Rabbi Yaakov Galinsky zt”l says something on this week’s reading that could have been drawn from current events, though his twelfth yahrtzeit will be next month on the Jewish calendar.
In this week’s reading, Moshe and Aharon come before Pharoah, to demand the right to leave and worship. Pharoah demanded a sign to prove that Hashem wanted him to release them. Aaron threw down his staff, which became a snake. Pharaoh’s magicians then did the same thing, creating snakes, but “the staff of Aaron swallowed up their staves” [Ex. 7:12].
The Talmud [Menachos 85a] records that the magicians mocked Moshe and Aharon, because Egypt was a place known for its magicians and sorcerers. “Do you bring your crops to a place full of produce?” they asked. And Moshe answered that the truth was the opposite: “take your produce to a place filled with produce, because that is where everyone goes to buy.”
Something seems lacking in Moshe’s response. The magicians were merely capable of creating illusions, whereas Aharon’s staff became a genuine, living snake, which only G-d could do. So their claim was nonsense: only on the surface, to the untrained eye, is there commonality between an illusion and the genuine article. Why did Moshe respond in kind, as if their claim had merit? Shouldn’t he have said that they came with empty illusions, while Moshe and Aharon came with a Divine Command from the Creator of heaven and earth?
In the early 20th Century, winds of change were blowing through the Jewish community of Baranovitch (Baranavichy, in Belarus today). Some storekeepers even remained open on Shabbos—which, sadly, we may take for granted today in much of America, but then was entirely unacceptable. When the great Rabbi Chayim Leib Lubechansky zt”l passed away, his son Rabbi Yaakov Yisroel zt”l claimed he could not become the town’s rabbi in his father’s place, and take upon himself the responsibility of guiding the entire community back to Torah.
Pressed by town leaders, he agreed for an interim period, and then took upon himself to go out with others on Friday afternoons to object, loudly, outside businesses. This way, potential customers avoided the rabbi’s protest, and the storekeepers had no choice but to close up their shops.
Rabbi Galinsky relates that the rabbi’s opponents said, “what right do you have to protest? Don’t you know the times have changed, and now is the time of individual rights? Each person has freedom to do whatever he thinks best!”
How should the rabbi have responded? He should have spoken to them about the eternity of Torah, that it transcends the fads of every era. Sabbath observance is the hallmark of a Jewish person. They just wanted to pursue their own desires, but we are a people due to our service of Hashem!
But in actuality, he said something very different: “Yes, certainly, and I am also following the spirit of the times! You say that every person has the right to do whatever he thinks best. This is what I think is best, to protest and object to what you are doing, until your customers leave!”
To this, they had no answer.
The magicians were making fun of Moshe, but he answered that even according to their own foolishness, they were wrong. He ended up making fun of them.
And nothing has changed. By rational standards, a free platform must be open, not censoring anyone, but it is a privilege, not a right, to be paid by others to host a show or speak at a conference. Those who protest about “cancel culture” often do so exclusively when it is their allies who find themselves without a paid platform. Even by their own standards, we have the right to protest and object to those, who give hatred an audience!
