A Tzaddik in Peltz – Emor
וְלֹא תְחַלְּלוּ אֶת שֵׁם קָדְשִׁי וְנִקְדַּשְׁתִּי בְּתוֹךְ בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל אֲנִי ה' מְקַדִּשְׁכֶם (ויקרא כב, לב).
Parshat Emor is the second-most “mitzva-rich” parsha in the Torah (after Ki Teitzei) with 63 mitzvot, 24 of which are מצוות עשה and 39 are מצוות לא תעשה. One of these positive/negative mitzvot pairs is chilul Hashem and kiddush Hashem - it is forbidden to cause a chilul Hashem (לא תעשה) and we are commanded to be mekadesh Hashem (עשה).
Although I have previously given a shiur on the subject of Rebi Akiva’s talmidim (Bechukotai 2022), I have decided to revisit this subject, in light of recent events that have opened my eyes to a completely different perush on the sugya. Very few are even aware of this perush because it is not emphasized in today’s texts on the subject.
There are very few people who epitomize the mitzva of kiddush Hashem more than Rebi Akiva. As we all know, (from the פיוט on the עשרה הרוגי מלכות which we read on Tisha Be’Av and Yom Kippur), Rebi Akiva suffered a horrendous death at the hands of the Romans, who peeled off his skin with steel rakes. Just before he died he cried out Shma Yisrael.
Just to give us an idea of the enormity of the figure who is Rebi Akiva, let us read a Gemara (Menachot 28b), paraphrased.
When Moshe went up to Har Sinai to receive the Torah, he found HKB”H adorning the letters of the Torah with כתרים. If you look in a sefer Torah (or a mezuzah, etc.) you will see that the כתב סופרים, the “font” of the letters includes various “crowns”, little antennae-like extrusions to the tops of the letters. I say “antennae-like” because anyone not familiar with the Torah who sees them, could mistake them with the symbol for WiFi (lehavdil elef alfei havdalot). Moshe asked HKB”H, “What are these crowns for?” Moshe himself did not understand their meaning. HKB”H replied “In a few generations time there will be someone named Akiva ben Yosef who will be דורש reams and reams of halachot on every little extrusion קוץ in the letters”. Moshe asked “Please show him to me”. HKB”H “teleported” Moshe Rabbeinu 1414 years into the future and placed him in Rebi Akiva’s Beit Midrash. HKB”H said “Go back (8 rows)” (the rows of students were ordered in priority of their level, with the brightest students in the first row). Rebi Akiva was giving a shiur, explaining the meaning of the crowns of the letters and Moshe Rabbeinu couldn’t understand a word of what he was saying (not because of the language, but because the concepts were beyond him). Moshe was extremely perturbed by this because he thought that the Torah he was receiving on Har Sinai was not complete and would only be completed when Rebi Akiva was born. Then one of the students asked Rebi Akiva “Rebi, what is the source of this?” to which Rebi Akiva replied “It is הלכה למשה מסיני”. Moshe then calmed down because he understood that the Torah he was about to receive on Har Sinai was complete and included all the drushim of Rebi Akiva, but that these drushim would not emerge until Rebi Akiva was born. Moshe said “HKB”H – you have such a great man like this and you chose me (Moshe) to receive the Torah?” HKB”H replied “Be silent - this is what I decided”. Moshe continued “HKB”H, you have showed me his Torah, now show me his reward”. HKB”H replied “Go back”. Moshe stepped back and saw that after Rebi Akiva died, the Romans chopped his body up into pieces and they were selling the flesh in butcher shops. Moshe was horrified “HKB”H, this is Torah and this is the reward?” HKB”H replied “Be silent - this is what I decided”.
From this we see the enormous גדלות of Rebi Akiva, that he understood nuances in the Torah that even Moshe Rabbeinu did not.
In addition, Chazal in the Gemara expound the incredible middot of Rebi Akiva, that despite the fact that he was a penniless shepherd, the son of a גר, who didn’t even know how to read Hebrew, Rachel, the daughter of the richest man in Eretz Yisrael (Kalba Savua) agreed to marry him because she discerned his wonderful middot.
