Parashat Bo: : Tommy, Pharaoh and The People of Iran

 It is probably one of the most famous creations in popular music history and is still being performed live by the man who wrote both the music and lyrics.

It is estimated that over 20 million copies (including numerous reissues) have been sold since its release in May 1969.  It was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1998 joining more than a thousand others including The Beatles’ Abbey Road, Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G Major (Leonard Bernstein with the Philharmonia Orchestra), Ella Fitzgerald Sings the George and Ira Gershwin Songbook, West Side Story (both the Original Broadway Cast recordings and the Film Soundtrack) and Bob Dylan’s Blonde on Blonde.

I am referring to the Who’s rock opera, Tommy which stems from the furtive imagination and prodigious talent of Pete Townshend.

It tells the fictional story of four-year-old Tommy whose father Captain Walker has been reported missing during the Second World War only to turn up and find Tommy’s mother with her lover.  In a pique of rage, he kills the man whereupon the couple coerce Tommy into believing that he didn’t see or hear anything regarding the act.  As a result, the boy enters a psychosomatic state which leaves him ‘deaf, dumb and blind’ to the world around him.  He only interacts with his surroundings through his imagination and sense of touch.  As he grows older, he feels the vibrations emanating from playing pinball machines and this leads to his becoming a ‘Pinball Wizard’ (from ‘Soho down to Brighton’) before eventually being healed and becoming a Messianic leader (the music is more memorable than the story!)

The dark world that Tommy inhabits is very relatable to this week’s Parasha of Bo, particularly when it comes to the ninth plague.  The Torah tells us:

Then the Lord said to Moshe, “Reach out your hand towards the sky to bring darkness down to Egypt – darkness so deep that it can be felt” (Shemot 10.21)

Rashi adds that this was no ordinary darkness.  It was one in which the Egyptians could not see for three days.  It was so thick that they were frozen in their places, unable to reach one another.  Anyone who was standing could not sit down and vice versa.  It was as if they were rendered ‘deaf, dumb and blind’.  Cut off from the world, just like Tommy.

However, they were not alone.

Their leader, Pharaoh had already cast himself into this state.

Gd told Moshe that he had hardened Pharaoh’s heart (Shemot 10.1) to which Rashi adds that this was a result of the ruler hardening his own heart first.

He was deaf to the plight of the Israelites.  His tongue refused to speak the truth about how wrong he was and he suffered from, as Rabbi Sacks ztl put it, “The worst kind of blindness (which) is moral blindness.”

His heart was metaphorically blind to the injustice of what he had instituted.  Whilst his people may have been ‘blinded’ by the plague of darkness, Pharaoh chose not to investigate his heart to act favourably towards the Bnei Yisrael.

Let us contrast these senses with those experienced by our ancestors.

For three days, no one could see anyone else or move.  But in the Israelites’ homes, they had light.  (ibid)

Why was this?  Not necessarily because they had sunshine streaming through their windows but due to the light that emanates from faith, hope and moral clarity which is hardwired into our Jewish souls.

Whilst others around us may be deaf, dumb and blind to the evil machinations of those who bring darkness into the world, we introduce light to rebalance the equation.

A case in point revolves around the recent and ongoing brutal massacres being perpetrated on the Iranian people (not ‘allegedly’ but actually).

For nearly a month, tens of thousands of young men, women and children have been risking, and losing, their lives to stand up for dignity and freedom from the nihilistic and barbaric regime that currently rules the proud and ancient country of Iran (which used to be known as Persia).  The Mullahs have been deaf, dumb and blind to the cries and anguish of the people they lead.  They have tried to extinguish any semblance of light to recreate the ninth plague of darkness across the country where people are too frightened to reach out to their loved ones for fear of imprisonment or execution.

The nations of the world, who are all too eager to criticize Israel at the drop of a hat whenever they can, have also been deaf, dumb and blind to the plight of the Iranian people.

Where was the United Nations at the end of December?  (It issued a ‘Joint Statement on 16^th January, nearly three weeks later).  I don’t recall Amnesty International putting out a press release criticizing the Iranian Regime until 14^th January.  How about a word from those so called ‘celebrities’ who think nothing of falsely accusing Israel of ‘genocide’?  Have they too lost their voices or are they ‘out at sea’ on a flotilla in the Gulf along with Greta Thunberg.  Why are the university students silent too?

Finally, why was the media deaf, dumb and blind when it came to Iran on New Year’s Eve?  Whilst the Iranians are being hanged in public places, they are more concerned with whether Greenland is American or Danish and why Brooklyn Beckham can’t get along with his parents!

When it came to standing up for Iran, one of the only other flags seen at the rallies outside the Iranian Embassies was that of Israel, the only true democracy in the Middle East.

Returning to Tommy, if you recall, the turning point in the album takes place when he awakens.  He can hear, speak and see his reflection in the mirror.  His world of darkness is now flooded by light.

