"Thank You For Your Service"
Kristallnacht, Veterans Day, Parshat Toldot
NAZIS SMASH, LOOT and BURN JEWISH SHOPS AND TEMPLES UNTIL GOEBBELS CALLS HALT
All Vienna’s Synagogues Attacked; Fires and Bombs Wreck 18 of 21
Jews are Beaten, Furniture and Goods Flung From Homes and Shops – 15,000 Are Jailed During Day – 20 are Suicides
And in another article on that page BANDS ROVE CITIES
Thousands Arrested for ‘Protection’ as Gangs Avenge Paris Death
It’s an incredible thing to observe what real fascism is. Gangs “Avenge” Paris death. One person murdered – let’s assume Hershel Grynspan was in the wrong. His act caused the outpouring of rage? That was just an excuse for a raging mob, who had been fed lie after lie after lie, to be unleashed, with police protection and even police participation, to wreak the havoc that, violence-wise, indicated what was in store for the Jews of Europe. All this was to AVENGE PARIS DEATH. Really? Less than a year later, Germany invaded Poland, and the rest is our very sad and tragic recent history.
Tragedies surround us. Some at the hands of man – as we saw in Pittsburgh to Shabboses ago, and in the recent night club shooting in California (where, in addition to 11 customers, 1 guard/officer was killed), some also at the hands of man but in car accidents (I mentioned one last week, there was another in Israel in the days following, and a 33 year old was killed by a car on Thursday in Far Rockaway) and the like. And some are in God’s hands. (California fires...)
Rabbi Jonathan Kroll recently shared with the Katz Yeshiva High School that he went to NY/NJ for the funeral of Dannie G____, the wife of Rabbi Josh G____, who spoke here this summer. She was in her 30s and had a brain tumor – a battle which tragically ended the same Shabbos as the Pittsburgh shooting. When he was in the airport on the way back, people saw his kippah and wished him condolences for his loss. He wondered how they knew about Mrs. G_____ and realized they were talking about Pittsburgh.
Near a shul vandalized in Brooklyn this week – the police have caught some of the suspects – a playground’s sidewalk was chalked up with messages of love. “Tree of Life – Never Forgotten” “Shalom to Jerusalem” “You are LOVED” in a heart. Love graffiti was shared in a synagogue in Western Massachusetts – the Forward had an article about it.
Which goes to show that there are terrible people, very very very troubled people, and good people. Which – as we know – is the story of humanity.
Our parsha shares with us 3 stories. The first is the background of the birth of Eisav and Yaakov and the sale of the Bechora, the second is the one chapter dedicated to the life of Yitzchak, and the final tale concerns the blessings seemingly designated for Eisav which Yaakov received based on his mother’s intervention and instruction.
If I could summarize each of these stories with their aftermath objectively, based on the text we have, it would sound like this:
The First story is divided into two parts. Tension of pregnancy is resolved with assurance that two nations will emerge.
Tension between twins – if any – resolved through financial arrangement agreed to by both sides.
Second story. Also has two components.
The tension between sides is resolved when there is an understanding of who the parties are – Yitzchak and Rivkah being husband and wife.
Second part: Tension is resolved when Avimelekh – some time after having realized that Yitzchak’s being in his city was a blessing, and that his kicking Yitzchak out was not good for business – Avimelekh comes with his general and a group of ambassadors and tells Yitzchak that because they see God is with him, they want to be on his side. This is rather strange, of course, because when Avraham had his own encounters with the Gerarites some time ago, he noted to them that the reason he was not on the up and up about his relationship with Sarah, claiming to be her brother and not mentioning that she is also his wife – was because they were not God-fearing! One would think they’d have learned their lesson!
Nonetheless they do come around in our story, and the tension ends with a new treaty.
Third story.
Tension between brothers does not come to resolution, because the only thing that will heal the raw hurt is time. But who is to blame? Who cheated whom? Where is the address for Eisav’s grievance? Against Yaakov? Against their mother? Against their father? Is Eisav’s grievance even warranted – after all, shouldn’t he have told his father, “I know what you want me to do, and why, but the fact is that while I am the older brother, I sold all merits of the bechora to my brother some time ago – so if this is about a blessing to a first born… you have the wrong guy.”
Eisav did not do that. That conversation might have given us a clearer picture into Yitzchak’s intentions – meaning if he had only called to EISAV, and not “בנו הגדול” we would know for sure. But once we see he’s dealing with a descriptive, then the question is who really owns that descriptive?
So is Eisav’s rage warranted in the end? He wants to kill his brother. Is that a proper response? Maybe a fair response is “let’s come to the table and come to an equitable solution or a resolution of this misunderstanding.”
Maybe I don’t know a whole lot about how brachas work – but surely this kind of discussion could be had at a negotiating table. Maybe Eisav could have even said “Thank you for keeping me honest!”