In light of the above, the whole story of Rebi Akiva’s talmidim dying מפני שלא נהגו כבוד זה לזה seems incredulous. How could it possibly be that talmidim of a gadol of that stature (Tanna’im all), contemporaries of Rebi Shimon Bar Yochai (whose הילולא we celebrate next week), did not respect each other, and for this they died? The sin of not respecting a fellow Jew is not punishable by the death penalty! What about Rebi Akiva himself? Did he not see any problem developing with his students and if he did, why did he not do something about it?
In fact the entire episode of Rebi Akiva’s students is problematic and seems to defy understanding, as we will soon see.
The major source of the episode in question, quoted ad nauseam, is from a Gemara (Yevamot 62b). The subject under discussion there is whether the things a person does in their old age are better or worse than the things they do when they are younger. This leads to the story of Rebi Akiva, who in his old age had to teach a whole bunch of new students, because his former students all died –
שנים עשר אלף זוגים תלמידים היו לו לרבי עקיבא מגבת עד אנטיפרס וכולן מתו בפרק אחד מפני שלא נהגו כבוד זה לזה והיה העולם שמם עד שבא ר"ע אצל רבותינו שבדרום ושנאה להם ר"מ ור' יהודה ור' יוסי ורבי שמעון ורבי אלעזר בן שמוע והם הם העמידו תורה אותה שעה תנא כולם מתו מפסח ועד עצרת אמר רב חמא בר אבא ואיתימא ר' חייא בר אבין כולם מתו מיתה רעה מאי היא א"ר נחמן אסכרה.
The first question is “How many students are we talking about?” The Gemara here says שנים עשר אלף זוגים תלמידים. What does that mean? The word זוגים is a very strange word. In fact in the entire Talmud Bavli, this word only appears once, here! (in the Yerushalmi it also appears once, but in a different context). Constant use throughout the Shas is made of a similar word, זוגות. What does זוגים mean?
The common interpretation is that it means “pairs”. It is common knowledge that Rebi Akiva had 24,000 students. In the first 12 years he accumulated 12,000 and then he returned home to his wife Rachel. As he was approaching his home and before Rachel saw him, he overheard her speaking with a neighbor, saying that if it was up to her, she would prefer if Rebi Akiva devote another 12 years to studying/teaching. Upon hearing this Rebi Akiva did a U-turn and went back to study for an additional 12 years, accumulating another 12,000 students, making 24,000 in total. שנים עשר אלף זוגים תלמידים is therefore interpreted by most Mefarshim as 12,000 pairs of students (i.e 24,000).
The next question is where are the places called גבת and אנטיפרס? Many interpretations lean toward the expression “From south to north”, although this is slightly misleading, because one might think this means from Be'er Sheva to the Golan. Most researchers and historians believe גבת to be in the south, near Be’er Sheva, but they are in consensus that אנטיפרס is actually Antipatris, which is located just outside Rosh Ha’Ayin in the center of the country. As we will see soon, there are other opinions that אנטיפרס refers to Acco, but even that is not on the extreme northern end of Eretz Yisrael. It is referring to a central belt in the middle of Eretz Yisrael at the time. Chazal in the Gemara often use this phrase מגבת עד אנטיפרס and say that in this region there were 60,000 distinct villages/towns. However, this was before חורבן בית שני and the galut. During Rebi Akiva’s period as a Rebi, from 20 years after the churban, this must have dwindled substantially.
Thirdly, what does it mean וכולן מתו בפרק אחד? What a strange word to use – פרק. Why does the Gemara not use בחודש אחד? The period during which the talmidim died (of a plague called אסכרה) was 33 days (about 1 month). Use of the specific word פרק must come to teach us something. What?
Finally and this is the million dollar question, what does מפני שלא נהגו כבוד זה לזה mean?
There are many, many perushim on this and to even list them all, without delving deeply into them, would take up the rest of the shiur. What is incredible is that there are two other, lesser known, sources of this story, that are never (or very seldom) quoted and they give a completely different פשט on this story.
