The first Shabbos after the Belzer Rebbe arrives in Israel during the winter of 1944 was Shabbos Parshas Beshalach, and he spent it in Haifa. During the Shabbos, he held a tisch. The Belzer Rebbe quickly realized that as Holocaust survivors who had endured indescribable suffering and had lost virtually everything they had, were in no mood of singing. The Rebbe decided to address himself and his few broken Chassidim who had survived. He raised the question of why the Torah specifically alludes to techiyas hameisim, the resurrection of the dead, in conjunction with the song that was sung celebrating the splitting of the Red Sea? The Belzer Rebbe presented a fascinating explanation. We must realize that when the Jewish people sang the Song of the Sea, the entire nation was not present. How many people did not survive the enslavement of Egypt? How many survivors had lost the majority of their families in Egypt who had never lived to see the day of the Exodus? According to tradition, only a fifth of the Jewish people made it out. 80% of the Jews died in Egypt. It is safe to say that everyone who did make it out of Egypt had lost relatives and could not therefore fully celebrate the miracles they were witnessing at that time. Now, the sea split. Wonder of wonders. Moses says to them, “It is time to sing." But they responded, "Sing? How can we sing? Eighty percent of our people are missing!" Hence, the Torah says, “Moses and the children of Israel will sing,” in future tense. Moses explained to his people, that the story is far from over. Where it is that for most peoples’ their history is the story of the past, by the Jewish people our sense of history is defined not only by the past, but also by the future. We see ourselves today not only based on what happened to us in the past, but also what will happen to us in the future. The Jews in Egypt have died, but their souls are alive, and they will return with the resurrection of the dead. We can sing now, said Moses, not because there is no pain, but because despite the pain, we do not believe we have seen the end of the story.
This is what sets apart Jewish history. All of history is, by definition, a study of the past. Jewish history alone in unique. It is a story of the past based on the future. It redefines the past based on its conviction of a messianic future. Since Jews are certain that redemption will come, they go back and redefine exile as the catalyst for redemption and healing. For us, the future defines and gives meaning also to the past. With this, the Belzer Rebbe, inspired his students to begin singing yet one again, as they arrived at the soil of the Holy Land, on Shabbos Beshalach 1944, 73 years ago. (The above was stolen from part of an article by Rabbi Y.Y. Jacobson entitled “Jewish history is a study of the future,” on TheYeshiva.net.)
I would suggest that this lessen is an idea to focus on during yud shvat. Both the previous Rebbe and the Rebbe lived through the Bolshevik revolution and the Holocaust. They saw the destruction of most of world Jewry. One would have thought they would just try to survive in a new land and not try anything to bold. However, it was just the opposite. When the previous Rebbe came here, despite being very sick, he announced that he would rebuild in America. He said” America is no different.” How did he have such strength to attempt to build Yiddishkit in America, when so many previously had failed? How did the Rebbe have the ability to start so many campaigns to encourage so many people to do more mitzvos? How did he put a beacon of yiddishe light all over the map after it was nearly extinguished? How did they continue going after narrowly escaping destruction?
The answer is they understood this idea of the Belzer Rebbe. No matter how bleak things looked at that current juncture of time, they knew there would be a fresh future. This idea can be found in the last maamar the previous Rebbe wrote (and which the Rebbe elaborated on every yud shvat), where he cites a midrash in Shir Hashirim that this world is called the bridal chamber place of Hashem. The midrash says that the main place that the Shechinah rested in is this world, but man removed it via his sins. It will come back in its full state with the coming of Moshiach. It is apparent from the midrash that this world is a place that we can light up with Godliness. All the evil that happens (even though we can’t comprehend it), doesn’t make this world an evil place. There may be bad people, but the world itself is good. The world is on track to fully recognize Hashem. Therefore, there is no reason to be stopped by things which seem to be evil, rather we must add to our avoda of bringing light into the world.
The midrash gives us both a goal and a responsibility. There is a goal to have the Shechinah fully rest in this world, but there is also a tremendous responsibility to make it a reality. The avodah will only be completed with the coming of Moshiach, but we must strive to get there one mitzvah at a time. The Rebbeim didn’t brood over the past and what was, rather they rebuilt with an eye for the future.
We can find a parallel to the Rebbe’s avodah in this week’s parsha. The Targum Yonasan says that vachamushim alu means that everyone left Egypt with five children. Why do we need to know this, and it would seem if six children were born together that there would be many more? The Be’er Yosef explains that 80% of Klal Yisroel died in chosech. They left over kids that had to be taken care of. That’s what the Targum means. For every child of their own, they took another four to take care of. This is a lessen to all of us, when there are so many “orphans”, who know nothing about Yiddishkit, we must take care of them (heard from Rav Tuvia Leaf). This is what the Rebbe taught us is the answer to the massive destruction both physically and spiritually that we suffered. It isn’t enough to save our own skins, but we must also take another five people with us. We are also suffering from the 80% of people lost. The question is where are our five children?
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