The Art of Asking Questions

 

“The art and science of asking questions is the source of all knowledge.” – Thomas Berger
“A Wise man’s question contains half the answer.” – Solomon Ibn Gabirol

Last night was the first night of Pesach when Jews commemorate and celebrate our ancestors’ "Exodus" from Egypt, and the liberation from slavery. The “Seder,” is the festive meal that opens this especially important Holy Day, recalling, reminding, and educating our younger generation about the significant chain of events which preceded that momentous outcome. It is chronicled in the “Haggadah,” the book we read during that occasion.

I remember my childhood “Seders.” Being a curious child, I wanted to know everything about it. I sought to learn why the Seder plate had certain foods on it or why the table was arranged the way it was. I also wanted to know why we eat "Matzah," "Charoset," and other kinds of food which are consumed only on this night and this Holy Day. I was curious about some of the terms and the logic behind some of the customs. I was eager to learn why this night was different than any other night. In short, I had many questions.

“What a great question,” I remember my father commenting on some of my queries. “And another good one,” he would remark on others as he was caressing me with his soft eyes. “Don’t ever stop asking,” he kept encouraging me, “we learn about our world and our life by asking questions.”

As I grew older and delved deeper into the content of the “Haggadah,” I realized that it was not my wisdom or dexterity that prompted me to ask all those “good questions” which made my father so proud of me. Rather, it was the ingenuity of those who, so prudently, crafted the art of asking questions - the essence, and the fabric of the “Haggadah.” The way they outlined the “Seder” (order in Hebrew), sparked my strong sense of curiosity, and led me to ask those questions.

A bird’s eye view of the “Haggadah” will reveal to us that it is laced with distinctive symbolic acts and food. It is not happenstance. They were deliberately created and aimed at raising curiosity, interest and stimulating inquisitiveness.

The directive to tell and retell the story of the “Exodus” is mentioned in the Torah. Moreover, it is provided in the form of a commandment weaving a hypothetical conversation between parent and child: “If your son asks you in time to come . . . you shall say to your son, ‘We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt, and G-d took us out of Egypt with a strong hand.’”  D’varim (Deuturonomy) 6:20-21. The wise rabbis understood that the telling over of the story of the “Exodus” is meant and should be in a question-and-answer format.

These sages, obviously, recognized that at the core of asking questions is the desire to know, learn and understand. Questions are the fuel of growth and the best way to gain deeper acumens. Asking questions is, in itself, a creative activity, perhaps the epitome of human creativity. The skill of asking questions is, according to Jerome Brunner, the ability to go “beyond given information.” It grants us the opportunity to examine issues from a different angle. The greatest inventors and scientists in human history, people such as Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein and many others asked fundamental questions which eventually led to their marvelous breakthroughs.  Philosophers and thinkers devote their whole lives to asking questions about the meaning of life, morality, truth, human behaviour and the divinity of G-d.

Realizing the significance and developmental benefits of asking questions and since the “Seder” is all about provoking questions, the sages have also instituted a few unique rituals to be performed at the Seder table for the mere purpose of arousing curiosity among children, teaching and triggering them to probe for answers. The very fact that we are doing something different, they discerned, will lend itself to an additional question, answer, and further growth.

What a great legacy and what a blessing it is to be part of it.
Happy and meaningful Pesach.

When Does A Belief Become Part Of A Nation’s Historical Timeline?

The following article was written by Tal Gilad a Yisraeli journalist. It was translated into English by Bat-Zion Susskind-Sacks

It seems that there is no point anymore in addressing the question as to whether there was an Exodus from Egypt or not, since this issue and any opinion about it is affected mainly by agenda. Those who despise anything related to religion / faith (or in fact loathe anything other than Macchiato) qvell in the yearly opportunity to mock the entrenched myth, and whoever is for Bibi is also for Moses. For some reason, the two go hand in hand/ Yes, of course it is a generalization and I know that also on the Right there are those who scorn faith and currently hold haughty rational positions. That’s ok.