In Parashat Bo, when Egypt has been brought to its knees following the nine plagues, Gd tells the Israelites:

And when your children say to you, “What does this ceremony (i.e.  the bringing of the Korban Pesach/Pascal lamb) mean to you?”  You shall say, “It is the Passover sacrifice to the Lord who passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt…” (12.27)

In other words, we are publicly stating that we, the people, believe in Gd who saved us and we are no longer deafened, silenced or blinded by the Egyptians who enslaved us (in a metaphorical way).  We can hear, speak and see the redemption that we are about to encounter when we leave Egypt.

Parashat Bo shows us that during the plague of darkness, our abiding faith and moral compass enabled us to overcome the blindness that had struck Egypt.

The leaders of the world’s nations deliberately ignored the pleas of those who were, and still are, suffering to promote their own agendas when it came to the Iranian leadership.  Where they could have stood up for the people, they chose to remind silent.  Finally, where they claimed that they couldn’t ‘see’ what was transpiring, it was visible in plain sight to those who chose to look at the evidence.  Deaf, dumb and blind.

It takes a single candle to light up an entire room and, in the process, banish the darkness.

Parashat Bo teaches us how important it is to provide light, metaphorically and physically.

When Egypt was plunged into darkness, our people had light in their homes.

We could have followed the example of Pharaoh whose egotism and arrogance knew no bounds.  We chose a different path and that is why today Israel, even with its faults, is a beacon of light to the rest of the world.

When the Iranian regime eventually crumbles, we pray that the people will remember the one country that stood up for them and refused to be deaf, dumb or blind in their hour of need.

May we continue to be that lone candle lighting the darkness always hearing the pleas of the strangers, widows and orphans, speaking up for them and illuminating the rest of the world in the process.  Perhaps one day, the other nations will join us and, as John Lennon put it beautifully in Imagine, the world will live as one.

Shavuah Tov.

Parashat Vayechi: The Generation Frame

When you walk into our living room and look at the left-hand side wall, you are greeted with an assortment of different sized framed family photographs.  A few depict Stephnie and me as children whilst others show our sons and daughters in various stages of their young lives to date.  There are photos of our departed (and very missed parents) along with other members of our close family (such as Stephnie’s sister).  They span the length of the wall and even extend to the adjacent one.  In each picture, the subjects are smiling and the entire collection is a wonderful site to behold.

If you cast your eye to the far end, you will see a column of official photographs taken at all four of my daughters’ graduation ceremonies and they hang chronologically from the top of the wall down to the bottom.

To the top left of my eldest daughter, Hadassah’s photograph is another graduation photo.  This one however was taken nearly a quarter of a century earlier.

There are three people in the photograph.  I am in the centre tightly holding my ‘prop’ certificate dressed in my blue gown and black cap.  My father is on the left of the picture with his hand on my elbow and my mother is on the right resting the palm of her hand on my arm.  The pride on our faces is palpable and the three of us are grinning like Cheshire cats.  It is March 1996 and I have just been awarded my MA.

Fast forward to July 2019 and the photo is slightly different.  Hadassah is receiving her BSc and is dressed in a black gown and hat.  Like me, she holds her prop close to her chest.  I am now where my father was, on the left, with my hand holding her arm.  My mother, whose hair was auburn in the previous photograph is now snow white and visibly older.  Her hand however is in the identical position on Hadassah’s arm.  The grins are the same but little did we know at the time that within two years, she would no longer be with us.

I am transfixed by the similarities in both photographs.  The positioning, the smiles and the pride that all three participants felt at the moment the picture was taken.

And then, a wave of sadness floods over me as I realise that in both cases, these photographs could never be taken again with the same subjects (setting aside the endless technological possibilities inherent in AI).

It feels as though, in the two images, the baton is being passed from one generation to the next.  Where I stood in one photo, my daughter takes my place.  Where my father was positioned previously, I am now the parent and in both, my mother remains there, previously younger and now older.

Vayechi is the only Parasha in the Torah which describes a scene that so many of us have sadly had to experience and can very much relate to.

The ageing patriarch Yaakov Avinu is on his deathbed.  He wants to ensure that he can spend the time he has left confined to his bed blessing his children and grandchildren.  We are not told how long this is and it is not important.  What does matter, however, is that he imparts to them the wisdom and blessings that they will need in order to continue the legacy that was handed to him by his father, Yitzchak and by extension through his grandfather Avraham, the first Jew.

He calls for his sons and says,

“Gather together so that I can tell you what will happen in the days to come.  Assemble and listen, Yaakov’s sons.  Listen to your father Yisrael…”

And with that, he addresses and blesses the twelve sons.  Some of his comments (according to Rabbi Sacks’ new Chumash) read ‘more like curses than blessings’.  But he notes something startling, that although there seems to be a ‘discernible tension’, the fact is that he is blessing ‘all twelve together in the same room at the same time’, which is not something that we have seen before in the Torah.  Avraham is not recorded as having blessed either Yitzchak or Yishmael.  We also know that Yitzchak gave separate brachot to Yaakov and Eisav (and let’s be honest, that didn’t turn out too well).

