THOUGHTS FOR THE MONTH OF ADAR

Dear Friends:

Spring is always a miracle.

The second blessing in the Shemoneh Esreh is “T’chiyas Hamaisim,” the resurrection of the dead. Springtime is the resurrection of the dead. I think that is the reason for a general feeling of hope and happiness at this season. We all start to believe that we will live forever – which is true! – but we SEE it in nature! We see that there is life beyond death; we see the frozen streams thaw and the buds bursting open on the skeletal trees. We SEE the resurrection of the dead world and we know it will happen with us also!

Of course, we were saved from Haman in the spring, and we came out of Egyptian slavery in the spring. It is no accident. History is one big drama written by its Creator, and all the action fits in perfectly. No blade of grass or snowflake is out of place. Everything is exactly where it should be.

When the Jews were targeted by Haman, there was no place to hide. The entire world was under the control of Achashverosh; those 127 provinces circled the Globe “from Hodu to Kush.”i There was no place for us to go… no place but up!

Help us, our Father in Heaven! Ana Hashem hoshia na!

We had to wake up! If you didn’t believe that G-d was real, if you didn’t come together in unity and fasting, crying out together to our Father in Heaven to save you, you were not going to make it! As Queen Esther said to Mordechai, “Go, assemble all the Jews … and fast for me….”ii

Before we crossed the Red Sea, there was also no place to hide. It was either into the water or back to Egypt. There also we were caught. There also the only place to go was UP! As Moses said to the people, “stand fast and see the salvation of G-d.”iii But you had to believe that G-d was real; otherwise you wouldn’t see His salvation. That is why four-fifths of the Children of Israel never made it out of Egypt!iv

As it was in the days of Haman and Achashverosh, so it was in the days of Moses.

And so it is today!

We are in the Purim story, the Exodus story!

It’s happening now!

We are surrounded!

As I said recently, our enemies are joining hands in a great ring around us. Go to any Jewish neighborhood, the more “frum” the neighborhood, the more you will see it. It is surrounded by people who are not there because they like bagels. On a larger scale, the entire world is moving closer together as they unite to condemn the “perfidy” and “cruelty” of the Children of Israel. The world is writing a new Mein Kampf, rationalizing their hatred in order to justify what they hope will be the climax to the age-old crusade to render the earth “Yudenrein,” free of Jews, G-d forbid.

Yes, my friends, we are surrounded, as we were in Shushan and upon the shores of the Red Sea.

As it was then, so it is now: there is only one place to look, and that is up!

The first blessing in the Shemoneh Esreh prayer ends like this: “Melech, Ozair, u’Moshiah, u’Magain. Baruch ata Hashem, magen Avraham” … “King, Helper, Savior and Shield. Blessed are You, G-d, Shield of Abraham.”

This is a recipe for our personal salvation, which we say at least three times a day.

There is only one shield in this world, my friends, and that is the shield which our loving Father in Heaven places around us. How do we acquire that shield?

First, we have to recognize that He is our King, and we depend upon Him ALONE for help! (Yes, we must do our hishtadlus, but at the same time we must also know that the help comes from Him alone).

Once we acknowledge that He is our King, then we will see the Help come from Above! And once we see that our Help comes from Above, He will Save us!

Then we will understand that, whatever – NO EXCEPTIONS! – whatever happens in this world, He is our shield; He will protect us! The Nations of the world, with all their ranting, cannot touch us, because our Father in Heaven is our shield!

As we say in Kiddush Levana: “Just as I dance toward you but cannot touch you, so may none of my enemies be able to touch me for evil.”

And why is it called the “Shield of Abraham”?

Please imagine our Great Patriarch towards the end of his life. He had created a worldwide revolution. He had brought the knowledge of G-d to mankind and had become the father of the great nation whose privilege it would be to sanctify G-d’s Name forever in this world. But there was one lasting source of pain for our Father Abraham. He had a son by the name of Yishmael, whose nature was that of a “pe’re adam,” a wild donkey of a man “whose hand [is] against everyone and everyone’s hand [is] against him, and over all his brothers shall he dwell.”v

How could our Father Abraham rest, knowing that his children would be pursued throughout history by this wild man?

But G-d protected our Father Abraham. He created a shield for him, and that shield was the knowledge that, at the end of time, those who pursued his children would be destroyed by their own intense hatred. As we say every Friday night, “those who trampled you will be trampled.”vi

My dear friends, look upward! “Stand fast and see the salvation of G-d.”vii

It is very close. Springtime is coming to the Children of Israel!

Roy S. Neuberger

© Copyright 2009 by Roy S. Neuberger