1.
I write these words in a week when I have been ill with a severe infection. My nights are harder than my days. The high fever consumes me. My body aches, and it is difficult to swallow even water. But my mind is free to work, at least partially. Thoughts wander within me in inflammatory turmoil, mocking my condition. The medicine has yet to take effect, and I am in prayer. In such a state, the word that has accompanied me throughout the week is patience. And, of course, hope.
While struggling in bed to find the position that brings the least pain, I cannot manage to focus on reading a book. My eyes are therefore drawn to social media. And what is happening in the courtyards of God? Business as usual. The community of Jews in Yehopitz on the shores of the Mediterranean is abuzz with mutual accusations, as it has been for more than three thousand years: one side accuses the Jews of the gravest crimes, and the other side defends itself and accuses the accusers of disloyalty and spreading false libels.
2.
So it is not only I who am burning with germs, the nation is inflamed with internal fevers. We have forgotten King David's charge at the dawn of our first kingdom, in the 10th century BCE: "Tell it not in Gath, publish it not in the streets of Ashkelon, lest the daughters of the Philistines rejoice, lest the daughters of the uncircumcised triumph" (2 Samuel 1:20). And the daughters of the Philistines do indeed rejoice at the sight of Jews striking one another, while their sons fight the neo-Philistines of our time. Enemy media hungrily quotes every shred of despairing headline and every confident assertion of "war crimes." The Jews have caught the summer fever, something we already knew in the summer of 70 CE.
I think that if there is a parable and a moral to the private and national drama, it is that we all need patience. We are an eternal people, and therefore we cannot assess our present solely from a synchronic, contemporary perspective. We were not born yesterday. There is value in the accumulated experience and wisdom of the generations. We must therefore add the historical perspective, the eternal, to the equation.
3.
First, disagreement. Educated people, who are concerned about our disputes as if they were unprecedented, always surprise me. A nation that has retold the story of Korah for thousands of years is essentially telling the story of its national DNA. Korah challenged the authority of the greatest of prophets, Moses, who led the people of slaves out of Egypt, split the sea with them, gave them the Torah, and led them in the desert for 40 years. Instead of gratitude, Korah flung at Moses: "You have gone too far! For all the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the Lord is among them. Why then do you set yourselves above the Lord's assembly?" (Numbers 16:3). He knew well the craft of propagandists throughout history; they always present themselves as speaking for the people. It is not that he wanted the leadership, oh no, he simply could not bear Moses' and Aaron's arrogance. Of course.
We are a people that does not accept human authority, from king to general to judge, unless convinced of the justice and rightness of the matter. The founder of the nation argued with God Himself over the fate of Sodom, not with pleading and requests for mercy, but with rebuke: "Far be it from you! Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?" (Genesis 18:25). So what is human authority in our eyes? The various empires that passed through here could not understand why this "mad" nation refused to submit to their rule, something that cost us two destructions (three, in fact: including the exile of the Kingdom of Israel's ten tribes by Assyria in 722 BCE).
4.
Toward the end of the 2nd century CE, when Rabbi Judah the Prince saw (as part of the catastrophic consequences of the Bar Kokhba revolt some 50 years earlier) that the nation was forgetting its language and, God forbid, its store of wisdom, philosophy, and law, he broke the ancient tradition of not writing down the Oral Torah. He gathered the traditions, sorted them, and compiled six full volumes. The Mishnah is our ancient code of laws, and it is unprecedented. Whenever public disputes frighten you and make you doubt the nation's hope and redemption, go to the old study hall, or to your own library (you would do well to own volumes of the Mishnah), and see with your own eyes: this is the only legal code that records dissenting opinions.
We sanctified disagreement when it was for the sake of Heaven, and we were not afraid of disputes that were not, because the ancient ethos held that truth emerges through a dialectical process, through discussion, through fiery argument (an "inflammatory" argument, my head is spinning). This is also the secret of our historical excellence. We have not always known how to resolve disputes, and sometimes it took hundreds of years until the law was decided. An eternal perspective.
5.
And so, the patience required in the face of historical processes, especially those relating to our national revival and return to Zion. Many readers know the famous story in the Jerusalem Talmud (written in the Galilee but named for our destroyed city out of respect): "Rabbi Hiyya the Great and Rabbi Shimon ben Halafta were walking in the Valley of Arbel at dawn, and they saw the morning star break forth. Rabbi Hiyya the Great said to Rabbi Shimon ben Halafta: 'So is the redemption of Israel, at first little by little, but as it progresses it grows greater and greater'" (Jerusalem Talmud, Berakhot 1:1).
This passage, spoken in the middle of a discussion on the times for the Morning Prayer, represents the tip of the iceberg of our people's deep historiosophical outlook, going back to the time of the Patriarchs, through the Prophets, on to the sages after the destruction, and continuing to our sages in every generation. Historical processes occur slowly and require patience. Whoever stands in the depths of darkness and does not recognize the morning star signaling its end may despair. And what are 70 years, or even 2,000? The process unfolds, whether openly or hidden.
So it is with the heavy and fateful issues on today's agenda: defeating Hamas and bringing home all the hostages, conquering Gaza, waging the diplomatic battle against those among the nations who have betrayed us. And internally: a historic draft law that will normalize the enlistment of the ultra-Orthodox community (good luck to Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Chairman MK Boaz Bismuth), applying sovereignty over all the expanses of our land, and restoring the proper and healthy balance among the three branches of government, with each respecting the other. Patience. We have come from 70 exiles with 700 worldviews and 7,000 ideas. So far, we have done not badly, thank God.
6.
And here are words of comfort from the eternal treasury of this week's Torah portion, which every year remind me of summer camps with the Bnei Akiva youth movement, where I loved to spend up to a month at a time:
"For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land with brooks, streams, and deep springs gushing out into the valleys and hills; a land with wheat and barley, vines and fig trees, pomegranates, olive oil and honey; a land where bread will not be scarce and you will lack nothing; a land where the rocks are iron and you can dig copper out of the hills. When you have eaten and are satisfied, praise the Lord your God for the good land He has given you" (Deuteronomy 8:7-10).
Savor the words on your tongue and think of Moses, speaking them with infinite love for the place he would never reach. We are the ones who merited it. We need patience. And faith.