Rabbi Sacks continues,

“The mere fact that Yaakov is able to gather his sons together is unprecedented and important…because,” he writes “in the next chapter – the first of Exodus, the Israelites are for the first time described as a people.  It is hard to see how they could live together as a people if they could not live together as a family.”

The most important links we have to each other are through our families and I would add, by extension, the global Jewish mishpocha (family).  Who could not feel a sharp, gnawing and familiar numb pain when we heard about the recent terrorist attacks in Manchester, Sydney and Israel.  We may not have known any of the victims, but to us, ‘unsere’, our people are extended members of our own kin.

And tangentially, when we hear of a ‘broygus’ in families, we know that, beneath the anger, bitterness, hurt and tears, there lies a deep abiding love.  It may seem to be far below the surface, but when it comes to it, as Jews, we are all one large mishpocha.

In the immediate wake of the October 7^th massacres, our people united overnight, despite the events that had dogged our beloved country over the Judicial Reforms.  We came together because we love each other.  We did so, because we are one family.  One people with a single beating heart.

No-one will deny that families are complicated entities.  I recall that many years ago, John Cleese co-authored a wonderfully titled best-selling book called ‘Families and How to Survive Them’ which could be used as a moniker to describe this week’s Parasha!

Perhaps, subconsciously, he had read Sefer Bereishit and in particular Vayechi before deciding on the title!

Returning to my first reflections on those two photographs.  I will add that, like many people, my parents and I and my children and I have not always had the smoothest of relationships.  Very few of us do and there have been times when we’ve all said things we wished we hadn’t - but you wouldn’t know it when looking at those photos.

We are all human beings, warts and all but when it came to it, I would not have dreamed of having my graduation take place without my parents being present and likewise of not attending my daughters’ special days.  Standing next to Hadassah in the same way that my father stood by my side were some of the proudest moments in both our lives.  That my mother was able to be present for both events, at least to me, symbolises the inextinguishable flame that burns in the deepest recesses of our collective national Jewish heart.

Perhaps in a quarter of a century, Please Gd, a beaming Hadassah will rest her hand on her son or daughter’s arm alongside the graduate’s father who, carrying my metaphorical baton, will hold onto my grandson or granddaughter as they hold tightly onto their prop graduate certificate, continuing the half-century tradition.

One family which is part of our people with that single beating heart.

Shavuah Tov.

Parashat Mikeitz (Shabbat Rosh Chodesh Chanukah): 8,825 Miles

 Leilui Neshamot (for the elevation of the souls) of Harav Eli Shlanger zl, Harav Yaakov Levitan zl and the other members of our extended Australian Jewish and Gentile Community murdered at the ‘Chanukah by the Sea’ event

Approximately 8,825 miles (as the crow flies) lie between Rafah and Bondi Beach.

Last week, the IDF released footage of the ‘Beautiful Six’ Israelis; Eden, Hersh, Ori, Almog, Alex and Carmel lighting a makeshift chanukiah inside a section of the Gaza tunnels that they had just been moved into. Two years ago, a couple of months after they had been forcibly taken into Gaza, they lit and sang the traditional Chanukah songs and under duress, spoke to the camera (https://tinyurl.com/yc5enkvv).

Eight months later, on 9^th August 2024, they were brutally murdered.

Our ‘six’ courageously introduced light into a tunnel below Rafah which lies about 4 miles off the Gaza coast.

8,825 miles away, it is estimated that over 1000 people, both Jewish and non-Jewish, gathered to celebrate the first night of Chanukah near a playground in Archer Park which lies a mere 260 metres north of Bondi Beach.

Sunday night, 14^th December was a week away from the summer solstice in the southern hemisphere.  At a pleasant 21° Celsius, it was the perfect time to meet up with friends and socialise in that time-honoured manner so well practiced in Jewish circles.  They had come to celebrate Chabad’s annual ‘Chanukah by the Sea’ event which would culminate in lighting of the first candle on the giant chanukiah.

The Times described the scene:

An animal petting zoo for children was filling up.  Hot chips and ice cream were on sale and preparations were underway for a light show later in the evening.

“Come celebrate the light of Chanukkah together with your community,” the event’s light blue and yellow banners read.  “Bring your friends, bring the family.  Let’s fill Bondi with joy and light!”

No-one expected to hear gunfire, at 6.47pm local time, a little over an hour before sunset at 8.01pm, leading to the deaths of 15 individuals (at the time of writing) including two rabbis, an 87 year old Shoah survivor, a 10-year-old little girl whose family escaped from Ukraine believing that they would be safer in Australia,  an elderly couple who died after the husband engaged with one of the shooters, and a retired police officer.  Numerous people remain injured in hospital with one in a critical condition.

A father and his son brutally introduced darkness into the calm, sun-drenched environs of Archer Park, just under 8 miles away from the house in which my maternal grandfather, Philip Sydney Vecht (he was named after the city) was born.