But there is a hatred that goes beyond reason. And this is why Eisav is described as Eisav Harasha. You don’t like what happened – your immediate response is rage and murder? To Eisav’s credit, he cared about his father too much so he didn’t do it right away.
But he did also believe his father was at death’s door. After all, Yitzchak was now 123, and he was within 5 years of the age his mother Sarah had been when she died.
How can we categorize these characters? Using the descriptives I outlined a littler earlier – terrible, very very troubled, or good people?
It’s complicated. I don’t know if Eisav was terrible – he certainly felt he was cheated and that his perspective was justified. But Yaakov felt his perspective was justified. And while Yitzchak may have felt, on the one hand, that he was deceived (he does say בא אחיך במרמה ויקח ברכתיך), on the other hand, the fact is that he does not undo the bracha and even supports it saying גם ברוך יהיה – the person who received the blessing should be blessed.
RAGE. What a powerful emotion. It is the kind we sometimes feel when we see terrible injustice. Every time there is a terrorist attack deliberately against a random Jew in Israel, I feel rage. Outrage. How does someone – whatever political and ideological differences may exist – take a knife, a gun, a car, a bomb, and use it to kill people against whom one has no specific difference. But even with that RAGE, you don’t see me or anyone who feels that rage going out and killing innocents! Insane!
I don’t justify the killing of someone not engaged in an act of violence. But one of my favorite examples of rage killing – completely justified – comes from the novel A Time to Kill by John Grisham, in which a black man in the south kills the two arrogant bigot white men who savagely ravaged his 10 year old daughter. When they were in custody. And his lawyer gets him acquitted.
That’s what we might call in Torah language – a גואל הדם. Justice to the criminals only. Rage against the perpetrators. They ruined his daughter’s life… he ruined their lives in the only way that was appropriate.
Which is why people with blood on their hands don’t deserve – in my opinion – the free medical treatment they sometimes get when they are injured. Or to have a Jewish doctor and nurse save your life, as the Pittsburgh killer did. Do they even express gratitude? Do they appreciate what people who do not know them, but who believe in the nobility of their profession, did for them?
Did Yaakov deserve that? Did he ruin Eisav’s life? On the contrary, he took a burden of the bechora – which Eisav did not value and did not want – and took it off his hands in an agreed upon transaction. And, in all honesty, owing to our knowing what Rivkah knows, he also followed through with what was rightly coming to him due to their prior agreements.
Eisav – you can’t have it both ways. Make an agreement, don’t hold yourself to it, then get angry when you don’t get what you might think is yours, but really isn’t.
And to think murder is the answer?
No.
There has to be a recognition that when someone does you a good turn – as Yaakov did in feeding you when you were hungry and exhausted, as Yaakov did in taking a spiritual burden off your hands, as Yaakov did in purchasing from you something you did not want –– the pasuk says וימכר and he SOLD his birthright to Yaakov. ויעקב נתן לעשו – he GAVE to Eisav the soup and bread and something to drink… That was not the PRICE of the birthright. That was a meal to celebrate the transaction ---- you owe, at the very least, a debt of gratitude, and an awareness that there are no takebacks. Your mother Rivkah, and in turn, your brother Yaakov kept you honest in taking the blessing that was Yaakov’s to receive. You should say THANK YOU!
Because otherwise, Eisav, you ARE a horrible person.
I don’t need to explain why all those who participated in Kristallnacht were horrible people. There is NO justification for that night. No justification for the war which followed. And the War Against the Jews. No justification for blaming one nation’s problems on the Jewish people.
HATE and RAGE is not a justification for killing innocents. It is just an emotion that separates good people from bad people. Good people can feel rage and hate, but what do they do with it? Bad people turn to violence as their outlet.
And I think it can be said that some people don’t know the right way to express what should be their feelings of gratitude.
I read an article this week by a woman named Sara Carter, entitled “The Five Simple Words that SNL and Pete Davidson Should Learn to Say.”
There was a time in my life when I watched Saturday Night Live. I don’t know why. It was over 20 years ago… Since then I’ve seen clips. Most of them are not funny.
Recently, they mocked retired Navy SEAL and congressional candidate Dan Crenshaw, using a very crude joke about him based on the fact that he wears an eye-patch, which he lost while serving in Afghanistan.
Carter writes: Can you imagine what it’s like to lose your sight?
Imagine fighting overseas, far away from your loved ones, only to find yourself blinded in a momentary hail of gunfire and a grenade being lobbed over your head.
Imagine the last thing you see in your life was the pin of the grenade falling at your feet and your weapon falling from your hands.
Imagine asking the doctors at a makeshift hospital in Afghanistan if you can call your family before they wheel you into a surgery that they tell you, you may never survive.
