Friday, January 22, 2021

Moshe Rabbenu Shares the Priorities of Bnei Yisrael

Parshat Bo 

by Rabbi Avi Billet

After getting the warning of the pending plague of locusts, and after hearing from his own people, "How long will this be a snare for us? Send the people! Let them serve their God! Don't you know Egypt is lost?", Pharaoh asks Moshe the ultimate question of Jewish values and priorities. If I let you go, "who and who are going?" (10:8) 

Moshe's response speaks volumes. "We will go with our young people, with our old people, with our sons and our daughters, with our sheep and cattle we will go, because it is a celebration of God for us." (10:9) 

Pharaoh's values are Egyptian values. Not exactly in these words, he tells Moshe there is no way you are taking your children. Rather, "Let the men go, [they] will serve Hashem, for that is what you really want." (10:10-11) Obviously Pharaoh felt that religious ritual is only the purview of men, and that Israelite children have no part in it. Perhaps he also felt that children are an anchor that will guarantee his slaves will return, but he never actually says that outright. 

It seems a bizarre question. What are our priorities? 

I heard a story recently about Rabbi Yehuda Amital, z"l, the founding Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshivat Har Etzion, who was giving a shiur (lecture) in the yeshiva, in the main Beit Medrash, when the sound of children running around in the upstairs women section (used mainly on Shabbos morning when families of the rebbeim would daven with the yeshiva) interrupted his teaching. 

The people listening to the shiur tried to shush the children, though they couldn't see them, and of course it was to no avail. It is a bit of an ordeal to get upstairs - much easier to shush than to actually take the two minutes to get up, go out, get to the staircase, climb them, catch the kids, and tell them they are disturbing the Rosh Yeshiva. 

Anyway, Rav Amital said, ילדים לא מפריעים לי, רק המבוגרים. “Children don’t disturb me. Only adults [are disturbing me].” 

It seemed the shushing was more disturbing to Rav Amital than the running around. This was a living, breathing theme of Rav Amital's life. He was in several labor camps during the Shoah, and was the lone survivor of his family. He didn't see Jewish children all through the Holocaust and therefore, each time he saw Jewish children after the Holocaust, he felt it was nothing less than a miracle. 

Rosh Yeshiva Rav Mosheh Lichtenstein shared the following teaching in the name of Rav Aharon Soloveichik zt”l, which I heard from Rabbi Yonatan Shai Friedman: 

The Gemara Yevamot 113b-114a relates that the people lost the key to the shul and the way they went about finding it was to have the children play right outside the shul. Part of the problem was that even if the adults found the key, as it was Shabbos, they could do nothing with it as carrying was forbidden in the space where the key had been lost. Here is the passage from the Talmud:

רב יצחק בר ביסנא אירכסו ליה מפתחי דבי מדרשא ברשות הרבים בשבתא, אתא לקמיה דרבי פדת, אמר ליה: זיל דבר טלי וטליא וליטיילו התם, דאי משכחי להו מייתי להו 

“Rav Yitzchak bar Bisna lost the keys to the study hall, and therefore they could not come into the study hall from the public domain on Shabbat. [It was impossible to open the synagogue, as they could not bring the key because it is prohibited to carry in the public domain.] He came before Rabbi Pedat to ask what to do. Rabbi Pedat said to him: Go and lead boys and girls and let them walk there [where the keys were lost], and if they find the keys they will bring them to you of their own accord [, without you needing to tell them to bring you the keys.]” 

The message, or lesson, from this anecdote is that the “key” to having children become shul goers is to first have them play there. 

We could argue that the way Moshe Rabbenu was describing everyone coming was the first example of what would later come to be known as the mitzvah of Hakhel – the once in 7 years gathering of ALL the people of Israel to Yerushalayim. In explaining why the children were brought, as many of them were surely too young to understand or appreciate the gathering and proceedings, Chazal teach us it was “to give reward to those who brought them.” 

There’s a passage in the Yerushalmi in Yavamos in which Rabbi Yehoshua describes the teaching of “the giving reward to those who brought the children” as a precious stone. The teaching is so precious. Why? The Talmud tells us R Yehoshua remembered that his mother would bring his cradle to the synagogue so that his ears would cleave to the words of the Torah. Sure enough, he became a tanna! 

As much as any, many, or all of us have any mitzvah to pray, and as much as any, many, or all of us have an obligation to be with a minyan, we have a fundamental responsibility not only to not neglect our children, but to give them a foundation of seeing shul as their second home and of providing a space in which they are comfortable coming. 

Thank God, and for reasons that are not necessarily understood, children are the least affected by covid. But they are affected the most in being closed out from synagogue participation – even on their own level of playing and seeing shul as a destination on a weekly basis. 

If indeed we aim to emulate Moshe Rabbenu and his declaration that ALL of Bnei Yisrael are coming us, we ought to ask ourselves, why did he mention נערינו (our youths), and then also בבנינו ובבנותינו (with our sons and daughters)? Isn’t that just repetitive? 

Malbim suggest that “with our youths and with our elders” was a general response meaning “We are all going,” but then he turned to Pharaoh and was very specific. To you, Pharaoh, this may seem contradictory, but to us there is no contradiction. We cannot properly celebrate with our God, unless everyone, including our women and children are with us. 

Netziv writes, “Everyone is obligated to serve God like the men (who Pharaoh felt were the only ones who had an obligation). While it may be true that the children are not involved in our service of God, but we will nevertheless be going with them (they are coming too!), for this is what a celebration of our God is: It is SIMCHA (joyous), and we are incapable of rejoicing when we are without our sons and daughters…”

R Shimon Sofer/Shreiber (grandson of Chasam Sofer) wrote, “It is known that the main people involved in the service are the adult males and the older sons – both to bring offerings, and to foster a celebratory feeling with their sons and daughters… [but] when it comes to traveling the little boys and girls go first, followed by the older children, and then the fathers, so the youngsters can be supervised and watched. If the fathers go in front, who is watching those who are following behind them? [Explaining the cantellation marks on בבנינו ובבנותינו…] Moshe was indicating that our youths and our elderly are the most important, and that our sons and daughters walk first." 

Moshe Rabbenu was teaching Pharaoh, and setting for the record for us to remember as well, that we ought not misplace our true priorities. We should be blessed to hear the sounds of children in our shuls. And may we, like Rav Amital, never be bothered by the noises of children. They are, after all, the only hope for our future.

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