B"H
THOUGHTS FOR THE MONTH OF ADAR
Dear Friends:
M'shenichnas
Adar Marbim b'Simcha... With the coming of Adar joy increases.
What is the cause
of this joy? What is so special about the Month of
Adar?
Of course, Purim is coming, and then Pesach. This
is the season of liberation. Winter seems to trap us
in the death of nature. Parts of upstate New York are
now covered by twelve feet of snow! As King David says, "He
hurls His ice like crumbs. Who can stand before His
cold?" [1]
Hope arises with
nature's annual revival; the sun's warmth heals and the
flowers bloom, the ground is plowed once again and seeds
are planted, promising sustenance and growth. Hearts
are filled with hope.
At this season
the Children of Israel also begin to think about awakening
from our age-old entrapment in the winter of our Exile. We
experience the miracle of Purim, in which Haman was seconds
away from the annihilation of our people.
G-d saved us through miracles
hidden in the apparently normal affairs of the world. A
month later we arrive at the eternal liberation of Pesach,
the moment in which
G-d destroyed the prison from
which there was no logical possibility of escape.
What exactly separates
the Children of Israel from the rest of the world? What
enables us to do what no other nation can do?
Last Shabbos, we
read about Moses' father-in-law Yisro, who joins the Children
of Israel in the Desert. Yisro offers a plan that seems
reasonable and logical. Why should Moses exhaust himself
by sitting all day while the Children of Israel stand on a
long line to speak to him? Let Moses appoint "leaders
of thousands, leaders of hundreds, leaders of fifties and
leaders of tens." [2] They
will judge the people and only bring "major matters" to
Moses.
This of course
has become the model for the judiciary system used by "civilized
nations" around the world, the appeals process ascending through
various levels, culminating in the supreme court. Moses
was the "supreme court."
The Children of
Israel accepted Yisro's advice.
It was logical;
it was good. Right?
It was tragic.
How do we know? Rashi
tells us. In the Book of Deuteronomy, Our Teacher Moses
rebukes the Children of Israel for having so quickly accepted
Yisro's proposal. Rashi explains what Moses is really
saying to the people.
"You decided
the matter to your benefit. You should have responded,
'Our Teacher Moses, from whom is it more appropriate to learn,
from you or from your student? Is it not from you,
for you suffered over the Torah?'
"But I was aware
of your thoughts. You were saying [to yourselves],
'Now many judges will be appointed over us. If [the
judge before whom we appear] does not show us favoritism,
we will bring him a gift and he will favor us."' [3]
Some rabbinic commentators
go so far as to suggest that the entire episode of the Golden
Calf, the monumental tragedy from which we are still reeling
millennia later, would never have occurred if the people had
clung to their leader with a determination never to stray from
his side. [4]
Yisro's proposal
was logical, but it was not our logic.
The logic of the
nations rules the world today, but that world is teetering
on the brink of self-destruction. Our logic is not their
logic, nor is our fate their fate. What separates the
Children of Israel from the rest of the world? What enables
us to rise above nature, above the cycle of life and death? We
may die as others die, but our nation does not die, and
we are promised (as we discussed regarding Tu B'Shevat)
eternal life, resurrection from the dead.
We are eternal
because we are attached to the Eternal G-d.
"Moses received
the Torah from Sinai and transmitted it to Joshua; Joshua
to the Elders; the Elders to the Prophets; and the Prophets
transmitted it to the Men of the Great Assembly." [5] Yisro,
for all his apparent common sense, wanted to break that eternal
chain. The Torah is transmitted from mouth to mouth,
eye to eye, from G-d to Moses, from teacher
to student, father to son, down to our own day. The Oral
Law and the Written Law are one; it is impossible to transmit
the Torah without direct oral transmission from rabbi to student,
father to son. We have to SEE the Torah lived, not just
read about it. We have to SEE how Moshe Rabbeinu lived,
and we have to SEE the Moshe Rabbeinu who lives in our day. We
have to absorb the essence of Torah by seeing how great
men live.
Yisro's logic was
the logic of the nations, and the nations are temporal. Like
the seasons, they come and go. They die in the winter
of their old age, and new nations spring up like flowers in
springtime. They grow, they flourish and then they
disappear.
But the Children
of Israel are attached to the Al-mighty G-d. We
may seem to fade and disappear, but, like the moon, we
reappear again and again, living forever in the service
of our Eternal Creator.
This is the secret
of Adar, our eternal simcha. When Adar arrives, nature
springs into life. For the rest of the world that happiness
is incomplete, because winter will return and they will fade
into oblivion. But our springtime is eternal; our
Torah is eternal; our G-d is eternal. We do not
spring up like the flowers but like the eternal sons and daughters
of the Al-mighty. In the immortal words of King David, "they
slumped and fell, but we arose and were invigorated. Hashem
save! May the King answer us on the day we call." [6]
May this Adar herald
our eternal release from exile with the coming of Moshiach
ben Dovid!
Roy S. Neuberger
