ב''ה SERMON RESOURCE FOR SHLUCHIM DISTRIBUTION DATE: JAN 7TH 201 6 – 26TH TEVES 5776 PARSHA: וארא – Vaera SERMON TITLE: GOOD MUSLIMS AND OTHERS A PROJECT OF THE SHLUCHIM OFFICE The author is solely responsible for the contents of this document. Vaera Good Muslims and Others Good Shabbos! Sadly, Paris has been in the news a lot lately, as a destination for terror attacks. At first it was against Jewish targets, and then the general public. Now, Paris has a long Jewish history. In the saga of the Jewish Nation, there was a famous medieval European Jewish sage named Rabbi Yechiel of Paris. Rabbi Yechiel lived in the 13th Century and was one of the great Tosafists, the commentators on the Talmud. In those days, as we know, people didn’t have family names, and so he (like most other people) was named for his town—and to this day he is known to the Jewish Nation by that name. In that era, the Church ruled Europe and attacked Jews and Muslims alike. The Church forbade them from working in public positions and required them to wear distinct garments that would identify them and isolate them from Christians. As a result, Jews in France had to wear red and white patches on their clothing. Also in that era, one of Rabbi Yechiel’s students converted to Christianity . He then wrote a letter to the Pope claiming that the Talmud includes sharp and derogatory statements against anyone who is not Jewish. He asked the Pope to order the Talmud to be burned. Three years later, the Pope ordered that all copies of the Talmud be confiscated. The king of France at the time, King Louis IX, agreed to the order on the condition that the Jews be given the opportunity to defend the Talmud. And so in the year 1240, a debate over the Talmud was organized; it became known as the “Trial of Paris.” Judaism was represented by Rabbi Yechiel of Paris and three other distinguished rabbis. The trial was held in June of that year with the participation of King Louis himself. The panel of judges was headed by Queen Blanche of Castile. One of the essential charges that the Christians made at the Trial was connected to this week’s Torah portion. In recent weeks we have been reading in the Torah about the Jews in ancient Egypt leading up to the Exodus, and we discover that even then, during the terrible years of Jewish suffering in Egypt, there were good people who helped the Jews. Everyone knows one example of that—the “daughter of the Pharaoh” who rescued Moshe Rabbeinu and raised him in the palace; she is considered the first “Righteous Gentile” in history. 2 But we discover something else in our Parshah. The Torah portion of Vaera tells us about seven of the ten Makkos, the Plagues that struck Egypt. And at the end of the Parshah, right in the last column, we are told about the seventh Plague. Moshe warns the Pharaoh in the Name of G-d, “Behold, I shall rain down at this time tomorrow a very heavy hail…” And so, Moshe warns the Pharaoh, “Gather in your livestock and all that you have in the field; any man or beast that is found in the field and not brought into the house the hail shall fall on them, and they will die.” No games. Anyone left outside will die. The Torah continues and says, “He who feared the Word of the L-rd among the Pharaoh’s servants drove his servants and his livestock into the houses” (Shmos 9:19-20). So at first, we learn that Egypt had people “who feared the Word of G-d,” as they could have been described. These people respected G-d, and they indeed were saved. The remainder remaining outside were annihilated. And the Rebbe says in a sicha that “G-d fearing Egyptians” did not kill Jews during the years of persecution because it’s one of the Seven Noahide Laws: not to kill (Sichos Kodesh 5729 Vol. I, pg. 458). And then, in the following portion of Beshalach, we read about how three days later, after the Jews had left Egypt, the Pharaoh regretted having set them free (even though his country had basically rioted against him and had all but thrown the Jews out of Egypt, and happily so). He then managed to convince the Egyptians to actually chase the Jews and bring them back—“He drew them in with words: ‘They smote us, they took our money, and we sent them out?!’ ” (Rashi, Shmos 14:1). The Pharaoh convinced his country to join him so as to bring back all the money that the Jewish Nation had “borrowed” from them. And indeed, the Egyptians joined him, and they all got on their horses (and camels, too, we can assume) and pursued the Jews. This story was taught over close to 2,000 years ago by one of the great Sages, Rabbi Shimon Bar-Yochai, who asked a simple question: Where did they get these animals? How was it that the Egyptians had so many horses and camels with which to pursue the Jews, when because of the Ten Plagues the entire Egypt was laid waste and there was hardly anything left? Yet here we read, “Six hundred chosen riders and all riders of Egypt” set out to bring an entire nation back to Egypt. Such an army would need enough horses to overtake them! So where did they get them? Rabbi Shimon has an interesting answer: Those same “fearers of G-d” who brought their livestock into the houses, those “righteous ones” who did not kill the Jews and believed in G-d— when it came to the moment at which they thought they were going to lose all their money, they had a change of heart and they joined the Pharaoh in chasing the Jewish Nation. Despite the miracles and the Plagues which showed them that G-d wanted the Jewish Nation to leave Egypt, and despite the fact that they believed in G-d, still, when it came to their wallets, they were prepared to fight against the Jews. “From this,” the Talmud tells us, “Rabbi Shimon would say, ‘The proper among the Egyptians, kill them.’ ” Rabbi Shimon says that this is the reason why even the good Egyptians were 3 drowned at the Splitting of the Sea—because even they had gone to war against the Jewish Nation. Now, having said all that, this quote by Rabbi Shimon was one of the central points in the great debate in Paris over 800 years ago. The Christian scholars asked Rabbi Yechiel how can it be that there’s such an expression in the Talmud that says that you need to kill even a good Egyptian? Rabbi Yechiel replied that Rabbi Shimon had said it about the Egyptians of that generation, not about all Egyptians in all future generations. Even one generation after the Exodus, Rabbi Yechiel pointed out, the Torah was already warning the Jews in the Book of Devarim (23:5, in the Torah portion of Ki Teitzei), “Do not despise the Egyptian, for you were a stranger in his land.” So thus we have it that 40 years after the Exodus from Egypt, Moshe Rabbeinu warns the Jewish Nation that it is forbidden to even despise an Egyptian—never mind to not kill him. And Rabbi Shimon could obviously not have ruled against an explicit verse in the Torah, Rabbi Yechiel added for emphasis. Rather, he meant those Egyptians in that time, the ones who were “fearers of G-d” and yet still had no mercy for the Jewish Nation. Sadly, however, this answer did not satisfy the Christians. And so in the year 1244, the entire Talmud was banned in France. On Friday, June 17 of that year, four wagons filled with copies of the Talmud—remember that this was before the printing press, and every volume of the Talmud was handwritten, page by page, word by word—were brought to the central square of Paris, and over the course of two days, they were all burned. As a result of that tragedy and outrage, Rabbi Yechiel left France and went to the Holy Land at the head of a group of 300 rabbis. They settled in Akko and established a yeshivah. (See Sicha of Purim 5729, Sichos Kodesh 5729 Vol. I, pg. 403 and Shabbos Parshas Beshalach and Ki Tisa at length on this subject.) As Jews, we need to have a lot of patience because ultimately good will prevail. Today, Judaism in Paris is flourishing. Many young Jewish students are studying the Talmud with the support and encouragement of the French government. May G-d grant the French people only peace and prosperity so the Jewish community should be able to grow and flourish. Good Shabbos! 4 .