A.
In this year’s discussion of parshath Ki Thétzé’, we mentioned the Gra’s scheme for ordering the events of world history according to the text of the written Torah, in which its course was laid out in advance. Under the rules of this scheme, our present century, which began on Rosh ha-Shana of the secular year 1940, is represented by this week’s double parasha. As Rosh ha-Shana fast approaches, we are about to enter into the eighth decade of the eighth century of the sixth millennium, the world-year 5771.
It will be asked how such a scheme is consistent with the notion of human free will. The answer, I believe, lies in a term discussed in last week’s essay, the word hadash. Hadash, we discovered, means something “new” resulting from a process by which the essence of a previous phenomenon becomes available for further productive use. Last week, we applied this concept to Torah-learning.
In the physical realm, this process manifests itself with the selection of one of an array of choices generated by a Schrödingerian probability wave, collapsing the wave and bringing about a new node from which the next series of events, ranked by probability, is generated. In my humble opinion, such a node is called in the Holy Language a hadasha (the feminine ending indicating a single exemplar of the general class, following the example of, e.g., shoshan, “lily motif,” and shoshana, a single lily, or dema‘, “weeping, tears,” and dim‘a, a single tear.
This, I believe, is what we mean when we praise G-d every morning as ‘osé hadashoth, “Maker of hadashoth,” and again, when we call Him המחדש בטובו בכל יום תמיד מעשה בראשית, “Who makes new in His goodness, every day, always, the act of the beginning.” All of the nodes, all of the choices, were laid out beforehand; which ones we choose, and which as a result present themselves to us, is our function.
It is on this basis, I believe, that the Talmud observes איזהו חכם הרואה את הנולד (“Who is wise? One who sees what is/has been born”; תמיד ל"ב.), which, the Hatham Sofér explains, refers to the ability correctly to interpret history and the events unfolding around us.
With the Gra’s scheme as our guide, then, let us explore what the parasha has to tell us about our times.
B.
Our parasha opens with Moshe’s reminder to each and every member of Israel, from the highest to the lowest, of his mission לעברך בברית ד' אלקיך ובאלתו (“to enroll you in the covenant of Ha-Shem your G-d and in His ala”; XXIX, 11). As Hazal demonstrate on the basis of the phrase shëvu‘ath ala which occurs in Numbers V, 21, ala is a technical term denoting a curse which falls upon a party who swears falsely, or violates an oath (already in effect (ירושלמי סוטה פ"ב ה"ה).
The purpose of the covenant? למען הקים אתך לו לעם והוא יהי' לך לאלקים כאשר דבר לך ונשבע לאבתיך וכו' ולא אתכם לבדכם אנכי כרת את הברית הזאת ואת האלה הזאת: כי את אשר ישנו פה עמנו עמד היום לפני ד' אלקינו ואת אשר איננו פה עמנו היום: (“In order to establish you as His people, and He will be your G-d, as He spoke to you and swore to your forefathers.... And not with you alone am I cutting this covenant and this ala. But with those who are here with us, standing today before Ha-Shem our G-d, and with those who are not here with us today”: ibid., 12-14). Thus, as Rashi elucidates, the covenant is binding on Israel for all time, ואף עם דורות העתידות להיות (“even with generations destined to come into being”). Every soul which would ever be implanted in Israel was present at Sinai (ע"ע שבועות ל"ט., נדרים כ"ה., ושבת קמ"ו..).
Then Moshe warns of what happens, not to ordinary sinners driven by their appetites and the surrounding temptations, but to anyone who בשמעו את דברי האלה הזאת והתברך בלבבו לאמר שלום יהי' לי כי בשרירות לבי אלך למען ספות הרוה את הצמאה (“on hearing the words of this ala blesses himself in his heart to say, 'I shall have peace, for I shall go in the vision of my heart, in order to deny satisfaction to the thirsty'”; ibid., 18). G-d will enable and encourage such a rasha‘ to progress along his chosen path (so long as he has not changed his mind) until: לא יאבה ד' סלח לו כו' ורבצה בו כל האלה הכתובה בספר הזה וגו' (“Ha-Shem is not inclined to forgive him... And the entire ala written in this book awaits him”; v. 19).
