Jews are always expected to live according to a higher standard. As people of the book and of unwavering faith in G‑d, our perspective of events in the world at large and our conduct in the eyes of a dark and depraved world is expected to shine a light of morality. This is precisely the reason why the general media harps on stories which depict Jews or Judaism in a negative light. This too explains the media’s obsession with Israel, perverting the nation’s every move to portray it as the aggressor. It’s their way of disproving the existence of a higher calling and a moral people, as if to say that we are all essentially the same.
We know the truth. The truth is that, for the most part, the Jews are the prized nation in the world. The existence of immorality and dishonesty among our people is just a result of the long, dark, and bitter exile that has victimized us for so long. For this reason, the segment of our people who still hold strong to a life of faith, honesty, and observance of Torah and mitzvos is looked to closely as a guiding light amidst the darkness of this exile.
Instead of harping on the same stories that the secular media is obsessed with and choosing sides, we should look for those similarities that exist amongst us and bind us, while the outside world attempts to divide us and deactivate our power as a people. Recently, to kick off a new TV series called The Next Chapter, Oprah Winfrey and her crew rolled into Brooklyn, where she interviewed a devout couple, Rabbi and Mrs. Ginsburg, and their family ahead of this show that will be broadcast beginning Sunday, February 12. During the interview, Oprah asks the parents why they agreed to talk to her in the first place. Mrs. Ginsburg responded that although there are ideological differences which divide us, if one probes further, there is common ground that can be struck. This could apply to relationships among races and religions the world over.
Whether you agree with this precedent and its relevance to us or not, the point is clear. If there could be common ground between blacks and whites, Jews and non-Jews, then certainly if we would just make a plausible attempt we could look past the negligible differences which may divide us as Jews and be the model people to the nations that we have always expected to be. If we are truly confounded and have had enough of the terror and tragedy which continue to haunt us, then we would make that attempt, because our ultimate redemption depends on it.
The truth is that overall our era has seen a reconciliation of age-old disputes and internal tensions and turmoil that the previous generation at best turned a blind eye to and at worst perpetuated. We have made certain strides for Jewish unity that previous generations, despite their righteousness, were content without. Just recently, the Belzer Rebbe of Jerusalem sent a delegation of chassidim to the grave of the late Satmar Rebbes to ask forgiveness for things that he or his predecessors may have said to hurt them and for the coldness that had gotten between the two sects in the ensuing years.
In recent years, relationships between Chabad and Satmar have been mended, with elder chassidim visiting Rav Ahron and Rav Zalman Leib when they were sitting shivah and again when Chabad intervened on behalf of Reb Ahron as a plane that he was aboard had landed in Dulles Airport and he wasn’t being allowed to disembark to daven and recite Kaddish during his year of aveilus. Reb Levi Shem Tov, shliach to Washington DC, arranged with security personnel that the Rebbe be allowed, with a delegation of ten other men, to enter a secure room where they could daven, read the Torah (as it was a Thursday morning), as well as recite Kaddish for his mother.
In spite of all this, however, there are still those who go out of their way to draw an apartheid line between them, and others who they seemingly want to disassociate themselves from for no apparent reason. I am referring to a purportedly right-wing blog which, in its daily news reports, includes the yahrzeits of the week and a brief or sometimes longer biography of the people whose lives they are recognizing. With the arrival of the yahrzeits of Rav Shach, Rav Ahron Kotler, Rav Gifter, and other roshei yeshiva and mashgichim of the previous generation, they might post four or five articles on the life and accomplishments of that particular personality, while to mark the passing of a chassidic personality a couple of lines including the name and father or siblings of the deceased suffice to note and pay homage to a person who gave up his life physically and spiritually for the Jewish people.
I am referring specifically to the occasion of yud Shevat, which we celebrated over the weekend. On yud Shevat, 1950, the Friediker (previous) Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rav Yosef Yitzchak Schneerson, passed away. The Rebbe was a quintessential yarei Shamayim who at times mocked the Russian Communists to their faces, knowing full well that they were there in the crowd, listening to his drashos, which ultimately landed him in prison with a death sentence. It was miraculously commuted, and afterwards the Rebbe made his way to the shores of the U.S., where he declared that the apathy of America is no different than the intolerance of Russia and that Yiddishkeit could be built and flourish in both places.
