Let’s not forget who we are and who we could be

One of the most challenging experiences I had in the Israeli army had nothing to do with combat or being in the field, but transpired during a moment of relative calm, when things were looking pretty good.

We were at the tail-end of a harrowing month of reserve duty in the Gaza strip in the midst of the intifada.

It was my first stint as an officer in the reserves. I had started the month extremely nervous about how I would perform under pressure; the prospect of commanding men who had joined the army back when for me it was a good year for milk had caused me no small amount of concern. But the fact that I happened to be one of the few religious men in the unit (whatever that means) was not an issue, especially after a good few years spent in the regular army under what I had assumed to be similar conditions.

But reserve duty is an entirely different experience, and it took some of the men a while to get used to an officer who would not necessarily eat everything they did, and who had certain limitations, for example, on Shabbat.

None of us had much time to discuss these issues, as the month, spent mostly in Jabalya, a refugee camp in the Gaza strip, proved to be one of the most intense experiences I ever had in the army.

At the end of the month, on the last night of our reserve duty, the men got together for a party to celebrate the successful completion of our mission, and that all of the men were going home safe and sound. By the third week of the reserve duty, I had fallen into the custom of making Kiddush on Friday nights for the battalion, even offering a small thought of Torah on the weekly portion.

But I was surprised when one of the guys in charge of the party told me the men had decided for the first time in the unit’s history to make sure the meat for the barbeque on the last night would be kosher, so that I could eat with them. It was an especially moving request, because to me, this was what having a Jewish army was all about.

In the middle of the party, the music stopped, and the battalion master sergeant handed me a cup of wine, and asked me to make a Le’Chaim, and offer one last Torah thought before we all went home. It is difficult to describe how moving it was to be sitting amidst an entire battalion of combat soldiers who were fast becoming my close friends, sharing Torah as a commander after my first successful reserve duty. Images of the Maccabees filled my mind.

Only against the backdrop of this moving feeling can I explain the deep disappointment I experienced a few moments later.

As the evening wound down, a van pulled up and a couple of the men set up a movie screen and hooked a projector up to a generator inside. They had hired this fellow to come show a portable movie. (This was long before laptops and DVDs.) Everyone turned their chairs around to face the movie screen, and they began to show what turned out to be: a blue movie.

My mouth fell open, but I doubt anyone noticed; they were all watching the screen. I walked away, not wanting to watch, but neither willing to say anything, having always felt the need to respect everyone’s right to live their life according to their own choosing.

I still remember the feeling of sitting alone in my tent, my naiveté shattered, confronting the realization of how far away we still were from the dream of what a Jewish army could be.

I have never and still do not believe in judging other people; everyone has a right to their perceptions and beliefs, and the idea of imposing religious beliefs and practices on anyone is not only anathema to me personally, I believe it is one of the single most destructive forces in Israel today.

But the next morning, one of the guys would not let it alone, wanting to know why I hadn’t stayed at the party, resulting in a fascinating discussion on the topic. His conviction that the blue movie was actually a fulfillment of the dream of the Jewish people stays with me to this day:

“After all,” he said, “we sing it in the Ha’Tikvah (the Israeli National Anthem):

“Le’hiyot Am Chofshi Be’Artzeinu” (“To be a free people in our own land”).

“And the fact that we are free to see and do as we like, after two thousand years of everyone else’s rules,” he said, “is what it’s all about!”

Is this really the Jewish dream? Is this what we have waited for, for so long?

In this week’s portion, Vayishlach, after twenty-two years in exile in Babylon, Yaakov is finally on his way home to Israel. But he has one obstacle he must yet overcome: he must confront his brother Eisav, who is headed his way with four hundred fighting men.

Eisav, in Jewish tradition, represents in many ways the antithesis of what the Jewish people should be. Where Yaakov is about monotheism and the objective, unimpeachable morality that is the direct result of a belief in one, higher authority, Eisav is about “might makes right,” and immersion in the physical world with all its appetites and lures.

