VAERA5784 Trying To Understand The Madness. Rabbi Andrew Shaw Chief Executive, Mizrachi UK
We are living in an upside-down world. As Melanie Phillips correctly states:
It is indeed a surreal and Orwellian spectacle. Israel is the victim of attempted genocide by Hamas and its patron, Iran, which openly declare their intention to erase every Jew from the planet and wipe Israel off the map. Israel has gone to war in Gaza solely to prevent the genocide of its people after the depraved atrocities of October 7 and the declared intention of Hamas to repeat these again and again until Israel ceases to exist. The destruction and suffering in Gaza are indeed distressing and regrettable; but that is the inevitable price to be paid even in a just war, waged as Israel is doing purely out of defensive necessity against a vicious and fanatical aggressor. As any country is entitled to do under international law, which Israel is following by the book. Israel goes to greater lengths than any other country to reduce the number of civilian casualties among its enemy population. It does so even at the cost of its own soldiers and even where, as in Gaza, Hamas have deliberately sited their missiles and infrastructure of genocidal warfare among Gaza’s homes, hospitals and schools. They do this in order to cause civilians to die in large number, and thus provoke the world to blame Israel for taking the only available recourse to defend its people against mass murder. This is the cynical strategy now being deployed at the ICJ’s kangaroo court in The Hague. The argument to which the ICJ — on past form — is likely to be all-too receptive effectively casts the attempted genocide by Hamas as self-defence and Israel’s defence against that murderous onslaught as “genocide”. The case would bring the ICJ into total disrepute if it actually had any reputation to defend. It does not. Despite its pretensions to being a court of law, it is in fact a theatre of partisan political activism. It squats at the vortex of the legal and moral black hole that is international “human rights” culture. How can this be happening? How can we be living in such a morally backwards world? How is evil being praised? Why are people unable to see the truth? Are these people idiots or pure anti semites – or both!?
The Jewish people are not strangers to despots and murderers. We met one at the beginning of our history, and we can learn a thing or two about the hatred today. We read in this week's parsha:
And the Lord will make a separation between the livestock of Israel and the livestock of Egypt, and nothing of the children of Israel will die. The Lord set an appointed time, saying, "Tomorrow, God will do this thing in the land." God did this thing on the morrow, and all the livestock of the Egyptians died, but of the livestock of the children of Israel not one died. And Pharaoh sent, and behold, not even one of the livestock of Israel died, but Pharaoh's heart became hardened, and he did not let the people out. (Shemot 9:4-7) This seems strange. Moshe makes a big claim that the deaths of the livestock will only be Egyptian livestock. Pharoah even sends inspectors to check what happens. And indeed, what Moshe said Hashem will do, happens. Yet no change. Why is there no shifting of the dial? This is clear proof that Hashem is in charge, that you will eventually lose. Change now before it is too late. Rabbi Frand brings Rav Simcha Zissel Bordie who explains: If all the cattle would have died, Pharaoh would have been nervous. Now, however, that the Jewish cattle did not die, Pharaoh said to himself: “So what if the Egyptian cattle died, I can always use the Jews’ cattle.” Refusing to see the bigger picture, his hatred of the Jewish people meant he would push his genocidal agenda to the last. Similarly with the second plague of frogs. We read:
And Pharaoh saw that there was relief (harvacha) and he strengthened his heart.” (Shemot 8:11) The Kli Yakar points out that we do not find the expression “and Pharaoh saw that there was relief (harvacha)” by any of the other plagues. He explains that the interpretation is not that Pharaoh saw that there was relief. By every one of the other plagues, the plague ended and the problem was solved. The one plague that “continued” after the plague ended was Tzefardeah, because even after it “ended,” the country was dealing with mountains and mountains and piles and piles of smelly dead frogs. Here too, Pharaoh said “we have ‘harvacha'” — meaning Egypt is a ‘wide’ country. We have plenty of land people can escape to get away from the smell of the dead frogs. What kind of person acts like that? After theDever, he says “No problem, I can always get Jewish horses”. After the Tzefardeah, he says “No problem, I can always escape to the parts of the country where there are no frogs.” Rav Simcha Zissel notes a pattern that we find with wicked people. They have a myopia of judging matters strictly by the here and now without viewing the larger implications of what has happened. If right now, the determination is made that I can get out of the immediate problem, then I am prepared to ignore the broader implication that ultimately this is leading to a disastrous conclusion. Such a person ignores the future and ignores the context of matters. The only question he focuses in on is: Can I get out of this particular problem at this particular moment. At the moment we have an entire world view dominated by this. The narrative is that Israel is an oppressor and Hamas and Gaza are oppressed. This is the overriding factor that drives the UN, the ICJ, many of our universities and much of the media. Israel must be in the wrong. There is no interest in looking at the wider picture, the actual evidence of what happened, not just on October 7th, but
ever since Hamas took charge in Gaza. The ‘particular problem at this particular moment’ is the annoying fact to the world that Israel is fighting back. That Israel dares to attempt to eradicate a genocidal death cult. This must be stopped through any means necessary. So, we see the disgraceful farce being staged at the ICJ. The crazy idea that the Israeli victims of genocide are being accused of the very crime to which they have been subjected — in order to give the genocidal aggressors of Hamas a free pass and help them in their goal of destroying the Jewish state. Whether Pharaoh of old or the appalling alliance today – both suffer from a hatred of the Jews as the driving force in their arsenal and we must be aware of the true nature of what is happening. Back then Hashem made it very clear what was going to happen:
Therefore, say to the children of Israel, 'I am the Lord, and I will take you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will save you from their labour, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great judgments. And I will take you to Me as a people, and I will be a God to you, and you will know that I am the Lord your God, Who has brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. I will bring you to the land, concerning which I raised My hand to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, and I will give it to you as a heritage; I am the Lord. Hashem kept His word. Evil was defeated. We came to the land of Israel and made it our homeland. 3500 years later, we are back in our land, currently defending it from our enemies. We must never forget that this is a long journey and as we approach the end of that journey, we need to understand that it was never going to be easy. Yet we still have the promise of Hashem forged in slavery all those years ago, realised at Har Sinai and then brought to reality with Jewish life in Eretz Yisrael. I have faith in that promise. So should we all. Shabbat Shalom P.S. We also should all take the opportunity to join the rally in London this Sunday. https://www.710humanchain.com/israel I will thankfully be at a wedding this Sunday in Israel and mazeltov to the Blumgart family!
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