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The Light has Dawned
The Four Questions from The Haggadah. Łódź, 1935. Source: Irvin Ungar
JNS.org – Jews have always been fond of answering one question with another. In fact, Golda Meir was once asked by a journalist, “Why do Jews always answer one question with another question?” She replied, “Why not?”
So here’s Question 1: Moses is the hero and main protagonist of the story of Pesach and the Exodus from Egypt. Yet the Haggadah hardly mentions his name at all. There is only one passing mention of him in a quotation of the verse, “And they believed in God and in Moses, His servant.”
That’s not exactly getting his name in lights. But surely, Moses is the “star of the show” and deserves to be highlighted throughout the narrative. Why is he all but absent from the Haggadah?
Allow me to answer that question with another.
One of the most famous passages from the Haggadah recounts a story: Some of the greatest sages of the time gathered in Bnai Brak for the Pesach seder. “They were discussing the Exodus from Egypt all that night until their students came and told them: ‘Our Masters, the time has come for reciting the morning Shema.’”
Question 2: If your rabbi was giving a shiur (“lesson”) and he was going on a bit, sunset was approaching, and it was time to daven Mincha, would you interrupt and tell him? I can say with certainty that if I was listening to my teacher and mentor—the Lubavitcher Rebbe—and he was giving a talk and sunset was approaching, I would remain absolutely shtum. I would never have the chutzpah to interrupt my saintly teacher.
And the Haggadah story involves some of the greatest sages of their generation: Rabbi Eliezer, Rabbi Yehoshua, Rabbi Elazar ben Azaryah, Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Tarfon. How did these young students have the cheek and audacity to show them their watch and tell them to hurry and finish their discussions as it was getting late to recite the Shema?
I once came across an interpretation that answers this question beautifully. It is somewhat tangential, but it is in the classic mode of drush, what we call “homiletics.” It is where the word drosha comes from—meaning a sermon. In sermons, rabbis often employ the methodology of drush to expound on and interpret a Torah verse in an original, creative way. This gives the congregation a meaningful message beyond the simple, straightforward explanation of the Torah verse.
Now, in the Haggadah passage, if we move a comma just one word forward, it sheds completely new light on the story. The traditional understanding is that the rabbis were discussing the Exodus all night and in the morning their students arrived and said, “Our Masters, the time has come for reciting the morning Shema.”
However, if we move the comma just one word later, the passage would read: “The rabbis were discussing the Exodus all that night, until their students came and our rabbis told them, the time for the morning Shema has arrived.”
In other words, the statement about the time for the morning Shema was not made by the students, but by the rabbis themselves.
You see, these great rabbis were awake all Pesach night discussing the Exodus story, and its deepest meaning and interpretation. Night symbolizes darkness. Indeed, they were living in the dark, depressing era after the Romans had destroyed the Second Temple and were brutally occupying Israel. No doubt the rabbis were bemoaning the state of the Holy Land and its Jewish community in that terrible era. Would there be a future for Judaism? Could the Jewish people rebuild and regenerate after such a calamitous tragedy? These must have been the questions they were grappling with.
Then morning dawned, and their students arrived. Suddenly, the rabbis were encouraged, and their mood lightened. The arrival of a group of young Torah scholars hungry to learn brought the rabbis new hope for the Jewish people. They saw a brighter future, assured by a new generation of dedicated students eager to keep the faith and study the Torah. “The morning has arrived!” the rabbis gratefully proclaimed. They beheld a new light that gave them new hope for and confidence in the Jewish future through the dawning of a new generation.
Thus, we can better appreciate the absence of Moses’s name from the Haggadah story. While there is barely any mention of him, there is another prophet who does feature prominently at the seder table: Eliyahu Hanavi, Elijah the Prophet. He is prominent in every Jewish home on seder night. There is the very visible Fifth Cup of Elijah, and in the latter part of the Haggadah recital, we open the door for Elijah.
