[In memory of the author's father, Akiva ben Yehoshua, ahyeh kapara l'mishkavo, on the occasion of Mr. Hirsch's first yahrtzeit.]
In this week's Torah reading, the Jews "reach the desert of Sinai, and camp in the desert; and Israel encamped there opposite the mountain." (Shmot 19:2) Rashi comments that the encampment was done "as one man, with one heart... with no bickering and arguments."
The encampment was known in Hebrew as the machaneh. This word derives from the word chein, charm, with the letter mem in front, denoting "a place of chein". For as long as each Jew was able to see and appreciate the particular chein possessed by every other individual Jew, and each Jew furthered the interests of his fellow, the machaneh was truly a living organism of such beauty, harmony and chein that Israel merited a tete-a-tete with the Divine Presence.
However, the machaneh did not last long. We today still suffer from the perverted other side of the coin of machaneh: sinat chinam. Usually translated as "indiscriminate hate", this destroyer of the Second Temple and prolonger of our exile is much deeper than that.
The true translation is "hate of their chein", a situation in which each Jew is the other's enemy. Instead of furthering each other's interests, sinat chinam is a state in which each Jew is trying to devour the other. Literally. For that is why the Talmud, in it's relating of the story of the Second Temple's destruction, calls the protagonists "Kamtza and bar Kamtza". Kamtza is Aramaic for locust. Devourer. But these were a special type of locust - chagavim (as in Bamidbar 13:33), as Onkelos translates: kamtzin (plural for kamtza) - for these locusts cannibalized each other.
This sinat chinam is the mechanism underlying 1,900-plus years of Jewish history, including what you see today in the country of Israel. Identify a scapegoat, target it and attack. And so we have: "The settlers are the cause of all our problems in the security and foreign relations fields. So they must go, moved back to within the Green Line." And: "We have problems in education," so the teachers are identified as a weak enough target to attack, with something called Dovrat. The hottest political phenomenon of the last four years has been Shinui - alias, the movement to target the chareidim (as the reason you are overtaxed, on reserve duty too often, etc.).
The granddaddy of them all: by scapegoating Ehud Barak and Yasser Arafat as the problems with Oslo, the Left was able to escape any serious examination of what went wrong. We therefore won't see any "klopping al cheit" for the importing, arming and funding of terrorists, nor for the murder of 1,100 Jews. The Left simply put all the sins on the sa'ir la'azazel ( the Yom Kippur scapegoat sacrifice) - former Prime Minister Barak and Arafat. But Leftist philosophy remained untouched and spawned "Disengagement, Son of Oslo".
Or how about poor General David Elazar, who became the convenient, unfortunate fall-guy for the whole country's lapses and negligence that allowed the Yom Kippur War to surprise us?
The way Yitzchak Rabin got elected, as well, was none other than tried and true sinat chinam in action. Rabin would go to Beersheva or the Carmel market or wherever, and declare: "The Likud took your money, and threw it away in the territories, never building you a factory, or a park, etc."*
This is indeed the mechanism that propels our people through time. Until we recognize it, and take measures to stop it, the Jewish people will not soon climb again to the heights of Sinai.
Note:
* Well documented in David Horowitz's Shalom Friend (Newmarket Press [1996], page 131).
In this week's Torah reading, the Jews "reach the desert of Sinai, and camp in the desert; and Israel encamped there opposite the mountain." (Shmot 19:2) Rashi comments that the encampment was done "as one man, with one heart... with no bickering and arguments."
The encampment was known in Hebrew as the machaneh. This word derives from the word chein, charm, with the letter mem in front, denoting "a place of chein". For as long as each Jew was able to see and appreciate the particular chein possessed by every other individual Jew, and each Jew furthered the interests of his fellow, the machaneh was truly a living organism of such beauty, harmony and chein that Israel merited a tete-a-tete with the Divine Presence.
However, the machaneh did not last long. We today still suffer from the perverted other side of the coin of machaneh: sinat chinam. Usually translated as "indiscriminate hate", this destroyer of the Second Temple and prolonger of our exile is much deeper than that.
The true translation is "hate of their chein", a situation in which each Jew is the other's enemy. Instead of furthering each other's interests, sinat chinam is a state in which each Jew is trying to devour the other. Literally. For that is why the Talmud, in it's relating of the story of the Second Temple's destruction, calls the protagonists "Kamtza and bar Kamtza". Kamtza is Aramaic for locust. Devourer. But these were a special type of locust - chagavim (as in Bamidbar 13:33), as Onkelos translates: kamtzin (plural for kamtza) - for these locusts cannibalized each other.
This sinat chinam is the mechanism underlying 1,900-plus years of Jewish history, including what you see today in the country of Israel. Identify a scapegoat, target it and attack. And so we have: "The settlers are the cause of all our problems in the security and foreign relations fields. So they must go, moved back to within the Green Line." And: "We have problems in education," so the teachers are identified as a weak enough target to attack, with something called Dovrat. The hottest political phenomenon of the last four years has been Shinui - alias, the movement to target the chareidim (as the reason you are overtaxed, on reserve duty too often, etc.).
The granddaddy of them all: by scapegoating Ehud Barak and Yasser Arafat as the problems with Oslo, the Left was able to escape any serious examination of what went wrong. We therefore won't see any "klopping al cheit" for the importing, arming and funding of terrorists, nor for the murder of 1,100 Jews. The Left simply put all the sins on the sa'ir la'azazel ( the Yom Kippur scapegoat sacrifice) - former Prime Minister Barak and Arafat. But Leftist philosophy remained untouched and spawned "Disengagement, Son of Oslo".
Or how about poor General David Elazar, who became the convenient, unfortunate fall-guy for the whole country's lapses and negligence that allowed the Yom Kippur War to surprise us?
The way Yitzchak Rabin got elected, as well, was none other than tried and true sinat chinam in action. Rabin would go to Beersheva or the Carmel market or wherever, and declare: "The Likud took your money, and threw it away in the territories, never building you a factory, or a park, etc."*
This is indeed the mechanism that propels our people through time. Until we recognize it, and take measures to stop it, the Jewish people will not soon climb again to the heights of Sinai.
Note:
* Well documented in David Horowitz's Shalom Friend (Newmarket Press [1996], page 131).