By Rabbi Norman Lamm, zt”l
January 1976—The conclusion is inescapable: this is a crazy world. Sometimes I question if we are not all in the grip of a mass psychosis.
Consider the mad scene of international affairs: the United Nations, an organization supposedly devoted to the pursuit of world peace, hails a gun-toting gangster; the Third World, organized to make little countries independent of superrich powers, favors the oil imperialists, and gangs up on a tiny little country with no oil; countries the likes of Sudan, which has butchered hundreds of thousands of black Africans, vote to declare that Zionism is racism; the first Jewish Secretary of State in 200 years of U.S. history pressures Israel more than he does its foes; the Administration of this country is in near hysteria because it is afraid that the Soviets will build a base in Angola, and yet they are pushing Israel to agree to a Palestinian state, which will most certainly become a Russian base that will threaten not only Israel’s security, but Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon as well. Many liberals, including some Jews, refuse to take seriously the Palestine Covenant, which declares it a stated aim of the PLO to destroy Israel, and excuses it by saying it is only propaganda—when the same people who experienced Hitler not being taken seriously, only to learn later that he meant exactly what he said.
The Talmud (Pes. 50a) teaches: R. Joseph the son of R. Joshua ben Levi became sick and fell into a coma. Then he was revived, and his father asked him, “What did you see?” what kind of pure vision did you behold as you were at the gates of that other, greater existence? The son answered, “I saw a topsy-turvy world, where what is normally at the bottom was at the top and what is usually at the top was at the bottom.” To which, the father said, “My son, what you saw was the same world!” That other world, that is the lucid one, whereas the world we live in is the “Olam Hafuch,” the crazy, mad, topsy-turvy world!
And so, I insist: the reasonable, rational world that exists in our dreams, the one we ought to exist in, even though it is far from perfect, is the lucid world. The reality, though, in which we are now living, is unquestionably the “Olam Hafuch,” the crazy, mad world.
But craziest of all is the near universal adulation received by the P.L.O. I understand Russia, but why China? Why the Third World? Why Japan? Why Sweden? Why the abstention of England and France and Italy?
But if so many nations revere the P.L.O., then certainly there must be something to it. Let’s be honest. The P.L.O. does seem to make a case. There is something compelling about its presentation. They are a dispossessed people, coming into their own, fighting for their own land, writing nationalistic poetry and drama, sacrificing, building a shadow government, scoring victories, and inspiring seemingly fair-minded people.
But of course, the answer is that all this is a grand pretense. A deception. It is an illusion of nobility disguising the ugly reality, like painting innocence on the face of a harlot.
Let me mention to you a strange interpretation by the Tosaphists (in the Sefer Moshav Zekeinim, Sassoon ed.). At the conclusion of our sidrah, we read of Amalek: “And Amalek came and made war against Israel in Rephidim.” Why, ask the Tosaphists, did Amalek take such chances? After all, Amalek had heard of all the miracles that Hashem had performed in Egypt, all the supernatural intervention on behalf the bnei Yisrael. Why risk provoking a battle with Israel?
The answer given by the Tosaphists is almost mind-boggling: Because Amalek contemplated its own name, and discovered that the letters of this name are identical with the initial letters of four great Jews: Amram, Moshe, Levi, and Kehat. Amalek assumed, that since its name formed the Roshei Teivos or initial letters of these four Israelite spiritual giants, that they too could be endowed with a supernatural triumph. But the mistake Amalek made was that it failed to consider the Sofei Teivos, the concluding letters of those four names. Rearranged, these letters spell the Hebrew word “mitah,” or death!
And this, they conclude, is the meaning of the verse (Nu. 24:20) by the Gentile Prophet Balaam: “The first of the nations is Amalek, and its end will be utter destruction.” What Balaam meant was that Amalek may boast of “the first,” that the first letters of the four Jewish heroes spell its own name, but its end or conclusion will be destruction, because the last letters of those names spell death.
Now, this sounds like an elaborate, artificial word game: unreal, odd, and not a little fantastic. Surely it does not qualify as a lesson in Realpolitik. Yet, it is just that! It is a brilliant, Midrashically-phrased, depiction of the hypocrisy of Amalek in its numerous incarnations in the tortured history of our benighted species.
