Etzion News An English E-Newsletter for Yeshivat Har Etzion
Alumni | |
Reflections on the Trip to
Poland by Rav Yair Kahn Iyar 5767 |
|
Before
Pesach, I joined the Yeshiva on a trip to No,
there is not much left to see, but nevertheless, being in the very place
where those monstrous events actually occurred had a very profound
impact. I bent down and
touched the ground, the same ground that had soaked up the blood of our
ancestors, the earth that still hides their bones. I picked up a rock that had
witnessed the slaughter of our nation and asked for its testimony. I closed my eyes, so that I could
see the Jews being shoved into gas chambers under the vigilant watch of
the Nazi guards. I closed my
ears, so that I could hear the barking of the dogs, the shouts of the
guards, the screaming of the victims. I listened more closely and I
heard someone yell out “Shema Yisrael Hashem Elokeinu Hashem
Echad.” Somehow
everything became real. I was
there in the very same place, standing on the very same ground, looking at
the very same trees. The
war came to an end. The
allies rejoiced, but the Jewish People mourned. Six million Jews were slaughtered.
European Jewry was destroyed.
What was left of our nation?
Scattered survivors, broken in body and in spirit. What was left of our unique
destiny? We were a People
that had nothing but a past.
There was no future to speak of and the present was just too
horrible.
Three
years later, the State of Israel was established. Like the mythical This
dramatic historical about-face, from almost total destruction to the
beginning of the realization of the dream to return to God
communicates with the Jewish People through the historical process. According to our Sages, when
national tragedy befalls, the Almighty is informing us that we must mend
our ways. Therefore, the
Torah demands that in response to national calamity, we must cry out to
God in prayer and mend our ways.
Maimonides writes: “However if we do not cry out and sound the
trumpets, but rather claim that what occurred was simply the way of the
world and the calamity occurred through chance, this is the path of those
who are grossly insensitive.”
In other words, the Torah explicitly demands that we identify God
as the source of tragic events that defy historic causality. Clearly, an identical reaction
must be applied to inexplicable events that reflect God's grace and love
of the Jewish People as well.
Therefore, we find that our sages demanded that Hallel - psalms of
praise – be recited as a reaction to divine salvation.
Where
are we to look when searching for God? Do we limit ourselves to the
miraculous, or do we perceive the hand of providence in the dramatic
events which shape Jewish history?
Can one ignore the dramatic sweep of events which began with the
Holocaust and culminated with Jewish sovereignty over If one weaves the fifth of Iyar into the fabric of historical events, if one treats Yom Ha-Atzmaut not as an isolated point, but as one point of a line, if one integrates the establishment of the State of Israel into the broader context of world events, one who believes in God will readily perceive the hand of God, as it were. If one considers the re-birth of the Jewish nation in 1948 from the perspective of the death and destruction of 1945, he will cry out “Me’eit Hashem hayta zot hee niflat bi-eineinu, zeh ha-yom asa Hashem nagila ve-nismecha bo.” These events are due to divine intervention, it is wondrous to our eyes. This is the day in which God acted, let us rejoice and be happy in Him.
(Excerpted
from an article by Rav Kahn on The Religious Significance of the
Establishment of a | |