Both events taking place respectively just before and during Chanukah, our Festival of Light.  One of what should have been the most joyous periods in our calendar.

I have three questions to pose:

1.    How could the ‘six’ even countenance celebrating Chanukah in the hell that was Gaza?

2.    How can we countenance celebrating Chanukah in the shadow cast by Sunday night’s massacre?

3.    Why did our family attend a local event run by Chabad hours after the guns fell silent?

The Talmud (Makkot 24b) famously relates the story of a trip that Rabban Gamliel, Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah, Rabbi Yehoshua and Rabbi Akiva undertook following the destruction of the Second Beit Hamikdash.

Upon reaching Mount Scopus, they tore their clothes as is the tradition when seeing the sight of the Temple’s ruins.  When they reached the Temple Mount, they saw a fox emerging from the site that had been the Kodesh Hakodashim, the Holy of Holies.  Three of the four started weeping and were surprised to see the fourth, Rabbi Akiva laughing.

They asked him why he was laughing and he replied in the time-honoured Jewish fashion with another question, “Why are you weeping?”  They said to him, “This is the place concerning which it is written, ‘And the non-priest who approaches shall die.’ (Numbers 1:51), and now foxes walk in it; and shall we not weep?”

Rabbi Akiva said to them, “That is why I am laughing, as it is written, when God revealed the future to the prophet Isaiah, ‘And I will take to Me faithful witnesses to attest: Uriah the priest, and Zechariah the son of Jeberechiah.’

Now what is the connection between Uriah and Zechariah?  Uriah was [in the time of] the First Temple, and Zechariah was [in the time of] the Second Temple!  But the Torah makes Zachariah's prophecy dependent upon Uriah's prophecy.  With Uriah, it is written, 'Therefore, because of you, Zion shall be ploughed as a field; [Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the Temple Mount like the high places of a forest].'  With Zachariah it is written, 'Old men and women shall yet sit in the streets of Jerusalem.'

As long as Uriah's prophecy had not been fulfilled, I feared that Zechariah's prophecy may not be fulfilled either.  But now that Uriah's prophecy has been fulfilled, it is certain that Zechariah's prophecy will be fulfilled."

With these words they replied to him, "Akiva, you have consoled us!  Akiva, you have consoled us!" (https://tinyurl.com/4ymhn6yu)

To this day, we are living through the repercussions of Chorban Bayit Sheni – the destruction of the Second Beit Hamikdash.  As a result of what happened, we were cast into an exile that has not yet terminated.  Yes, we are blessed to witness the establishment of Medinat Yisrael which we refer to as reshit tz’michat ge’ulatainu, which is roughly translated as the ‘beginning of the flourishing of our redemption’ but can any of us say that we feel truly safe as Jews in the world of 2025?

I don’t think that the majority of us would react in a Rabbi Akiva like manner when visiting the Gaza envelope (or indeed Gaza itself) or Bondi Beach post Sunday evening.  What is there to laugh about?  Crying, that’s easy, but laughing...not so much.

Which is why Rabbi Akiva’s outlook and response to the foxes on the Har Habayit/Temple Mount remains a template that we should aspire to achieve when faced with the harsh realities that are inflicted upon us, day after day, month after month, particularly within the last two years.

What can we do to find that ‘inner laughter’?

Let’s start by answering my three questions:

1.    How could the ‘six’ even countenance celebrating Chanukah in the hell that was Gaza?

Because despite everything that was going on, they refused to let the darkness that had enveloped them and the captivity that they were forced to endure define them.  We know that Jews had celebrated Chanukah in similar conditions (including pre-war Nazi Germany) and Hersh even referred to the famous 1931 photograph of the chanukiah reflecting, “There’s that picture of the Chanukiah with a [Nazi flag] above it.”  Just as we witnessed the defeat of the Nazis, so we shall prevail over those who wish to destroy us in this generation.

Lesson One: We will never let those who wish to silence us, define us.

2.    How can we countenance celebrating Chanukah in the shadow cast by Sunday night’s massacre?

I watched the news on Monday morning, and Sky reported that the crowd which showed up for the second night at Bondi Beach was even larger than that of the previous evening.  They were singing the words passed to us by Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav – Kol Ha’olom kulo gesher tzar me’od.  As translated by the Chief Rabbi who was being interviewed in the studio – ‘all the world is a very narrow bridge, but the main thing is not to be afraid.’

We know that this world is a narrow bridge and that the father and son used such a bridge to murder our brothers and sisters, but we are not frightened.

Lesson Two: We will show our enemies and the world at large that we will never be cowed by those who wish to harm us.

3.    Why did our family attend a local event run by Chabad hours after the guns fell silent?

We went because we wanted, in our own way, to do the same thing.  Our Chabad Rabbi announced that following the massacre, another 200 people had registered that morning to join the proceedings in a local park.  We gathered as individuals, couples, young families and elderly folk to make our message clear to the world.

In the winter darkness which was a world away from the summer sunshine of Bondi and the squalid conditions beneath the sand of Gaza, we stood proudly alongside our fellow Jews throughout the world.