The PLO-Hamas-Amalek has grabbed the Roshei Teivos, the initial letters of Jewish leadership, and put itself out in the world as the Arab version of Zionism, or Jewish national liberation. If the Jews can do it, the Arabs can too—and even better. Amalek too has its equivalents (l’havdil) of Amram, Moshe, Kehat, and Levi. They have their national poets, their heroes, their Irgun and Stern groups, their claim to the land, an equivalent of sorts of the Jewish Agency and a shadow government and even a Diaspora.
But that is where the comparison ends! The world sees only the innocent face, the roshei teivos, or the initial letters. It ignores the sofei teivos, the ugly reality that is beneath this new Amalek, at its own peril.
Jewish nationalism began with Abraham, and Jews never denied it. Throughout the centuries, for every day, without cease, we knew the Land of Israel is our land. But the Arabs, as recently as the 1950s, were declaring their assertion that there is no Palestine, that it is only Southern Syria, a view that articulated well with the philosophy of the late, unlamented Arnold Toynbee.
The Jews fought valiantly against the British: their troops and their police. The P.L.O. has yet to fight Israel on the field of battle. It fights only against unarmed civilians, men, women, and children.
An article by Mrs. Golda Meir in the New York Times points out compellingly that of all the land taken from the Sultan after the First World War, only one per cent was put aside for a Jewish national homeland. Three quarters of what was left was then put aside for an artificial country, Transjordan, which was renamed the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. Jews accepted the 1947 partition, which cut off even more of what should have been ours. Indeed, if the Arabs are truly interested in only setting up a Palestinian State on the West Bank and in Gaza, why did they not do that until 1967? The answer is, of course, that the P.L.O. means what it says: If it gets a state now on the West Bank and in Gaza, it is only an “interim state” until they can destroy Israel and rule over the entire area. Their goal is as simple as it is cruel: politicide.
So, of this Amalek too it may be said that it poses with the roshei teivos of virtue and greatness, but behind it all are the sofei teivos of death and destruction.
The world sees only P.L.O.-Amalek in its “initial letters”. At best, it treats Israel and the PLO as two antagonists equally deserving of the world’s concern and sympathy. But the same world has only begun to get a taste of the real P.L.O., of the death and destruction dealt out by this contemporary Amalek.
The Arabs, through their terrorist organizations, have taught the world that acts of random killing and murder are acceptable. They have removed all restraints from unbridled terrorism towards the rest of the world as well. I do not know, and neither does anyone else, whether or not Israel will be forced to accede to some kind of Palestinian State. I hope not. If it is, it will be patently unjust, but it will not be the first such injustice in the world and certainly not in Jewish history. But one thing is certain. We American Jews, although there is no reason why we must blindly accept the program of either the government of Israel or its internal opposition, must not falter at this point. We must dissociate ourselves from the kind of unfortunate proposals as that by Arthur Waskow, who insinuates that Israel and the P.L.O. are co-legitimate adversaries. We must not allow this Administration to use us in order to exert pressure on Israel in this matter.
But above all, despite tensions and threats and possibly coerced relinquishing of territory, we must never fear! Concern and caution, yes—but not fear and not despair.
We read this morning that as Pharaoh and his hordes drew near, the Children of Israel lifted up their eyes and saw that the Egyptians were pursuing them. “And they were greatly afraid and the Children of Israel called out—prayed—to the Lord.” One normally assumes that the Children of Israel prayed because they were afraid, and their prayer was that they be saved from the clutches of Pharaoh. But the great Hasidic teacher, R. Samuel of Slonim, maintains that they prayed for forgiveness for being afraid in the first place.
The State of Israel, and Jews throughout the world, will have tough decisions to make in the days ahead. The situation will probably get worse before it gets better. But we must proceed with intelligence and understanding, even though with regret and possibly anger; without panic and impetuosity, without compromising on our ultimate goals—but above all else, with hope and without fear.
We are a people who have encountered Amalek more than once in our long adventure. We have survived him and overcome his deadly threats.
And we shall do so again, now and always. It is worth recording that promise and hearing it in our own ears once again today: “And the Lord said to Moses, write this as a memorial in a book, and place it in the ears of Joshua”—that the Lord Himself will vanquish Amalek, and Israel shall live forever.
To subscribe to receive a weekly sermon from Rabbi Lamm’s extensive archives, please visit yu.edu/about/lamm-heritage, or email Rabbi Dr. Tzvi Sinensky, archives director, at sinensky3@gmail.com.