-B'shabbato – Parshat Vayeira No 1596: 18 Cheshvan 5776 (31 October 2015)
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Shabbat-B'Shabbato – Parshat Vayeira No 1596: 18 Cheshvan 5776 (31 October 2015) AS SHABBAT APPROACHES The Binding of Yitzchak - by Esti Rosenberg, Head of the Midrasha for Women, Migdal Oz "He suppressed his pity in order to perform Your will with a complete heart. So let Your mercy suppress Your anger against us." These words from the "Memories" section of the prayers for Rosh Hashanah are an expression of an abstract of the Binding of Yitzchak – the human ability to overpower our natural mercy and our desires when they come up against the obligations and the commands of the Creator of the World. The Holy One, Blessed be He, demands that man must be willing to abandon some of his own inclinations, and sometimes even be willing to give up his life and to overcome his natural feelings of mercy as part of our acceptance of the yoke of heaven. This main element of the link between the Creator and His creatures first appeared in the way that G-d tested Avraham. In the end Yitzchak was not offered as a sacrifice, but the essence of personal sacrifice in response to a command and to the will of the Creator was born on Mount Moriah, and it remains the basis of our religious lives. What did Avraham feel at the time when he began to understand this very significant point? What emotions did he experience when he climbed Mount Moriah? Two world giants tried to describe Avraham's emotions at this point. Rav Kook writes, "Avraham did not lose any sleep that night, because of the clear knowledge that had come to him through the word of G-d. He did not have any feeling of being dull, of negligence, or depression mixed in with the yearning of his pure soul. The remainder of his sleep went by with rest and the joy of holiness, and the time for waking up came to him in its normal way..." [Olat Re'ieya]. Rav Kook describes pleasant sleep together with a great joy of harmony while Avraham was on the way to observe G-d's command. Avraham's emotions and the will of the Creator meshed into one. In his essay, "On the Love of Torah and the Redemption of the Soul of the Generation," Rav Soloveitchik gives a different picture. "I demand from you the greatest possible sacrifice, I want your one and only beloved son. Don't delude yourself that after you obey the command and offer your son as an Olah Sacrifice I will give you another son in his place... I am interested only in your son, whom you love and will always love. You will spend many sleepless nights when you will search through the wounds in your soul... Your life will become an endless chain of torture of the soul, but I still demand this sacrifice from you." There is no harmony in Avraham's mind on the way to the Binding. There will be no peaceful sleep and a rest for the soul – rather, there will be sleepless nights and many questions to ask the Creator of the World. This will deepen the gap that sometimes exists between the desires of man and the will of G-d. Both the Avraham of Rav Kook and the Avraham of Rav Soloveitchik overcame their feelings of mercy, in silence and with dedication. Without asking any questions, they both performed the will of G-d. However, the descriptions of the raging emotions within them are very different. These two different religious experiences in the face of the Divine command of the Binding form the basis for two very different religious approaches in our daily life. POINT OF VIEW Do the Judges of the Supreme Court Live in Switzerland or the Hague? - by Rabbi Yisrael Rozen, Dean of the Zomet Institute 1 "And [Sarah] said to Avraham, Expel this maidservant and her son... And G-d said... Whatever Sarah tells you to do, listen to her voice" [Bereishit 21:10,12]. "This teaches us that in prophecy Avraham was minor as compared to Sarah" [Rashi, based on the sages]. Do the judges of the Supreme Court live in Switzerland or the Hague? And what about the Chief Rabbinate? The Battle over Morale and Hasbarah The citizens of Israel are standing up, with tremendous courage, against individual terrorism, with no clear target for fighting back. The State of Israel stands, in a very weak stance, against a communications attack in the world media based on lies. The god of our Moslem enemies is a god of murder, evil, and stage-managed falsehood which have been concocted to pull the wool over the eyes of the world. There are two main realms where this despairing battle is taking place: National morale and international "hasbarah" – advocacy. To our great sorrow as a nation, we also suffer in this struggle from serious obstacles at home, including two enterprises which reign supreme in their respective realms: The Supreme Court (together with the State Attorney) and none other than the Chief Rabbinate. With great pain, I will expand on this general statement. We are at war! It reeks of blood and it is filled with tears. An important element in our ability to withstand this attack is national morale, since after all the main warriors in the current struggle are regular citizens, who must stand up against a rioting group of riffraff. Many advisors, led by security experts, propose to destroy the houses of the terrorists, as a security act of war and not on a basis of military or civil punishment. It has also been proposed that we rescind the citizenship of close relatives of the terrorists, confiscate their property, and expel them to the broad "oceans" of the Islamic world. It is eminently clear even to the youngest children, but not to the judges of the Supreme Court who lounge in their comfortable chairs, that such measures are not meant as punishment but as psychological deterrence, in order to lift up our national morale and to depress that of the enemy. But the Supreme Court does not allow it! It would destroy the very foundation of democracy! It is eminently clear to every child, but not to the judges of the Supreme Court and the State Attorney, that a battleground has different rules than normal life. It is clear to every child, but not to the judges of the Supreme Court and the State Attorney, that these suggestions are meant for a time of crisis, when it is not possible to maintain the "Swiss" laws and rules relevant under normal circumstances. It is clear to every child that every delay by the Supreme Court and the State Attorney brings us a step closer to national suicide on the altar of the religion of the Hague, as a mirror image of the Shahidim who kiss their Islamic swords. I am well aware that the effectivity of such moves is a matter of dispute, and in the short run it will not be possible to prove that there they lead to positive results. However, in my eyes it is a national tragedy to see the Supreme Court put legal sticks into the wheels of our security, thereby helping in a roundabout way to sacrifice our young men and women to the idol of democracy. I call out to the Supreme Court to come down from its ivory tower and from its couches, and to remove itself in practice (not necessarily in a public declaration) from any judgement against the national security forces, based on a rationale of a lack of jurisdiction during war, or using any other convoluted legal device, a procedure at which they have great expertise... The Chief Rabbinate Indirectly Supports Enemy Lies And this leads me to the second front of this war: International advocacy in the realm of detestable lies. Every child knows that the libel of Jewish attempts to gain control over the Temple Mount can be listed as one of the legends of Ali-Baba and the Forty Thieves, along with the other stories of 2 the Arabian Nights. What is going on is a holy war by incited Moslems who are fighting against imaginary Crusaders who want to destroy their mosque on the Temple Mount. And now, the Chief Rabbinate has joined in the fray just at this point by publishing a declaration, "a prohibition by 100 rabbis" to enter the Temple Mount, playing directly into the hands of the enemy, almost as if to say, "Our call to Jews to retreat from the occupied mountain is justified." This is clearly the point of this declaration, because otherwise why did the Chief Rabbinate find it necessary to publish a halachic ruling at this time? The proof of this is a parallel declaration by a hundred (religious?) academics, not to visit the Mount at this time and upset the Moslems. In addition, if the declaration of the Rabbinate is non-political, why doesn't it refer to the halacha prohibiting the entry of all Gentiles onto the Temple Mount? In general, since when does the Chief Rabbinate publish halachic rulings in matters of public interest, while gathering the signatures of city and neighborhood rabbis for support? It could easily collect "a declaration of 200 rabbis" against Hesder yeshivot, against army prep schools, against the "heter mechirah," against boys and girls meeting together in youth groups, against women giving halachic advice, against minyanim with greater equality of the sexes, against and against more and more. Has the Chief Rabbinate ever used this device before, except for the matter of entering the Temple Mount, which has direct political consequences? We could understand if there was some possibility that such a declaration might have an effect in deterring people from going up to the Temple Mount, but every child knows that nobody will be influenced by the proclamation, since those who do enter the Mount do not see their rabbis among the signatories.