I have no doubt that the Exodus from Egypt did take place since we have no reason to believe it did not. What is unusual in a story about a People which wanders from one place to another? Had I wanted to invent an impressive myth about our origin, the last thing that would have jumped into my mind would be to describe us as a bunch of nebechs who had run away from their masters and on the way did some ugly deeds as the Tanach tells us. It would have been far more exciting to tell how the first Man fought an evil dragon but during the battle bumped into a bush which tore off his foreskin. And while he was hurting and bemoaning, a voice came out of Heaven and said: “Oh, Man, do not cry and do not despair, for this circumcised one will become a great nation.” A rain of children started to pour from Heaven and they became the People of Yisrael who overcame the dragon. And since then, we perform circumcision to commemorate the victory and we eat Matzot because the First Man broke the dragon’s head with a wooden board.

We can invent a hundred stories like this, per day. And indeed, there are plenty of such stories in other people’s mythologies.

The Exodus from Egypt does not fulfill the criterion of an unfounded tale. Remove the parts with miracles, if you wish, or reduce the number of people to a mere few thousands, still what is unreasonable about it? “There is no archaeological evidence.”

There is evidence,, however, it cannot be connected, with any certainty, to the Exodus from Egypt. Archaeology is a young discipline. About Egypt, in general, there is still much that is unknown. “No skeletons.” A skeleton erodes and crumbles in a matter of a few decades. What we find, occasionally, are a million years old fossils, lucky skeletons which were surrounded by conditions that allowed them to mix with the minerals and thus survived. Otherwise, the whole planet would be covered with human and animal skeletons.

The story of the Exodus from Egypt is detailed, long and filled with ups and downs and unpleasant details. Were it just a Harry Potter story, no one would have celebrated it every year, actually twice, Pesach and Sukkot. It is fair to assume that not everything happened exactly as told but its nucleus sounds entirely realistic.

Even the Egyptians had a somewhat incensed version of the story of the Exodus. Manetho, an Egyptian historian on the 3^rd century, B.C.E., claimed that the Children of Yisrael are the Hyksos, foreign rulers who were expelled out of Egypt in the 16^th century B.C.E. In ancient Egypt, “The lepers’ libel,” which claimed that the Children of Yisrael were forcefully banished since they were lepers, was circulated, Yuck.

Ok, let us leave a typical narrative of “no way have I lost,” the kind we  hear from our surrounding nations who continue to assert their victory even without their teeth and withn their head is stuck downward in a barrel. The fact is that the narrative refers to that tale. 

In Hebrew there are quite a few words which originated in ancient Egypt, including the name “Moshe (Moses)” which simply means “son.” The suffix, “messes” was commonly used in in ancient Egypt. One of the names that is related to Egypt is Ramsses II, who according to some researchers is the Pharoah mentioned in the Book of Exodus. Circumcision, which Jews practice to signify our unique covenant with G-d,  was customary in Egypt before we adopted it.

The Greek historian, Heroditus, states that “the Syrians who lived in Palestine” (The Jews who lived   and worked in the coastline area which was named after the Philistines) circumcise their sons in the Egyptian tradition, unlike other nations in the region.

Papyrus Ipower, the ancient Egyptian papyrus, describes events, some of which astonishingly resemble the ten plagues, which means that if it were a legend – it originated in Egypt. Ancient Egyptian wall paintings portray Semitic Peoples arriving to Egypt, nothing unusual about it, the Hyksos, likewise, were Semitic. Egypt’s protectorate spread all the way to Northern Eretz Yisrael, albeit shaky.

It all points to a strong bond between Am Yisrael and Egypt.

Were this story not related to religion, the tables would have been turned: the Left would have basked with great pleasure in the story of the Exodus from Egypt and see it as yet another proof that from the onset came from another Land. In fact, the average Leftist might have a dilemma here – who does it hate more, the Jewish faith or Eretz Yisrael. Hatred towards religion gains strength here in Yisrael because it is imprinted in our blood for many more generations. So let us say this – if the Right and the observant Jews insist that we came from Egypt, then perhaps it is true.

"Yisrael, My Firstborn Son."

This week’s Parashah, Bo, is another stirring chapter in the saga of the Exodus from Egypt. It details the last three of the ten plagues that were poured upon the Egyptians.

