Shabbat HaGadol

From Tekoa, my yishuv in the Judean Desert, I have the most amazing views.  To the East I can see the Dead Sea and Jordan.  To the West I can see all the way past Bethlehem to Jerusalem.  We, the Jews of Judea and Sameria (also known as the West Bank) are not necessarily the hill top religious radicals that are depicted on the news.  We, the Jews of Tekoa, are the peace yearning, Zionistic, musicians, artists, writers, inventors, scholars, and laborers of the “disputed territories”.  We are religious, secular, and traditional.  We are Jews from all around the world who are passionately Zionistic and are living with strength and emmunah - faith.  My fellow “settlers” have lived through the Gulf War, 2 Intifadas, motolov cocktails, and stone throwings.  They are the epitiomy of strength, patience, and love for humankind.

Two weeks ago during the passing of my Israeli community’s spiritual leader, Rabbi Menahem Froman, I finally truly realized what was important... peace.  Rabbi Froman was known as an eccentric “Settler” Rabbi from the West Bank Village of Tekoa... the place I call home.  

At Rabbi Foman’s memorial service he was eulogized as the ‘Rabbi of Peace’.  He was seen as sometimes controversial, but he was known as a man of principle, a man of vision, a man of holiness.  He was a man of genuine spirit and passion who stood up for what he believed in.  His message was about peace through understanding and compassion.  Not just from Jew to Muslim, but also Jew to Jew, and human to human.  I think that we, as human beings, can get so entangled in the monotony of everyday life that we forget the beauty that is all around us.  That is what he taught us.  How to find the inherent goodness in our fellow human being.

On that particular windy Tuesday afternoon, thousands of people gathered in my little village in the Judean Hills to pay tribute to a man of unwavering values.  As he was on the way to his final resting place we, roughly 5,000 people, stood grave side with his wife, children, and grandchildren.  Before he passed away, Rav Menahem requested that everyone sing the song; “Eshet Chayil” - A Woman of Valor to his wife, Hadassah.  It was a powerful expression of love, romance, loss, and support to be part of thousands of people singing together for them both.

The song Eshet Chayil - A Woman of Valor is found in the book of Proverbs (31:10-31).  The lyrics, accredited to King Solomon, paint a beautiful picture of this man’s love for his wife.

אשת חיל מי ימצא. ורחק מפנינים מכרה...

A Woman of Valor, who can find?  She is more precious than corals...

בטח בה לב בעלה.  ישלל לא יחסר...

Her husband places his trust in her and profits only thereby..

כפה פרשה לעני. וידיה שלחה לאביון...

She opens her hands to the poor and reaches out her hands to the needy...

עז והדר לבושה. ותשחק ליום אחרון...

She is robed in strength and dignity, and she smiles at the future...

פיה פתחה בחכמה ותורה חסד על לשונה...

She opens her mouth with wisdom, and a lesson of kindness is on her tongue...

רבות בנות עשו חיל ואת עלית על כלנה...

Her children rise up and make her happy; her husband praises her: “Many women have excelled, but you excel them all!”...

שקר החן והבל היפי. אשה יראת יי היא תתהלל: תנו לא מפרי ידיה. ויהללוה בשערים מעשיה...

Grace is elusive and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears Gd -- she shall be praised...

Author, Mrs. Lori Palatnik says that... “The Jewish woman. If not for her, the Jewish people would still be enslaved in Egypt.”

She continues by saying that, “when Pharaoh decreed that all first-born Jewish males should die, the men decided to refrain from relations with their wives so as not to bring any more children into this world. The women realized that Gd would indeed save them and bring them out of Egypt, so they went to their husbands in order to bring more Jewish children into the world. Their faith and foresight were said to have merited the redemption from Egypt of the entire Jewish people.”

She so eloquently points out that, “the Jewish woman [was] the one who was offered the Torah first from Moses. After Moses received the Torah from Gd at Mount Sinai, he offered it first to the Jewish women, for he knew that if they accepted it, it would become part of the Jewish people for all time.  It was the Jewish woman who, in the face of adversity, held steadfast to her trust in the Almighty, even when those around her did not.  The Jewish woman was who time and time again saved the Jewish people through her insightfulness, virtue, and belief in Gd.”

According to the Talmud, it is the Jewish woman, in whose merit the Messiah will come and the final redemption of the Jewish people.  