Lesson Three: We never let them define us.

We thanked the brave Muslim man who risked his life to protect our people whilst gazing lovingly at the first Chanukah lights of the festival.

2,244 miles from Gaza.

10,563 miles from Archer Park.

We laughed and yes, we also shed tears, appreciating and blessing the light that penetrated the darkness.  Remembering the fallen and injured in Archer Park and Gaza.

May those who are injured be fully healed and may the memories of those who fell be a blessing to Am Yisrael.

Shavuah Tov, Chodesh Tov and Chanukah Sameach.

Parashat Veyeishev: Dreams - A Freudian and Maimonidean Perspective

 Dedicated to the memory of Harav Eli Shlanger zl and the other members of our extended Australian Jewish Community murdered on Bondi Beach, Australia.

Let’s start off with a short quiz.

1)    Name five popular songs from the 1950s, ‘60s and ‘70s that include the word ‘Dream’ or ‘Dreams’ in their title:

In chronological order:

1)    All I Have to Do is Dream (the Everly Brothers)

2)    Dream Baby (Roy Orbison)

3)    Dream a Little Dream of Me (The Mamas and Papas)

4)    Dreams (Fleetwood Mac)

5)    I Have a Dream (ABBA)

Bonus a) Do you know in which years these were hits?

1)    1958

2)    1962

3)    1968

4)    1977

5)    1979 

Bonus b) Which of the songs topped the British chart?  (Hint: it was only one of the above)

All I Have to Do is Dream.

2)    2) Sefer Bereishit/Genesis describes the dreams encountered by five individuals.  Who are they?

1)    Jacob

2)    Joseph

3)    The Butler

4)    The Baker

5)    Pharaoh

It is something that we all do and, according to scientists, this even includes mammals, reptiles and birds who, referencing the few scientific studies that have been carried out in this area, dream about their daily activities, such as running and interacting with other animals.  (https://www.bbc.co.uk/future/article/20140425-what-do-animals-dream-about)

The Oxford dictionary defines Oneirology as:

‘The scientific study of dreams, a term that emerged in the 1810s from Greek roots (oneiron, 'dream' + logia, 'study of'), focusing on the processes, neurophysiology and functions of dreaming, rather than solely on symbolic interpretation, though the broader study often includes interpretation too.

The father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund (aka Sigismund Shlomo) Freud, in his book                          ‘The Interpretation of Dreams’ (1899), argued that dreams are the “royal road to the unconscious.”  They reveal hidden desires, fears and conflicts.  For Freud, dreams were not divine messages but human ones, namely expressions of what lies beneath the surface of consciousness.

He explains that dreams are disguised fulfilments of repressed, unconscious wishes, censored and symbolized by the psyche.  Distinguishing between manifest content (what is remembered) and latent content (hidden meaning), using free association to uncover repressed desires.  (‘Sigmund Freud Dream Theory’ book reviewed by Saul McLeod Phd, https://www.simplypsychology.org/sigmund-freud-dream-theory.html)

Whereas one of our greatest philosophers, the Rambam/Maimonides, took a different approach.

In Moreh Nevuchim, Guide for the Perplexed, Part II, Chapter 42, he discusses dreams in the context of being a medium of prophecy blending psychology and theology (except for Moshe Rabbeinu who Gd communicated with as ‘one person speaks to his friend’, Shemot 33.11).

He described prophecy as ‘occurring in dreams or visions, where normal senses cease and spiritual facilities are heightened.  In other words, dreams serve as channels of divine communication, structured and ordered, not random imagination’ (Rabbi Jack Abromowitz, ’23. Dreams and Visions, https://outorah.org/p/22475)

These two Jewish thinkers came to very different conclusions as to the function of dreams.

Are dreams a way in which we find insights into our unconscious desires and heal ourselves or are they a method by which Gd communicates with us on a higher plane?  Could they be both?

Our Parasha begins with a vivid description of Joseph’s dreams.

We have sheaves of wheat and celestial bodies prostrating themselves before Joseph which on the face of it, seems bizarre.  Freud might have posited that being one of the youngest of Jacob’s children, Joseph had an unconscious wish to be recognized by his older brothers and even their father.  He sees this as indicative of a tension within the family (which granted the circumstances that we’ve hitherto read about in the Torah, would not be surprising).

The Rambam in tandem with other commentators, views his dreams as not being simply adolescent fantasies but visions of a future that would eventually materialise.  Joseph did rise above his brothers and their father and yes, they eventually bowed to him, as we will read about in the next few weeks.

Yet, although both approaches may seem to be diametrically opposed, the gap between them is not that wide.

Rabbi Sacks ztl often taught that Judaism exists within a tension that is present between Freud’s psychology of the self and the Rambam’s theology of prophecy (which is a fascinating topic in itself that goes beyond the scope of this Drasha).  Where Freud discusses the idea that dreams reveal our inner conflicts, the Rambam sees these same visions as being Gd’s call to us.

