The Perpetual Desert Generation?

Two weeks ago, Jews the world over celebrated Pesach, the Holy Day marking our People’s Exodus from Egypt and embarking on our journey from slavery into freedom. For me, at least, it bears a very meaningful period in our Jewish timeline.

Unfortunately, this Pesach was quite a different one, one that we are not going to forget anytime soon. This year, it was celebrated in the shadow of Corona, serving as a reminder of the fragility of the fabric of our existence.

It is not just Corona, however, that served as a wakeup call for many. For some, myself included, this Pesach, unfortunately, presented, yet another proof that though we may have physically come out of bondage, mentally and emotionally, we are still drenched and perceptually bear the yoke of serfdom. We are still in the Sinai desert trying to make our way to the Promised Land.

Remember how our forefathers complained to Moshe on a regular basis during that time? Here are some examples.

Exodus 16:3 : “If only we had died by the Lord’s hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death.”

In Exodus 17:3, we hear a similar gripe when they accuse Moshe of trying to kill them. This time, though, they add, “children and livestock,” thus making the accusations against him even more severe by including these two feeble and vulnerable groups. “Why did you bring us up out of Egypt to make us and our children and livestock die of thirst?”

Later, in Exodus 32, when Moshe is away on Mount Sinai, receiving the Torah, the Yisraelites lose patience and continue with their complaints. Aharon, who is not well versed in the art of leadership, caves in and erects the golden calf.

This was going on for forty years when all that Moshe wanted was to deliver our People to their own Land and secure their future.

Fast forward a few thousand years. That brings us to the modern-day Jewish state of Yisrael.

Looking around me nowadays, I see members of a Nation and a country that I love so dearly. Although we have moved forward and are experiencing the opulence of the Age of Technology with its many conveniences, something that did not exist during the Exodus, attitude wise, not much seems to have changed. Our mindsets and reactions to serious issues has unfortunately remained pretty much the same. It pangs me to see that we are still doing what our forefathers did thousands of years ago during what should have been considered a landmark in our history.

We are still complaining precisely as did the Biblical desert generation.

When we could celebrate Pesach freely among family and friends, many Yisraelis preferred to do it on some remote exotic island. It is probably and most likely because they did not want to be in the company of salivating auntie Frida and blabbering uncle Maurice.

Now, we have an epidemic, rather a pandemic which forces us into a new reality. “Now” they told us, “you are relieved of the company of auntie Frida and uncle Maurice. In fact, we forbid you to spend any time with them.”

And what do some do in response? Yes, they complain, as did the desert generation. .

The Yisraeli Health Ministry issued some extremely strict guidelines in order to stamp out a virus that has claimed many lives. These directives have one goal and one goal only. It is to secure the health well-being of Yisraelis (a tactic which, by the way, proved itself as remarkably effective).

And how do we react? You guessed right again. Just like them.

We keep complaining while some still refuse to cooperate and to adhere to the instructions.

I could come up with some more examples to prove my point. But you do get my gist, don’t you?

For a nation, a People that has been through so much in history, witnessed so many miracles, saw devastation and renewal, death, and rebirth we, Jews have much to be grateful for.

But hey, if we follow the logic of Cohen’s quote above, I guess the question that is begging to be asked is, if we drop our complaints, would we still be Jewish?

Happy Independence Day, Medinat Yisrael and Am Yisrael.

Against all Odds

As a child, Alina was always skinny, sickly and constantly bullied by her friends. They mocked her for her small size and pale complexion.

“One day,” she used to retort back at them, “I will be on top of the world. Where will you be?”

The dream to shake off the image of her dreary childhood, in the city of Khabarovsk, her birthplace, located in the far eastern part of Russia, took hold of her heart and shaped Alina’s essence. Though she ended up living a very comfortable life, earned a business management degree from one of the top and most prestigious universities and had all her needs taken care of, something was missing in her life. Life in that remote part of the world was empty and seemed to hold no future. The dream, however, refused to extinguish itself. Parts of her spirit and soul were begging for a change.

It was her Jewish ancestry, of all factors, which helped revive the dream, bring about the change and help fulfill her wish.

“Why don’t you travel to Yisrael?” her mother asked her one bright day trying to cheer her up. “Since my father is Jewish,” she suggested to Alina, “ under the Law of Return, you can move there without any problem. Give it a try. You can always come back home.”

Despite warnings against the difficulties that Yisrael poses to new immigrants and in spite of the doubts expressed by those that were close to her about her ability to adjust to life here, Alina took her mother's advice. In 1999, she arrived in Yisrael. She was immediately placed in an absorption center in Tiberias where, a year later, she was joined by her mother.

