This last Monday, 27th Tevet, the world lost two precious Jews who were called to the יְשִׁיבָה שֶׁל מַעֲלָה, the Heavenly Academy.
One was Sheldon (Shalom Gedaliah) Adelson, one of the wealthiest men in the world, a Jew who devoted a substantial part of his vast wealth to the State of Israel. The Jewish nation worldwide, and particularly in the Land of Israel, and even more particularly the Jewish enterprise in Yehudah and the Shomron (Judea and Samaria), the heartland of Biblical Israel, is inestimably stronger and securer due to Sheldon Adelson’s support.
Vast amounts have been written about him. As is only to be expected, the overwhelming majority of Jews and their supporters have lavished their praise upon this great and wonderful man, and have mourned his passing.
And as is equally expected, others – The Guardian, the New York Times, Haaretz, 972 Magazine, Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran, etc. – have excoriated him.
So be it. Adelson was great enough, his legacy is strong enough, to weather this sniping form the sidelines.
So much has been written about Sheldon Adelson since his passing that I have nothing to add. May G-d give him his reward in the eternal Hereafter, and comfort his widow, Miriam.
The same day that Adelson’s soul ascended to the Garden of Eden, another very precious Jew also departed this world: Ariel Bereny, who was almost unknown, almost anonymous, a very dear and cherished friend of mine.
Ariel was born in Hungary in 5716 (1956), the son of Márta and János (pronounced “Yanosh”) Bereny, who had fought as a partisan against the Nazi occupation of Hungary.
The given name on Ariel Bereny’s official documents is Andras, the Hungarian name he had grown up with living under aggressively anti-Jewish and violently secular Communism.
Given the difficulty of pronouncing Hungarian names correctly, his friends in Israel almost universally called him Bernie – a nick-name he was happy with.
Having escaped from Communist Hungary in 1979, he arrived in Britain, asking for refugee status. He was granted this, and though acutely aware of his Jewish identity, he was still completely secular.
It was only in the early 2000’s that he discovered his Jewish roots, his Jewish identity, and his Jewish calling.
He abandoned everything he had, his friends and property, in order to make Aliyah, becoming an Israeli citizen in 5765 (2004).
He lived in Kfar Tapuach, in the hills of the Shomron (Samaria), dedicating his life to the Jewish nation and to Judaism. You can read the article he wrote for Arutz Sheva to see his beliefs.
Bernie (I always think of him as “Bernie”) was a man of absolute truth; not given to compromise, he detested lies and hypocrisy.
In many ways he was the exact opposite of Sheldon Adelson: he was materially poor – though if we accept the Mishnah’s definition of wealth as “one who rejoices in his portion” (Pirkei Avot 4:1), he was one of the wealthiest men in the world.
He was almost anonymous – even the name by which his closest friends called him wasn’t his real name.
He was loved by all who knew him, even those who disagreed completely with his ideology. He was one of the warmest, kindest, most generous people I have ever known.
We buried him in the cemetery of Kfar Tapuach on Monday afternoon, where he now waits for Mashiach in the calm air of the Samarian mountains.
Israel’s redemption is brought about by Jews like Sheldon (Shalom Gedaliah) Adelson and Ariel (Andras) Bereny. Men who – however wealthy or poor they may be materially – dedicate their lives to the nation of Israel, and give of whatever resources they have to make the world a better place without compromise.
Parashat Va’eira begins with the Children of Israel enslaved in Egypt, and begins the story of our first redemption from slavery in Egypt.
It opens with G-d introducing Himself to Moshe with the name E-l Shad-dai:
“I am Hashem, and I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob as G-d Almighty [E-l Shad-dai]” (Exodus 6:2).
The appellation E-l Shad-dai (usually rendered into English as “G-d Almighty”) denotes G-d in His attribute of uncompromising power; unlike Hashem (the ineffable Four-Letter Name), which denotes Him in His attribute of mercy, or Elokim, which denotes Him in His attribute of strict justice.
The name E-l Shad-dai occurs five times before this parashah:
This first was when G-d told Abram that “I am E-l Shad-dai – walk before Me and be perfect (Genesis 17:1).
The second was when Isaac sent his son Jacob off into exile with his uncle Lavan in Paddan-Aram, with the words “May E-l Shad-dai bless you, and make you fruitful and numerous, that you will become a congregation of nations” (28:3).
The third time was when G-d changed Jacob’s name to Israel, telling him: “I am E-l Shad-dai; be fruitful and multiply, so that from you will come a congregation of nations, and kings will come forth from your loins” (35:11).
The fourth time was when Jacob charged his sons to return to Egypt with Benjamin, “and may E-l Shad-dai give you mercy before the man so that he release your other brother to you together with Benjamin” (43:14).
And the fifth time was when Jacob reminisced to his son Joseph that “E-l Shad-dai appeared to me in Luz, in the Land of Canaan, and blessed me; and He said to me: Behold I make you fruitful and I will multiply you, and I will make you a congregation of nations, and I have given this Land to your seed after you as an eternal holding” (48:3).
