Rebbetzin Tziporah on the Plagues — Yom Kippur Katan

 Dear friends,

I had the most amazing experience this past Rosh Chodesh (Past? It was only yesterday as of this writing). An Israeli kiruv organization called Ayelet HaShachar (literally morning’s dawn) is one that I had heard of for several years. It’s real grass-roots. 

They approach people and ask them if they want to learn. If the answer is yes, they find the right person or group. What struck me as literally amazing was the level of care they have for speaking to people where they are, and not sort of aiming towards an end product that fits the person’s life. 

They understand what life is like in Tel Aviv, and they understand what life is like in Sderot. And Bnei Brak. And Yerushalaim.  And in the hearts of the families whose husbands, wives, kids, or siblings were abducted. 

We are living multiple lives here. Life in Har Nof is very different than life in TA, Sderot, or the homes of the families of the hostages. My friend’s brother-in-law’s son’s friend (try to figure out what that makes him to me…) wrote a poem. He was in Gaza clearing out a building when he came across the entrance to a tunnel. Given the location and given the size (I don’t know the details) he realized that it is very likely that the hostages were hidden there at one point. I will quote a few lines:    

Gaza

The guns blasting with the sounds of death

I hear the children crying out from the mouth of the tunnel

The sound penetrates my protective goggles

So that I find myself singing to them

“The angel who redeems me form all evil

Shall bless the children”

But I know, that right now

No one has yet come to redeem them 

I smell the aroma of a stew that had been cooking

Eisov’s stew

Red, Red,

Cooked by the hands of the cruel

The people of Ayelet HaShachar hear the poem of the people who are living the darkness and searching for light. They organized a tefillah at the Kotel. 50,000 of us came. This is a bit over the number that usually come to Birkat Kohanim. The organizers had buses from various areas, and the crowd was diverse, as I assumed it would be. We were all there. Old, young, the entire spectrum of observance ranging from Meah Shearim to ‘Show Me What to Say’. Simultaneously there were prayers in Kever Rachel and Mirrer Yeshiva (and somewhat earlier at the Kotel) by the Belzer Chassidim.  

There were selections from both Ashkenazi and Sephardi selichot that are said the day before Rosh Chodesh, which is called Yom Kippur Katan.  I am sure you were there, whether you know it or not. It ended (on time!) with our accepting Hashem as our ruler followed by “Acheinu kol Beit Yisrael”, Our brothers the whole house of Israel.

The Parshah speaks so loud. I want Hashem to send someone like Moshe to strike the complacency out of our enemies and to strike them with plagues.

[me: this is exactly what Rabbi Glatstein elucidated in his video below. I wonder if she also listens to him]

The ten plagues parallel the ten statements of creation, the ten commandments, and interestingly (I just saw this this year) the ten sefirot, the ways that Hashem so to speak tells us His story, which many of you are familiar with from sefirat Haomer. There is one difference. The parallel works backwards. 

The plague of blood, which was the first plague, parallels the sefira of malchus (receiving Hashem as your king). Blood is the very stuff that life is made of. Acknowledging that life is a gift of G‑d, and that by serving Him we are in harmony with the entire purpose of being is the statement that people heard (not with words, but they heard) when they experienced the first plague. 

They recognized that Hashem has control over life itself. When Pharaoh originally said to Moshe that he didn’t know exactly Who Moshe was speaking about when he said, ‘Hashem sent me’, there was a reason. He had heard about the G‑d of nature, but never of a G‑d who can re-negotiate the rules of the game.

Don’t you want to see the plagues?

I do.

I want to see the world through eyes that have seen more than what I see now. Not that I can complain. (Although it costs no money and I indulge often), there is plenty to do as we wait for the process to move on.

Love,

Tziporah