Indeed, in this existential struggle, Yaakov is a constant reminder to Eisav of a higher morality, and the idea that might does not necessarily make right.

It is not accidental that Hitler, in Mein Kampf, articulates quite clearly the fact that his determination to destroy every last vestige of the Jewish people stems in no small part from his refusal to forgive us for introducing this idea of one G-d, and one objective morality to the world. Hitler’s desire to build a world based on a master race and survival of the fittest could only reign supreme when every last vestige of this morality, represented by the Jewish people, was excised from the world.

Yaakov engages in a powerful struggle with some vestige of his evil brother, and when it appears Yaakov has won; the “other” (angel?) grabs Yaakov along his inner thigh, attacking his sciatic nerve, buckling Yaakov’s leg. In the end, despite the victory, Yaakov limps away from the battle, wounded.

Torah concludes with a puzzling comment: “Therefore, the children of Israel will not eat of the sciatic nerve on the thigh until this day, for he touched the inner thigh of Yaakov in the sciatic nerve.” (Bereishit 32:32)

Even today, says the Torah, we do not eat Gid HaNashe (the sciatic nerve) in memory of that day and that battle.

What exactly are we meant to learn from this added detail in the story?

At the end of his life, in the final song he sings to the Jewish people, (Shirat Ha’azinu) containing the essence of who and what we are meant to be as a people, Moshe exhorts:

“Tzur Yladcha Teshi, Va’Tishkach E-l Me’cholelecha” (“You ignored the Rock (G-d) who bore you, and ultimately forgot the G-d who brought you forth” (Devarim 32:18).

Rashi here explains this phenomenon being described by Moshe as the times in the Jewish people’s future when they would actively forget who they are and what their purpose in this world is all about.

Teshi, then is to forget.

And what Moshe was referring to in his dire warning to the Jewish people just prior to their entrance into the land of Israel, was the danger inherent in the Jewish people forgetting who they really are.

How many Jews today in America have ever seriously explored the beauty of our Jewish tradition?

And what is the antidote to this insidious forgetting? “Hishamer Lechah.” Guard it (the Torah and its values) well. Shmirah can mean to guard, implying that we must value this Torah. But it can also mean to cherish, like when you ask someone to watch over your child, in Israel, you say “Shmor Alav,” which means “take good care of him, because this boy is very valuable to you.”

This is what the phrase Shmirat Shabbat means: the mitzvah to cherish and watch over Shabbat. And Shmirat Mitzvoth means to cherish and watch over the mitzvoth.

We are living in a generation that has seen us as a people lose touch with what we are all about. We have allowed ourselves to forget who we really are, and who we could be. This, on a mystical level, was what the “angel” of Eisav injected into the equation when he attacked the Gid Ha’Nasheh of Yaakov.

Hence, we do not eat the Gid, (nerve) infused as it is with this Shik’chah, this forgetfulness. Because although Yaakov does ultimately triumph, he limps with the aftermath of this Shik’chah, just as we were victorious in the great battle against evil in World War II, yet emerged from the battle limping from the struggle of relating to G-d in a post-Holocaust world…

So many Jews have “forgotten” the beauty of all that the Jewish tradition and the Torah have to offer because the Judaism and Torah they see is lost in the dark. Indeed, the Judaism most Jews do not believe in, I don’t believe in either, because that perception of Judaism is lacking the light and the beauty that is what Judaism is all about.

The real challenge we face today, as Chanukah fast approaches, is how to illuminate the darkness of Jewish ignorance and indifference with the light of Jewish pride and education. And how to transform the gloomy experience of rote and empty ritual, to the illuminating excitement of Jewish learning and living infused with Jewish meaning.

Now that would make for a very bright Chanukah indeed.

Shabbat Shalom, from Jerusalem.

Rav Binny Freedman, Rosh Yeshivat Orayta in Jerusalem’s Old City.