Of special interest in the tenth plague the smiting of the firstborn son of every Egyptian family. It is, the Torah tells us, the last straw which prompted Pharaoh to let the Yisraelites go.

A bird’s eye view of the host of plagues reveals that the tenth plague was different from its predecessors. Firstly, it is already hinted at before Moshe was to meet Pharaoh when G-d sent this message to him in Shemot 4:23-24 : “Yisrael is my firstborn son, and I told you, Let my son go, so he may worship me.” In other words, the confrontation will reach its pinnacle when it will be Pharaoh’s first-born son against G-d’s first-born son, Am Yisrael.

Secondly, the tenth plague does not bear the usual structure of the previous nine plagues. There was no warning. There is no description of the plague and unlike the others, Pharaoh did not protest or request that it be removed. Instead, Moshe presents him with a fact: “About midnight I will go throughout Egypt. Every firstborn son in Egypt will die….” (Shemot 11:4).

Were the same sequence of the other plagues to follow, we could expect the next part to describe the plague. Instead, the next section Shemot 12:2 starts with the following: “This month is to be for you the first month, the first month of the year.” This segment includes the commandment of the Passover sacrifice as well as the laws associated with this Holy Day and as part of these laws comes the description of the forthcoming tenth plague: “On that same night I will pass through Egypt and strike down every firstborn of both people and animals, and I will bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt.” (Shemot 12:12). What connects the two is the commandment to slaughter the Passover sacrifice and the decree to smear its blood on the doorposts of the Yisraelites so that G-d could pass over the homes of the Yisraelites and spare their firstborn.

A very brief description of the tenth plague is given in two verses (Exodus 12:29-30) “ At midnight the LORD struck down all the firstborn in Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh, who sat on the throne, to the firstborn of the prisoner, who was in the dungeon, and the firstborn of all the livestock as well. Pharaoh and all his officials and all the Egyptians got up during the night, and there was loud wailing in Egypt, for there was not a house without someone dead.” One might ask, why was there a need for the blood on the doorposts? After all, G-d would know which homes belongs to the Yisraelites and which to the Egyptians.
The answer has to do with the unique nature of the tenth plague. While the plague was aimed at hurting the Egyptians, it is also the one that brought about the release of Am Yisrael from the House of Bondage. Surely, G-d could have picked other ways to reach that result. It seems that in this plague did not only subjugate the Egyptians, it was also meant to put the Yisraelites through the test.

The commandment to engage in the Passover sacrifice forced Am Yisrael to employ another Mitzvah, that of Brit Milah or circumcision. Shemot 12:48 forbids uncircumcised males from partaking in the Passover sacrifice: “A foreigner residing among you who wants to celebrate the LORD’s Passover must have all the males in his household circumcised; then he may take part like one born in the land. No uncircumcised male may eat it.”

It seems that the Torah is more interested in stressing the passing over the homes of the Yisraelites and turning the tenth plague into an instructive experience for them than on killing the firstborn of the Egyptians. Hence the little attention the text gives to describing that plague. Rather, its main concern is in ensuring that the Yisraelites understand the Passover laws, internalize them and live the unique role that G-d has assigned to them to be “My firstborn son Yisrael.”

Shabbat Shalom

Keeping Friends Closer and Drawn Lines Redder

This article was written jointly by Roger Froikin and Bat-Zion Susskind-Sacks

Picture this, it is Passover. You invite Christian friends, guests, to you family Seder. You start to read the Haggadah, and just when you get to the part where Jews say how we are to see ourselves, not just our ancestors, as being brought out of slavery to freedom, our Christian friends say, “hey that’s not what your Seder means, it is an allegory for the coming of Christ and the resurrection.”

What do you do?

 Some Jews would sit there quietly, smile, and start to discuss what these Christians inserted in the celebration. To their children, this would appear as acceptance of the Christian interpretation.

Well, that is not what Jews should be doing.  Jews need to say, “yes, we want friends, but friends respect one another and these Christians were not acting like friends. The Jews who chose to ignore their lack of manners and aggressive should be ashamed of themselves.”