Moses is described as our first redeemer. Elijah, however, represents the final redemption. In Jewish tradition, Elijah is the harbinger of the Messiah. The prophet will arrive and announce the great redeemer’s imminent arrival, please God. “Behold, I will send you Elijah the Prophet before that great, awesome day,” says the verse from the Book of Malachi that we read on Shabbat Hagadol just before Pesach. Elijah will be the herald of the final redemption.
The rabbis of old were comforted and reassured by the arrival of a new crop of young Torah students. At our own seder tables, we want to focus our attention not only on the past but on the future—not only on the redemption from Egypt, but on the final redemption of the Messiah. Hopefully, this can help us to better understand why, at the seder, Elijah gets more coverage than Moses.
Like Rabbi Akiva and his colleagues, we also live in the shadow of destruction—in our case, that of European Jewry and the Holocaust. Nor are we yet finished with Hamas, Iran & Co. But despite all our challenges, we are heartened by the emergence of a new generation dedicated to Torah study and Jewish continuity. Like the rabbis at their seder, we, too, have reason to be confident that a new dawn has risen, a generation that will proudly proclaim the Shema Yisrael and the eternal Oneness of God.
I wish all my readers a chag kasher v’sameach. Wherever we may be celebrating Pesach this year, may we all be together “Next Year in Jerusalem!”
The post The Light has Dawned first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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At Least 12 Killed in Massive Russian Attack on Ukraine
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky speaks during a joint press conference with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine June 10, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko
i24 News – Russia-Ukraine War: About three and a half years after the outbreak of the war, Russia carried out last night (Sunday) the largest air attack since it began. At least 12 people were killed, including three children, and dozens more were injured when 367 rockets and missiles were fired at Ukrainian cities, including the capital Kyiv.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky sharply criticized US policy, which so far has taken a soft stance towards Russia, and recently hinted that it would stop mediating between the two countries: “The silence of America, the silence of others in the world only encourages Putin,” he wrote on Telegram. “Every such Russian terrorist attack is reason enough for new sanctions against Russia.”
The Ukrainian Air Force reported that Russia launched 298 drones and 69 missiles in a night attack. According to him, they shot down 266 drones and 45 missiles. Damage was caused to several areas, including the second largest city in Ukraine, Kharkiv, as well as Mykolaiv in the south and Ternopil in the west.
In parallel, a prisoner of war exchange deal was concluded. In Russia, reports said that 303 prisoners were transferred from each side. In total, over the last three days 2,000 prisoners, 1,000 Ukrainians and 1,000 Russians, have been returned to their countries. Zelensky thanked the servicemen of the armed forces, and promised to bring all the prisoners home. “Today, our armed forces, the national guard, the state border service, and the special state transport service are returning home.”
“I am grateful to the team that worked around the clock to successfully execute these exchanges,” he added. “We will certainly bring back each and every one of our people from Russian captivity.”
Meanwhile, The Washington Post reported that the Russian army may reach a severe shortage of manpower and weapons in the next year. The Ukrainian army is also in trouble, and it is offering generous economic grants to new recruits.
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UN Says More Food Needed in Gaza as Looting Hampers Deliveries
United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres speaks to members of the Security Council during a meeting to address the situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian question, at UN headquarters in New York City, New York, US, April 18, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz
Israeli airstrikes killed at least six Palestinians guarding aid trucks against looters, Hamas officials said on Friday, as the head of the United Nations warned that only a “teaspoon” of aid was getting in following Israel’s 11-week-long blockade.
The Israeli military said 107 trucks carrying flour and other foodstuffs as well as medical supplies entered the Gaza Strip from the Kerem Shalom crossing point on Thursday, for a total of 305 since Monday when the blockade was relaxed.
But getting the supplies to people sheltering in tents and other makeshift accommodation has been fitful and U.N. officials say at least 500 to 600 trucks of aid are needed every day.
So far, an umbrella network of Palestinian aid groups said, 119 aid trucks have got past the Kerem Shalom crossing point and into Gaza since Israel eased its blockade on Monday in the face of an international outcry.
