Moshe Kempinski

There is a simple fact about the book of Ruth that we just read on the holiday of Shavuot ,that delivers a powerful message. As Rav Shmuel Eliyahu points out in his Shabbat Bamidbar lesson, almost every verse in the book of Ruth begins with the letter vav. The sixth letter of the Hebrew alphabet is Vav. When that letter is placed at the beginning of a verse or word it carries the meaning of the word “AND” .It is called Vav Hachibur or the connecting Vav. The ancient mystics on the other hand called this letter " Ot Ha-Emet" the letter of truth. Why would that be?

We are living in a world of separations and disunity, what the mystics call "Olam dePeruda" It is a world wherein every event is viewed separated from the events that precede it and the events that immediately follow. It is a world where “what is” , is more important than “what was” and “what is meant to be” .A world that has lost any sense of context and poetry .

The Tabernacle in the desert was meant to help offer an anchor and beacon. In the midst of the Moshe’s (Moses) stock taking of all the items that were gathered for the building of the Mishkan/Tabernacle we read:

“And of the remaining thousand seven hundred seventy and five shekels he made Vavim ( hooks ) for the pillars, and overlaid their capitals, and made fillets for them." (Exodus 38:28)

The Mishkan/Tabernacle that was created in the desert was meant to be a microcosm of the spiritual reality in the world. It would become a portable Mount Sinai until G-d's House would be built on Abraham's mount Moriah. Every artifact and raw material for the building of that Mishkan was donated by people moved an inner call and passion. Every individual item was a magnificent and radiant entity on its own merits and yet remained unimportant until the whole structure came together.


It was those Vavim ( plural of Vav) that connected and held the whole structure of the Mishkan in place.
That is true of the letter Vav that began so many verses in the tanach. The letter " vav" connects words, verses and messages. The letter Vav gives the flow of thoughts, a history and continuity. When we relearn context and connect all the events and visions that seem so randomly placed before us we begin again to find direction and purpose. Only then do we find truth and that is why the letter is called the letter of truth.

Over half the verses in the Torah begin with the letter vav. The books of the prophets have a smaller number of such verses and the Ketuvim, the Writings have even less. Yet almost every verse in the book of Ruth begins with the letter vav. What is the lesson that we are to glean from that fact?


The book of Ruth is about reconnecting events. The well meaning but flawed random events that began with Lot and his daughters and Yehudah and his daughter in-law , Tamar, culminated with Ruth and Boaz. The book of Ruth which is a book of loving-kindness brought all those pieces together in order to create a King David.

In a world of ever increasing darkness and confusion the connecting power of the letter vav is critical to maintain the structure of faith and purpose. The story of Ruth and its theme of loving kindness and connecting events and people will provide that direction. The rest of History will continue to connect King David to the final redemption where in that time, all will be clear and all will be made known.

Moshe Kempinski

 

 

 

 

President Barak Obama and his hirelings want to topple Prime Minister Netanyahu and his duly elected government and thereby impose his own hegemony and rulership over these nasty little Jews who keep getting in the way. He is not the first who has tried to do that but he may be one of the last.

 

We learn in the Biblical text how Pharaoh and his people were punished. In truth that very punishment seems to be unwarranted. The text also tells us that G-d hardened Pharaoh’s heart;

But HaShem hardened Pharaoh's heart, and he did not let the children of Israel go. (exodus 10:20).       

 

If that was consistently so then how could the All-Just G-d punish Pharaoh for decisions he made influenced by the heart that was hardened by G-d Himself? Our sages describe that in fact the influence on Pharaoh’s decision making came from a different source. It would have been the  plagues, that were inflicted one after another that would have obliterated Pharaoh’s power of free choice. If any other human had experienced one example after another of G-d's complete control over nature and the heavens, they would not have the power or will to make any decision based on free choice. G-d hardened Pharaoh’s heart so that his  power of free choice would in fact be returned to him. He hardened his heart so that the plagues which rained on Egypt would continue to impact Egypt , the world and history. Yet they would not influence Pharaoh .As a  result the choices he made were still freely taken. It was these choices that he was punished for.

 

The same phenomenon is occurring with US president Obama. Right before his eyes and the eyes of the world,  prophecy and history are beginning to transect and collide.

" Therefore prophesy, and say unto them: Thus saith HaShem G-d: Behold, I will open your graves, and cause you to come up out of your graves, O My people; and I will bring you into the land of Israel".(Ezekiel 37:12)

Out of the camps of death and darkness a battered and skeletal people arrived on the shores of an ancient land. Most of those in the world still accustomed to talking about miracles in the past or future tenses did not recognize the beginning of a new era.


