Burning the Chametz

Just before my bar mitzvah, the reform “rabbi” of our community explained to us that the Exodus from Egypt was not a miraculous act of Hashem, but rather a freak accident of nature. He said that because of a severe draught, the Red Sea had turned into a sand bar which the Jews crossed on their way out of Egypt. When the pursuing Egyptians arrived at the sand bar, a sudden, freak, torrential downpour of rain caused a flash flood which drowned the Egyptians. Luckily, he said, the Jews had already reached the other side of the sea, but Hashem hadn’t had anything to do with the story.

Miracle or Freak Rainstorm?

I thought to myself at the time, “What a stupid explanation! If that’s Judaism, I don’t want anything to do with it.”
The rational, pseudo-scientific explanation of the reform “rabbi” is an example of the chametz that needs to be uprooted from our hearts before we sit down at the Seder. A Jew has to replace it with a simple and heartfelt faith in the Torah and the traditions of our holy Sages. That is what Judaism is all about.

The Test of Emunah

Over the course of writing this blog, I have encountered many examples of chametz that need to be uprooted from our hearts and national psyches. For instance, there are individuals who maintain that aliyah is suicide; or that gay parades in Jerusalem are expressions of freedom; or that the Kabbalah is idol worship; or that Mount Sinai is in Saudi Arabia; or that the Song of Songs is a pornographic ballad; or that the father determines the Jewishness of a baby and not the mother; or that America is the Promised Land; or that women should be free to dress as immodestly as they wish; or that the State of Israel is the work of the devil; or that the Mashiach is a Christian, etc etc etc.

In addition to the bread crumbs, and what we mentioned in our previous blog, this is the ideological and philosophical chametz that needs to be purged from our hearts – the lack of faith in our Sages, which makes idol worship out of our own egotistical, unlearned, and misguided beliefs, like Pharoah who haughtily proclaimed, “Who is Hashem that I should fear him?”

As we burn the chametz this morning, may we all do the t’shuva necessary to free ourselves from the bondage of arrogance within us, and thus forge a stronger, holier, more truthful attachment to G-d.

This year in Jerusalem. Amen.    

Secrets of Torah

Whoever causes the Kabbalah and the wisdom of the inner Torah not to be considered a part of the Oral and Written torah, and causes others not to learn it (the inner wisdom) by saying that there is nothing more to the Torah and the Talmud other than the simple meaning of the text, it is certainly considered as if he had cut off the flow of blessing to the world. It would have been better for him if he had never been born, or ever learned Torah. It is considered as if he returned the world to a state of chaos and void, and brought poverty to mankind, and lengthened the exile of the Jewish People.

This isn’t Tzvi Fishman. This is a quote of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, from the “Tikunei Zohar,” Tikun 44).

When we talk about Kabbalah, we are not speaking about the fake, Kabbalah-For-Hollywood-Stars, that some hucksters try to peddle to the muddled masses, but the genuine Kabbalah as brought down to us by the great Sages of Israel.

Along with the following excerpt from the book, “Secret of the Brit,” is a series of photographs taken over the last two days of the revered elder Kabbalist, Rav Eliahu Leon Levi. On Saturday night, he gave a class at the Kotel on the inner meanings of the Pesach Seder. The last two mornings, he has been giving classes to Torah scholars at his synagogue in Bnei Brak, and handing out money for holiday expenses to married yeshiva students. In addition, he has been distributing truckloads of fruits and vegetables to the needy. Rabbi Leon stresses that along with the standard learning of Torah and Talmud, a serious student must also delve into the inner soul of the Torah by familiarizing himself with the basic tenets of Kabbalah.

Seder secrets

Why this night is different

This year in Jerusalem

Our Sages have repeatedly emphasized the necessity of learning the secrets of Torah at the time of Geula.

The holy Kabbalist, Rabbi Chaim Vital, foremost student of the Arizal, emphasizes in his introduction to the “Eitz HaChaim,” that the prolongation of the exile, and all of its sufferings, stem from the fact that the inner secrets of Torah have gone unlearned.

The Gaon of Vilna writes: “This Geula will only come about through the learning of Torah, and the main factor of the Geula depends on the learning of the Kabbalah” (Even HaShelma, 11:3).

Throughout all of his writings, Rabbi Avraham Yitzhak HaKohen Kook stresses the necessity of learning the secrets of Torah at the time of Israel’s redemption:

“The revelation of the secrets of Torah in the last generation, in order to purify the hearts and to fill the minds with noble thoughts, whose source lies in the secrets of Torah, this is an absolute necessity in the last generation to insure the survival of Judaism” (Orot HaKodesh, Part 1, Pg. 141).

