By NANCY GOULD
This week’s parasha is “Va-ethannan”, from the book of Deuteronomy. It is part of Moses’ farewell address to the Jewish people. He entreats the Jews to obey G-d’s laws and not to worship idols. He repeats the Ten Commandments and says the Shema and the V’ahavta, the primary statements of faith in the Jewish religion: “You shall love the Lord your G-d with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might…” Indeed, the subject of “faith” is what we will be talking about tonight.
We always read this parasha on the Shabbat after Tisha B’av, the holiday that commemorates the destruction of the temple and subsequent exile of the Jews from their homeland. According to Jewish tradition, Tisha B’av was also the day that the Exodus generation was condemned to wander in the desert for forty years as a result of their lack of faith. Ever since then something terrible has always happened to the Jews on Tisha B’av, including the destruction of the First and Second temples, the beginning of the Crusades, expulsions from England, France, and Spain, the first killings at Treblinka, the first mass deportations to the death camps from the Warsaw Ghetto…The list goes on and on…
Last year I gave the d’var on the Shabbat before Tisha B’av, and the theme was simply that of mourning. This year, I’m giving the d’var on the Shabbat after Tisha B’av, and things are beginning to look up. On the one hand the parasha paints a bleak picture: “The Lord will scatter you among the peoples, and only a scant few of you shall be left among the nations to which the Lord will drive you…”; however, it does have a note of hope: “But if you search there for the Lord your G-d, you will find Him, if only you seek Him with all your heart and soul…For the Lord your G-d is a compassionate G-d: He will not fail you nor will He let you perish…”
Now, as we contemplate the suffering of the Jews throughout the ages, it becomes clear that being able to maintain faith in G-d in the face of such extreme tragedy is quite a tall order. How is it possible for anyone to maintain their faith under such conditions? How can Jews be expected to “love the Lord your G-d with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might” after centuries of suffering, culminating with the Holocaust? Yet Jewish history is full of people who did just that. In fact, as I researched this topic, I found that there is no shortage of examples.
I would like to tell you about one of them, Rabbi Yechezkel Abramsky, a well-respected Orthodox rabbi. He was born in Russia about thirty years before the Revolution. After the Soviets took over, they tried to suppress Jewish religion and culture; but Rabbi Abramsky chose to fight back. As a result of his resistance he was exiled to Siberia and sentenced to five years of hard labor. Eventually he was released and made his way to England, where he had a long and distinguished career that included serving on the London Bet Din, the Jewish rabbinical court.
Still, when he was in Siberia, he couldn’t possibly have known what the future would bring or if he would even survive. Reflecting on his years of exile, he said:
“Our lives were so bitter that when I would awake and recite the words ‘modeh ani lefanecha’ (I thank you), I would often wonder why I was thanking G-d. For beatings? For degradation? We were even denied the study of Torah! Was there anything for which I could truly give thanks? But when I reached the next lines of prayer, I was encouraged: ‘melech chai vekayam…rabba emunatecha’ (O living and eternal King…abundant is Your faithfulness), I realized that although my captors could deny me Torah and mitzvot, and could afflict me physically, they could not deny me faith in G-d. I recognized that life was worthwhile for this reason alone, to experience one more day lived with faith and belief in the Creator.”
If a man like Rabbi Abramsky could maintain his faith under such harsh conditions, surely it is not impossible for the rest of us to do the same.
Here in the United States, It seems unlikely that something like the Crusades, the Inquisition, the pogroms, or the Holocaust could ever happen—and even if it did, now we have Israel to stand up and fight for us. However, we would not be where we are today had it not been for those brave souls who came before us, people who refused to give up their faith even when things looked completely hopeless. Perhaps it was this very faith that allowed them to survive—according to Rabbi Abramsky, faith is the only thing that makes life worthwhile. Indeed, it is this faith that has allowed the Jewish people to survive for all these thousands of years, despite numerous attempts to wipe us out. As it says in the parasha: “love the Lord your G-d with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might”. The rest will take care of itself.
Shabbat Shalom