"Fear not, for I am with thee; I will bring thy seed from the east, and gather thee from the west; I will say to the north: 'Give up,' and to the south: 'Keep not back, bring My sons from far, and My daughters from the end of the earth; "(Isaiah 43:5-6)

They came from the cemeteries of Europe and they continued to come from the southern shores of Yemen. In time they traveled from northern Africa and were slowly gathered from the west and left the villages of Cush and escaped the iron curtain in the land of the north. Yet most of the world watched and thought how the phenomenon was interesting but so unlike what they were expecting of the miraculous events still to come. Unused to seeing miracles in the present they minimized these dramatic events and continued to miss the unfolding of the era.

Then the words of psalm 122 begin to blossom into reality in the summer of 1967.

A Song of Ascents; of David.I rejoiced when they said unto me: 'Let us go unto the house of HaShem.' Our feet are standing within thy gates, O Jerusalem; Jerusalem, that is built as a city rebuilt together( psalm 122:1-3)

A city torn asunder is brought back together. Jerusalem suddenly regains its stature as the eternal undivided capital of the Jewish people.

It was now getting very difficult to ignore the miraculous journey of this much maligned people. It is getting harder to avoid the instances of Divine intervention in the unfolding history of this people. The Jewish people were being forced to think, dream and anticipate differently than they had been during the two thousand years of exile.

" There will yet be a time when old men and old women will lean on their canes and children will play in the streets of Jerusalem",and children are again playing in the streets of Jerusalem

G-d also declares to the vineyards and orchards in the book of Ezekiel " mountains shoot forth your branches , give forth your fruit ,for My children are coming home" ( Ezekiel 36) A barren land that lay desolate for generations is beginning to bloom and blossom.

All this is happening and President Obama's heart has obviously been hardened. The unfolding of what has been declared in ancient days does not even touch his soul. Yet that decision of his to ignore the signs has been undertaken out of free choice. That come from a hardened heart and as a result those decisions will have implications.

 

There was a popular song for some of the other difficult days in Israel's history whose refrain went " We have withstood and passed over Pharaoh , we will do the same today" That is true of the people of Israel but I'm not so sure about  President Obama and the name that he wants to impart to human history. It would be well advised for him to learn to soften his heart and become part of the “plan”

 

Moshe Kempinski

 

Memory is a fickle companion. It is there when we don't want to remember and is not there at times when we need it. It can be perceived sometimes in ways that distort our past and at times, hopefully, it gives give us meaning. Painful memories sit in a back corner of our soul waiting to be roused. The singing at two events in this past week took me back to a time of great pain. It returned me to the days of the tragic expulsion of Jews from Gush Katif five years ago

 

The first event was a wedding. My wife and I participated at a wedding of a family that was expelled from Gush Katif, and as so many others, are still attempting to rebuild their present and future. The bride who was fourteen years old at the time of the expulsion , wed a young man ,who as thousands of others had snuck into the area of the settlements to offer support in those fateful days. These young people were called "Shabachim" by the government and the media , an acronym for the words     "individuals residing illegally". Yet amongst the rest of us they were referred to as   " Meshubachim" which translates as "the ones worthy of praise" .

 

The wedding ceremony lasted longer than most other wedding ceremonies, as the family and friends would consistently burst into song and dancing throughout the Huppa ceremony. During the meal as well ,most of the people ignored the food at the table and spent most of the evening singing and dancing in honor of the bride and groom. All the energy and excitement seemed to be a mix of several different directions and goals. One was the attempt to salve the wounds of the past with joy. The other was to help cement a future of hope and promise and the third was to raise up this bride and groom with happiness and song .

 

The second event occurred on Shabbat as the Hazzan used a melody that clutched the heart of most of the people in the synagogue. He was using a specific melody  for a specific text ,but the original text that carried this melody   were the words of psalm 102;"

 

 "A prayer for a poor man when he enwraps himself and pours out his speech before HaShem . O HaShem , hearken to my prayer, and may my cry come to You Do not hide Your countenance from me; on the day of my distress extend Your ear to me; on the day I call, answer me quickly."

 

The haunting melody hearkened back to the bitter days of the expulsion as it was the song that almost became the anthem and plaintive call of the movement of the "land of Israel faithful" in those trying days.

