Standing Strong
The Parsha begins with Moshe convening the Jewish people on the day of his death to fortify their faith and renew their commitment to preserving the eternal covenant between G-d and the Jewish people. The Torah states, ?You are standing today, all of you, before the L-rd your G-d ? the heads of your tribes, your elders and your officers ? all the men of Israel, your small children and your women and your proselyte who is in the midst of your camp? (Chap. 29, verses 9-10).?
The Question:
Why does the verse state that the Jews are ?standing?? What is significant about this detail?
The Answer:
Rashi quotes the Midrash Tanchuma, which reads as follows: ?Why is the Parsha of Nitzavim adjacent to the curses [in Ki Tavo, last week?s Parsha]? Because when Israel heard the curses? their faces became pale and they said, ?Who can withstand all of these?? Moshe began to appease them by saying, ?You are standing today? ? you may have angered G-d, but He did not destroy you, for you still exist before Him.?? Thus, Moshe specified that the Jewish people were ?standing? as a way of reminding them that although they had endured great suffering and pain, they were still ?standing?, strong and unvanquished. As the Lubavitcher Rebbe Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson has noted (cited in In The Garden of the Torah, vol. 2), the Hebrew word used by the Torah here for ?standing? is ?nitzavim?, which implies standing with power and fortitude. It was this message of reassurance that Moshe sought to convey to the Jewish people.
The Lesson:
The world watched with horror this week as the Twin Towers of New York?s World Trade Center were felled in succession by madmen in an unprecedented act of terror. The devastation was immense, with thousands feared dead and countless others injured. Scenes of people leaping dozens of stories to their deaths as the rubble tumbled below and buried hundreds of firefighters, policemen and rescue workers, left all who saw it breathless and in shock. Buffeted by two vast oceans and peaceful, friendly neighbors, America had long been blessed with relative serenity, its enemies kept at a distance by simple geography. But that calm was shattered this week, perhaps forever, when the two towers collapsed.
Israel, and now America too, find themselves the target of evil men so depraved and immoral that they will not hesitate to engage in mass murder, whether at a pizza parlor in Jerusalem or the Twin Towers in New York. As depressing as this week?s events were, as frightening and appalling as they might be, we must not lose sight of Moshe?s words of comfort above. Our faces all grew pale on Tuesday, just as those of the Jews in the Midrash did, and we all asked ourselves the same question which they had dared to utter: ?Who can withstand all of these?? Yet, as Moshe reminded them, ?You are standing today.? The Jewish people are alive despite the terror they have been subjected to over the past year. The spirit of liberty and freedom, upon which America was founded, has not been extinguished, despite the World Trade Center horror. Terrorists may be able to bring down buildings, but they can not destroy the spirit of Israel or America. Come what may, we shall continue to stand strong, unbowed in our convictions and undeterred in our faith.
The Fate of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel
In the Parsha, Moshe foretells what would befall the Jewish people in their history. Moshe predicts that the Jews would one day sin and begin to serve other gods. Consequently, G-d would exile them from the Land of Israel, which would lie barren and desolate in their absence. Once the Jewish people have experienced the blessings and the curses enumerated in the Torah, they will repent and return to G-d, who will gather them out from the nations of the world and return them to the Land of Israel, a process that has already begun in our day. In describing the exile of the Jews, the Torah states: ?and G-d removed them from upon their soil, with anger, with wrath and with great fury, and He cast them to another land, as this very day (Chap. 29, verse 27).?
The Question:
What is the meaning of the phrase ?as this very day??
The Answer:
The Talmud in Tractate Sanhedrin (110b) offers a fascinating explanation, saying that the verse is a prophecy referring to the Ten Tribes of Israel, who were exiled by the Assyrian king Sennacherib in 723 BCE. The phrase ?as this very day?, is intended to suggest what would ultimately befall the Ten Tribes. The Mishna there states: ?The Ten Tribes are not destined ever to return [from exile], as it says ?and G-d removed them from upon their soil, with anger, with wrath and with great fury, and He cast them to another land, as this very day.? Just as the day goes, never to return, so they [the Ten Tribes] go, never to return - these are the words of Rabbi Akiva. Rabbi Eliezer says, ?as this very day? ? Just as the day darkens and then becomes light [i.e. the darkness of the early morning gives way to the light of day], so too the Ten Tribes, for whom it is dark [as they are in exile], they will likewise one day have light [i.e. they will return from exile to the Land of Israel].? Thus, both Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Eliezer interpret the phrase ?as this very day? as referring to the fate of the Ten Lost Tribes. Though they disagree, the generally accepted view is that the Ten Tribes will eventually return to the Land of Israel and the Jewish people at the end of days.