Yet, In the State of Israel today,  Medinat Yisrael, in Eretz Yisrael the Jewish Homeland, there are places where this scenario is being played out in reality. No one is responsible nor seems to want to draw the line between acceptable and not acceptable. In some places missionaries are telling Jews what Jews should believe, while some Jews look down and say nothing.

They claim to be our friends. They declare that they love us. Moreover, they claim that they are here in Eretz Yisrael to help us, serve us and to fulfill the calling of the prophecy   ו וּבְנֵי הַנֵּכָר, הַנִּלְוִים עַל-יְהוָה לְשָׁרְתוֹ, וּלְאַהֲבָה אֶת-שֵׁם יְהוָה, לִהְיוֹת לוֹ לַעֲבָדִים (And foreigners who bind themselves to the LORD to minister to him, to love the name of the LORD, and to be his servants,) (Isaiah 56:6).

Some of us ask, and justifiably so, is that the real reason? Rather, is this the only reason?

As a people who has been deprived of love by others for so long, such an offer is, of course, very tempting. For who does not want to be loved. Who does not want to have free servants and volunteers to do the dirty work for them? 

So, they were given a place to set up their camp. They are adorned and adulated by those they help. They invite their friends to come and stay with them. They organize Shabbat events where Jews and Christians meet and mingle. They conduct Christian weddings with Jewish rituals to which they invite local observant Jews and which the latter attend thus condoning such practices.

Frankly, we have no problem inviting strangers as guests to our private home and our National Home, especially those who claim to be our friends. Our issue, however, is when these guests, these friends feel that they have a right to teach us, to expose us to that which is as foreign to us, that which is poisonous to us, spiritually, and nationally. They feel it is their duty, as our friends, to teach us that which we have never asked for, nor ever wanted.

Their upbringing and their belief pave their way toward one and one goal only, to make everyone, especially those that they consider their friends, that which is what they are, embrace and adopt that which they believe in. For them there is one way and one way only, their way.

And their way is to share with and educate Jews about “this Jesus that” they “know.” Their vision is to share with us “this passion, this soon coming jubilee [Yovel in Hebrew] in Yeshua HaMessiah.”

AND, THAT IS WHERE WE MUST DRAW THE LINE

Interestingly, during the Crusades, when Christians, directed by their leaders, were busy murdering Jews on the way to fight the Muslims for Jerusalem, one Roman Catholic Bishop   warned that some Jews should be spared because the Second Coming of Christ would be from among the Jews.  He drew a line. And one might ask Christians, were they successful in converting all the Jews so that Judaism would disappear, how would their Jesus come back?

So, that is our question.  Where will we draw the line?   Where and when will we demand respect for us and our traditions and our Torah?  When will our people understand that friendship does not mean having to beg for it, to ingratiate oneself for it or to compromise one’s own standards for it.

DRAW THE LINE.  RESPECT OTHERS WHO RESPECT US.

And that means no missionary activity directed toward Jews.  No telling Jews what Jewish literature that was written for Jews in the Hebrew language “really” means as interpreted by outsiders.

Moreover, Jews wake up.  See things as they are, not just how you want them to be, desperate for approval and friendship. What do you imagine will happen when Christians who so desperately want us Jews to join them are thwarted?  

Look at history.  Learn from it  

That which is Our Own

This article was co-authored by Roger Froikin and Bat-Zion Susskind-Sacks.

“Of course it is ok for non-Jews to adopt and use Jewish symbols and practices,” we hear many Jews say. “Isn’t it great that others find our Torah and its commandments so desirable that they decide to embrace them?” Others ask.

The Torah was given to Am Yisrael and the Jewish People, not to the world.  The Torah instructs Jews to wear a tallit, to use tefillin, to remember and to observe Shabbat. We are instructed to do that because as the Torah says G-d took us, Am Yisrael, not everyone else, out of slavery in Egypt with a “strong hand and an outstretched arm.” Jews alone were given the laws of Kashrut and the Mitzvah to celebrate Jewish holidays in a particularly Jewish way.  These experiences and customs are uniquely Jewish ones. They are related to and are an integral part of our unique Jewish history, the history of Am Yisrael.

