Bereshit 5784/2023 – Optimistic About the Future

On Simchat Torah we read:

Moshe stood on the mountain, and was shown visions of the Maccabean revolt; he was shown the Independence War of 1948, and the Six Day War of 1967, and the Yom Kippur War of 1973. And he was shown the massacre of 1,300 innocent souls in Beeri, in Sderot. Of people shot and burned in their homes, in their cars, of young people dancing at a music festival. Of children; Hashem Yeracheim, of babies. I don’t need to elaborate, because, in any case, there are no adequate words to do so. Moshe Rabbeinu stood on Mount Nebo and witnessed all of that. We don’t know what else God showed him beyond that, since it is still unfolding. We only know that his vision ended in witnessing the Messianic redemption, and the resurrection of the dead.

It’s hard not to catastrophize at a time like this, to think that it’s the end of the world. In some ways, it is the end of the world, the one we knew before last week. The end of 1300 worlds, innocent souls. But God reminded Moshe, even through all the horrific visions of oppression that He showed him, that those events would not be the last word, they are not the Yom Acharon, the Last Day.

This made me think of the verse in Eichet Chayil – Oz V’Hadar Levusha, Va’Tischak L’Yom Acharon. She dons strength and grandeur, and laughs to the final day. “She laughs to the final day” has the sense of “She remains thoroughly optimistic about the future”. For the first time I realized that the first half of the verse explains the second – it’s not actually possible to remain optimistic unless you commit to bracing yourself with strength and grandeur, in the face of all the gloom and malevolence in this world. Remaining optimistic to the last day is an act of courage and faith in God. That’s what makes the Woman of Valor not only praiseworthy, but heroic, which is implicit in the word Chayil – the same word for soldier, or warrior: Chayal.

Interestingly, this is a modern-day Hebrew word, from Eliezer Ben Yehuda; it’s not in the Bible. Tanach does not formally have a word for soldiers (occasionally, the descriptive term “Ish Tzava”, “Army Man” is used). Ben Yehuda’s idea can be seen as an ennobling sort of Midrash, in that a Chayal is someone who girds themselves in Chayil, in valor and bravery. His word coinage seems prophetic this week about the soldiers of the IDF.

People have been asking me all week where to look for hope (aside, of course, from God). My only answer, the only thing giving me strength this week, has been to look to Israelis themselves. I’ve lost count of how many videos I’ve received of Israelis dancing, singing Am Yisrael Chai, singing HaTikvah, lining up to give blood, showing up in the thousands for Reserve duty, packing food and supplies for soldiers. Most powerful have been the videos I’ve seen of IDF soldiers taking short selfie videos, telling their fellow Israelis and Jews around the world to stay strong, optimistic, and stand tall. These are not senior commanders. These soldiers are usually around 20 years old. The maturity and composure that they exude is the only thing that has kept me grounded this week. In speaking with my aunts and uncles and cousins in Israel, it has consistently been THEM talking ME off the ledge, comforting me, and assuring me that everything will be OK in the end.

Today we read a verse that’s difficult to understand in a week like this: “And God saw all that He had made, and behold it was very good, and it was evening and it was morning, the sixth day” (Gen. 1:31). How can you look at a world in which such malicious depravity is unleashed on the innocent, as we saw last week, and call it “very” good, let alone good at all? Similar to the Eishet Chayil who remains optimistic to the end – it’s not necessarily a statement of fact. It’s a statement of courage and faith. The word Good is a moral word. It doesn’t mean that life is always pleasant and great. It means philosophically Good; worth fighting for, and worth overcoming. And if you can stare into the abyss of horror that we witnessed this past week and still emerge committed to the Divine principle of V’Hinei Tov M’eod, as the young IDF soldiers in those videos are doing, then something miraculous happens: it becomes true.

The Sixth Day is the final day of creation, which is why it’s only day that gets the definite article. It’s the Yom Acharon.  It takes courage to retain faith in the Good until the Yom Acharon.

