1.
We are an ancient people, our past affects our present, and, vice versa, contemporary events shed a new light on our past. The events of Simchat Torah (October 7) and the war that erupted in their wake are not just another round of bloodshed. From the outset, I felt we were facing events of biblical proportions. I am not talking about apocalyptic visions or the wars of Gog and Magog, but about how we, as a people, march through history, in the valley of the shadow of death that is no longer another miserable chapter in our exile (as it was in our past), but a glorious, albeit difficult, chapter of our redemption.
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On a synchronic level, our present is connected with geopolitical, political, and military matters. On the diachronic level, we are creating another chapter in our history, that is, another chapter in the Bible, which, even if signed thousands of years ago, is still being written in our collective memory.
2.
When the military campaign began, I labeled it as the "Genesis War." Simchat Torah, the day the day of the massacre, is when we mark the end of the annual Torah reading cycle and the beginning of the next cycle. "In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep." From the dark void that we were cast into on the morning of that fateful Shabbat, we have arisen from the ashes of the homes and families that were destroyed to wage war on our enemies.
That is what has changed in our era. In our historical wanderings, what did we do on the second day of a pogrom other than run and hide? Not this time. We are avenging the cruel deaths of our loved ones. In contrast to what the IDF chief of staff Herzi Halevi has said, there is morality to vengeance, there is poetic justice, the understanding drawn from our historical and spiritual experience over thousands of years that we absolutely cannot return to normal after the blood of our children and parents has been shed.
"Your brother's blood cries out to Me from the ground," God told Cain as we read on that Sabbath of Genesis. Our dead demand a response that will resonate until the end of generations, because Jewish blood will not be spilled in vain, and it is not in vain that we returned to Zion, and we established a state with an army to protect us. These are the ancient laws of the region that we must recognize if we desire life. Even if the nations of the world demand that we stop the war, we shall not heed them. We are an ancient people and have more experience than them and we shall not sell our lives for empty promises. Jacob has returned home and he is no longer afraid to wrestle with God or with people. Now our name is Israel.
3.
From our beginning, our Genesis, we have climbed up the rocky road, from a family we have become a tribe, and from a tribe we became a People that emerged from the House of Slavery to freedom. After the parting of the Red Sea and the acceptance of the Laws of Moses on Mount Sinai we were to build a Tabernacle to testify to the covenant we made with God. This is evidenced by the ten universal principles engraved on the Tablets of the Law and the Torah, the doctrine of life, that we are still renewing today. But we did not manage to complete this process sequentially, as between the command to establish a Tabernacle and its actual construction, there was a huge upheaval whose ripples continue to be felt to this day.
The forty days that Moses was away from the camp of the Israelites caused doubts among the people. The freed slaves knew no one else, he was their rock upon whom they relied in the tumultuous exit from Egypt and the struggle against the Egyptian Empire. It was under his guidance that they crossed the Red Sea and entered the desert as he told them that their goal was to establish an independent state in the land of their ancestors. Now he was gone. "The people saw that Moses was long in coming down from the mountain." From the perspective of a people of slaves they had been left orphaned.
"The people gathered themselves together unto Aaron, and said unto him: 'Up, make us a god who shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we know not what is become of him.'" Patience was not one of our strongest virtues even back then. The rest is history: "They rose up early on the morrow, and offered burnt offerings, and brought peace offerings; and the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to make merry." Terrible. After the giving of the Torah in which the people heard the first commandment, "I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the Land of Egypt, out of the House of Bondage…You shall not make for yourself any carved idol." Our sages compared this to a bride who cheats on her husband in her canopy – there is no stronger allegory for treachery.
God instructs Moses to descend from Mount Sinai; his short romance with this people is over. "Hurry down, for your people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt, have acted basely." This is not my people anymore. God has an incredible proposition: "I have seen this people and behold it is a stiff-necked people. Now, let Me be, that My anger may blaze forth against them and that I may destroy them, and make of you a great nation." Let's start anew and from your offspring I shall create a nation of righteous and enlightened people.
4.
At this moment of great crisis, Moses is revealed as an outstanding leader. Even before he descends from the mountain, he defends the people and asks God to forgive them. God hears his pleas and agrees to do them no harm. Moses keeps for later his response to God's idea to change the people.
Moses comes down from the mountain bearing the Tablet of the Law, the damning testimony to the covenant that was made between God and His people that they broke. At the foot of the mountain, he sees a difficult sight: the people dancing around the Golden Calf, while he is holding the tablets. Is there a more startling contrast than that? But Moses was also an educator; He understands that to correct the evil, trauma must be etched into the collective memory of the people for generations. "He hurled the tablets from his hands and shattered them at the foot of the mountain." Astonishing. Instead of returning the gift to God with the excuse that the people do not deserve it, He smashes it. Amid this chaotic situation, Moses realizes that the people may abandon the Golden Calf and replace it with the Tablets of the Law – in other words, they may worship the tablets as direct representatives of God! His actions teach the generations that matter has no value – not even divine matter – only written and spoken ideas. The matter is gone, but the ideas remain forever. The parchments burn and perish, but the letters blossom and are there to revive the people.
Moses didn't just smash the tablet: "He took the calf that they had made and burned it; he ground it to powder and strewed it upon the water and so made the Israelites drink it." Do you understand? We can only hint that he didn't throw away the Golden Calf but fixed it so that the people could contain (drink) this distorted idea and turn it into a blessing in disguise.
5.
We are left with the terrible proposition to replace the people. Moses returns to God and says, "Alas, this people is guilty of a great sin in making for themselves a god of gold." What can we say, shame upon them. Nevertheless, "If you will forgive their sin," I will continue with the mission you have charged me with, "but if not, erase me from the record which You have written!"
Moses gives a lesson for the generations on the role of a leader and an intellectual: not only to strike the heads of the nation and say how wrong things are, but to believe in his powers, his abilities, and his spirit that are constant and great and transcend the most terrible sins. In other words, Moses refuses the flattering offer and tells God he will not give up on the people, and that together they will win. History has shown how farsighted he was.
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