Former Chief Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau spoke about anti-Semitism before the recent Jerusalem Conference. He cited the saying of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai in Gemora with a question and with his observations;
“A law: It is known that Esau hates Jacob” – and asked, “Why the unusual phraseology? What type of law can this be? It sounds very fatalistic, as if nothing can change it.” Rabbi Lau then explained, in the name of some commentators, that the phenomenon of anti-Semitism described by Rabbi Shimon is “akin to a law taught to Moses at Sinai, which also uses this word ‘law.’ It is something that has no explanation and is not in dispute, such as the fact that tefillin must be black and square. It is the same with anti-Semitism: you can look for reasons for it, but in the end, it’s just an axiom. This hatred is a given, permanent phenomenon.”
He then cited a few examples, manifestations of historical anti-Semitism, including one event in modern-day which he witnessed and which he expressed his reaction;
“In 1982, I was in Melbourne, Australia, walking with a rabbi/lawyer on a nice street in a Jewish neighborhood. We were waiting for the light to change, and a nice car stops with two well-dressed men in their 40s, and one of them screams out loudly, ‘Jews! Did you pay the bill for the gas you used in the chambers?!’ I was shocked. I tried to think: What kind of problem do we have with the Australians? We have no border dispute with them, we have no refugees issues, no Golan Heights, nothing. What did we ever do to them?
But, this author has a possible more straight-forward explanation. The coverage of Rabbi Lau’s speech is one of three articles or commentaries this week which perhaps coalesce into a clearer picture of what fuels modern-day anti-Semitism.
The historical irrationality fueling anti-Semitism through the generations which has it’s roots in Yaakov’s Bracha from Yitzchak and the subsequent Bracha of Yitchak to Eisev; “When you are aggrieved, you may cast off [the] yoke [of the descendants of Yaakov].” (Breish’t Perek 27, posuk 40) “When you are aggrieved…” is thus rendered, “If you see your brother casting off the yoke of Torah, decree religious persecution against him, and you will rule him.” (Encyclopedia of Biblical Personalities, Yishai Chasidah, pages287-288) In short, when Yaakov cleaves to Torah you will serve him; when Yaakov strays from Torah, he will serve you). Later, in Mitzrayim, as Yaakov’s sons gradually died and a new generation came to the fore, Pharoh entertained notions, regarding the tendancy of B’nai Yisrael to integrate into Mitzri society (rather than to consider their stay in Mitzrayim a sojourn), about the enormous growth of B’nai Yisrael being a threat to Mitzrayim’s supremacy in the world of the time. Thus the cruelty, enslavement and persecution which may be deemed mida keneged mida for the generation’s fall from the elevated level of the brothers.
Rabbi Lau continued;
“This is what Jacob said to Laban: What do you want from me? What did I do to you? Those who thought that we should be Jews at home but men outside and thought this would solve the problem – they were mistaken and misled others. Because the answer is that when little Srulik [nickname for Yisrael] brings the world the 10 commandments and tells them how to live – even though he is right, and even though he’s bringing the truth, the fact is that no one wants to hear a little kid telling him what to do…”
The other two articles give some clarity to this component, the steep fall of B’nai Yisrael fueling anti-Semitism via Israeli hypocrisy and a lack of Torah morality among Israel’s secular leaders and secular Israeli society.
First, we have a news item entitled; “Israel to put its Babes Forward in Maxim-um PR Effort” which was cited in an earlier entry on this blog. Here it is reported;
That the biggest hasbara problem that Israel has is with males from the age of 18-35,” said David Saranga, the consul for media and public affairs at Israel’s consulate in New York.
“Israel does not seem relevant for them, and that is bad for branding,” he said. “In order to change their perception of Israel as only a land of conflict, we want to present to them an Israel that interests them.” Which is where good-looking women in skimpy bikinis come in.
This type of hypocritical thinking seems a paradigm of how far we’ve collectively fallen. This paradigm seems to fit with the unsni’yous billboards and pictures which line our streets and highways, the scantily-clad personages encountered when walking or driving the streets of Israel’s cities, the Gays, the light regard which large numbers of Israeli’s have for The Land — for how and why they are here, and how this translates into equivocation regarding the land as well as hate and disdain for anything Jewish on the part of Israel’s governmental leaders.
There is a disparate contrast here, between what we should be, as exemplified by the story brought about the Kiddush Hashem done by Rabbi Shimon Ben Shetach as related in Parsha Mishpatim on this blog (in returning property which he found which didn’t belong to him), and the collective level of contemporary B’nai Yisrael.
So whether it is Arab, Islamic Tactics of Revenge-Rape, of which Israeli leftists and feminists are, by their silence, complicit; or whether it is the multitude of other instances where Jewish rights in the Jewish land are deemed subserviant to those of Arabs, do we not embolden Eisev or Yishmael?
When Rabbi Lau speaks about “little Srulik who brings the world the 10 commandments and tells them how to live,” what he doesn’t say is that Hashem created a Jewish nation which lives apart from the world but as a light unto the world, as the paradigm of the reverence with which man should have for Shemayim, for what is his (i.e. the Jews and the Land of Israel) and for his fellow man. And so, when the Jews do not stand favorably against the model as seen through gentile eyes of what we are supposed to be in terms of our relationship with Hashem and our relationship to our fellow Jews, is it any wonder that the Arabs, that the nations view us with hate and disdain, as a laughingstock? Is it any wonder that they claim what is ours as theirs? Is it any wonder that our failure to defend ourselves and our brethren leads to “Revenge-Rape?” MB