In his holy proclamation, “The Great Call,” Rabbi Kook wrote:

“Dear brothers, sages of Torah, and influential scholars! We too acted foolishly and sinned! We studied and researched the sources; we debated the fine points of the Talmud and discovered new insights; we wrote and explained; but we forgot Hashem and His might. We failed to hear the words of the true prophets, the exalted voice of our eternal Sages, to hear the voice of the Tzaddikim (righteous ones) and Hasidim (saintly ones), the Sages of Musar (ethics), and the possessors of the secrets of Torah, who called out and proclaimed in the most strident of voices, that in the end, the river of Talmudic analysis would turn arid and dry if the deep ocean of Kabbalah, and the Torah’s inner understandings, weren’t constantly drawn into the learning – the waters of the knowledge of Hashem, the pristine waters of pure faith which flows from our inner souls, and which stream forth from our life source” (Orot, pg. 101).

Regarding Eretz Yisrael, Rabbi Kook wrote, “Due to the alienation from the recognition of the secrets of Torah, the recognition of the holiness of Eretz Yisrael is perceived in a superficial manner” (Orot, Eretz Yisrael, 2).

Rabbi Kook sums up this same essay in a similar vein:

“We are not coming to negate any conceptualization or understanding that is founded on honest intellectual endeavor, sensitivity of thought, or the fear of Heaven, in whatever form they take – but rather only the viewpoint that seeks to negate the secrets of Torah and their tremendous influence on the spirit of the nation. This is a tragedy that we must battle against with counsel, wisdom, holiness, and valor” (Ibid.).

As we have mentioned on repeated occasions, the greatest secret of the Torah is the secret of the Brit, as the holy Zohar teaches: 

“And what is the most exalted secret of the Torah? It is contained in the sign of the holy Brit, which is called the secret of Hashem – this is the holy Brit (Zohar, Bereshit 236b).

It is sometimes thought that when the word Brit appears in the Torah and the Tanach, it is referring to a general covenant between Hashem and the Jewish People. The Zohar, however, makes clear that almost every reference to the Brit means guarding the sexual purity of Am Yisrael. Readers interested in learning about the connection between guarding the Brit and the holiday of Pesach are invited to see the essay, “The Secret of Pesach.”

Rav Leon's Yeshiva in Bnei Brak

Help for the needy

Finest fruits of the Land

Rabbi Levy emphasizes that our search for the pieces of bread in the house on Erev Pesach is much more than a hunt for the last scattered crumbs of chametz, which according to the Kabbalah are symbolic of the scattered souls that were spilled in vain during sexual transgression. These sins, known as transgressions to the Brit, whether it be sex out of wedlock, sex with non-Jews, adultery, sex during the Niddah period, homosexuality, masturbation, and improper sexual conduct between husband and wife, bring terrible punishments upon the Jewish People, may G-d have mercy. Therefore, Rabbi Levi advices that at the time of burning the chametz, everyone do sincere t’shuva (repentance) in this regard, and recite the “Tikun HaYesod Yeshuat Eliahu,” the “Tikun HaClalli,” and the “Tikun HaYesod” of the Ben Eish Chai, to rectify the damage of the past and restore all the lost souls to their holy, celestial source. In this way, a person can sit down at his Seder in a state of purity, liberated from the terrible exile and darkness of sexual sin. 

Warning: Those who scoff at this lesson are either unlearned in the inner understandings of the Torah, or have a problem in this area themselves. Readers are cautioned against being influenced by their misleading and unwarranted sarcasm.

Rav Leon's synagogue

Secrets of Pesach

In the Yeshiva

Shema Yisrael

Love your neighbor as yourself

Have a happy and holy Pesach! 

Pesach Cleaning

"Now, more than ever, we need to do serious Pesach cleaning in our national home. And we need Jews - Jews in the millions - to help us. We need Jews from the USA, from Britain, from everywhere."

Thus begins the eloquent and passionate letter that Daniel Pinner wrote on the eve of his entry into prison. We are reprinting it here so that others can learn from his real life example:  

On the 23rd of Adar (23 March), I was in court to hear the arguments of my lawyer, Baruch Ben-Yosef, and of the prosecution's lawyer, Rachel Elmechais, as to what my appropriate sentence should be. (For the record, the judge, Rachel Barka'i, handed down a sentence closer to what Adv. Baruch Ben-Yosef argued for.)