From Tiberias, they both moved to Eilat.

In 2004, Alina moved to Herzliya where she commenced her studies towards earning a Personal Training Certificate at the American-Israel Fitness college. Life, it seemed, was finally beginning to smile at her. She was on her way to realize her childhood dream.

In October of that year, Alina was preparing for her final exams in the course. She needed a break and, along with her mom, went on holiday at the Hilton Hotel in the resort town of Taba in the Sinai Peninsula. She was planning on doing her studies in the tranquility of the relaxing desert atmosphere. That vacation changed her life and shaped its destined path in every respect.

Many Yisraelis may recall October 7^th of 2004 as the day in which two devastating terror attacks took place in two resorts frequented by Yisraeli travelers. The Hilton Taba was one of them.

Alina was sitting just outside the hotel lobby reading her course notes when a powerful blast ripped through the hotel. It was caused by two separate car bombs each carrying 200kg of explosives detonated in the lobby. He mother was upstairs in the room.

The scars caused by the many pieces of flying glass that hit Alina are etched on her body. They are an eternal reminder of that devastating day, a day that marked a turning point in her life.

With each passing moment of her long and painful recovery, following the terror attack, Alina felt weakness leaving her body. She was getting stronger not only physically but also emotionally. The “skinny and sickly” young girl from Khabarovsk was fading away into parts of a very remote past. Determination to defy all odds filled every cell in Alina’s body. If she can challenge death, she decided, she can overcome any of life’s tests.

Her attempt to study for the final exam of her course were one of those tests. The blood-soaked notebooks and her scarred body refused to let the waves of grief that threatened her troubled soul to subside. At the same time, Alina was determined not to let victimhood dictate her life. She would study and pass her exams! Failure was one term that evaporated from her vocabulary. Her efforts paid off. She passed her exams with flying colours and earned her certificate.

Something else happened to Alina on the day she survived the terror attack. She realized WHY she survived. “Mom,” she called her mother one day, “I am going to convert to Judaism. My maternal grandfather was Jewish. His People became a nation on Mount Sinai. I am coming back Home.”

Alina embarked on the journey of Halachic conversion to Judaism. Several months later, her mother joined her.  The sliver of hope on the cloudy skies of Alina’s life was getting wider.

In 2007, Alina gave birth to a beautiful boy. “I named him Roniel,” she told me as she turned around, exposed part of her upper back and pointed at one of her scars. It was in the clear and defined shape of the Hebrew letter Reish. “Roniel is my precious gift. He is part of my reward and the soothing balm to my bruised soul.”

Alina’s regained inner strength has pushed her to take her dream even further. This year, she has participated in three body building competitions. The first, Nabba - Israel where she earned first place in the 40+ category. The second WBF – Israel where she earned second place in the bikini 35+ category. She also earned second place in the NAC competition of bikini 40+.

 

“Though my resolve to turn my life into a success came from within me,” she told me when we met for lunch last week, “I am very grateful to my partner, Oded Saba, for his ongoing support and encouragement through this journey.”

The balance of beauty, wisdom and determination that Alina has been blessed with are the traits that have brought her thus far and have made her a role model to many.
  

We wish her the best of luck and every blessing! 🇮🇱 🏆 🇮🇱

Moshe's Art of Teaching

This week’s Parasha stresses the importance of listening and memorizing. These two verbs appear in the Tanach many times. The root אזן (listen, harken) appears in close to thirty verses in the Tanach. The root זכר (remember) in its various adaptations appears over 350 times.

Any teacher who is well versed in the art of teaching will tell us that adhering to them will achieve the results of great and effective learning. Hearing is not enough. In order to grasp any lesson, one needs to listen attentively and not only internalize it but also memorize it in order to ensure that the learning process of any subject, any lecture has been mastered.

I was first exposed to importance of reviewing and memorizing when I was in second grade. The teacher taught us a very meaningful saying and asked me to make a poster of it. It read, “Anyone who learns Torah but does not repeat the learning is like a man sowing but never reaping.” I remember toiling over that poster as a young child, etching its message on my brain, committing it to memory and eventually getting into the habit of practicing it.

That is what G-d, through Moshe, is doing in this week’s Parasha, “Ha’azinu,” (harken) in D’varim 32. A quick glance at the format in which this Parasha was written, reveals that it is in the form of poetry rather than prose, unlike most other parashot. Instead of long sentences and full paragraphs, one finds two columns and short words. I venture to say that it reflects the way it was delivered, as poetry.  Moreover, I trust it was done so for a reason.

