This author has, in years past, taken a vacation from compiling a vort, a Parsha HaShevua for Parsha Breish’t. Somehow, not being rabbinic or a Talmud Chacham, it has always seemed difficult to put true and deep meaning of Hashem’s creation to words.
This year however, it rained in Eretz Yisrael on Isru Chag, the Simchat Torah of Chutz L’Aretz. And it didn’t just rain a few sprinkles, it poured on Yom Rishon. The weather reports promise more on Yom Sheini. And the Israeli weatherman is rarely, if ever wrong.
And so, one can’t help but note the striking connection between rain upon the Chag’s end and Hashem’s expression of creation; “Breish’t, Bora, Kelokim.” (“In the beginning, Hashem created the heavens and the earth”, Sefer Breish’t, Perek 1, posuk 1) Torah surely wasn’t referring to that big 6 run 6th inning by the Mets in game 4 vs the Cards to even up the NLCS; you know the one, ‘In the big inning.’
It seems to this author that the rain which followed on the heels of Shemini Atzeret/Simchat Torah comes to deliver two messages to B’nai Yisrael. The order of listing in this vort does not necessarily relate to a preeminence of importance, one over the other. But rather, perhaps an equal importance.
To those who make the trip to Israel for Succot to, as Rav Kahane z’l indicates in his well-known Jewish Times article “Goodbye Wall”, publically and unabashedly celebrate 2 days of of Yom Tov on the 1st and last days and then rush back to Chutz L’Aretz on the red-eye special almost immediately upon the end of the Chutz Simchat Torah, the message could be — You’re a Jew, you belong here, connected to your land; that the truest, purest form of Mitzvot is achieved here in Eretz Yisrael. It appears like Hashem, as we understand speech, is saying to the Yom Tov visitors, “The Chag ended on Shabbos and now, on Yom Rishon, I bring the onset of the Rainy Season.” If this is a message that can take from Sunday’s rain, can we understand this to be a message that the mindset of our Chutznik friends and relatives, seemingly, “Fantasy is over, back to reality, jobs, bills, responsibilities and so, “Goodbye Wall” is, at best flawed? Can we now understand the derogatory tone of Ehud Olmert when greeting Nefesh b’Nefesh Olim in August, 2005 on the day of the Expulsion, if spoken by someone else, with kindness of heart, in a different context — that if Jews had made Aliyah in numbers prior to now, terms like Expulsion, Convergence, Consolidation, Realignment would be nowhere to found in the Israeli lexicon or national discourse?
And to Israelis, who passionately crave the “Normal Life”, normal like any other nation and who are, as Olmert puts it, “tired of fighting, tired of winning…” and thus are confused as to who they are, why there is an Israel and why they are here, this quote of Rashi and his question on R. Yitzchak, as rendered in the Metsudah Chumash/Rashi linear Translation (Rashi on Sefer Breish’t, Perek 1, posuk 1) relating to “Breish’t, Bora, Kelokim” seems more than appropriate;
R. Yitzchak said: The Torah should have begun with [the verse] “This month shall be [your first month],” it being the first precept that the Israelites were commanded. Then why does it [the Torah] begin with “In the beginning”? This is because [of the concept contained in the verse,] “He declared the power of His works to His people in order to give to the the inheritance of the nations.” Thus, should the nations of the world say to Israel, “You are robbers, for you have taken by force the lands of the Seven Nations,” they [Israel] will say to them: “All the earth belongs to G’d. He created it and gave it to whomever He saw fit. It was his will to give it to them and it was His will to take it from them and give it to us.”
And so, to Israelis as well, Hashem seemingly sends the message by the rain, “The Chag ended on Shabbos and now, on Yom Rishon, I bring the onset of the Rainy Season.” Seemingly the message is that Hashem gives His Land to whom He gives it, brings the rain when He deems to bring the rain, that it is Kelokim who controls the world and not natural forces. When Israelis internalize this lesson, this internalization and it’s manifestations will bring on the Moshiach, the geula shlaima.
May it be in this year and in all future years, that our brethren — the refugee families from Gush Katif — many still seeking their places, our brethren in the North who have had their lives disrupted, been displaced from their homes, their property in many cases destroyed by Katushyas, as well as our dear brother, Jonathan Pollard and the lives of the 3 captive Chayalim are central in our thoughts, prayers, chassadim and actions. May this abominable period of history called hitnatkut be as a bad dream, be retified — our brethren made whole and may hitnatkut be expunged from collective consciousness yet it’s evil never forgotten.
May we be zocha in this coming year to take giant steps toward fulfilling Hashem’s blueprint of B’nai Yisrael as a Unique people — an Am Segula, not to be reckoned with as with “the nations” and may we be zocha the Moshiach, the Ge’ula Shlaima, “Yom Hashem V’Kol HaGoyim”, the Ultimate Redemption, bim hay v’yameinu — speedily, in our time”, — Achshav, Chik Chuk, Miyad, Etmol!!!
Good Shabbos!
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Moshe Burt, an Oleh, is a commentator on news and events in Israel and Founder and Director of the Sefer Torah Recycling Network. He lives in Ramat Beit Shemesh.
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