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KI TAVO
This week's parsha deals with the frighteningly accurate prediction of the
awful fate of the Jewish people over its long exile. The tochacha
chillingly forecasts the horrors of the Holocaust and of all of the previous
destructions, persecutions, pogroms and disasters that have befallen the
Jews over the long centuries of dispersion. The Torah itself in a
forthcoming parsha asks the obvious question: "Why all of this anger? What
justifies such a fate for Israel?" In our generation there have been many
Jews whose faith and Jewishness itself have been compromised or negated by
the events of the Holocaust. Therefore, what message is to be gained from
the detailing of all of these curses and disasters? Even more directly, what
has been 'gained,' so to speak, by the actual occurrence of these events?
The Torah itself is not exactly clear on this subject. It states that the
abandonment of Torah by the Jewish people is the root cause for all of its
troubles. Yet, many of the tragedies have befallen the Jewish people when
they were, at least on the surface, a Torah abiding society. The majority of
Eastern European Jews destroyed in the Holocaust were observant, traditional
Jews. God therefore retains His inscrutable face, so to speak, and no
satisfactory answer to the troubles of Israel is easily forthcoming. Part of
the curse of the tochacha therefore is its apparent mystery and even
unreasonableness. It is this very inexplicability that fuels the doubts and
and hesitations about faith and observance that pervade the Jewish world of
today. The tochacha assumes the role of being the greatest of all of
God's mysteries, the ultimate challenge to faith, belief and tradition.
Yet, it is the very fact that the tochacha declaimed by Moshe thousands of
years before the event, is so chillingly accurate down to the smallest
detail that itself testifies to its Godly origin. Rabbi Moshe ben Nachman
(Ramban) alluded to this already in the thirteenth century. How can we in
the twenty-first century not be stirred by this eerie accuracy of prediction
and detail? We are powerless to know the 'why' to the tochacha but we can
certainly testify as to its author and source. "Is it not from the hand of
God that good and troubles both emanate?" said the prophet Yirmiyahu. This
is perhaps the ultimate comfort that we may derive from reading this sad
parsha. We are like infants who do not comprehend the measures taken by our
father to insure our survival. But we may be certain that we have a father
who takes a direct hand in raising us. Rabbi Akiva upon witnessing the
ruins of the Temple taught that just as it was apparent that the painful
predictions regarding Israel had come to pass in dreadful and perfect
accuracy, so too was he assured that the blessings foretold for Israel and
its redemption also would be fulfilled down to the last point of detail.
That view is our point of hope as well. The curses and pains of the past
difficult year may disappear and the new year bring to us and all mankind
the fulfillment of the great vision of redemption and peace as promised to
us by the great prophets of Israel.
Shabat shalom.
Rabbi Berel Wein
