One of the advantages of writing and publishing Divrei Torah online is that it’s very easy to go back and look at one’s own previous work, whether to get inspiration or even to share again a Dvar Torah that today’s audience may not have seen. This week, I found an example of how circumstances change, but the Torah’s lessons remain the same. This was the verse, and the lesson, that I wrote about 22 years ago, in 5764:
“Please save me from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esav, for I am afraid of him, lest he come and strike me, mother upon children.” [32:12]
The language of this verse appears repetitive. Yaakov had only one brother, Esav. He could have said “please save me from the hand of my brother,” or “please save me from the hand of Esav,” or even “please save me from the hand of my brother, Esav.” Why was it necessary to refer to both “the hand of my brother” and also “the hand of Esav,” as if they were two different things?
The Ohr HaChaim addresses this question. He says that Esav can approach Yaakov in two ways: with love, as a brother should — or as the wicked Esav. If Esav attacks as a wicked enemy, then it is obvious that Yaakov needs protection and help. But Yaakov, in his wisdom, perceived that Esav’s love can be equally dangerous — and he prayed for Divine assistance to deal with that facet of Esav as well.
At the time, I then wrote the following: Several hundred years ago, we could ask: “what’s so dangerous about Esav’s love? Wouldn’t it be wonderful if everyone loved the Jews?” Today, the associated dangers are apparent to everyone. In 1999, Harvard Professor Alan Dershowitz wrote the following in his book, “The Vanishing American Jew” (Oxmoor House, 2000): “We may be experiencing something unique in Jewish history — what I call the post-persecution era of Jewish life — where we can’t count on tsuris (grief), on external persecutions, and on people hating us to death, to keep us together. The world loves us to death. And we don’t have the answers.”
And as I pointed out, we do have the answers. We learn that “Maasei Avos Siman L’Banim” — “the deeds of the fathers are signposts for the children.” Yaakov our father had “been there, done that.” He knew the answers. And thus at the end of Parshas Vayigash, which we will read in several weeks, when Yaakov must go into exile again, this time to Egypt, we learn that “he sent Yehudah on in front of him to Yosef, to guide the way to Goshen, and they came to the land of Goshen.” [Gen 46:28].
Why does Yaakov need to send an advance team to go scout out the location? As Rashi points out, the word “to guide,” “l’horos,” also means “to instruct.” It comes from the same word as “Torah.” Yehudah went on ahead to build a house of learning, from which teaching and instruction would emerge. To claim that “we don’t have the answers” is to proclaim oneself ignorant of the solution we were given thousands of years ago. The answer was to recapture Jewish learning.
Today, however, no sane person believes that we live in “the post-persecution era of Jewish life.” Alan Dershowitz himself certainly does not! And we see that the lesson of history is not so simple. It is not true, as he wrote then, that in previous generations external persecution was enough to keep us together. We also had to be led by people who understood why we were hated, why our lives and mission are worth the persecution, and how to go forward as a community.
This year, a sizeable part of the Jewish community voted for a virulent antisemite to lead the City of New York. They did this because they do not understand antisemitism and the way it finds facades to appear legitimate, did not comprehend the danger of having an NYC mayor spreading those dangerous ideas, or thought that other issues were more important. On all three counts, they demonstrated the consequences of the ignorance that Yaakov our forefather knew he had to prevent.
When we learn Torah, we are not just building a spiritual future, we are gaining a deeper understanding into the world around us, how society works, and how we must address it. We will continue to learn, to grow, and to be led by those who know how to address the circumstances that confront us in each generation. And let us each claim our part in our illustrious past, and illustrious future!
