Reb Neuberger: Vayikra

 

SCREAMING AND SHOUTING

 

 

A few weeks ago, I was leaving shul on Shabbos morning. Most of the men had gone to the kiddush, but there was a man in shul learning with his son. Apparently, he had strong opinions about the World Zionist elections and he started shouting in my direction. I’m not going to say which side he was on, but he knew how to shout!

 

If someone is shouting, I instinctively turn them off. Shouting indicates that a person is unsure of himself; therefore he attempts to win his argument by decibels instead of saying something sensible. 

 

Before October 7, 2023, Jews in Israel were shouting at each other. There is good reason to believe that anger among Jews brought on the events of that horrible day. We didn’t learn. There is too much noise, too many people shouting and too few people thinking, just plain thinking: what does the Torah want me to do?

 

That is the question: what does the Torah want me to do?

 

About 4500 years ago, our ancestors left Mitzraim. Golus had become unbearable. They cried out to Hashem from the depths of their broken hearts. “During those … days, the Children of Israel groaned because of the work and they cried out. Their outcry … went up to G-d. G-d heard their moaning and G-d remembered His covenant with Avraham, with Yitzchak and with Yaakov. G-d saw the Children of Israel and G-d knew.” (Shemos 2:23ff)

 

What did G-d “know?” He knew the depth of their teshuva and how ready they were to commit their lives to His Torah. 

 

Or Hachaim says, “After [the Jews] cried out … Hashem remembered His covenant with the forefathers, and that was the cause for [for Him] to turn [His attention] to them and ‘see’ them, for the [very fact that] Hashem ‘sees’ a person in distress helps to alleviate the distress.” When we are in distress, Hashem hears our sobs and turns to us. As we say in davening, “Avinu, Malkeinu … our Father and King, hear our voice, pity and be compassionate to us!”

 

Thus, Hashem listens to the sound of the shofar, because the shofar is our voice emanating from the deepest place. Tears at midnight reach Hashem. A mother’s tears reach Hashem. Tears at the Kotel reach Hashem and tears in every heart in every tefillah reach Hashem.

 

I saw a picture of soldiers going off to Gaza with smiles on their faces. Do you know why they are smiling? Because they feel that they are on a holy mission. Nothing gives our life strength more than the feeling that we are soldiers on the spiritual battlefield, fighting to bring Torah into our lives and into the world.

 

I want to repeat the words I personally heard from Rabbi Moshe Sternbuch Shlita”h, may he be strong and healthy. He told me, years ago -- I was about to leave Israel and I felt sad -- “Yisroel, you are a soldier and soldiers have to go where the battle is.”I later saw, in the Artscroll book on Rav Dessler, that Rav Sternbuch actually heard those same words some eighty years previously in his parents’ home in London from the legendary Rav Elchonen Wasserman, may his blood be avenged, as Rabbi Wasserman was about to return to Europe on the eve of the Holocaust. Rabbi Wasserman knew where he was going and he went there with the intention of returning to his beloved talmidim, so they would not have to face death without their rebbe.

 

“Mi k’amcha Yisroel, goy echad b’aretz … Who is like you, Yisroel, a unique nation upon earth!” (II Shmuel 7:23)

 

At the end of our Golus in Mitzraim, Paro increased the load upon our ancestors. That is our situation today. “Maase avos siman l’banim … the actions of the fathers are a sign for the children.” When it is too much for us, we reach into the depths of our hearts and cry out to Hashem. When the sirens go off, day after day, and the world sends its missiles at us, and – nebach! – when Jews are screaming at Jews, it is time to cry out to Hashem! When the children come home without limbs, or the children don’t come home at all … it is time to cry out to Hashem! “When numerous troubles come [upon us] like a river …” (Sanhedrin 98a) it is time to cry out to Hashem.

 

Chodesh Nissan is telling us that Hashem is waiting to rescue us, just as He rescued our ancestors thousands of years ago.     Screaming will not help. “Rabos machashavos b’lev ish … many thoughts are in man’s heart, but the counsel of Hashem, only that will prevail.” (Mishlei 19:21)

 

May we soon hear, in place of angry voices, the sound of the Shofar Gadol!

 

Soldiers going into Gaza 

GLOSSARY

Chodesh Nissan: the Jewish month in which Passover falls

Golus: Exile, subjugation

Kotel: Western Wall

Mitzraim: Ancient Egypt

Paro: Pharaoh, the ruler of ancient Egypt

Shofar Gadol: the Great Shofar which will sound before Moshiach comes

Talmidim: those who learn Torah from a rebbe

Tefilla: Prayer