The 2nd source of the story is in the Midrash (בראשית רבה סא, ג) –
שְׁנֵים עָשָׂר אֶלֶף תַּלְמִידִים הָיוּ לְרַבִּי עֲקִיבָא מֵעַכּוֹ וְעַד אַנְטִיפְרָס וְכֻלָּם בְּפֶרֶק אֶחָד מֵתוּ, לָמָּה, שֶׁהָיְתָה עֵינֵיהֶם צָרָה אֵלּוּ בְּאֵלּוּ, וּבַסּוֹף הֶעֱמִיד שִׁבְעָה, רַבִּי מֵאִיר וְרַבִּי יְהוּדָה, רַבִּי יוֹסֵי וְרַבִּי שִׁמְעוֹן וְרַבִּי אֶלְעָזָר בֶּן שַׁמּוּעַ וְרַבִּי יוֹחָנָן הַסַּנְדְּלָר וְרַבִּי אֱלִיעֶזֶר בֶּן יַעֲקֹב. וְאִית דְּאָמְרֵי רַבִּי יְהוּדָה וְרַבִּי נְחֶמְיָה וְרַבִּי מֵאִיר וְרַבִּי יוֹסֵי וְרַבִּי שִׁמְעוֹן בֶּן יוֹחָאי וְרַבִּי חֲנִינָא בֶּן חֲכִינָאי וְרַבִּי יוֹחָנָן הַסַּנְדְּלָר. אָמַר לָהֶם בָּנַי, הָרִאשׁוֹנִים לֹא מֵתוּ אֶלָּא שֶׁהָיְתָה עֵינֵיהֶם צָרָה אֵלּוּ לְאֵלּוּ תְּנוּ דַּעְתְּכֶם שֶׁלֹא תַעֲשׂוּ כְמַעֲשֵׂיהֶם, עָמְדוּ וּמִלְּאוּ כָּל אֶרֶץ יִשְׂרָאֵל תּוֹרָה.
According to this Midrash we are only talking about the death of 12,000 students (perhaps indicating that this was after Rebi Akiva's first twelve year period of study). There is no mention of the word זוגים here at all. Next, the word גבת is not used, instead it says עכו. The reason given for their deaths here is different to that given in the Gemara - שֶׁהָיְתָה עֵינֵיהֶם צָרָה אֵלּוּ בְּאֵלּוּ. If we were hoping for some clarification of the above שלא נהגו כבוד זה לזה, this explanation עֵינֵיהֶם צָרָה does not exactly help much. They had צרות עין, regarding what? Next there is a discrepancy regarding how many talmidim Rebi Akiva taught in his old age, after the students died. In the Gemara above it mentions five, here it says seven. The Midrash here adds something extra to the Gemara above, the advice Rebi Akiva gives to his seven new students. “The former students died because שֶׁהָיְתָה עֵינֵיהֶם צָרָה אֵלּוּ לְאֵלּוּ. Make sure you don’t repeat their mistake and fill the country with Torah”.
The 3rd source is another Midrash, this time in Kohelet (קהלת רבה יא, ו) –
וְרַבִּי עֲקִיבָא אוֹמֵר שְׁנֵים עָשָׂר אֲלָפִים תַּלְמִידִים הָיוּ לִי מִגְּבַת וְעַד אַנְטִיפְרַס וְכֻלָּן מֵתוּ בְּחַיַּי בֵּין פֶּסַח לַעֲצֶרֶת, וּבַסּוֹף הֶעֱמִידוּ לִי שִׁבְעָה, וְאֵלּוּ הֵן: רַבִּי יְהוּדָה, וְרַבִּי נְחֶמְיָה, וְרַבִּי מֵאִיר, וְרַבִּי יוֹסֵי, וְרַבִּי שִׁמְעוֹן בֶּן יוֹחָאי, וְרַבִּי אֱלִיעֶזֶר בְּנוֹ שֶׁל רַבִּי יוֹסֵי הַגְּלִילִי, וְרַבִּי יוֹחָנָן הַסַּנְדְּלָר. אָמַר לָהֶם הָרִאשׁוֹנִים לֹא מֵתוּ אֶלָּא מִפְּנֵי שֶׁהָיְתָה עֵינֵיהֶם צָרָה בַּתּוֹרָה זֶה לָזֶה, אַתֶּם לֹא תִהְיוּ כֵן, מִיָּד עָמְדוּ וּמִלְּאוּ כָּל אֶרֶץ יִשְׂרָאֵל תּוֹרָה.
This version skips the phrase בפרק אחד, and goes on (like the continuation of the Gemara in Yevamot above) to specify exactly when the talmidim died בֵּין פֶּסַח לַעֲצֶרֶת. In addition this Midrash throws some more light on their sin מִפְּנֵי שֶׁהָיְתָה עֵינֵיהֶם צָרָה בַּתּוֹרָה זֶה לָזֶה. From this we see what the צרות עין above was all about – it was regarding the Torah.
