Sometimes we encounter a dead end: In front of us the sea and behind us, our enemy. Where shall we go? All hope seems to be lost. But then, we hear the call: "Why do you cry out to Me? Tell the Israelites to go forward." Go into the sea, overcome the difficulties that seem impossible, do not be afraid. Remember the enormous challenges we have overcome during our long history and take inspiration from them. In the end, the sea will open up before you.
The poet Zelda Schneurson (1914-1984) compared her grandfather to Abraham, who despite the horrific obstacles he encountered continued believing: "Outside it snowed, outside they roared:/ 'There is no law, no judge./ and in his cracked, shattered room/ angels sang/ about Jerusalem of heaven." It was not for nothing that she compared her grandfather to the founder of our nation. There is a thread that runs from our inception through to the current day, a thread of faith whereby even if times are harsh we believe that all will work out for the best. We do not stay idle and hope for salvation; unlike Zelda's grandfather, we are privileged to live in a generation where we can fight back against those who hate us.
2.
Zelda's words are reminiscent of Rashi who lived in the 11th century and during the first Crusade (1096) – when Jewish communities in the lands of Ashkenaz were decimated and Jews were killed in their masses and others were forced to convert – sat in the town of Troyes in France and wondered why, if the Torah is the book of laws, it doesn't begin with the mitzvot instead of the creation of the world? In the beginning of his phenomenal exegesis, he wrote: "For if the peoples of the world say to Israel, 'You are robbers because you took by force the lands of the seven nations of Canaan,' Israel may reply to them, 'All the earth belongs to the Holy One, blessed be He; He created it and gave it to whom He pleased. When He willed He gave it to them, and when He willed He took it from them and gave it to us.'" Read and be amazed. In the depths of the troubles of our exile, when our people were murdered, raped, and burned at the stake, Rashi wrote: One day we will return to our homeland, without doubt, we will return to our land, and then we will have to deal with the claim of the nations of the world regarding the "occupation," as if we stole our land from others. Our answer will have to draw from the eternal fountain of the Book of Books: This land was promised to us. Followers of the Koran must also admit this (see Sura V).
Yaakov Herzog (1921-1972), one of Israel's most brilliant spokespeople (and the uncle of our current president) once said: "It all seems unpolitical and irrational, what I am telling you, but I, who have been involved in policy for twenty years, am convinced today, more than ever, that this is the key." The political problem, he believed, has to do with the way history is perceived – whether in the spirit of faith or materialistically. If there is nothing but materialism and interests, then the argument "you are robbers" may take root. "But if the (historical) perception is in the spirit of faith, the world will have to accept that the concept of divine providence and the foundation of man in the institution of providence came from the House of Israel and that this concept has no existence without the Land of Israel."
3.
I write these words at a time when in the homeland of liberty, on the banks of the Atlantic, antisemitic rioters banned Jews from entering Columbia University, the oldest institute of higher education in New York City (1754). For more than 250 years, Columbia's scholars strived to make the university one of the world's most prominent, but within a short time, Hamas supporters and those who justify the murder of Jews may destroy it. The irony is that the rioters protesting against the Israeli "occupation" – they were referring to the entire State of Israel and calling for its destruction – are in fact the ones occupying the university. The conquest of the university came after years of conquest of consciousness and research chairs by enemies of the West. Students there were indoctrinated to believe that the United States is the source of evil in the world, and its support for Israel led criticism to metastasize into antisemitic propaganda.
About 20 years ago, the Muslim Brotherhood's supreme religious arbiter, Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, issued a fatwa on how Muslims can conquer the West today: "Constantinople was conquered in 1453 by the Ottoman, Muhammad bin Murad, (and became Istanbul) ... now what remains is the conquest of the other city – Rome, and this is what we hope for and believe in. The meaning of this is that Islam will return to Europe once again as a conqueror and a victor after twice being expelled from it. ... I maintain that the conquest this time will not be by the sword but by preaching and ideology… and until it includes East and West." Rome is the world capital of Catholic Christianity. Qaradawi and his followers' goal is Judeo-Christian civilization as a whole and the United States is a convenient place for their ideas, especially the humanities and social sciences departments that have criminalized the curiosity of their students and created an intolerant climate of opinion reminiscent of the medieval time.
4.
We wish the United States, our good friend, to find the strength to deal with the evil spirit that threatens its existence. But is incumbent on American Jews to hear the voices and come back home to Israel. German Jews enjoyed an unprecedented flourishing of civil rights and had a tremendous influence on culture, politics, science, and society in their country until the 1930s. They also did not believe that evil would come to them. See Amos Eilon's book, "The Pity of It All: A Portrait of the German-Jewish Epoch."
Our sages in the generation after the destruction of the Second Temple discussed the historiosophical issue of how the nation would be redeemed. Rabbi Yehoshua said in the Talmud: "If they (Israel) do not repent (in Hebrew: make teshuva), they will not be redeemed at all. (So how will they be redeemed?) Rather, the Holy One, Blessed be He, will establish a king for them whose decrees are as harsh as those issued by Haman, and the Jewish people will have no choice but to repent, and this will restore them to the right path." That is a ruler who will seek to realize the final solution conceived by Haman (see: Esther 3:6-13). History has its own ways of teaching us humility. Rabbi Yehuda Alkalai (1798-1878) proved that the repentance in question is not a religious one but a "general repentance" (national), namely, a return home to Zion (as opposed to a private, individual spiritual repentance). This is because the original meaning of the word "teshuva" is "to return". Rabbi Alkalai proved it from the prophet Samuel. He traveled around the country to judge and teach the people and then returned to his home in the city of Ramah. And the Bible writes: "Then he would return to Ramah (in Hebrew: "Uteshuvato haramata"; in other words: "his teshuva was to Rama"), for his home was there."
5.
And back to the scene of our public brouhaha, where a physics professor tweeted a statement linking rising antisemitism to the Israeli government: "Even though since the Holocaust we have said 'never again,' in reality, antisemitism remains the same antisemitism, and we have returned to the starting point of fighting for a home for the Jewish people by virtue of its historical right and out of a deep understanding that from the perspective of history, that which we now see on campuses in the United States as well, the State of Israel is the only safe place for us. We will not allow the Kahanists (i.e. extreme Right) and Netanyahu to destroy our only home." Read again and think about the connection between its beginning and end. Is she interested in rising antisemitism or "Kahanists," or is the purpose of this brief discussion merely to get to the only name mentioned in it?
If that statement had been divided into two separate tweets - criticism of antisemitism and political criticism of the government - I would be silent. The problem lies in the terrible connection between the two topics within one short text. The basic assumption is that there is a parallel between the two things, or in other words: the Jews (of a certain kind of course) are to be blamed for global antisemitism. Did antisemitism diminish back when we didn't have a government or a state? Why disseminate such discourse in the midst of war, when our brothers and sisters around the world are facing a huge wave of hatred toward our people? Vespasian stopped his officers from storming besieged Jerusalem, telling them to wait until the Jews fight and kill each other in their internal war and then Jerusalem would fall into their hands like a ripe fruit. Now he looks at us and laughs. We will laugh at him back, and Israel will live forever.