That’s what happened to my husband, Marty, on Easter Sunday, 2011.
“Baby, I got dinged up a bit. I love you.”
That was all Marty said before the doctors came on the line and told me he might not make it through the surgery. He would endure three craniotomies and rehabilitation before he recovered.
Her husband made it through the surgery, but he is now completely blind.
Crenshaw was asked about the joke at his expense, and he said, “We have thick skin, but as veterans, it’s hard for us to understand why war wounds would elicit such raucous laughter from an audience.”
Carter went on to write that she believes most American’s didn’t find Davidson’s joke humorous, but can agree that this great nation is worth fighting for and dying for.
And she concluded with an important reminder. Every stranger that has thanked my husband and my family for our service has touched our hearts in more ways than they can imagine.”
Just to say to those who served “Thank you for your service.” Five simple words.
(Follow up from after Shabbos: Apology Accepted)
In honor of Veterans Day, a friend of mine shared with me a story he saw on Facebook. A story about Ann Margaret, the actress, and a man who served in Vietnam, and was shot by a sniper.
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The man - named Richard - had a photo of her when she came to visit his unit with Bob Hope, and when he found out she was going to be doing a book signing in his neighborhood – sometime in the 2000s – he went to hopefully meet her and get her to sign the photo.
The people at the bookstore announced she’d only be signing the book and nothing else. He showed her the photo anyway – against the protests of the employees – saying “I just wanted her to see it."
She took one look at the photo, tears welled up in her eyes and she said, "This is one of my gentlemen from Viet Nam and I most certainly will sign his photo. I know what these men did for their country and I always have time for 'my gentlemen.'' With that, she pulled Richard across the table and planted a big kiss on him. She then made quite a to-do about the bravery of the young men she met over the years, how much she admired them, and how much she appreciated them. Took photos. Made it like he was the only person there.
That moment changed him, his wife writes. He walked a little straighter. A little prouder. And when she asked him at dinner if he wanted to talk about what had happened that day he broke down in tears.. ''That's the first time anyone ever thanked me for my time in the Army,'' he said.
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I honestly don’t know enough about how the country takes care of the veterans. I hear mixed stories about VA hospitals – some good, some bad. The shooter in California this week was a vet – he is dead so we don’t know his motivation – was it PTSD? Was he a disturbed person who never had the chance to do this before? Or was he just evil? I don’t know. Would this have happened if the warning signs had been tended to? We’ll never know. We only have tragedy and sadness in the wake of it.
But I do know this. While there are few and rare people who do those kinds of things, there are many people who are gems, who served honorably and were discharged honorably, were never filled with hate or rage against their country or its citizens, and served for God and country. And only asked for a “thank you” in return.
We can’t make sense of tragedy. Mayor of North Ogden, Utah, Brent Taylor, father of 7, was killed this week in Afghanistan. The Veterans continue to put their lives on the line, and sometimes make the ultimate sacrifice.
If you are a Veteran of the US military in this room, please raise your hand or stand. On behalf of all of us, we Thank You For Your Service.
If you have a relative who served, please raise your hand now. We thank your relative for his or her service.
The two most difficult tensions in the parsha were resolved with Avimelekh saying “We see God is with you,” and through Yaakov and Eisav having a separation of time – over 36 years – during which time, it seems, feelings relaxed and things could normalize. Though, it should be noted that when Yaakov and Eisav reunite in Vayishlach, Yitzchak IS still alive.
God, and time.
If Eisav had been God-fearing, he would have been honest about the blessing. If he had let the time since the sale – which had taken place almost 50 years earlier – sink in to his new reality (even if he regretted it later!) he should have been honest about it. Instead he let his emotion, and ultimately RAGE rule his day.
He COULDN’T express gratitude, because he couldn’t be honest with himself about what the people around him were doing – freeing him from responsibility, and giving him a chance at the life he needed to live. A life of being a free spirit not bound to time and place.
When we are God-fearing, we don’t let our emotion overtake how we respond to others. When we realize that our raw feelings are overtaking us, we need to give time a chance to heal us, to set things aright, to help us see the bigger picture.
Time doesn’t heal everything, but it helps us move on.
That is what those who lived through Kristallnacht and the Holocaust certainly know and knew.
That is what those who have been victims of terror in Israel know and knew.
That is what the people in Pittsburgh will come to see.
And to this crowd I will add that being God-fearing is an essential ingredient as well. Because otherwise, our task of trying to make sense of it all is fool-hardy. We will get nowhere.
Being God-fearing, and letting time help us gather the pieces. And of course of course, expressing gratitude to those who help us live in relative safety and peace from invading enemies: that is what we learn from Avimelekh, Yitzchak, Yaakov and Eisav. May these ingredients help all who served, and may they help all of us find peace in the right time.
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