I’m going to break two personal rules with this article. First of all, this is not generally a parsha column, but this week it is based on the sedra. Secondly, I rarely quote the same source two weeks in a row, but this week is different. We are living in turbulent times, which require a bit of flexibility.
Last week, Klal Yisroel — indeed, all of New York City — and the normative civilized world at large suffered a traumatic experience. An avowed anti-Semite, anti-capitalist and virulent hater in numerous ways was elected mayor of the center of the capitalistic world and the city with the largest Jewish population outside the State of Israel. His acceptance speech was replete with spite, loathing for a large contingent of his new constituency and disdain for anyone outside his circle.
Even mild-mannered and unflustered people with financial interests in the city were compelled to consider moving to save their businesses, to say nothing of our brethren, who quite naturally fear for their lives. The analogy to Europe in the 1930s is not inappropriate or exaggerated. As a neighbor in Nassau County commented to me, we should be happy, since our property values (outside the Five Boroughs) have just gone up, but this is short-sighted and mean-spirited. What, exactly, should we be thinking?
Last week, we spoke of reacting appropriately as Klal Yisroel did when Achashveirosh gave his signet ring to Haman. A wave of teshuvah washed over Klal Yisroel and the yeshuah came. But there is another, perhaps even more important attitude to consider.
Rav Yonasan David (Me’iras Einayim, Parshas Chayei Sarah, page 128, and Kuntrus Sukkos, Maamar 61) points what he calls one of the yesodos of Klal Yisroel. That is that if our kavanos and emunah are in proper order, it doesn’t matter if something actually happened or not. It is the heavenly and spiritual reality that count, not the transient visible result.
The rosh yeshiva’s proof-text is from the second posuk in the sedra: “Avrohom came to eulogize Sarah and to bewail her.” Rashi comments that Avrohom came from Be’er Sheva, to which the Ramban adds that at the time of the Akeidah, Avrohom and Sarah had lived in Chevron, where he was commanded about the Akeidah. The Ramban continues that Avrohom then went to Be’er Sheva, where he had an inn at which he taught people to believe in Hashem. There he thanked Hashem for “the miracle” and heard about the death of Sarah. Rav Yonasan asks, “What exactly was this miracle for which Avrohom gave thanks?” He suggests that it is impossible to suggest that it was the angel that came to save Yitzchok from death, since in point of fact, Avrohom was prepared to slaughter him as Hashem had commanded.
The answer, says Rav Yonasan, is that Avrohom was giving thanks for the fact that although his son did not in fact have to die, it was nevertheless considered as if his “ashes were piled up upon the altar” (Rashi, Vayikra 26:42). If one studies the conversation between Hashem and Avrohom at the end of the Akeidah (Rashi 22:11), it seems as if Avrohom had completely misunderstood the command. It would appear as if Hashem only meant to temporarily place Yitzchok upon the altar and then to simply remove him alive. However, this cannot be, since that would make the entire Akeidah a mistake.
The correct interpretation, therefore, concludes the rosh yeshiva, is that until Avrohom was prepared to the last moment to shecht Yitzchok, that was indeed the plan. However, at the moment that it was clear that Avrohom was not holding back even an iota and was prepared to slaughter Yitzchok, Hashem’s purpose was fulfilled. On the heavenly level and in the “real world,” Yitzchok was, in fact, dead and therefore his ashes were empirically on the mizbeiach. Thus, to this very day, we may access the fact in our daily and Yomim Noraim prayers as the ultimate zechus for Klal Yisroel. It didn’t have to happen because the actions of the angel were in this world, but on the divine and heavenly level, the Akeidah had occurred.
Of course, it does seem as if something is missing. If nothing happened, then where is the merit? Where is the millennial saving grace of the Akeidah for Klal Yisroel?
The answer, concludes the rosh yeshiva, is the ram. It was slaughtered “instead of his son” (22:13), meaning that now a roshem — a lasting impression — was left in this world from the Akeidah.
My mother a”h would always repeat the saying from her own parents that a Jew must learn “iberkumen mit shrek — to get over potential disasters with fear alone.” I believe that what she and my ancestors meant by that was that, unlike being complacent about evil, if we take it seriously, react properly and change or at least improve, Hashem considers it as if the worst had actually happened. This is the Akeidah phenomenon in our lives.
I am not wise enough to predict what will happen to and with Zoran Mamdani. But this I do know for sure. If Hashem decides that the fear and trepidation allowed to enter our lives are sufficient, this sonei Yisroel, like so many others, can be neutralized in a split second (Yeshuas Hashem keheref ayin — see Mincha L’Yehudah, pages 27-28, from Gaonic sources).
In my ArtScroll book, Days of Reflection, Days of Joy, I cite an ancient moshol that helps us understand. “A man is thrown into a miserable, dark prison, where he is hooked up to a wheel by a chain. In order to be fed and not further tortured, he must turn the heavy wheel for agonizing hours at a time. Although the work is back-breaking, he wonders what machines or end-results his labors have achieved. When he is finally released, he is heartbroken to learn that it was an illusion. He had accomplished nothing, for his wheel was merely designed to keep him busy and occupied. Hashem is nothing like the cruel inquisitors of that poor prisoner. Everything He asks of us and puts us in the position of doing has vast significance, whether it is mitzvos we must exert ourselves to fulfill or the powerful seductions of the evil inclination that we must withstand” (page 185).
The Akediah teaches us that even — and sometimes especially — things that seem like failures can have infinite and even eternal noteworthiness. We tried to build a yeshiva, a mikvah or a shul, we tried to finish Shas but didn’t make it, we tried to completely overcome a sin and repeated it many times.
A bochur came in a deeply depressed state to the Steipler Gaon. He listened patiently to his litany of failures to overcome his yeitzer hara and then posed a surprising question. “Over the failed years you are describing, how many times did you triumph over your yeitzer hara?”
The disheartened young man thought long and hard, answering softly, “Four times.”
Not only was it amazing that the hard-of-hearing gadol heard the response, but the aged tzaddik suddenly stood up. “I am standing up for you because, unlike so many others, you succeeded where they failed completely. Four times! You are a tzaddik.”
The newly reinvigorated bochur truly did feel like he was seven feet tall.
Failure is sometimes in the eyes of the beholder, whereas he is holding an Akeidah in his hand.
In addition to teshuvah, which is always in order, if the worst were to happen, it wouldn’t have to occur. Those who wish to see our ashes, who would dance and have already danced upon our graves, won’t be able to do so, because we have already lived the worst.
The Kuzari speaks much about using the power of our imagination, a tool and gift Hashem has granted us that sometimes is ignored and at other times misused. But if we were to imagine what Mamdani would like to do, if we would visualize the pain and suffering he and his ilk would impose if they could, it would either evaporate or, middah keneged midah, strike him instead.
One of my rabbeim, the Tenker Rebbe, used to explain the words we recite during the Yomim Noraim that teshuvah, tefillah and tzedakah are “maavirin es ro’ah hagezeirah, repentance, prayer and charity “carry over the evil of the decree.” Why don’t we say “eradicate the decree”? He answered with a smile, “Because we want to transfer over all the pernicious plans to our enemies.”
May it happen speedily in our days.