Each of these, like G-d’s address to Moshe at the beginning of this week’s parashah, depicts a mission of redemption which brooks no compromise.
G-d continues His words to Moshe:
“I will take you to Myself as a nation, and I will be your G-d; and you will know that I am Hashem your G-d, Who takes you out from under the burdens of Egypt, and I will bring you to the Land upon which I have raised My hand to give it to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob; and I will give it to you as a heritage – I, Hashem” (Exodus 6:7-8).
G-d introduces Himself to Moshe by telling him that there is an organic connexion between Him and the Jewish nation, between the Jewish nation and the Land of Israel, and between the Jewish nation dwelling in its Land and Hashem being the G-d of Israel.
The haftarah (the prophetic reading which follows the Torah-reading) for Parashat Va’eira is abstracted from Ezekiel 28:25-29:21:
“Thus says Hashem G-d: When I will gather the House of Israel from among the peoples among whom they were scattered, I will be sanctified in them in the eyes of those nations; and they will dwell on their own land, which I gave to My servant Jacob”.
Thousands of years ago, Jewish weakness in Egypt, Jews being subjugated as slaves to the Egyptians, was a חִלּוּל הַשֵּׁם, chillul Hashem, a desecration of the Name of G-d: if the Jewish nation, G-d’s people, were weak and persecuted, then the implication (in Egypt’s eyes) was that G-d Himself was too weak to protect His people.
חִלּוּל, desecration, a cognate of the word חָלָל, meaning both “empty space” or “vacuum” and “dead body”: when the Nation of Israel is weak and oppressed, G-d’s Name is desecrated, He is emptied, so to speak, from His world, and the world is thereby dead.
And then the Ten Plagues, and the subsequent complete and abject defeat of Egypt, demonstrated G-d’s power. Jewish strength, Jewish triumph, demonstrated G-d’s dominance, restored G-d to His world, so to speak, resuscitated the world.
And so too in our day: the very fact of Jewish exile is a chillul Hashem; and the corollary is that our return to our homeland, our restoring our national sovereign independence in Israel, is equally a קִדּוּשׁ הַשֵּׁם, Kiddush Hashem (Sanctification of the Name of G-d).
Hence the prophet’s message, “When I will gather the House of Israel…I will be sanctified”. The Ingathering of the Exiles to the Land of Israel in our generations is as much a Kiddush Hashem as was the redemption from Egypt.
Just about within living memory, the Shoah was the ultimate chillul Hashem (at least since the Romans destroyed the Second Temple and defeated the second Jewish Commonwealth.) And contrariwise, our national resurrection, just three years later, and our subsequent more-than-70-years of independence, is the greatest Kiddush Hashem that these generations have witnessed.
In Egypt, G-d told Moshe: “Egypt will know that I am Hashem when I will stretch forth My hand over Egypt and bring out the Children of Israel from among them” (Exodus 7:5).
And stage by painful stage, G-d forces Pharaoh (and by implication all Egypt) to recognise His sovereignty:
That first stage, “Egypt will know that I am Hashem”, progresses to “You will know [תֵּדַע, you personally, Pharaoh, will know] that I am Hashem” (7:17); then to recognising not just that G-d exists, maybe as just one more god in the Egyptian pantheon, but insisting that “you will know that there is none like Hashem our G-d” (8:6); and on to the next stage, more immediate yet: “you will know that I am Hashem in the midst of the land” (8:18) – you can’t get away from Me!
And then a higher recognition still – “you will know that there is none like Me throughout the world” (9:14); progressing to “I have raised you up to show you My power, and so that you will yet tell of My Name throughout the world” (9:16). Not enough for Pharaoh to acknowledge G-d’s power and Name – he must actively tell it publicly.
And then the final stage – “you will know that the world belongs to Hashem” (9:19): not enough that He has the power to control it, but you will yet recognise that all belongs to Him.
This is the uncompromising demand of redemption – to “know that the world belongs to Hashem”.
This recalls the very first mitzvah with which the Rambam opens the Mishneh Torah:
“The foundation of all foundations and the base of all wisdoms is to know that the is a Prime Cause, that He created everything that exists, and that all that exists, in the Heavens and the earth and whatever is between them, exists only because of the truth of the Creator” (Hilchot Yesodey ha-Torah/Laws of the Foundation of the Torah 1:1).
This is the basis of everything: not to believe that G-d exists, but to know that He exists.
This is the power of the appellation E-l Shad-dai, “G-d Almighty”: the completely uncompromising determination to obey G-d’s charge and to fulfil His mission in this world.
It with this appellation that G-d sent Moshe forth on his mission to redeem the Children of Israel from Egyptian slavery, to bring the redemption to His beloved children.
A mission that could brook no compromise with the evil that Pharaoh and Egypt represented. Moshe had to defeat Pharaoh and Egypt utterly, because only thus would the redemption be perfect.
Few indeed are the people who are able to rise to such great heights. And when they depart this world for עוֹלָם שֶׁכֻּלּוֹ טוּב, the World that is entirely good, then we who remain in this imperfect world are all the poorer for it.