Before giving answers to all the questions above, one last question. It is a slightly morbid question, so please forgive me. Does anyone know how many people die every day in Israel? How many funerals take place every day in the modern State of Israel?
I obviously did not know the answer to this, so I went into the government archives to check it out. According to the Central Bureau of Statistics, in the year 2022, a total of 51,674 out of 9.5 million people died. If we divide that by 365, that makes about 142 funerals a day, throughout the entire country. If anyone has ever had the unfortunate opportunity to attend a funeral in cities like Jerusalem, or Segula in Petach Tikva, you will know that it is “רחמנא ליצלן” like a production line. As soon as one funeral ends, another begins – from morning till night, every day of the year (except Shabbat and Chagim). This is the natural death rate in the country, today, in modern times, when we have machinery, tractors, to dig the graves.
Let us assume that the population of Eretz Yisrael was similar to 10 million in the time of Rebi Akiva (it was probably less, because this was after the churban). We are talking about the larger estimate (from Yevamot) 24,000 students of Rebi Akiva dying in a 33 day period. That makes 727 funerals a day, just of the dead students, without the regular funeral rate of 142. So instead of burying 142 people each day, in those 33 days they were burying almost 900 people a day, without tractors – they had to dig the graves by hand. How was this logistically possible? If today chas veshalom the death rate would multiply suddenly by a factor of 6, the system would crash.
Compiling a composite picture of all the above sources and information, a clearer picture begins to emerge.
Rebi Akiva and his students were the pinnacle of Torah study in Eretz Yisrael, the top of the top, the “shpitz lamdanim”. If Rebi Akiva was learning reams of halachot from every קוץ on every letter in the Torah, then the תורה שבעל פה of Rebi Akiva was not only the 63 masechtot of the Mishna we have today, but probably ten times that, or more.
If someone wanted to send their son to study in Yeshiva, Rebi Akiva’s Yeshiva was the elite, the cream of the crop. Only the best students went there, were accepted there, were capable of understanding what they were learning there, were capable of keeping pace with the study there. To be a student of Rebi Akiva, you had to be extremely gifted and super intelligent. There were other Yeshivot, other Rabbanim, Rebi Akiva was not the only Talmid Chacham at the time, but none matched Rebi Akiva’s for level of study and for number of students. Check out Pirkei Avot – each generation, how many took over in the next generation? It was on the scale of 3-7 students, not 12,000 or 24,000.
That tells the story of the people capable of studying in Yeshiva, but you also had working folk, not Yeshiva material, perhaps Daf Yomi material only, or less.
What are the Midrashim above telling us שֶׁהָיְתָה עֵינֵיהֶם צָרָה בַּתּוֹרָה זֶה לָזֶה that the Talmidim of Rebi Akiva(12,000 or 24,000 it doesn’t really matter) had צרות עין when it came to their Torah study. Rebi Akiva’s advice to his remaining 5/7 students was “Don’t follow those that died, מִלְּאוּ כָּל אֶרֶץ יִשְׂרָאֵל תּוֹרָה”, meaning that the students that died did not fill all of Eretz Yisrael with Torah. They sat in their ivory towers of learning in a central belt of the country and spearheaded the forefront of Torah study, but this Torah never got to the rest of Am Yisrael – they never shared it, they kept it to themselves.
How could this possibly be? A teacher of Rebi Akiva’s stature and students, Taana’im, of that stature? How could they possibly be so selfish?
Perhaps we can understand it from another Gemara (Bava Metzia 62b) –
שנים שהיו מהלכין בדרך וביד אחד מהן קיתון של מים אם שותין שניהם מתים ואם שותה אחד מהן מגיע לישוב דרש בן פטורא מוטב שישתו שניהם וימותו ואל יראה אחד מהם במיתתו של חבירו עד שבא ר' עקיבא ולימד וחי אחיך עמך חייך קודמים לחיי חבירך.
If two people are stranded in a desert and only one has a bottle of water to drink. If they both share the one bottle, they will both die of thirst. If only one of them drinks the water, he will survive and make it back to civilization. What to do? Ben Petorah says “Better that they both drink and both die rather than one seeing his friend perish”. Until Rebi Akiva came along and taught “וחי אחיך עמך, your life is more important than the life of your friend”. If the bottle of water belongs to you, you must drink it all and survive and your friend must die. The halacha lema’aseh is like Rebi Akiva.
