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THE SECRET OF REDEMPTION
The Torah readings of this month deal with the redemption of the Jewish people from Egyptian bondage. The Jewish world always saw the events of the redemption from Egypt as being the matrix and prototype of all future redemptions that would occur to Israel. The Torah emphasizes that the process of redemption is twofold and parallel.
Pharaoh, the outside enemy and oppressor has to be somehow convinced that it is no longer in the best interests of Egypt and of him personally to continue to enslave the Jewish people. But just as importantly, the Jewish people have to also be convinced that is in its best interest to be freed from Egyptian bondage and to believe in the justice of their cause.
Moshe pleads correctly to God: “Behold the Jewish people do not believe in my words of redemption. How can I therefore expect Pharaoh to pay attention to them?” Eventually the Jewish people will believe in the justice of their cause and leave Egypt triumphantly and successfully. But it will take time, sacrifice and effort for that to happen. And tragically Jewish tradition informs us that many Jews who did not believe in their cause therefore never left Egypt, perishing and assimilating there in the country of their bondage and pain.
Pharaoh was banking on the fact that the Jewish people would not follow Moshe out of Egypt into the desert of Sinai. He listened to the naysayers of Israel and missed the true secret of Israel’s redemption – belief in one’s self and in the justice of the Jewish cause.
Throughout the ages, facing the overwhelming onslaughts of others faiths with hundreds of millions of adherents, Jews and Judaism stood fast in their beliefs and faith. There always were Jews who left the fold, who converted to other faiths, who had no faith to believe in at all, but the core of Israel remained steadfast in its way of life, value system and worldview.
So much so that when Theodor Herzl, in assessing the chances for the rise of a Jewish state in the Land of Israel, over a century ago stated correctly: “If you will it then it will happen.” Well, there were all types of Jews who were prepared to will it then and therefore it did happen. The Jewish people collectively then held no doubts about the justice of their cause, its necessity and its practicality, unlikely as the success of this venture appeared to be.
Herzl found a ready audience for his message because Jews believed for centuries on end that they would be redeemed from their exile and freed from the oppressive bondage that then prevailed upon them. It is difficult to imagine that Herzl’s vision could have been fulfilled without that secret of redemption – the will of the people being present even before his Zionist movement was fully formed.
After World War II Ben Gurion upon visiting the DP camps in Europe was strengthened by the will of the survivors to continue to live, build and to come to the Land of Israel. As he said: “I came to try and give them strength and encouragement and I found that they were giving me necessary strength and encouragement.” He discovered within these shattered remnants the secret of redemption – the iron will to believe and succeed.
Every generation faces its own tests and its moments of truth and decision. The past decade of the twenty-first century has not been kind to the Jewish people generally, the State of Israel particularly and to the Western world at large. Because of this, the secret of redemption has receded back to its secretive state for many Jews both here in Israel and in the Diaspora. There is a lack of will found amongst us that is engendered by a waning belief in the justice of our cause and of our eventual ability to triumph and succeed over the formidable odds that face us.
Many Jews are willing to abandon the entire enterprise of redemption. Let God take care of it. Or we are not worthy of it. Or we never believed in it originally. Or it was a mistake and cannot succeed in the long run. These are essentially the same objections that were raised to the redemption of the Jews from Egypt.
These ideas led to the destruction not of the Jewish people as a whole but to the demise of a very large number of Jews who never made it to the moment of redemption. We dare not repeat this type of error. Convincing ourselves will go a long way in convincing others as well.