Today the Jewish woman, is the one entrusted with the responsibility of maintaining the three mitzvot central to the Jewish home: kashrut, Shabbat, and mikvah.

If not for her, where would we be? There would be no home, no family... no Jewish people. On Friday night, she sits as the queen of her table, while all those around her sing her praises. And rightly so.

She is the Eishet Chayil, the Woman of Valor, who sets the tone of love, spirituality, and personal growth for all those around her. To know her is to appreciate her strength and talents.

Rabbi Froman asking to have this song sung to his wife was a showing of true love and gratitude to his wife, Hadassah.

As we are now gathered here... together on this Shabbat, the Shabbat HaGadol, and look towards the coming days and the beginning of Passover we should be sure to remember from where we have come and to where we are destined to go.  We must remember that time is circular and not linear.  This is therefore the time of the Shabbat before the great Exodus from Egypt.  The Shabbat where we prepared lamb for dinner and painted our doorposts signaling the Angel of Death to pass over.  Our last moment of slavery and our transcendance to freedom.   This is the beginning of our true identity, the people of the book... our holy Torah.  50 days after the first seder we will celebrate Shavuot and the receiving of the Torah on Mt Sinai.  It is a time of great introspection and evaluation.  Are we still a nation of free people called the Jews?  Have we still been charged with the enormous task of being a light unto the nations?

At Rabbi Menahem’s funeral I saw my own understanding of these questions.  We are free.  We are free to choose who we want to be and how we will be that person.  We are free to truly understand one another and have compassion for one another.  We are free to open our minds and hearts to unwavering love.  Emancipated from physical, mental, and emotional slavery.  

As Rav Bob Marley says, “Emancipate yourself from mental slavery.  None but ourselves can free our minds.”  

I have been blessed to have moved to one of the most beautiful places in the world.  I am truly thankful each day that a pair of Divine Tweezers picked me up and plopped me down in the “West Bank”.  I was mentally enslaved into the entrapment of modernity.  Only looking outwards and never looking inwards.  That is my Exodus.  My own personal Exodus of self imposed shackles.  

I have been living in Israel for nearly three years now and this past November I got my first real taste of what it actually means to be Israeli.  Hundreds of rockets were fired into Israel from the Hamas run Gaza strip, reaching as far as Tel Aviv and even to my neighborhood, the Gush Etzion bloc of Judea.  One Friday night as I was home and lighting my Shabbat candles I heard a siren begin to wail through my village.  No one thought that we were in the range of rockets from Gaza, but still I ran to my secure room.  As I leaned out my window to grab and close my steel reinforced shutters, I saw two rocket trails over a neighboring hill followed by a BOOM BOOM!  I slammed my windows shut and sat in stunned silence.  Another siren began to wail, this time followed by an announcement, “Tzevah Adom, Tevah Adom, Code Red, Code Red.”  My permanent reality changed at this point in my life.  I am an Israeli now.  In the days following, I watched as my friend’s and neighbor’s husbands packed their bags and immediately left for reservists duty.  These brave souls proudly answering their call to duty are the modern day heros of the Jewish people.  Over and over again we are threatened with annihilation and over and over again we cry, “NEVER AGAIN!”  

So here we are roughly 3,300 years after leaving Egypt.  A free people.  We can live anywhere, we pray anyway, we are free to be us... Jews.  The champions of tikun olam.  Entrusted with the torch of not only just going out into the world to well, but going out into the world to do good.  

15 years ago I stood here, in this very place, as a scared and confused teenager declaring my disdain for what I believed was a cruel Gd... if Gd even existed at all.  I looked out into the world and I only saw darkness.  I saw no light, no holiness, no Gd.  I stand before you today as an equally confused adult, but a more humble one and a person who yearns only to find the good, beauty and holiness in this world.  I have learned that when I screamed and yelled for Gd to answer me and was so positive that Gd was not there that it was not Gd who had gone anywhere... it was me.  As soon as I came back to see if Gd was still around... there He was waiting to embrace me like a parent embracing their child, welcoming them home.

I have learned from living on a yishuv (aka settlement) the true meaning of peace and harmony.  I have allowed myself to focus on the light in the world instead of the darkness because out of the darkness comes light.  In the darkest places we can light a candle that’s brightness will spread and illuminate.  It is the light of hope and emmunah.