Applying this to our story of Joseph, we can see elements of both thinkers’ approaches.

According to Freud, Joseph’s dreams both expose his family’s fractures and (as the Rambam teaches) also indicate a way in which Gd will help him overcome them through the prophetic visions that he is experiencing.

Synthesising these two views one can conclude that, according to Rabbi Sacks, dreams are the point at which the human and divine meet,  where our deepest desires intersect with the Gd’s purposes or as he wrote, “Where what we want to do meets what needs to be done, that is where God wants us to be.”  (https://www.youtube.com/watchv=u7g5WVpA4IY#:~:text=Finding%20Purpose%20%2D%20YouTube,God%20wants%20you%20to%20be.%22)

Tonight we will, Gd willing, light the first Chanukah candle.  I believe that in these days of darkness, both metaphorical and physical, there can be no more fitting example of these ideas than in the context of our Festival of Lights.

It began as an ‘impossible dream’ by the Maccabees to take on the colossal Seleucid (Syrian Greek) Empire.  The goal being to re-establish Jewish religious sovereignty over the Land of Israel and liberate the Beit Hamikdash from Hellenistic control.  Freud might have viewed the revolt as an expression initiated by conscious and/or subconscious feelings of repression felt by Mattityahu the Hasmonean and his five sons (along with some others in the Jewish population).  The result being the manifestation of these dreams which stemmed from a refusal to let their identity be extinguished.

The Rambam takes a rationalist approach viewing the rebellion as a fulfilment of a prophetic vision emanating from the belief that even in exile, Gd’s presence had endured.  The result being the coruscating light emanating from the Menorah, filled to the brim with a supply of oil that should have only lasted for one day.

Both men’s understanding of dreams coalesces into the outcome that we will celebrate throughout the world over the next week, in the same manner that we have done for over two millennia.

Both Parashat Vayeishev and Chanukah together remind us that the world in which we live can be changed by dreams.  As Herzl wrote, “If you will it, it is no dream,” and it took five decades until it was realised with the establishment of the State of Israel.

Joseph’s nocturnal visions, borne from his psyche (using Freud’s theories), eventually led to events that he could not have envisioned without Divine assistance (referencing the Rambam).  Similarly, as was witnessed in the case of the Maccabees and their stunning victory against their overlords where the subconscious led to the miraculous.

In these trying times, we should remember that whatever may be taken from us, our dreams will never belong to anyone else.  May they bring us to a future that is brighter, so much brighter than the present we are living through.

Shavuah Tov and Chanukah Sameach.

Parashat Toldot: The Perennial Wanderers

 Looking through my parents’ documents recently, I came across my father’s British Certificate of Registration booklet which was issued to him on 26^th November 1963.

 

 

My mother and father had emigrated to this country just over a month before, on 20^th October (which was a week after Simchat Torah) and this was his ‘passport’, as it were, to settle in the United Kingdom.  A month later, and coincidentally exactly 62 years ago today, President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas.

My parents had a framed photo of JFK on a shelf in our kitchen.  When I was old enough to understand, they explained what had happened to him.  His youthful demeanour and the tragedy of his untimely death filled my thoughts as I grew up.

Most crucially, the fact that his picture sat there for decades was a testament to my father’s wish that to his dying day he was, and would always be, American.  His levaya/funeral on 4^th July 2023 was proof (in my opinion at least) to his tenacity in holding on to his US Citizenship for the rest of his life (he refused to be naturalised in the UK).  I am in no doubt that he would have found the date on which he was buried highly appropriate and amusing!

Both of my parents were born in Antwerp, Belgium.  During World War II, my mother and her family lived in fear under semi-curfew in Spa, a village in the Ardennes, half-an-hour’s drive from the German border.  My father managed to escape to the US with his parents in April 1940 and grew up in New York City.

My mother’s parents were born in Australia and Poland respectively whilst my father’s began their lives in Belgium and The Netherlands.  My daughters’ maternal grandparents were born in Turkey and pre-state Israel.

This week’s Parasha of Toldot is very dear to my heart as it is my Barmitzvah sedra.  It begins with this verse (as translated in the Hertz Chumash):

And these are the generations of Isaac, Abraham’s son: Abraham begot Isaac (Bereshit 25.19)

Toldot details the lives of two of these generations, that of Yitzchak, Rivka and their twin sons, Yaakov and Eisav.  Within the first few verses, we learn that Yaakov has prepared a pot of lentils for his father Yitzchak, who is mourning the death of Avraham, the first of the Avot/Patriarchs.  At the tender age of 15, the youngster recognizes the significance of his grandfather’s passing whilst his eldest twin brother, Esav is more interested in feeding his stomach than aggrandising his soul.

By the end of the Parasha Yaakov, due to circumstances many of which are beyond his control, finds himself running for his life away from Eisav who wishes to kill him.

Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov were the first Jewish wanderers although Yitzchak, who moved around the country, was instructed by Hashem not to leave the land of Israel.  Grandfather and grandson began their lives in one country and found themselves having to leave it to reach another.  In Avraham’s case, initially from Ur Kasdim (in modern day Iraq) to Charan (in Southeast Turkey) and eventually to Eretz Yisrael.  In Yaakov’s, a journey in the opposite direction, culminating in Charan.

However, whenever they arrived in a location, they found themselves having to leave it, facing hostility and envy engendered by the local inhabitants.  Twice, Avraham had to pretend to be his wife’s brother to escape death and Yaakov had to deal with the machinations dreamt up by his deceitful uncle, Lavan.  Once settled back in Canaan, he found himself embroiled in the terrible events at Shechem (revolving around the violation of his only daughter, Dina) and in old age, when we are told that he finally settled (the first word in Parashat Vayeishev), his beloved son, Joseph was sold by his brothers and then taken down to Egypt.

There is a line towards the end of Fiddler on the Roof following the wistful song of Anatevka where Mendel the Rabbi’s son says, “And our forefathers have been forced out of many, many places at a moment’s notice.” To which Tevya shrugs and replies, “Maybe that’s why we always wear our hats.”  As a child of refugees, I can certainly relate to this.

We seem to be the perennial wanderers.  How many of us are still in the locations where we grew up?  There are many reasons why we may have moved.  Life has a way of opening up new paths and sometimes, financial constraints limit our abilities to stay where we would wish.  However, I also believe that there is something nomadic in our DNA, an internal drive to remind us that, as much as we would like to feel settled, we simply can’t.

My late great-grandfather, Aron Vecht, was born in Elburg, a historic town in the province of Gelderland and lived in London, Melbourne, Sydney, Cape Town, Buenos Aires and finally Antwerp where he passed away. He was later reinterred in the new city of Tel Aviv.  He was known as ‘The Wandering Jew’ and carries on this tradition.  Referencing Tevya’s response to Mendel, he also had a very distinctive hat!

There is a famous song from the early 1960s called ‘The Wanderer’ which was a sizeable hit for Dion DiMucci, a New York native with a proud Italian Catholic heritage.  Although the context is different, I think we can all relate to the line:

Oh well, I'm the type of guy who will never settle down… they call me the wanderer, Yeah, the wanderer.  I roam around, around, around…

Jewish history has branded us the Wanderers who roam around, around and around.

One day our dream, unlike Dion’s protagonist and ironically Dion himself, has been happily married to his wife Susan for the same period of 62 years, is to settle down in security, peace and harmony with our Gentile neighbours. Please Gd may it come to us and all of Israel very soon but until then, I’ll make sure to keep my hat nearby because you never know when and where I might have to wear it again.  Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov would no doubt agree.

Shavuah Tov.

Parashat Lech-Lecha: Avraham and Yitzchak (Rabin z'l)

 

Motzei Shabbat, 4^th November 1995, 11^th Mar-Cheshvan 5756

ISRAEL PM YITZHAK RABIN ASSASSINATED

The big capitalised yellow letters on Ceefax say it all:

 

I can hardly believe the news.  This evening after a peace rally as Rabin was getting into a car, he was shot at close range by an Israeli law student, Yigal Amir aged 25 who belonged to ‘The Jewish Vengeance Organisation’.  He died on the operating theatre at the Ichilov (Hospital).

I’m horrified by the news.  Truly and completely horrified.  I was no big fan of Rabin, far from it but I never, never wished him any personal harm.

This is a tragedy for him and the Jewish People.  Never, in the history of the State of Israel has a leader been assassinated.  And by a Jew...in my eyes, after the Yom Kippur War, this is the greatest tragedy to have hit The State of Israel.

That a Prime Minister was assassinated.

That Jew killed Jew.

I am crying inside for what has happened…

This extract comes from a diary entry I made, almost to the day, thirty years ago.  Before the internet took over and revolutionized our lives, Ceefax (you may need to look it up if you were born after the year 2000) was our digital source of information.

Who knew that within three decades, we could imagine a historical event that was on par and arguably even worse than either the Yom Kippur War or Rabin’s assassination?

Reading my words written so many years ago is a sobering experience.  I was three decades younger, recently engaged and ready to take on a very different world.  The one that existed before the 11^th, September 2001.  The Oslo Accords had been signed two years previously and we hoped, albeit naively, that there was a chance the matzav, the ‘situation’ in Israel, could change for the better.  Little did we know…

Like today, we had just read Parashat Lech-Lecha that Shabbat morning when Hashem tells Avram (as he was then) to:

“Lech lecha mei’artzecha u’mimoladetecha u’mibeit avicha el ha’aretz asher areka“

“Go forth from your land, your birthplace, and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.”

Rashi understands Gd’s command to Avram as being, not only for his physical betterment, but at the same time, for his spiritual benefit.  He was being told to leave behind everything that he knew, his geographical location, culture, identity and comfort to take on a radically new existence in a land that was pretty much foreign to him (although the Midrash tells us that he had already journeyed through Canaan at this point).

