Almost Eden

DVAR TORAH: GO TO THE SOURCE, OF COURSE!
RABBI S. WEISS

From the “just when you thought it was safe to leave Egypt” department: The plagues are over, Pharoah has relented, you’ve said your last goodbye to the Pyramids and are on the freedom trail – but Whoa! - not so fast! What is that sound of chariots and “death to the Israelites” I hear fast approaching behind me? Can it be Paro – again?!

What is it now? Three days out of wretched slavery and well on the way to beautiful Israel, the Jews are once again in mortal danger. While I can understand Paro’s change of heart – after all, once an anti-Semite, always an anti-Semite – why must the poor Jews be put through yet another trauma. Hadn’t they suffered enough? Why this?

Follow up:

The answer can be found in the first 3 words of our Sedra, “Vay’hi B’Shalach Paro – and it was when Paro” sent out the nation. Paro?! What do you mean “Paro?” Was he the one who freed the Israelites? You mean he gets the credit for their liberation?

After all we had witnessed, all the miracles, all the signs, it seems we still hadn’t gotten the point: That it was Hashem - & Hashem alone – who had redeemed us - despite Paro. If we were to have left Egypt without grasping that essential Truth - that our salvation comes from Hashem - then this whole 210-year ordeal would have been in vain.

And so we had to see it with our own eyes, in living (or dying?) color, as the sea split and the mighty Egyptian army vanished under the waves, never to surface again. And then, at last, Israel “saw the great hand of the Almighty, and believed in Hashem & Moshe, his servant.”

Now fast forward 3322 years later to present day.

We are living in an age of miracles, no less potent than in Paro’s time. Millions of Arab enemies, supported by billions of petro-dollars and all the weapons that money can buy, seek our destruction, but – praise to Hashem - they can’t lay a hand on us. Jew-haters from Goldstone to Gaddafi slander and condemn us, but we still go forward. The dollar dips while the shekel soars.

The earth shakes, but our doctors are real movers & shakers, saving souls. Europe freezes, yet we bask in beautiful sunshine.

But who gets the credit for all this? Our clever politicians? Our brilliant fiscal policy? Our advanced weaponry? Luck? Fate? Hard cash reserves? What is the source of all these blessings which we so cavalierly take for granted?

Hashem is the answer, of course. We must never be afraid to acknowledge the special connection we have with G-d, the source of our blessing, particularly on our “home turf” of Israel. We would do well to hold up our shekel bills and recite the words that should be inscribed on them, as in the USA:

“In G-d we trust!”

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ASK THE RABBI

Question: COLLECTIVE PUNISHMENT: IS IT HALACHICALLY PERMISSIBLE?

Answer: There is a general principle that “a person dies only for his own crime” (Dvarim 24:16); Avraham (before S’dom was destroyed) & Moshe (at the Korach incident) reaffirmed this concept with G-d. The Sages justify the destruction of all of Sh’chem by Shimon & Levi due to the city’s knowledge of Dina’s kidnapping & their refusal to do anything about it, making them accomplices after the fact. So, too, relatives of Molech child-sacrificers are executed, as we assume they were complicit in the sin.

In wartime, we must attempt to safeguard innocent civilians (as the IDF clearly did in Gaza) just as Shaul warned the Kenites to flee to safety before he battled Amalek (Shmuel I 15:6). But Rambam rules (in Hilchot Rotzeach) that if the civilian population assists, enables or supports (terrorist) murderers in their efforts to harm Jews, then they take on the status of Rodef (pursuers) & are “fair game.” The protection of the Jewish nation always takes precedence.
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Rabbi Shmuel Weiss is the Director of the Jewish Outreach Center of Ra'anana. If you would like to subscribe, advertise or sponsor an issue of the JOC's weekly Parsha sheet, please e-mail jocmtv@netvision.net.il