The Mishna in Avot (1, 11) says –
אבטליון אומר, חכמים, הזהרו בדבריכם, שמא תחובו חובת גלות ותגלו למקום מים הרעים, וישתו התלמידים הבאים אחריכם וימותו, ונמצא שם שמים מתחלל.
This is a warning to teachers to be wary of what they say to their students, that if the students do not understand their teacher correctly, the consequences can be catastrophic. This Mishna is referring specifically to Antigonus Ish Socho (Avot 1, 3) whose students misinterpreted his teachings and this led to the breakaway sects of the צדוקים and the בייתוסים.
Rebi Akiva’s students heard this psak about the bottle of water and took it one step further. If someone owns a “bottle of water”, Torah (compared to water), he has two choices. If you are a top-of-the-top talmid, the pinnacle of Torah study, a student of Rebi Akiva and you have 24 hours in the day, how do you spend them? Do you spend them using your incredible talents to research and uncover more hidden secrets of the Torah, or do you split your time between research and teaching what you already know to others. If you do the former, you will exponentially expand the Shas, but only an elite few will understand it and know it. If you do the latter, more people will learn and understand these Torah secrets, but you will miss out on discovering other, new secrets.
They came to the conclusion, based on Rebi Akiva’s psak above, that it is better for the owner of the “bottle” to drink and survive – reach his maximum potential, not waste his limited resources on his friend, thus achieving his maximum potential in his lifetime. It seems a logical extension of the psak, no?
As a result, Rebi Akiva’s students הָיְתָה עֵינֵיהֶם צָרָה בַּתּוֹרָה זֶה לָזֶה, instead of going down to and mingling with the rest of Am Yisrael, on a lower level, and teaching what they had discovered, they preferred to remain in their ivory towers of study and push the envelope to the next level. We know this from the advice of Rebi Akiva to his remaining 5/7 students - עָמְדוּ וּמִלְּאוּ כָּל אֶרֶץ יִשְׂרָאֵל תּוֹרָה, go out and teach Am Yisrael, don’t be a “Tzaddik in Peltz” in your fancy Yeshiva, share your Torah with the rest of Am Yisrael.
This is what it means בפרק אחד, this perek - Bava Metzia 62b, the perek about the bottle of water. This perek resulted in another perek - Yevamot 62b (the same page number, a different masechet) detailing the death of these students. The Gemara is giving us a hint. The halacha about the water is in Bava Metzia, the middle Bava. They should have taken the “middle” road and taught their Torah to others, even at the expense of missing out on further discoveries. לא עליך המלאכה לגמור (אבות ב, טז), the progression of Torah is a “progression”, it is generation built on generation – it is not only your job to finish. Better to consolidate the Torah you have discovered in your generation by teaching it to others and leave the next level to another generation, rather than losing it all, the death of your Torah, that it dies with you and it dies from the rest of Am Yisrael too. Yevamot is about death – when someone dies, how to do Yibum! Since the first perek “Metzia”, middle was discarded, it resulted in Yevamot, death.
Rebi Akiva’s Torah, that interpreted each and every קוץ has been lost – his students never taught it to anyone else, they had צרות עין with their Torah. But more importantly, Rebi Akiva never taught it to the final 5/7 students! If he had, we would have that Torah today.
Rebi Akiva saw there was a problem with his students, that is why it says שנים עשר אלף זוגים תלמידים. According to the Ben Yehoyada, Rebi Akiva paired his students with other students (of a lower level), to try get them to pass on their learning and not keep it to themselves. The word זוגים never appears anywhere else in the Bavli, except here. In the Yerushalmi the word זוגים also appears once (תענית, פרק ד, הלכה א), in connection with a nazir. It says that a nazir is forbidden to eat בחרצנים ובזוגים. The Rambam (מעשרות , פרק ה, משנה ד) explains what זוגים means - זוג - הוא קליפת הענבים הנשארים אחר דריכתן וסחיטתן, והקבוץ - זוגים. The meaning of זוגים are the skins of grapes after all the juice has been squeezed out of them. Rebi Akiva’s students said “Will we be like the skins of grapes after all the moisture has been squeezed out (will we share our Torah with others of a lower level than we are?), or will we devote all our resources to increasing the moisture (Torah)?”
