Dear Friends:
What does eating have to do with redemption?
Hashem commands us consume the Korban Pesach before we leave Egypt. And then we must eat matzoh! What’s going on here? We have barely survived hundreds of years in exile and now we must stop to make a kiddush before we leave?
Yes, but this is Kiddush Hashem!
If you have heard the following from me already, I apologize, but some words are so important they bear repeating. I heard a lecture from Rabbi Mattisyahu Salomon Shlita”h in the name of the Chofetz Chaim ZT”L about what will occur during Acharis ha Yomim, the final days before the coming of Moshiach ben Dovid.
There will be (unless we all do teshuva first!) three wars. The first, said the Chofetz Chaim, was the First World War, which occurred during his lifetime. The second, which he predicted before his death, was the Second World War. Then, he said, there would be a break, followed by a third war, after which Moshiach ben Dovid and the Bais ha Mikdosh will be revealed.
BUT, said the Chofetz Chaim, there will be a great contrast between the first two wars and the third war. During the first two wars, the malach ha mauves, the angel of death was given power to attack tzaddikim as well as rashaim, the righteous as well as the not-so-righteous. We all know what happened during the First and Second World Wars.
But not so in the third war!
In the third war, those who cling to G-d with all their heart, those who recognize the Absolute Truth of Torah and the complete emptiness of the culture of the surrounding nations, will be protected, and will survive the third war to enter the perfect world of Moshiach ben Dovid!
These are mighty words!
Now it is easier to understand the relationship between the Exodus from Egypt and the events that will occur in the Final Exodus from Exile before Moshiach comes. Just as in the Biblical Exodus only those who cleaved to G-d and His servant Moses left Egypt (see Rashi on Exodus 13:18), so, in the days of the Final Redemption, it appears that our ticket to survival is to cling with all our strength to the Holy Torah and recognize the COMPLETE EMPTINESS of the surrounding culture.
My friends, this is strong medicine, but for the sake of our hope for redemption it appears that we must swallow it. This is the medicine called Kiddush Hashem, sanctifying G-d’s Name in the sight of the entire world. As we say in the Mussaf Kedusha, “and He will let us hear … for a second time, in the presence of all the living … ‘I am your G-d.’”
As a prerequisite for the Exodus from Egypt and additionally as a prerequisite for the Final Redemption, it appears that we are supposed to take the idols of the foreign culture amidst which we are living and completely reject them, just as (twenty percent of) our ancestors did in Egypt. They slaughtered the Egyptian idols and actually ate them in the form of the Korban Pesach! This is about as clear a statement as one could make of complete repudiation of idolatry. We are not eating because we are hungry; we are eating because we are saying, “the entire foreign lifestyle is empty, a complete lie!”
This is Kiddush Hashem!
And this apparently is what we are called upon to do in our own days!
This is, it seems, what the Chofetz Chaim was telling us about survival in Acharis ha Yomim. We must say of the nations which surround us: YOUR CULTURE IS TOTALLY EMPTY! WE REJECT ALL OF IT! We reject the immoral pursuits and the love of luxury, money, cars, vacations, television, sports, entertainment, scandal, loshon hara and emptiness, the entire degrading lifestyle of self advancement, in which the highest ideal is to “get ahead,” meaning ahead of the other person, in order to destroy him so that you in your pathetic attempt at self-glorification can tell yourself that you are “Number One”!
I know it sounds extreme, but we have to consider what the Torah means when it informs us that only twenty percent of the Children of Israel left Egypt. Apparently, eighty percent did not want to abandon the culture of Egypt even though that was their only ticket to survival! There was no other way, and so it seems to be with us today.
The culture of Edom is not our culture. Ours, lehavdil, is the culture of constant service to the King of Kings, constant study of His Torah in order to live His Torah, constant dissemination of Torah to the entire world! There is no room for the culture of Edom, despite its apparent predominance.
And so we clean out the chometz before Pesach. We clean out every vestige of belief in the alien culture which enslaves us! We come to understand that we are sustained only by what emanates from our Father in the Shomayim! We cannot be freed from slavery unless we realize that our existence depends entirely on Him!
This is not theory, my friends. This is SURVIVAL!
Our adherence to this mighty Truth in the eyes of the entire world is what is called Kiddush Hashem! We exist to tell the world that we are sustained only by Avinu Malkeinu, our Father and King!
My wife and I had the privilege on the Shabbos of Parshas Shemos to attend the Annual Presidents’ Conference of Torah Umesorah in Miami, Florida. It was a large convention, held at a major hotel, part of a worldwide chain. Thousands of travelers and conventions pass through these halls (where I am writing at this very moment). I want you to know what the Convention Director of this major hotel told the Torah Umesorah staff. Please listen to these words.
“We have never dealt with more honest, pleasant and straightforward people than you. You have completely reversed our expectation of what it would be like to deal with an orthodox Jewish organization.”
Do you hear these words!
Am Yisroel! A holy nation upon the earth! “Who is like Your people Israel, one nation on earth!” (Shabbos Mincha Shemoneh Esreh, II Samuel 7:23).
My friends, it is all about Kiddush Hashem. It is our job to demonstrate to the world what it means to cleave with all our hearts and souls to the Ribono shel Olam, the Ruler of the Universe. If we cling to His Torah with fiery devotion, then we can hope to participate with the greatest simcha in the coming of Moshiach ben Dovid, who will liberate us from all tzouris and usher in the era of everlasting happiness and kedusha for the entire world.
May we soon eat the Korban Pesach and consume our matzoh in purity as we gather in sanctity around the Bais ha Mikdosh in the coming days, when “Torah will go forth from Zion and the Word of G-d from Yerushalayim.” (Isaiah 2:3)
© Copyright 2010 by Roy S. Neuberger