Despite the relaxation of the blockade, distribution has been hampered by looting by groups of men, some of them armed, near the city of Khan Younis, an umbrella network representing Palestinian aid groups said.
“They stole food meant for children and families suffering from severe hunger,” the network said in a statement, which also condemned Israeli airstrikes on security teams protecting the trucks.
The U.N. World Food Program said 15 trucks carrying flour to WFP-supported bakeries had been looted, which it said reflected the dire conditions facing Gazans.
“Hunger, desperation and anxiety over whether more food aid is coming is contributing to rising insecurity,” it said in a statement.
A Hamas official said six members of a security team tasked with guarding the shipments were killed.
Israel imposed the blockade in early March, accusing Hamas of stealing aid meant for civilians. Hamas rejects the charge, saying a number of its own fighters have been killed protecting the trucks from armed looters.
“Hamas constantly calls the looters ‘guards’ or protectors’ to mask the fact that they’re disturbing the aid process,” an Israeli military official said.
‘DESPERATION’
With most of Gaza’s 2 million population squeezed into an ever narrowing zone on the coast and in the area around the southern city of Khan Younis by Israel’s military operation, international pressure to get aid in quickly has ratcheted up.
“Without rapid, reliable, safe and sustained aid access, more people will die – and the long-term consequences on the entire population will be profound,” said U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres.
A German government spokesperson said the aid was “far too little, too late and too slow,” adding that delivery of supplies had to be increased significantly.
Israel has announced that a new system, sponsored by the United States and run by private contractors, will soon begin operations from four distribution centers in the south of Gaza, but many details of how the system will work remain unclear.
The U.N. has already said it will not work with the new system, which it says will leave aid distribution conditional on Israel’s political and military aims.
Israel says its forces will only provide security for the centers and will not distribute aid themselves.
As the aid has begun to trickle in, the Israeli military has continued the intensified ground and air operation launched last week, which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said would end with Israel taking full control of the Gaza Strip.
The military said it had conducted more strikes in Gaza overnight, hitting 75 targets, including weapons storage facilities and rocket launchers.
The post UN Says More Food Needed in Gaza as Looting Hampers Deliveries first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Swiss Authorities Exploring Probe Into US-Backed Gaza Aid Group
Displaced Palestinian children wait to receive free food at a tent camp, amid food shortages, as the conflict between Israel and Hamas continues, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, February 27, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa
Swiss authorities said on Sunday they were exploring whether to open a legal investigation into the activities of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a US-backed organization that plans to oversee aid distribution in the Palestinian enclave.
The move comes after a Swiss NGO submitted a request for a probe into GHF’s aid plan, which the United Nations has opposed, saying it is not impartial or neutral and forces further displacement and exposes thousands of people to harm.
The GHF, which has said it hopes to start work in Gaza by the end of May, told Reuters it “strictly adheres” to humanitarian principles, and that it would not support any form of forced relocation of civilians.
Israel has allowed limited aid deliveries to resume this week after having stopped all aid deliveries to Gaza on March 2.
TRIAL International, a Switzerland-based NGO, on Friday said it had filed two legal submissions asking Swiss authorities to investigate whether the Swiss-registered GHF complies with Swiss law and international humanitarian law.
The submissions were made to the Swiss Federal Supervisory Authority for Foundations and the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (FDFA) on May 20 and 21.
The FDFA on Sunday confirmed to Reuters that both authorities had received the submissions.
TRIAL International said it asked the Swiss FDFA to explain if the GHF had submitted a declaration, in accordance with Swiss law, to use private security companies to distribute aid, and if it had been approved by Swiss authorities.
The FDFA told Reuters it is investigating whether such a declaration would be required for the foundation.
It said that the Federal Supervisory Board for Foundations cannot review whether foundations comply with their statutes until they start their activities.
The GHF told Reuters that though using private security firms represents a change from prior aid delivery frameworks, it would ensure aid is not diverted to Hamas or criminal organizations.
The post Swiss Authorities Exploring Probe Into US-Backed Gaza Aid Group first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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