One of the more well-known incidents of the Friediker Rebbe in the Ukraine is when one of the Rebbe’s interrogators put a gun to his head. The Rebbe, without flinching or showing any signs of intimidation said, “That toy only frightens him who has many gods and only one life. I, who believe in one G‑d and in two lives, am not scared of that.” The Friediker Rebbe’s legacy includes thousands of ma’amorim and sichos, the sefer Likkutei Dibburim, and the largest seforim library, much of which is still being legally extracted from the Russians who claim ownership of it.
On this day one year later, the Friediker Rebbe was succeeded by his son-in-law Reb Menachem Mendel Schneerson, known and endeared to the world over as the Rebbe. Despite his intellectual preeminence, he was completely humble in all his ways and greeted every person in the same dignified manner. His title, the Rebbe, was most fitting since he was the rebbe of the world, and when push came to shove even his detractors knew how to access him in their hour of need.
Without fail, be it yud-tes Kislev, yud Shevat, gimmel Tammuz, or any other momentous Chabad chassidic holiday, this website resorts to the most cursory comments. They cannot be accused of omitting history, but they are fine with revising history and concealing the righteousness, sagacity, and self-sacrifice of an entire movement within Yiddishkeit in the name of discord and dissension.
In fact, after a lengthy biography marking the passing of Rabbi David Hollander, they made no mention of his relationship to the Lubavitcher Rebbe and instead focused on his connection with Reb Ahron Kotler. Rabbi Hollander was a dear friend of my grandfather, R’ Nison Gordon, whose article on yud Shevat appeared in these pages last week. My grandfather, who wrote two columns a week for the Algemeiner Journal spanning a career of 50 years, spent many late nights on the phone with Rabbi Hollander discussing the issues of their day. Rabbi Hollander was a regular at the Rebbe’s farbrengens at 770 Eastern Parkway, where he was accorded the proper dignity and sat at the dais with the elder chassidim.
It’s true that the Vilna Gaon issued a cherem against chassidim. It’s also true that, for whatever reason, certain mashgichim and roshei yeshiva took umbrage at some of the initiatives and opinions of the Lubavitcher Rebbe or his predecessor, the Rayatz. I am confident, though, that in many of these instances had the two sides met and discussed the differences that existed on the outside, peace would have ensued. It very well could be that at these times throughout history peace was not supposed to be made. But how long can we go on and turn a cold shoulder to our fellow Jew and not grant them common courtesy, citing the cherem of the Gra?
And was Rav Shach’s only legacy the “wars” that he chose to wage against Lubavitch? There are more people walking around talking about the discord that he sowed than those who are able to quote one word that he wrote in his magnum opus, Avi Ezri on the Rambam. In other words, it seems that the legacy that he left was one that accentuates negativity and those character traits that distances the geulah; somehow I feel that he envisioned a different legacy for his life of mesirus nefesh for Torah.
The Arizal, already in his time, declared that it is not only permitted, but it is an obligation to spread Toras Hanistar among the masses. The truth is that even today the yeshiva world as a whole chooses not to delve into the secrets of Torah. However, people who in previous eras would withdraw their hands from involving themselves in esoteric study are doing so because the spirit of the geulah is in the air. The era of ikvesa d’Mashicha has long been entered into. Today, we are in ikvesa d’ikvesa d’Mashicha. The major difference between Toras Haniglah and Toras Hanistar is that Toras Hanigla contains differences of opinion on every folio whereas in Toras Hanistar all opinions are in accordance with each other. Perhaps, in light of this, we too should perpetuate this effort to find common ground amongst those with whom we have our differences and engage them in discussion in an attempt to reconcile those differences in the name of heralding the redemption—because now is the time.
Shlomo Hamelech, in Koheles, identifies the 28 eras of this world. The final two eras are “a time for war” and “a time for peace.” Notwithstanding the cherem of the Vilna Gaon or the issues that anyone may have had with Lubavitch, we are now in a time for peace, as is indicated by all the aforementioned peaceful gestures. If we would all follow suit and turn the pages of history, together we could usher in a new era, a happier era that will last for eternity.