By the time you get this newspaper, New York will have elected a new mayor. He will either be a left-wing liberal who, to say the least, has had his ups and downs with the Jewish community and has stabbed us in the back on a number of occasions, or, most probably, at least according to the last polls, a Muslim jihadist whose heart of hearts is filled with the anti-Semitism of his mentors and teachers. He will certainly take the lead from the voices of venom in the Middle East and allow it to spill out onto the streets of New York.
In either case, we need tremendous siyata diShmaya. We like to think that when danger strikes, we will know what to do, and when the signs appear and trouble looms, we will recognize it and forge a plan. We will calculate, recognize it for what it is, and act accordingly.
But history suggests otherwise.
And not just recent history.
Recently, in his Chumash shiur, Reb Sruly Bornstein quoted Rav Meir Soloveitchik, who quoted his father, the Brisker Rov. He explained Avrohom Avinu’s great nisayon of Lech Lecha. He asked why this was even a nisayon. At first glance, the challenge seems minimal. Hashem tells Avrohom to leave his homeland, and in return, He promises him seven brachos of fame and destiny. The seforim hakedoshim say that these seven blessings include all the blessings in the world. Yet, it is counted as a nisayon. Why? What did he have in Choron? He had haters, ovdei avodah zarah. What riches did he give up? Certainly not Terach and his idol store!
He adds a question that bothered me for many years and which I later saw addressed in the sefer Be’er Yosef from Rav Yosef Salant. The novi proclaims that Hashem said, “Zocharti loch chesed ne’urayich, ahavas kelulosoyich, lech teich acharai bamidbar, b’eretz lo zeruah.” And the Brisker Rov said that we must understand what the great chesed of their “youth,” the chesed ne’urayich, was. Leaving Mitzrayim?
Mitzrayim was also a lager. The Brisker Rov said something profound: Mitzrayim iz geven zeier heim. Un avek gein fun der heim iz a shvere zach. Egypt was their home. And leaving home, even when home has become a prison, is one of life’s hardest tests.
That, said the Brisker Rov, explained something he witnessed before the war. There were Yidden who saw the signs, who had visas, resources, and warnings. They weren’t blind. They simply couldn’t leave. They were just comfortable with what they had and where they were. Not because they didn’t believe in the forthcoming tzaros, but because heim iz heim. The houses were still standing. The stores were still open. The Shabbos table was still set with china. Life felt too normal to flee.
We get comfortable in golus and it captures us like quicksand. Even for Avrohom Avinu, packing up and leaving his settled life was a tremendous nisayon. That is human nature. That is life.
We look back and ask: How could they have stayed? But maybe the question should make us tremble. Because people rarely leave until the smoke is already under the door.
We get used to things. To headlines that once horrified us but now barely raise an eyebrow. To videos of protests that once made us shudder but now scroll past like background noise. We convince ourselves that this, too, shall pass, because the alternative is too frightening to face.
It is easy to judge, until we realize how deeply this tendency lives in all of us. People can adapt to almost anything, even captivity. Psychologists call it Stockholm Syndrome, when a hostage begins to sympathize with the captor. The victim starts to rationalize and say, “He’s not so bad,” or, “He’s just misunderstood.”
Spiritually, we are not much different. We grow accustomed to golus. We learn to row in rhythm with its drumbeat. We adjust to the hostility, the headlines, and the rising tide of hatred, and we tell ourselves, “It’s still okay. Things will calm down. Look at all the good.”
There’s an old story about a Yid who decided to treat himself to one of those “unique travel experiences,” a cruise that promised to recreate life aboard an ancient Roman slave galley. He thought it sounded educational, authentic even. The moment he boarded, his wallet and watch were confiscated, his clothes replaced with rough burlap, and he was chained to a wooden bench beside a massive oar. A drummer began pounding out a steady rhythm while a whip cracked overhead and a taskmaster shouted, “Row, slaves, row!”
At first, he was horrified. But after a while, he began to adjust to the beat of the drum, the shouting, even the sting of the lashes. At the end of the trip, weary and beaten, he turned to the man chained beside him and whispered, “Excuse me, how much are we supposed to tip the whipper?”
That is what happens when people live too long under the whip. The pain becomes routine. The humiliation becomes life. And before long, they are not trying to escape anymore; they are just trying to make the suffering more polite. We laugh, but only because it hurts too much to cry.
And then, when we have the opportunity to leave, we hesitate.
There is a story of a poor farmer who lived under the rule of a miserable poritz in medieval Europe. The evil landowner provided minimal shelter in exchange for a large portion of the farmer’s profits. The farmer and his wife toiled under the most severe conditions to support their family with a few chickens that laid eggs and a cow that gave milk. Ultimately, time took its toll and hardship became the norm. The farmer and his wife had their bitter routine and never hoped for better.
One day, the farmer came back from the market quite upset.
“What’s the matter?” cried his wife. “You look as if the worst calamity has happened.”
“It has,” sighed the anxious farmer. “They say in the market that Moshiach is coming. He will take us all to the Land of Israel. What will be with our cow and our chickens? Where will we live? Who will provide shelter for us? Oy, what is going to be?”
His wife, who was steeped in faith in the Almighty, answered calmly, “Don’t worry, my dear husband. The good L-rd always protects His people. He saved us from Paroh in Egypt, He redeemed us from the evil Haman, and He has protected us from harsh decrees throughout our exile. No doubt He will protect us again.”
In golus, we adapt. It is hard to break free of the life, miserable as it is, that we are used to. We make peace with the whip and with the golus we are in. We find ways to make it livable, even when it is not really the option we should be seeking. When the community becomes crime-ridden, we build fences, install alarms, and then go out to our restaurants, parking in a lit area, pretending that nothing fundamental has changed.
I am not going anywhere either, but somewhere deep down, I think that there is a call from Above saying, “Lech lecha.” And if it is not a command to move physically, it is certainly a call to move spiritually, to wake up, to reflect, to do teshuvah, to stop rowing in rhythm with a doomed ship while getting lashed.
Avrohom heard that call. He did not hesitate. It was not easy. He did not ask for a map. He just went. Staying comfortable in a collapsing world can be more dangerous than walking into the unknown with Hashem.
Avek gein fun der heim iz a shvere zach. But staying seated can be far worse.
Just saying.