This is, in fact, a fairly precise description of the spiritual pathologies which led to, and fed, the Holocaust: The rise of the falsifications of religious heterodoxy, the infatuation with totalitarian socialism, and the attempt to substitute European nationalism for Israel’s true national basis in Torah. The rest of the chapter discusses the horrific, monumental, even proverbial destruction which came about in the first few years of our century.
C.
The parasha then veers rather abruptly. After all of these horrors: ושבת עד ד' אלקיך ושמעת בקלו ככל אשר אנכי מצוך היום אתה ובניך בכל לבבך ובכל נפשך (“And you shall return to Ha-Shem your G-d and you will listen to His voice according to everything which I am commanding you today, you and your sons, with all your heart and with all your soul”; XXX, 2).
We are today in the midst of this phase. After the mass destruction of the European Jewish communities, the survivors came primarily to North America and Eretz Yisra’él, where the seeds of the next phase had already been planted; as Hazal tell us, הקב"ה מקדים את הרפואה למכה (“The Holy One, Blessed is He, anticipated to blow with the cure”; מגילה י"ג: ). In the decades immediately before the Holocaust, a handful of brilliant American young men – such legendary figures as R’ Nëthan’él Quinn, R’ Mordëchai Gifter, R’ Avigdor Miller, R’ Gëdalya Shorr, and a few others – went to Europe to absorb the best of Ashkënazi Torah culture. At the same time, a few European pioneers established outposts of the yëshiva world in North America, such as Torah va-Da‘ath, Nér Yisra’él, and Hafétz Hayyim. Also already active in the United States at the end of the previous century were such Hassidic dynasties as Lubavitch (in Brooklyn), Ozherov (in the Bronx). and the Bostoner Rebbe, זצ"ל.
In the immediate post-war years, these were joined by, e.g., the Telzer yëshiva in Cleveland, Béyth Midrash ha-Gavoah in Lakewood, and the transplanted Mir in Brooklyn, as well as the relocation of German Orthodoxy in Washington Heights and the re-ëstablishment of such Hassidic powerhouses as Ger, Szatmár, Vizhnitz, etc. Those seeds blossomed into the luxuriant growth of the Torah-world we see around us now, which makes ever greater efforts to reach out to our estranged brethren.
ושב ד' אלקיך את שבותך ורחמך ושב וקבצך מכל העמים אשר הפיצך ד' אלקיך שמה (“And Ha-Shem your G-d will return your returning and have mercy on you and gather you back from all the nations whither Ha-Shem your G-d has scattered you”; v. 3). This phase, the beginning of yëmoth ha-Mashiah, will follow on the present period. It’s seeds are already planted. Even though there was never a period since the Shivath Tziyyon from the Babylonian Exile when there has not been a Jewish presence in the Holy Land, never since the Hurban Bayith Shéni has that presence been as large as it is today, and this is especially true of the Torah yishuv across the length and breadth of the country.
D.
At this point, since we are not prophets, the trail being blazed grows uncertain. What is very clear from our text is that the present phase must reach a level, a critical mass of Torah-learning, Torah-observing Jews in order for the next phase to go into effect. What appears to be the case is that we are on the cusp of that happening, that some time in the next three decades it seems likely to begin.
As every reader with a living sense of the Hebrew language will attest, with few exceptions the second person pronominal forms used throughout our parasha are singular. This unremitting, relentless singularity, it seems to me, serves to remind us that a këlal consists of many përatim, individuals. It is incumbent on each and every one of us to what we can to bring about the necessary critical mass of לומדי תורה ומקיימי מצותי', those who learn Torah and uphold its mitzvoth, to bring us to the next stage. Now, entering on a new year, is a good time to start.
כי קרוב אליך הדבר מאד בפיך ובלבבך לעשותו (“For the matter is very close to you in your mouth and in your heart [all singular pronouns!] to do”; XXX, 14).
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