As the Artscroll edition of the Talmud mentions in its notes on Tractate Sanhedrin: ?It should be pointed out that the Books of Prophets contain numerous references to the existence of all twelve tribes in the Messianic Era. Ramban (Sefer HaGeulah, ch.1) enumerates at least eight proofs that Scripture assumes a return of the Ten Tribes. Moreover, Ezekiel ch. 48 speaks openly of the future division of the Land among all twelve tribes.? As the Talmud itself subsequently states, Rabbah bar bar Chanah said in the name of Rabbi Yochanan that there is an explicit prophecy in the book of Jeremiah (chap. 3, verse 12) that the Ten Tribes would one day return: ?Return, O wayward Israel? I will not bear a grudge forever.? In other words, G-d?s anger against the Ten Tribes is not forever, and one day they shall return to their people and their Land.
The Lesson:
We may not realize it, but the return of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel, as foretold by the Torah, may already have begun. Tens of thousands of Ethiopian Jews have immigrated to Israel in the past two decades after being cut off from the rest of Jewry for millennia. Ethiopian tradition states that they are descendants of the Tribe of Dan, an assertion confirmed in a halachic ruling issued by then-Chief Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef. A tribe living in the north-eastern Indian states of Mizoram and Manipur known as the Bnei Menashe claims descent from the lost tribe of Manasseh. Some 600 members of the Bnei Menashe have made aliyah in recent years, undergoing formal conversion by Israel?s Chief Rabbinate and settling in the country. Another 4,500 remain in India, living as observant Jews and hoping to join their brethren in Israel. The Bnei Menashe are assisted in their immigration and absorption by Rabbi Eliyahu Avichail, a Jerusalem rabbi who established the Amishav organization at the behest of Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda Kook. Rabbi Avichail has devoted his life to finding ?lost? Jews and facilitating their return to the Jewish people.
For more information, contact Rabbi Avichail at: 972-2-642-4606.
Rosh HaShanah ? The Jewish New Year
This past year has been one of the most difficult in recent memory for the Jewish people. Israel has been under attack for the past twelve months, with the ongoing Palestinian terror campaign having killed over 150 Israelis and wounded more than 1000 others. After the World Trade Center disaster earlier this week, we prepare for Rosh HaShanah, the Day of Judgement and the beginning of a new year, with the fervent hope that this coming year will be far better and more peaceful.
In his book Thoughts for the Month of Elul, Rabbi Avigdor HaLevi Nebenzahl, Rabbi of the Old City of Jerusalem, offers an important reminder to us all of the importance of Rosh HaShanah:
?Everything that happens on a day-to-day basis has already been decreed on the previous Rosh HaShanah and will be re-evaluated and judged on the upcoming Rosh HaShanah. All the headlines of the upcoming year, may they be for the good, will be written in Heaven on Rosh HaShanah and will only be published later, when the events themselves transpire.
?Now is the time to prevent tragic headlines from being decreed in Heaven! Now is the time to set the prices of bread and margarine for the coming year ? and the security situation, and the number of traffic accidents, and so forth.
??We greet one another with the wish that HaKadosh Baruch Hu [G-d] inscribe others and ourselves for a good year. We must also fully realize the veracity of the words we say in the Rosh HaShanah prayer: ?Vechotam yad kol adam bo ? Each man seals his own fate.? For each and every one of us writes our own verdict through his actions.?
May we all merit to be written in the Book of Life for a year of health, peace and prosperity, and may the new year herald the end of the exile and the return of the entire Jewish people to the entire Land of Israel.