On that occasion, Barka'i began proceedings by informing Adv. Ben-Yosef that she had received hundreds of emails, faxes and letters from Israel and the Diaspora regarding me and my case, but that she would not take these communications into account. Sometime later, I received a printout of about 180 of the emails that had been sent to Her Honour from Israel, the USA, Canada, the UK and other countries, pleading, requesting, cajoling, threatening, arguing for Her Honour to show me leniency.
 
Twelve days later, on the 6th of Nissan (4 April), Barka'i handed down a two-year sentence. Within the first 24 hours, I received over 100 messages of support from my voice mail and countless more messages in the subsequent days. 
 
I also received a stack of printouts from various Internet sites, articles by me and about me, and responses from around the world. I have been truly overwhelmed by the spontaneous outpouring of support, solidarity and encouragement.
 
Inevitably, a great many of these communications have included criticism of the Israeli justice system and, by extension, of the entire Israeli political establishment. I do not think that I am in any way important personally, but my case - the events that have been forced upon me - epitomizes and highlights much of what is rotten in the State of Israel.
 
Now, it is indisputable that the system is corrupt to the core. Clearly, the decision to prosecute me at all, and not the Arabs who testified under oath that they were throwing rocks at Jews, was more political than judicial - and political decisions have (or should have) no place in a court of justice.
 
But this is merely a symptom. The corruption, the connection between money and power, the politicization of the police, the judiciary and the army, the anti-nationalist and anti-religious bias of the media and the education system, the institutionalized protektziya (and how many people know that the very term protektziya is taken from Russian of the Soviet Era?), the unsupervised power the State has given to the Shabak (General Security Service), the open collaboration between the government and Arab terrorists - all of these are endemic to the Israeli establishment. All these threaten the personal security of every Israeli. All these undermine any confidence and trust that the Israeli authorities may ever have enjoyed. All these contribute to growing poverty, crime, violence, drug abuse and alienation in Israeli society.

And all these threaten the very survival of the Jewish State.

And so, it is entirely understandable that so many of the messages to Rachel Barka'i, and so many of the messages from abroad that I have received, have been from the Jews in the Diaspora who have said that hearing of my experience has discouraged them from making Aliyah. Countless correspondents over these last nine months have made remarks to the effect that only a fool or a masochist would make Aliyah or even visit Israel; that Jews are safer outside of Israel - after all, in the last decade, more Jews have been murdered in Israel than the rest of the world; that Israel is the only country that legally forbids Jews from living in certain areas just because they are Jews; that the Israeli media is more anti-Jewish than any media in the West.
 
All this is true.
 
But my one regret is that so many Jews in exile are using my personal story as an excuse not to come home, that so many good Jews have conceded defeat to the anti-Jewish junta that rules in Israel.
 
Of course, if Germany or France or Iraq become hostile to Judaism, become corrupt, make life miserable for Jews, collaborate with Arab terrorists - that is a reason for Jews to cut off contact with those countries.
 
And when this happens in Israel, in the one country on G-d's Earth that we can call home - that is all the more reason for Jews to come to Israel, to return home, to do tikkun. When someone else's home is filthy, that is a reason to leave; when your own home is filthy, you clean it thoroughly. And, when necessary, you throw out the scoundrels who are responsible for the filth. But you don't abandon your home to those scoundrels.
 
Now, more than ever, we need to do serious Pesach cleaning in our national home. And we need Jews - Jews in the millions - to help us. We need Jews from the USA, from Britain, from everywhere - Jews who have lived as minorities and can therefore appreciate how precious it is to be a Jew, how precious our Jewish State is. We need a massive influx of Jews from the free world who have experienced life in democratic regimes, who will protest - here at home, not abroad - against the abuses of power.
 
And so, my one request of any Jew who has been disgusted by the Israeli establishment: take that disgust and channel it into Aliyah. That will be your personal contribution to sweeping the filth out of our collective home. That will be your personal victory over evil. One family - even one single Jew - who makes Aliyah will do more to cleanse Israel than all the protests from America.
 
One final thought. "If you see oppression of the poor, and justice and righteousness trampled in a country, do not be astounded," said King Solomon (Ecclesiastes 5:7). Corruption happens: it is human nature. The test of the individual is how he or she reacts to that corruption. Do you surrender or do you defeat it?

More than that. The Talmud tells us that "anyone who mourns for Jerusalem will merit to see it rejoicing" (Ta'anit 30A), which Rabbi Yosef Caro brings as practical Halacha (Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chayim 554:25). How much greater, then, will be the rejoicing of those who actively worked to rebuilt Jerusalem in justice?

The door is open, and we are waiting for you to come home.