Latest / The Daily Parsha Piece with Rabbi Leiby Burnham / Do We Control The World? - Ha'azinu 5787 #5
Transcript
- Welcome to the Daily parshah Piece, a small piece of the parshah, a big piece of your day. This is Leiby Burnham of Partners Detroit. Let's learn something meaningful in five minutes or less. In this week's Torah portion, we we read the story that Moshe sings, the song that Moshe sings to the Jewish people at the end of his life, and it goes through all the challenging, but also beautiful moments of our relationship with God. Like any relationship between a husband and wife, there are times of closeness and togetherness and beautiful intimacy, and there are times of estrangement and loneliness and difficulty and struggle. And Moshe, of course, in his final song to the Jewish people, does not mince words, does not pull back any punches, and he tells us like it is, that there's going to be great times, and there's going to be difficult times. And then at at one point he says, Hashem is saying to the Jewish people, like, "How could you be so foolish? Look around. Don't you realize there's something supernatural going on over here?" And here, I'm going to read to you from chapter 32, verse 30: איכה ירדוף אחד אלף ושנים יניסו רבבה. How could it be that one of our enemies is chasing a thousand Jews, and two of our enemies is chasing 10,000? אם לא כי צורם מכרם וה' הסגירם, unless that their Rock, their God, sold them, and Hashem delivered them to the nations. You know, we look around at this world, and so many people are saying, "The Jews control the world, the Jews control the world, the Jews this, the Jews that." And indeed, if you look around, Jews are brilliant and outrageously successful in so many areas. In the areas of finance, Jews dominate the financial world. In the areas of culture and Hollywood, and sports—not playing sports, but owning sports—and there there are so many prominent Jews all over the world, but yet, and it's been like that for for generations, but yet we're the most victimized people, we're being destroyed and and plunged into despair and destruction so many times. How could it be? God is saying, "Jews, wake up! How could it be that that unwashed masses of Cossacks were able to rampage through all the Jewish communities of Eastern Europe for two years? Aren't you guys brilliant? Can't you figure out a way to get out of this? How could it be that Israel is exporting the most life-saving technologies all over the world, and yet the whole world is only spending its time focused—the entire UN spends most of its time focused on demonizing Israel, ignoring all the countries where human rights abuses are taking place, and all their focus is on is Israel? Don't you realize something is wrong over here?" Hashem is saying to the Jewish people, "Wake up!" The Netziv, Rabbi Rabbi Naftali Tzvi Yehudah Berlin, born in 1816 in the city of Mir in Poland, and then ended up actually marrying the granddaughter of Rabbi Chaim Volozhin, who founded the first major prototypical yeshivah called the yeshivah of Volozhin. He ended up, the the Netziv, Rabbi Naftali Tzvi Yehudah Berlin, ended up becoming the Rosh Yeshivah. He actually shut down the yeshivah because the Romans said to him—the Russians, I'm sorry, said to him, "Either you start teaching our information or we're we're going to require you to shut it down." He said, "I'll shut it down." He ended up living till the year 1893. He died shortly after his beloved yeshivah was shut down. So he says, look at this verse. It says that how could it be that we're being so pursued and hurt all over the world? How could it be, if if we truly are so smart, and we're truly so successful, how could it be that we're so demonized? How could it be that we're so hated, and we can't seem to find a way to defend ourselves? He says, if you look at the verse, it says, unless Hashem, their God, sold them and Hashem delivered them. What does that mean Hashem sold them and delivered them? So, one idea that he shares is that normally when you sell a slave, you don't deliver it. The person who bought it comes and picks it up from you. But no one could come and get the Jewish We're so successful that there's no way that anybody would be able to take us unless Hashem, like physically, is delivering us, so to speak. That's what the the Netziv says, but I want to point out just two thoughts that I had. Number one: when it says that Hashem delivers us, Hashem is saying, "My dear, beloved children, I I need to sell you into the hands of of nations right now, because you you're trying to plunge yourselves into those nations. You want to assimilate into those nations. You want to disappear. So I'm going to have to have those nations turn their back on you and abhor you and hate you." It's like the cheating wife who the husband arranges that the person who who she's cheating on the husband with ends up becoming abusive and angry and and treating the woman where she comes running back to her husband. But Hashem says, "No one would even come and touch you unless I literally deliver you into their hands." But I guess the idea I want to talk about is that Hashem No, when it says Hashem delivers us, it means Hashem comes with us all the way to the next stop, and He's holding our hand the whole way, and He's saying, "As soon as you turn around and say, 'I want you back,' I'm here. I didn't just sell you and walk away and turn my back. I'm delivering you. I'm there the entire time, even when you're in the hands of the nations. All you got to do is scream out. I'm right there, because I delivered you. I'm right here." I'm waiting for you. So we should all cry out to Hashem, say, "Hashem, enough! We want back. We want home. We want, we're enough going for other philosophies and doctrines. They all end up hating us and and and fighting us and destroying us, as crazy as it sounds. No matter how much we contribute to them, no matter how much we do for their societies, they turn their back on us. We want You." And then Hashem, who brought us to the doorstep over here, is standing right outside, will come and redeem us and bring back the Mashiach. May it happen soon and in our days!