Rashi also uses the word זוגים in his perush on Devarim 22, 10 – "לא תחרוש בשור ובחמור" - להנהיגם יחד קשורים זוגים. Rebi Akiva’s students said “It is forbidden to mix levels, you cannot mix an ox and a donkey under the same yolk (you cannot mix shpitz lamdanim with those of a lesser level)”.
This was the צרות עין of Rebi Akiva’s talmidim mentioned in the Midrashim. In a sense, it was a kind of לשון הרע, demeaning other students not on their level and in total contradiction to what David Hamelech said מכל מלמדי השכלתי, that a true חכם is not a shpitz lamdan, a super genius, but someone who can learn something from anyone, whatever their level. It is therefore not surprising that the next (and final) place שבמיעוט שקידתי I could find the word זוגים used in the Gemara and the Rishonim is in the Rambam (הלכות כלי המקדש, פרק ט, הלכה ד) regarding the מעיל, the coat of the Kohen –.... ותולה אותן במעיל ומביא שנים ושבעים זוגים וכו'. As we know the purpose of the מעיל was to atone for the sin of לשון הרע.
We now see the close correlation between the context of the various uses of the word זוגים and the incident with Rebi Akiva’s students.
Rebi Akiva tried to prevent it (Ben Yehoyada) but he failed. Therefore, when he recouped his losses and taught the remaining 5/7 students his Torah so that they could continue in his derech, he did not teach them this “shpitz lamdan” stuff with every קוץ on every letter. Perhaps his reasoning was that this level of study was too dangerous and too destructive. The fact is, we no longer have it, it did not survive – it died.
Perhaps Rebi Akiva’s students did die in a plague. I have shown that it is unfeasible to have buried so many in such a short time. Some opinions say they died in battle in the revolt of Bar Kochba and perhaps were not buried. Whether they died and were buried or not is not clear. What is clear is that their Torah died with them. This is what we mourn during Sfirat Ha’Omer, the loss of this beautiful Torah. They were punished mida keneged mida with אסכרה (which some say is dysentery). The gematriya of אסכרה is ומוצא דבה הוא כסיל (משלי י, יח), by not sharing their Torah and belittling the students not on their level, instead of being shpitz lamdanim, they were the כסיל, the fools, not those they were slandering.
Yes Rebi Akiva tried to stem the flow and prevent it, but even so, the fact is that his Torah, the Torah hinted at to Moshe on Har Sinai, was lost to us. This must have taken its toll on Rebi Akiva and more than that, he must have felt incredible guilt because of it. Perhaps this was a cheshbon he needed to pay and perhaps he paid it by dying such a terrible death על קידוש ה', perhaps that is why he was so eager to sacrifice his life על קידוש ה', to have his slate cleaned.
If the “rishonim” were like angels, we are like men and if they were like men, we are like donkeys. I am infinitesimally less than the speck of dust on a flea compared to Rebi Akiva זצ"ל and my fingers tremble as I type these words. My heart tells me that it was so, but if I am mistaken ה' יכפר בעדי.
אין חכם כבעל הנסיון. I was only awoken to this idea following the last few weeks of pandemonium in Israel over the proposed judicial reform. Undoubtedly the left wing has delivered a knockout blow to the right wing and many, many people are right now sitting and doing הפקת לקחים, where did they go wrong? What tactics/strategy would have been more effective? etc. There is only one לקח that I don’t think anyone is sitting and racking their brains over וחבל.
In this “battle” there are two clear, distinct sides – the side of the Torah and the side of the anti-Torah. However in the middle, sits the vast majority of Am Yisrael שלא יודע בין ימינם ושמאלם. The big eye opener for me in the last few weeks has been the disproportionate fear amongst this vast majority, that if the Torah side wins, their lives will become tantamount to living in a fundamentalist Islamic Iranian society, led by the Ayatollahs. Yes, the left wing campaign was meticulously orchestrated and executed, but it would not have worked so well if it had not fallen on fertile ground. It has exposed in broad daylight how little this vast majority knows and understands about Yiddishkeit. They think that living Torah lives is equivalent to The Handmaid’s Tale סיפורה של שפחה. In the anti-religious demonstrations they cynically dressed up like slave women in orange garb, like in the TV series. Don’t they know that one of the first things a religious Jewish woman says when she gets up in the morning is ברוך אתה ה' א-לוקנו מלך העולם שלא עשני שפחה? Don’t they know that a religious Jewish woman is considered a בת מלך? And the answer is no, they don’t know, because they have never been taught the basic א-ב of Yiddishkeit. And who is to blame for that? We are!