This was the courage displayed by Rachel Edri, an elderly woman from Ofakim, who was held hostage for 15 hours by a group of 5 militants. “Sweetie, you look pale, you need to eat” she recounts telling the terrorist in charge and offering them a full meal. When the Israeli commandos stormed the house the 5 militants were stuffing themselves with her cookies and were immediately killed. “It wasn’t a tactic. I just figured hungry men are more dangerous so I wanted to feed them” she says. Rachel became a national hero and also the subject of countless memes on Israeli Twitter as she is compared to Yael who killed Sisera the Canaanite general.

It was the strength displayed by my own grandmother, Bobby Nelly, from her home in Israel, when I spoke with her this week. My grandmother’s father was killed in the Holocaust. She and her mother fled their home in Berlin in 1941, and they settled in New York. Three years ago, my grandmother moved to Israel, at the age of 90. “Hamas is the same as the Nazis”, she told me calmly. But I’m not afraid, because things are different now. We have a state. And we have the IDF. It will be OK.

It was the strength displayed by my grandfather and namesake Moshe Yisrael Socachevsky, who survived Auschwitz, and became the founder and president of the Nazi Victims Organization of America, travelling the world successfully lobbying for reparations and recognition of the Holocaust, both abroad and throughout America. And it was the courage displayed by my great-grandfather Shmuel Yehuda Grussgott, who wrote from his prison cell in Slovakia, days before being executed by Nazi collaborators: “And now: (and the phrase “and now” always connotes repentance) if the Good Lord wishes that I be amongst the millions of Jews who have been killed and slaughtered, and who have laid down their souls in the sanctification of God’s name, then I hereby accept it with love, and I hereby make a declaration that I am still a Jew who believes in the salvation of the Lord, and any of my thoughts or negative feelings against the giving of this declaration are null and void, and not in force or in effect”.

The grandsons and great-grandsons of Moshe Socachevsky and Shmuel Grussgott have now been called up to serve in the IDF. They will serve alongside myriads of other descendants of Holocaust survivors, and of Mizrachi Jewish survivors of pogroms and expulsions, with similar stories. Our own congregant Matt Von Ende, a veteran of the elite IDF paratroopers is flying off to Israel this coming week to join his unit. We have many other KI members and Kansas Citians with relatives and friends in the IDF, and I don’t want to mention names, since I don’t want to exclude anybody. American Jews can’t actually mention the name of only or two or ten Israelis that they know in any case; because we all know dozens, and hundreds, because they’re our family, both literal and figurative. Because we are them and they are us.

My cousins in Israel are my heroes now. Matt is my hero now. All Israelis are our heroes now. They all still believe in the salvation of the Lord. Optimistic to the end, L’Yom Acharon.

This isn’t the Yom Acharon. It feels like it is, but it’s not. The only satisfactory answer that I’ve heard to the question of where was God in the Holocaust came from Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, of Blessed Memory: God was present in the words Thou Shalt Not Murder, which remained true, even as the Nazis were violating them. My corollary for us this week is that God remains present in the words V’Hinei Tov M’Od, which Hamas did not succeed in abrogating from this world or from our lives. And they won’t succeed in breaking the spirit of the nation that taught that principle to the world, in the Hebrew language, from its ancient homeland. Ki MiTzion Teitzei Torah, U’Dvar Hashem Mi’Yerushalayim. From Zion this past week spread out a global Kiddush Hashem, a sanctification of the Divine Name, of a nation that somehow, miraculously, remains optimistic and hopeful in the face of evil. There is no greater strength than that.

May we merit to soon see the fulfilment of Moshe’s final blessing to the people, which we read on Simchat Torah: “May Your borders be sealed like iron and copper, and the days of your old age will be like the days of your youth…   28 And Israel shall dwell in security, solitary, as Jacob [blessed them], in a land of grain and wine; even its heavens will drip dew. 29 Fortunate are you, O Israel! Who is like you, O people whose salvation is through the Lord, the Shield Who helps you, your majestic Sword! Your enemies attempt to persecute you, but you will tread on their backs”.

Hashem will bring it about from above, and the IDF, the Israeli people, and world Jewry and our allies will do the hard work to bring it about from below, whatever it takes. Whatever rallies, donations, fundraising, political activism or otherwise that we might need to engage in is now our only interest outside of work. And we will do so with optimism and determination, while feeling the presence of the souls of the martyrs of last week at our backs, always. In the meantime, let’s help each other to remain hopeful to the Final Day, may it come soon. Amen.