On the day before the expulsion ,one of the secular TV correspondents brought a camera into one of the synagogues in Neve Dekalim where the women and girls were conducting a prayer gathering; (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0HKaeiMcts) 

The sights and sounds he encountered in that Neveh Dekalim synagogue were experiences that he later said forever impacted his life. It was this same melody that I and three friends constantly listened to as we drove down south the day before the expulsion. We were looking for a way to sneak into the heavily guarded Gush area and the song and its words were inspiring.  Regrettably the answer to the prayers of the Jewish people at that time was postponed.I remember with great sadness how at some time during that night the sense of the inevitable began to creep over us and we continued to sing the song" O HaShem , hearken to my prayer, and may my cry come to You Do not hide Your countenance from me; on the day of my distress"

During that night as we waited with about a thousand others, in the Ofakim forest grove in preparation one of our own trucks backed into the generator that was providing electricity for the makeshift camp site. Immediately the whole area was plunged into pitch darkness. At that point we sensed that it was all over the song  that gave us great hope  prior to the expulsion , now simply became a melody  of pain and yearning.

 

Yet here, five years later , in the Jerusalem synagogue we were singing the same haunting melody on the Shabbat of the torah portion  of "Beshalach" . This is the torah portion that describes the exodus from Egypt and the crossing of the reed sea.

I thought to myself, how many long nights did the children of Israel sing their own haunting melody of hope in Egypt. How many nights did they enter the darkness of those nights with a sense of hopelessness and futility. Yet G-d did not let them down and "and the children of Israel "marched out triumphantly..B’Yad Rama" and with great rejoicing. On this week where some of the schools in Israel focused on the tragedy of the Gush Katif Disengagement/ Expulsion , the exodus out of the darkness of Egypt is worth remembering.

Moshe Kempinski

 

 

 

Recently I overheard the following exchange at the Western Wall. One young man was trying to describe the Wall and its history and significance to a friend. His friend finally turned to him and said “all I see is bunch of large stones. ‘What was ‘ is not as important as ‘what is’ . The first young man said to him, ‘without knowing ‘what was’ your present is meaningless. His friend gave him a condescending look and said” you really are talking like a fool”. The first man, nonplussed, answered, also with a smile, “ no actually you are talking like you are blind”

 

Ariel Sharon the controversial prime minister of Israel used to say "the things you see from here you don't see from there". That was his pithy and perhaps arrogant way of explaining his erratic shifts in perspective and direction.

 

Yet we seem to be seeing the same thing occurring with every new leader that becomes perched in the high office of the Prime Ministership. Netanyahu declares a ten month freeze on settlement natural growth in complete departure with his oft stated views and philosophy. One also has to understand the dramatic effect of Netanyahu/Barak government freeze against Israeli citizens in the heartland of Israel The amount of money that needs to be poured into such "operation" belies its so called “temporary” stature.

 

 More recently Netanyahu is spending some "quality " time with President Shimon Peres , Defence Minister Barak and former far left Member of parliament Yossi Beilin. In fact it was Beilin who announced to the world that that Prime Minister Netanyahu will soon declare a ten month freeze on settlement construction in the West Bank on November 18, 2009.Shimon Peres said of Netanyahu the following at an Aipac conference "Benjamin Netanyahu was at one time my political opponent. Today, he is my prime minister. He knows history and wants to make history. In our tradition, making history is making peace, and I am sure that peace is his priority." Furthermore it is Barak that Netanyahu sends to mollify the increasingly anti Israel Turkish government when the opposite should have been the answer to the constant verbal attacks and snubs coming from the Islamic government of Turkey. Has the same " you see from here you don't see from there frame of mind" overtaken Netanyahu as well. What is it that they see in their new position? Could it be the enormous pressure coming from those who used to be our allies? Is it the significant life and death dangers looming from the East? Is it also the increasing distancing from those nations of Europe and the West?

 

Or could it be that they have lost the ability to see what is so clear to those standing in the midst of our people.

 

We read in the book of Exodus that when Moshe arrives with a message of vision and redemption they could not or would not listen to him.

 

 And Moshe spoke so unto the children of Israel; the people did not heed Moses, because of shortness of breath and because of the hard work. (Exodus 6:9)

The Meshech Chochmah (R' Meir Simcha HaKohen of Dvinsk, 1843-1926, author of the classic work, Ohr Sameach) asserts that when a person is in the midst of suffering he cannot begin to comprehend a vision of hope and redemption.

 

The Ohr HaChayim Hakadosh (Chaim ben Moses ibn Attar 1696-1743.author of the popular commentary  Ohr ha-Chaim ) writes that their difficulty stemmed from the fact that they had not yet received Torah. That statement seems evident yet implies a much deeper truth. Without torah one is left bereft of a deep sense of destiny. Without that critical feature a mortal cannot look past the struggles of the moment and the pain of the here and now.