The Parsha begins with Moshe convening the Jewish people on the day of his death to fortify their faith and renew their commitment to preserving the eternal covenant between G-d and the Jewish people. The Torah states, ?You are standing today, all of you, before the L-rd your G-d ? the heads of your tribes, your elders and your officers ? all the men of Israel, your small children and your women and your proselyte who is in the midst of your camp? (Chap. 29, verses 9-10).?
The Question:
Why does the verse state that the Jews are ?standing?? What is significant about this detail?
The Answer:
Rashi quotes the Midrash Tanchuma, which reads as follows: ?Why is the Parsha of Nitzavim adjacent to the curses [in Ki Tavo, last week?s Parsha]? Because when Israel heard the curses? their faces became pale and they said, ?Who can withstand all of these?? Moshe began to appease them by saying, ?You are standing today? ? you may have angered G-d, but He did not destroy you, for you still exist before Him.?? Thus, Moshe specified that the Jewish people were ?standing? as a way of reminding them that although they had endured great suffering and pain, they were still ?standing?, strong and unvanquished. As the Lubavitcher Rebbe Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson has noted (cited in In The Garden of the Torah, vol. 2), the Hebrew word used by the Torah here for ?standing? is ?nitzavim?, which implies standing with power and fortitude. It was this message of reassurance that Moshe sought to convey to the Jewish people.
The Lesson:
The world watched with horror this week as the Twin Towers of New York?s World Trade Center were felled in succession by madmen in an unprecedented act of terror. The devastation was immense, with thousands feared dead and countless others injured. Scenes of people leaping dozens of stories to their deaths as the rubble tumbled below and buried hundreds of firefighters, policemen and rescue workers, left all who saw it breathless and in shock. Buffeted by two vast oceans and peaceful, friendly neighbors, America had long been blessed with relative serenity, its enemies kept at a distance by simple geography. But that calm was shattered this week, perhaps forever, when the two towers collapsed.
Israel, and now America too, find themselves the target of evil men so depraved and immoral that they will not hesitate to engage in mass murder, whether at a pizza parlor in Jerusalem or the Twin Towers in New York. As depressing as this week?s events were, as frightening and appalling as they might be, we must not lose sight of Moshe?s words of comfort above. Our faces all grew pale on Tuesday, just as those of the Jews in the Midrash did, and we all asked ourselves the same question which they had dared to utter: ?Who can withstand all of these?? Yet, as Moshe reminded them, ?You are standing today.? The Jewish people are alive despite the terror they have been subjected to over the past year. The spirit of liberty and freedom, upon which America was founded, has not been extinguished, despite the World Trade Center horror. Terrorists may be able to bring down buildings, but they can not destroy the spirit of Israel or America. Come what may, we shall continue to stand strong, unbowed in our convictions and undeterred in our faith.
The Fate of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel
In the Parsha, Moshe foretells what would befall the Jewish people in their history. Moshe predicts that the Jews would one day sin and begin to serve other gods. Consequently, G-d would exile them from the Land of Israel, which would lie barren and desolate in their absence. Once the Jewish people have experienced the blessings and the curses enumerated in the Torah, they will repent and return to G-d, who will gather them out from the nations of the world and return them to the Land of Israel, a process that has already begun in our day. In describing the exile of the Jews, the Torah states: ?and G-d removed them from upon their soil, with anger, with wrath and with great fury, and He cast them to another land, as this very day (Chap. 29, verse 27).?
The Question:
What is the meaning of the phrase ?as this very day??
The Answer:
The Talmud in Tractate Sanhedrin (110b) offers a fascinating explanation, saying that the verse is a prophecy referring to the Ten Tribes of Israel, who were exiled by the Assyrian king Sennacherib in 723 BCE. The phrase ?as this very day?, is intended to suggest what would ultimately befall the Ten Tribes. The Mishna there states: ?The Ten Tribes are not destined ever to return [from exile], as it says ?and G-d removed them from upon their soil, with anger, with wrath and with great fury, and He cast them to another land, as this very day.? Just as the day goes, never to return, so they [the Ten Tribes] go, never to return - these are the words of Rabbi Akiva. Rabbi Eliezer says, ?as this very day? ? Just as the day darkens and then becomes light [i.e. the darkness of the early morning gives way to the light of day], so too the Ten Tribes, for whom it is dark [as they are in exile], they will likewise one day have light [i.e. they will return from exile to the Land of Israel].? Thus, both Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Eliezer interpret the phrase ?as this very day? as referring to the fate of the Ten Lost Tribes. Though they disagree, the generally accepted view is that the Ten Tribes will eventually return to the Land of Israel and the Jewish people at the end of days.