A major portion of the Torah world and the world of שומרי מצוות have repeated the same mistake that Rebi Akiva’s talmidim made over 1900 years ago. The only thing that is important to a major sector of this world is to secure budgets and legislation to ensure that they can continue to study in the ivory towers of Torah and the rest of Am Yisrael be damned! They are totally focused on one thing and one thing only – ensuring that they will be able to continue studying and pushing the envelope on Torah study. Not surprisingly they are succeeding in their goals. We have had the great זכות to see some enormous Gedolei Hador in our generation, achieving incredible heights of limud that we did not think possible. However, this Torah remains within the walls of these Yeshivot, it is not disseminating to the rest of Am Yisrael and the evidence of this is apparent in the state of our nation today.
Even those who are less “shtark” and are more connected to Am Yisrael, in the Dati Leumi world, are not doing much better. I have a son studying in Yeshiva in Yerucham and the focus is totally on – studying in the Yeshiva.
Undoubtedly, both the Charedi and National Religious world are highly involved in chessed work. My son routinely accompanies the rest of the bochrim in the Yeshiva to help pack food packages for needy families and help senior citizens in need of assistance, etc. Chessed is not the problem, the Torah world is overflowing with chessed – the Torah is the problem. The bochrei Yeshiva and the Roshei Yeshiva are focused on one solitary purpose – increasing their and their talmidims’ Torah knowledge. And what about their next door neighbors, the Abutbul family, a carpenter who builds kitchen cabinets in Hadera, or the Feinowitz family, manager of a stockbroker firm in Ramat Gan - who have no clue about Yiddishkeit, who religiously watch A Handmaid’s Tale on TV every week. What about them?
We have forsaken them!
We should be dividing our time between studying new stuff and teaching the stuff we already know to others who don’t. Instead of only settling barren hilltops (we should be doing that too), we should be “settling” barren wastelands of Torah knowledge in non-religious neighborhoods, in non-religious cities, not cloistering ourselves in our “closed on Shabbat” neighborhoods, shutting the rest of the world and our fellow Jews out.
We require a paradigm shift, not new tactics/strategy how to get more people to a demonstration.
There is good news in all of this. The good news is that the younger generation is already moving in that direction.
The younger generation of the non-religious, who have grown up with the affluence, the incredible talent, devotion and knowledge of their successful parents, who are living extremely comfortable lives, are realising that this is not enough. There is something missing from all this materialism, something missing in the neshama. They are being drawn closer to Yiddishkeit like a magnet, despite their upbringing and their parents' and grandparents' leanings. We have seen a definitive demographic shift in favor of pro-Yiddishkeit in Israel and this will only continue to grow. The average age of the anti-religious demonstrators is 50+. Contrast this with the religious demonstrators where the average age is 30-.
The younger generation of the religious, especially the Charedi population are also developing a greater awareness of Klal Yisrael. On the Charedi radio stations you now routinely hear interview programs about גרעינים of religious families which have chosen to live in the heart of non-religious enclaves and the incredible success they are having, especially with …. the younger generation.
This is already happening on its own. We, the older generation, have to facilitate it as much as possible and not stand in its way.
If in Israel the outlook is filled with promise and hope, in the Diaspora, the trend is the opposite. We are failing overseas. Just like we shouldn’t be cloistering ourselves here in our Yeshiva’s and worrying about our own Torah and our own Olam Habah, we similarly shouldn’t be cloistering ourselves here in Israel and not worrying about our fellow Jews abroad. We need to do more work, more shlichim, more budgets, more Torah – in the heart of the assimilation. We need to be working harder to bring Am Yisrael to Israel, bringing entire communities to Israel, not just individuals. HKB”H is already pushing us in this direction with increased anti-Semitism worldwide, we here in Israel, need to offer a soft landing for those who come and encourage more to follow.
This is the eye opener of the last two months. Am Yisrael’s Achilles heel has been exposed and we now know what we have to work on.
Rebi Akiva, in his old age, never gave up - after losing all his talmidim so tragically, he could have easily given up. Instead he went on picking up the pieces and ensuring continuity of Am Yisrael and the Torah and the fact we are here today is a testament to that enormous Kiddush Hashem.