The message of this week’s Parasha is one of the most important ones delivered to Am Yisrael. It is brought forth as they are about to enter the Promised Land WITHOUT Moshe. They need to be prepared, be coached and provided with the proper and relevant tools. These include remembering the Torah, its Mitzvot and the power of Emunah, belief and faith. 

Moshe is worried about the future of Am Yisrael and rightfully so. Has he not witnessed them for over forty years of wandering in the desert? Have they not complained many a times even when their food and other needs were provided for them? He knows how impatient, weak and unprepared they are. History has taught him that Am Yisrael is not the strongest nor the toughest assembly for coping with the harsh reality and new conditions that face them in Eretz Yisrael.

Moshe, the ever-astute teacher, leader needs to ensure that, after he is gone, the processes of learning and mastering his final lesson, will be affixed in the collective memory of our People forever and be evoked as one of his most significant legacies for Am Yisrael and the future of our people.

Under the circumstances, what a better way to teach it than using poetry, a rather unconventional teaching method, to help ensure that the tenets of that intended lesson will forever be inscribed upon their hearts, brains and souls?

And what a powerful message it is. Moshe turns to the Heaven and Earth, his eternal witnesses, two of G-d’s creations that encapsulate time, space and matter "הַאֲזִינוּ הַשָּׁמַיִם וַאֲדַבֵּרָה; וְתִשְׁמַע הָאָרֶץ אִמְרֵי-פִי" (Listen, you heavens, and I will speak;hear, you earth, the words of my mouth). 

And sometimes, on a very quiet starry night, when the world is asleep, if you harken closely, you can hear Moshe's final words echoing everywhere, reaffirming G-d's promise to Am Yisrael and the Jewish People, the promise that like the Heaven and Earth, we, too, are eternal.

Chag Sameach

A shattered Dream for one, a Blessing for others

Of all the verses of this week’s Parasha, one is branded in my mind more than others. It is Deuteronomy 32;52, where G-d tells Moshe:

“Therefore, you will see the land only from a distance; you will not enter the land I am giving to the people of Israel."

Imagine coming very close to your life’s goal yet never fulfilling it. Imagine seeing your long-woven dream close to being realized and watcing it slipping away. How about running that marathon that you have been training to for months merely to find out that as close as you reach the finishing line, you will never get to it?

Must be awfully frustrating.

The above verse captures, in my view, the essence of that feeling, that sentiment. That bittersweet aftertaste is saturated with the emotions of grievance, irritation and desertion.

In 1992, on a trip to Jordan, I was standing where Moshe was when watching his dream fade away. I remember looking into the distance, seeing the Land I so love while feeling every fiber of my nationhood vibrating in me, bursting to break into an elating dance, the kind one experiences when one becomes united with the universe that surrounds us.  So close yet so far away. So attainable yet unreachable. Almost touching it yet more evasive than ever.

I can still feel the tears welling in my eyes soothing the flames of fire that the dry wind and the burning desert sun ignited and fueled. The growing lump in my throat chokes and stifles the soundless shrieks in the face of the injustice committed on that mountain. The deafening silence that surrounds me threatens to devour me.

Unlike Moshe, I walked the Land, I planted trees, worked, tended and helped free it. I am one of his humble servants who swore to guard it, watch over my People and defend it for our posterity. How much luckier can one get?

I, along with many other members of our wonderful People pledge to carry Moshe’s legacy and continue to fulfill the dream he led us to realize.

And “Our journey is just beginning.” May it continue, and may we go from strength to strength as we resume our life’s mission and the fulfillment of his vision along this Holy Land.

Shanah Tova and Gmar Chatima Tovah

The Temple Menorah - What Did It Really Look Like?

“And six branches shall extend from its sides, three branches of the menorah out of one side, and three branches out of the other side”  Shemot (Exodus) 25:32

Any reader of chapter 25 in the Book of Shemot (Exodus) which is dedicated to the customs associated with the Tabernacle, will quickly notice that much attention is given to the description and the embossing of the fine details and ornaments of the Menorah. Little or rather nothing is said about the shape of its six branches nor its stand or base.  

Why, some may ask, the sudden interest in it?

Actually, it is not sudden. Many, and for a long time, have tried to discern what the Temple Menorah really looked like.

Of course, we are all familiar with the one depicted on Titus’ Arch in Rome, the one that was among the spoils of the Temple which were taken to Rome by the Jewish slaves following the destruction of the Second Temple. Many would also recognize that the emblem of the State of Yisrael, the Jewish Homeland, is fashioned after it.

There are, so it seems, some inconsistencies between what we have been familiar with and the description of this holy Jewish symbol in traditional sources.

