Seeing Your Problem For What It Is

Parshat Va'era                

by Rabbi Avi Billet

“For these things I weep; my eye, yea my eye, sheds tears, for the comforter to restore my soul is removed from me; my children are desolate, for the enemy has prevailed.” (Eichah 1:17(

About eight weeks ago we gathered in collective mourning for four Jews who were murdered while praying in a Synagogue, and a Druze police officer who was murdered coming to help them. This week we mourn for four Jews who were in a kosher store in Paris the day before Shabbos, either working or shopping there in preparation for the Holy Day. And we are appreciative to the police who ended the situation with complete neutralization of the terrorist.

            

Maybe France and the world received a wake-up call two days earlier when a satire magazine was attacked by monsters coming from a similar background – anti West, and anti-Semites. I wonder what the media and reaction landscape would be had the order of these attacks been reversed. But perhaps cynicism regarding the world’s attitude to Jewish victim-hood is out of place at this time. So we’ll be straightforward.

            

That almost all the perpetrators must now face their Maker is fitting. That all the loved ones of their victims are left bereaved is worse than tragic.

            

What does it take to defeat such an enemy? Sadly all-out war is not possible. Depending on whose estimates you follow, there are between 50 million to over 500 million people in the world who support the attacks on France, and would participate in such attacks if they only could. But since they’re not coming out armed and ready to fight, they can’t be met on a traditional battlefield.

            

In ancient Egypt, there was a similar problem. Who was the enemy? Who deserved punishment?

            

Was all of Egypt at fault? Or was it Pharaoh and his taskmasters who bore responsibility? Certainly the Egyptians were ordained by God to be the hosts of slavery. But even God recognized that Egypt was taking their job far too seriously, and He brought the Israelites out of Egypt 190 years early. There is a way to make Jews suffer, and then there was the ancient Egypt way, which could not be made up by any civil human being, even if s/he tried.

            

What was the point of the plagues? In truth there were several objectives. First - destroy Egyptian society. If society can’t function, the people turn to their leader and demand a change! Second - to make God’s name known to the Egyptians. This element is reviewed throughout the plagues. Third - to get across to Pharaoh that this is real, and that he ought to take Moshe and Aharon more seriously.

            

Of course, the midrashic approach has several accounts of how the plagues were meant to serve as “Middah k’neged middah” (measure for measure) in response to how the Egyptians had treated the slaves.

            

Certainly not every Egyptian was cruel and deserving of direct punishment. But Egyptians did not do enough to express to their leadership that certain treatment of slaves is beyond the pale of acceptable behavior. They denied God’s role in the destiny of the Jewish people. And Pharaoh’continued denial of reality made it much harder for him to face the hard truth that his country was falling to pieces right before his eyes.  And, as a collective result, they all suffered through the plagues and were punished with the death of the Firstborn, when their leader refused, after repeated warnings, to let the Israelites leave.

            

Not every German was a Nazi, yet how many people do not point at all Germans of the ‘40s as aiders and abetters?

            

Certainly not all French are ant-Semitic. But a culture which ignores what happens to its Jews at the hands of terrorists (think Toulouse, and other horrible attacks in the last few years) until the same terrorists attack a satirical magazine, is asking to be swept up in the same generalization as ancient Egyptians and World War II-era Germans. It’s not nice to say, but if you don’t see how the continued anti-Semitism aimed toward French Jews (mostly by recent Muslim immigrants) is a problem, and if you can’t face the hard truth that your culture is being usurped from underneath your nose, your country is doomed to fall apart.

            

It was very sympathetic of the French Prime Minister to declare “If 100,000 Jews leave, France will no longer be France. The French Republic will be judged a failure.” But the reality is that they’ve done next to nothing to create a secure environment for Jews against this latest repeated threat, and have therefore seen this year the largest wave of Jewish emigration out of France in over 65 years. There was certainly no solidarity march after the Toulouse murders of 3 children and a rabbi, nor after the anti-Semitic targeting of Ilan Halimi, HY"D. Nor did any notable security increase.

            

In ancient Egypt, there was never an all-out battle against a common enemy. It simply was not possible. But in those days, God played a very significant role in destroying the Egyptian society through plagues.

            

We pray that God will help those who have the power to protect the Jews and citizens of France, and to rid the evil from their midst