Unlike what many Jews are taught nowadays, Judaism is not universal. Though many of the values, morals, lessons, of Torah and of Jewish history, are ones that all peoples can learn and benefit from, Torah, as we mentioned above, was given to the Jewish People. It is the story of the Jewish People, not of the whole world.  Even though various Gentile peoples have adopted what is Jewish, that does not make  G-d’s gift to the Jewish Nation, the Covenant with Am Yisrael, universal. 

After 2000 years of being subject to persecution, exclusion, hate, and all too often confiscations and violence by Christians, for the first time in history, some Gentiles, considering the roots of their own faith, have found an interest in Judaism and Jewish practices. Some because of sheer interest. Many more do it because it is a way, they believe, to understand and be closer to their religious roots.

So today we see some Christian ministers adopting the use of the Talit.  Others try the Kipah.  Some churches for the last several years have held Passover meals with matzah and traditional Jewish readings at their churches. 

We have no problem with Christians having an interest in learning and understanding the Jewish roots of their religion, to the degree that they exist.  It needs to be remembered, however, that Christians do it not to be Jewish or more like Jews, and not to be part of what is Jewish.  For example, when Christian Churches sponsor a Seder for Passover, they do it because Jesus did it and they interpret it through their own religious theology as being Jesus centered.  They do it not because they love the Jewish People or because they want to be like Jews.  They perform these rites for Christian reasons, to identify closer with their theological roots. 

We have no right to tell Christians what to do or what to believe within their theology. 

What we do have a problem with, though, is when Jews see Christians perform customs associated with Judaism and feel “Oh so flattered” and “Oh so happy” about it that they fail to see (or is it refuse to see) the rationale, the motives, behind it.  We do have a problem when Jews blur the differences between Jewish beliefs and Christian beliefs based on the Christian adoption of some Jewish forms and customs and when some Jews claim that we are all the same.

Because we are not. We are not better. We are not worse. We are just different.

To those Jews who are willingly and readily handing out slices of our Jewish heritage indiscriminately, we have this to answer. Will those same Jews allow strangers into their home, let them take, for example, a precious heirloom that has been running in their family for generations and let them walk out with it and declare it as their own? That, in our book, is usurpation! The difference is that when one takes a private possession it is between them and the owner. When one appropriates Jewish practices or symbols, it is between those who take it and Am Yisrael. That includes Jews like us who are unhappy about it. We cringe when we see reverends and pastors wearing talitot, Jewish prayer shawls, in their church services praying to Jesus when we all know that he is not part of Jewish tradition. We are unhappy when we witness a Pesach Seder conducted in a hybrid manner which celebrates the “Last Supper” more than the Exodus from Egypt

As much as we object to it and as much and we disagree with this reality, we cannot and should not try to stop others from taking on Jewish customs and practices while continuing to practice their own non-Jewish faith provided it stops there.

Unfortunately, it does not.

What we see unfolding in front of our eyes is a trend that we consider threatening to the future of our Jewish people. Many of those friends and supporters who adopt our customs and practices feel, much to our dismay, that with their interpretations of their “universal” nature, that they are compelled by their beliefs to spread their “gospel” to the Jews who, they believe, don’t seem to understand their own history or purpose. They then tell us what we should believe. They feel an obligation to educate us about our heritage and our tradition as seen through the lens of their own religious interpretations, in some attempt to define us, all with grave consequences to our future as a People.

Many of those who engage in such activities are charismatic leaders who whilst advocate for us, end up convincing Jewish youth, too often unprepared with a solid Jewish education, nor with any knowledge of the differences between Christianity and Judaism, of their interpretation of Judaism. They teach it through their own ethnic, religious and cultural eyes changing the meaning of the original Jewish values. We end up with Pied Pipers who allegedly came to our rescue but end up influencing a Jewish generation with a very misconstrued idea of what Judaism, Torah, Am Yisrael and Eretz Yisrael are all about.

The solution is not isolation, nor is it telling Christians what to believe.   Nor is it in suppressing freedom of expression.

The solution is in education of that which is our own. We need Jewish education that is more sophisticated than patterns that seemed sufficient in the 19^th century. We also need to coach and educate young Jews of how the Christian and Muslim see the world in order to ensure proper Jewish continuity. 

May we continue to have a blessed Pesach