One of them is the description of the Menorah given in the Book of Zechariah. It is different than the one that stood in the First Temple. The one in Zechariah has an added feature, a “bowl at the top,” which served as a vessel to hold the oil. -  a detail that is not mentioned in the instructions given to Moses at Mount Sinai.

That, however, is a minor detail which is not given much attention in Jewish writings. The added “bowl,” can probably be attributed to and be the result of a more developed version of the original Menorah, a kind that might have been more widespread during second Temple period.

What I find fascinating about the Menorah, though, relates more to the shape of the branches and its stand. The branches are generally illustrated as semi-circular in shape, as we can see on Titus’ Arch.

Archaeological evidence, as in many other incidences, helps us shed light on this issue. A Jewish coin, for instance, minted in 40 BCE shows the Menorah as having curved branches thus lending support to the suggestion that the Menorah had indeed semi – rounded branches.

Another archaeological revelation which renewed interest in the shape of the Temple Menorah was the subject of a Press Release by the Yisrael Antiquities Authority in August 2011. It announced the discovery of “an engraving of the Temple Menorah on a stone object” (which I personally saw) in a two millennia old drainage tunnel near the City of David.

The Authority’s release went on to suggest that “a passerby who saw the Temple Menorah with his own eyes….incised his impressions on a stone.” The drawing, albeit a crude one, clearly shows that the branches are more straight than circular (the depiction of the base proves that the passerby could have drawn curved lines had he witnessed the Menorah as having rounded arms or branches).

Some Jewish sources provide other insights into the question of the shape of the Menorah’s branches. Rashi, for instance, suggests in one of his commentaries on the Torah that the branches of the Menorah “extended upward in a diagonal.…” fashion rather than in a curved, rounded one. The Rambam, like Rashi, though he never makes any definitive statement concerning the branches, shares his view on it. In his commentaries on the Mishneh Torah and Mishnah, he adds drawings which leave no room for doubt. In them, he depicts the branches as extending diagonally and in straight lines.  

Rabbeinu Avraham, the son of Maimonides, states: “The six branches... extended upward from the center shaft of the menorah in a straight line, as depicted by my father, and not in a semi-circle as depicted by others.”

As in the case of the engraving found in the City of David and judging by the fact that the curvature of the base is drawn so precisely, most likely with the aid of a compass, it is apparent that the artist could just have easily drawn curved branches had he so desired.

The base of the original Temple Menorah has also been a subject of controversy for many years. The one carved on Titus’ Arch is very different from the one found in the City of David. It also differs from the drawings attributed to the Rambam. The excavators of the City of David were quoted as saying that the graffito found in there “clarifies [that] the base of the original [ancient] menorah … was apparently tripod shaped.”

The unique, two-tiered, broad, solid and hexagonal Menorah base depicted on Titus’ Arch, has led many to believe that it is nothing like the Menorah would have looked like for two reasons. The first pertains to the fact that the Greeks discovered all polygons much later, during the Pythagorean era. Though, early Egyptians and ancient Chinese developed such geometry, it was mostly used for navigational purposes.

The second, and a more germane reason, relates to Jewish law. Archeologists concluded that some of the panels of the Menorah carved on the Arch (though partially eroded), display creatures such as eagles, sea serpents, dragons and other heathen images which Jews would not have allowed to be present at the Temple.

Experts agree that there is no reason to question the authenticity of the depiction in Titus’ Arch. Its details and its size reflect the sculpture’s close familiarity with the Temple vessels as described in the Tanach and various other Jewish sources.

The question, however, remains, how can the disparity between the two representations of the Menorah base be compromised?

There is no doubt that the Menorah as we see it on the Arch bears a strong Roman influence. The eagles are a well-known symbol of Roman sovereignty. Dragons were a prevalent ornamental motif in Roman art. A similar base albeit with more pagan images, was excavated in Didymus, Turkey where there once stood a Roman temple.

These clues have led scholars to the almost unavoidable conclusion that the disposition towards Roman art coupled with Jewish prohibition of pagan images could be ascribed to one person, Herod, who throughout his appointment as “King of Judea” tried to impose Hellenistic traditional concepts and values upon his oppressed Jewish subjects.

If that was indeed the case, it is safe to assume then that the Menorah plundered from the Temple was not the one that the Maccabees had intended it to be following their rebellion, a symbol of religious freedom. Rather, it was another attempt to suppress it. This might also be the reason why the Menorah was not present on Jewish coins commemorating the Jewish rebellion in 69-70 and 135. Other symbols from the Temple were used in its place.

Regardless of the changes and the origin of some of the details of the Menorah, it has become a symbol of Jewish religious freedom and political sovereignty and Jewish pride for the Eternal Jewish Homeland in Eretz Yisrael.

Am Yisrael Chai!