 

That seems to be the ingredient so desperately lacking in our political leadership. Without a vision anchored in Torah the dangers looming in the east and the frigid winds coming from the west seem overwhelming. They cannot see past the moment. They cannot look beyond the here and now. As a result they prefer to deride those who have the vision as fools and dreamers. Yet it is they who cannot “see from there what we see from here”. It is they that are struck with blindness that we pray will be temporary. In the meantime the men and women of vision must continue to declare their divine message of destiny. That voice cannot be silenced, because as we have been promised in that same vision, “”the earth shall be full of the knowledge of HaShem, as the waters cover the sea.” (Isaiah 11:9)

 

 

Moshe Kempinski

 Recently I overheard the following exchange at the Western Wall. One young man was trying to describe the Wall and its history and significance to a friend. His friend finally turned to him and said “all I see is bunch of large stones. ‘What was ‘ is not as important as ‘what is’ . The first young man said to him, ‘without knowing ‘what was’ your present is meaningless. His friend gave him a condescending look and said” you really are talking like a fool”. The first man, nonplussed, answered, also with a smile, “ no actually you are talking like you are blind”

 

Ariel Sharon the controversial prime minister of Israel used to say "the things you see from here you don't see from there". That was his pithy and perhaps arrogant way of explaining his erratic shifts in perspective and direction.

 

Yet we seem to be seeing the same thing occurring with every new leader that becomes perched in the high office of the Prime Ministership. Netanyahu declares a ten month freeze on settlement natural growth in complete departure with his oft stated views and philosophy. One also has to understand the dramatic effect of Netanyahu/Barak government freeze against Israeli citizens in the heartland of Israel The amount of money that needs to be poured into such "operation" belies its so called “temporary” stature.

 

 More recently Netanyahu is spending some "quality " time with President Shimon Peres , Defence Minister Barak and former far left Member of parliament Yossi Beilin. In fact it was Beilin who announced to the world that that Prime Minister Netanyahu will soon declare a ten month freeze on settlement construction in the West Bank on November 18, 2009.Shimon Peres said of Netanyahu the following at an Aipac conference "Benjamin Netanyahu was at one time my political opponent. Today, he is my prime minister. He knows history and wants to make history. In our tradition, making history is making peace, and I am sure that peace is his priority." Furthermore it is Barak that Netanyahu sends to mollify the increasingly anti Israel Turkish government when the opposite should have been the answer to the constant verbal attacks and snubs coming from the Islamic government of Turkey. Has the same " you see from here you don't see from there frame of mind" overtaken Netanyahu as well. What is it that they see in their new position? Could it be the enormous pressure coming from those who used to be our allies? Is it the significant life and death dangers looming from the East? Is it also the increasing distancing from those nations of Europe and the West?

 

Or could it be that they have lost the ability to see what is so clear to those standing in the midst of our people.

 

We read in the book of Exodus that when Moshe arrives with a message of vision and redemption they could not or would not listen to him.

 

 And Moshe spoke so unto the children of Israel; the people did not heed Moses, because of shortness of breath and because of the hard work. (Exodus 6:9)

The Meshech Chochmah (R' Meir Simcha HaKohen of Dvinsk, 1843-1926, author of the classic work, Ohr Sameach) asserts that when a person is in the midst of suffering he cannot begin to comprehend a vision of hope and redemption.

 

The Ohr HaChayim Hakadosh (Chaim ben Moses ibn Attar 1696-1743.author of the popular commentary  Ohr ha-Chaim ) writes that their difficulty stemmed from the fact that they had not yet received Torah. That statement seems evident yet implies a much deeper truth. Without torah one is left bereft of a deep sense of destiny. Without that critical feature a mortal cannot look past the struggles of the moment and the pain of the here and now.

 

That seems to be the ingredient so desperately lacking in our political leadership. Without a vision anchored in Torah the dangers looming in the east and the frigid winds coming from the west seem overwhelming. They cannot see past the moment. They cannot look beyond the here and now. As a result they prefer to deride those who have the vision as fools and dreamers. Yet it is they who cannot “see from there what we see from here”. It is they that are struck with blindness that we pray will be temporary. In the meantime the men and women of vision must continue to declare their divine message of destiny. That voice cannot be silenced, because as we have been promised in that same vision, “”the earth shall be full of the knowledge of HaShem, as the waters cover the sea.” (Isaiah 11:9)