At the age of 75, two years older than Yitzchak Rabin was at the time of his murder, the Rambam admonishes Avram for going down to Egypt to escape the famine in Canaan.

 “Avraham sinned unintentionally by bringing his wife into danger.”

His honesty reminds us that even the greatest leaders, and Avram was one of these, are ultimately fallible.  Their journeys through life are not linear.  They are marked by missteps, by complexity and by the weight of responsibility.

Rabbi Shamshon Refael Hirsch sees Gd’s command as being a directive for Avraham (the name he will be given by Gd towards the end of the Parasha) to go alone.  This is a call to moral independence.  He is being told to detach himself from the society he inhabited in the past and to look to his own conscience to lead the way for others, irrespective of how popular it will make him.  In short, Avraham is the very definition of what it means to be a Jewish Leader.  He isn’t following the crowd but in fact, Gd’s call.  This is not an easy path to take.  He is being asked, as the old joke goes, to be the Prime Minister of what would become, 15 million Prime Ministers (not to mention the billions of Christians and Muslims who would venerate him in the future as the founder of monotheism).

It could have been so very different.

The evening of 4th November at Kikar Malchei Yisrael, as it used to be known, (or the King’s of Israel Square) had seen Rabin singing ‘Shir Lashalom’ or ‘A Song of Peace’ which had long been the anthem of the Shalom Achshav/Peace Now movement.

On its initial reception in 1969, it caused a stir, due to its anti-war message, particularly in light of the recent stunning (and miraculous) victories of the Six-Day War.  Over time, however, it gained wider acceptance, particularly following the discovery of a blood stained copy of the song’s lyrics in the Prime Minister’s pocket following the assassination.

Yitzchak Rabin, like Avraham, had forged a brave path of his own, firstly as the IDF Chief of Staff during the Six Day War, then as Israel’s Ambassador to the United States and finally as it’s Prime Minister.  He was remembered for his decisive decision-making during the famed Entebbe Raid of 1976 and then, in September 1993 as the leader who tried to forge peace with Arafat in the White House Garden under the watchful eye of his close friend, President Bill Clinton.

And like Avraham, he heard a call, not directly from Gd, but from history.  He understood that sometimes, leaders need to make choices that will be unpopular with their electorate, that will require the kind of decision-making that means risking everything to pursue a goal that lies in an unknown future – for the benefit of everyone else who doesn’t share the same vision.

Avraham left behind the land he grew up in, the culture in which he was immersed and every comfort he had derived from living physically and metaphorically in the shadow of his father’s house.

Yitzchak Rabin could trace his military experience to the War of Independence.  A soldier to the core of his being, he ended his speech on that warm September afternoon by quoting the famous verse from Kohelet (he was famously unable to pronounce the word ‘Ecclesiastes):

"A time to hate and a time to love; A time of war, and a time of peace.”

Adding sadly, ironically, considering what was about to transpire.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, the time for peace has come".

We have encountered the many episodes which marked Avraham’s difficult and long journey through Eretz Yisrael.  However, we will note in a few weeks’ time that he ‘died in a ripe old age, aged and satisfied’.

This cannot be said of Rabin whose difficult and long journey helping to protect the country and nation he loved was curtailed.

Not by famine, not by Pharaoh, but by a fanatic.  By his assassin’s refusal to accept that within Judaism there must be room for disagreement without demonization.  That the covenant of Avraham is not only about land but about ethics.  About how we treat one another.  About how we disagree and how we resolve these arguments peacefully and respectfully.  About ensuring that our meeting places, from the Knesset to the Shul boardroom are oases of tolerance and peace.

Rabbi Sacks ztl once wrote

“The test of faith is not whether we can believe in Gd.  It is whether we can believe in one another.”

Lech Lecha is the beginning of Jewish history but Yitzchak Rabin’s assassination reminds us that history can unravel when we forget its moral core. 

Sadly, thirty years on, I fear that we have not learned from our mistakes.  The divisions within our people, both in Israel and abroad instil a fear in me that, Gd forbid, we could turn on one another again.  Perhaps not the extent of what transpired on that terrible night but in terms of the manner which loses the moral glue that binds us together as a nation.  Where the concept of ‘Kol Yisrael Areivim e la ze’ or all of us are responsible for one another becomes nothing more than a meme (again, you may need to look it up if you were born before 2000!)

As we join Avraham on his journey this week, what can we learn from his experiences?

·         What physical or spiritual journeys will we need to take as we look beyond this year?

·         What comforts will we have no choice but to give up as we leave them behind?

·         And finally, how can we ensure that our internal disagreements can never result in the tragedy that took place almost thirty years ago today?

Let us walk together, hand in hand.

Not in fear but in faith.

Not in silence but through singing.

Whether we choose ‘Shir Lama’alot’ or ‘Shir Lashalom’, let the song that we sing together bring us peace, both within our Jewish nation and in our dealings with our non-Jewish neighbours.

Shavuah Tov.