As the Artscroll edition of the Talmud mentions in its notes on Tractate Sanhedrin: ?It should be pointed out that the Books of Prophets contain numerous references to the existence of all twelve tribes in the Messianic Era. Ramban (Sefer HaGeulah, ch.1) enumerates at least eight proofs that Scripture assumes a return of the Ten Tribes. Moreover, Ezekiel ch. 48 speaks openly of the future division of the Land among all twelve tribes.? As the Talmud itself subsequently states, Rabbah bar bar Chanah said in the name of Rabbi Yochanan that there is an explicit prophecy in the book of Jeremiah (chap. 3, verse 12) that the Ten Tribes would one day return: ?Return, O wayward Israel? I will not bear a grudge forever.? In other words, G-d?s anger against the Ten Tribes is not forever, and one day they shall return to their people and their Land.
The Lesson:
We may not realize it, but the return of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel, as foretold by the Torah, may already have begun. Tens of thousands of Ethiopian Jews have immigrated to Israel in the past two decades after being cut off from the rest of Jewry for millennia. Ethiopian tradition states that they are descendants of the Tribe of Dan, an assertion confirmed in a halachic ruling issued by then-Chief Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef. A tribe living in the north-eastern Indian states of Mizoram and Manipur known as the Bnei Menashe claims descent from the lost tribe of Manasseh. Some 600 members of the Bnei Menashe have made aliyah in recent years, undergoing formal conversion by Israel?s Chief Rabbinate and settling in the country. Another 4,500 remain in India, living as observant Jews and hoping to join their brethren in Israel. The Bnei Menashe are assisted in their immigration and absorption by Rabbi Eliyahu Avichail, a Jerusalem rabbi who established the Amishav organization at the behest of Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda Kook. Rabbi Avichail has devoted his life to finding ?lost? Jews and facilitating their return to the Jewish people.
For more information, contact Rabbi Avichail at: 972-2-642-4606.
Rosh HaShanah ? The Jewish New Year
This past year has been one of the most difficult in recent memory for the Jewish people. Israel has been under attack for the past twelve months, with the ongoing Palestinian terror campaign having killed over 150 Israelis and wounded more than 1000 others. After the World Trade Center disaster earlier this week, we prepare for Rosh HaShanah, the Day of Judgement and the beginning of a new year, with the fervent hope that this coming year will be far better and more peaceful.
In his book Thoughts for the Month of Elul, Rabbi Avigdor HaLevi Nebenzahl, Rabbi of the Old City of Jerusalem, offers an important reminder to us all of the importance of Rosh HaShanah:
?Everything that happens on a day-to-day basis has already been decreed on the previous Rosh HaShanah and will be re-evaluated and judged on the upcoming Rosh HaShanah. All the headlines of the upcoming year, may they be for the good, will be written in Heaven on Rosh HaShanah and will only be published later, when the events themselves transpire.
?Now is the time to prevent tragic headlines from being decreed in Heaven! Now is the time to set the prices of bread and margarine for the coming year ? and the security situation, and the number of traffic accidents, and so forth.
??We greet one another with the wish that HaKadosh Baruch Hu [G-d] inscribe others and ourselves for a good year. We must also fully realize the veracity of the words we say in the Rosh HaShanah prayer: ?Vechotam yad kol adam bo ? Each man seals his own fate.? For each and every one of us writes our own verdict through his actions.?
May we all merit to be written in the Book of Life for a year of health, peace and prosperity, and may the new year herald the end of the exile and the return of the entire Jewish people to the entire Land of Israel.