Op-Ed: It Happened Simchas Torah As They Were Dancing
by Levi Y. Liberow – Beis Moshiach Magazine
I always wondered what it felt like to be in 770 (or in any shul during Yom Tov) at the outbreak of the Yom Kippur War, a war which we just marked its fiftieth anniversary. I always wondered what went through the minds of the thousands of Chassidim there when the horrifying news came. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would ever get the answer. But one difference was that unlike fifty years ago, “It happened Yom Kippur as they were praying,” our lasting memories will be from “It happened Simchas Torah as they were dancing,” and this, my dear friends and brothers, is a matter of crucial importance.
2. Just last week, b’hashgacha pratis, I read a story about Reb Pinchas Koritzer and the Baal Shem Tov:
Reb Pinchas was struggling with questions on matters of emuna. He searched the entire Torah and could not find the answers. He then heard of a new “Baal Shem” and wanted to meet him but couldn’t afford the trip expenses and neither could he walk because he didn’t own shoes…
Hashem helped and the Baal Shem Tov came to his town, Shipitkova. After davening Mincha in the town shul on Friday afternoon, the Baal Shem Tov turned around to the congregation and announced, “Whoever needs proof for the existence of Hashem can find it in the fact that when one prays Hashem answers!”
“Only I understood who he was talking to,” said Reb Pinchas to a disciple who was struggling with similar questions. “From that day on the questions no longer bothered me. They did not go away but I was able to go away from them.”
The Rebbe wrote several times that it is no wonder that a created being cannot fathom the ways of the Creator. Understanding Hashem is the exception, not the rule. And yet, the questions can get in the way and disturb. The better solution is not to try to answer them but to walk away from them and to do that one must be proactive.
Struggling with questions is a human weakness. Answering them is a Divine strength generally reserved by the Creator. Choosing to walk away from them is a Divine power that was gifted to man.
Walking away from questions is, in many ways, creating a new reality. In several sichos (see Shabbos Parshas Behaaloscha 5751 fn 69), the Rebbe explains how, since Hashem directly creates us, the yesh ha’nivra, we have certain qualities that only He, the Yesh Ha’amiti (the only true existing Being), has. Among them is the power of creation.
While we cannot create matter, we can re-create existing matter into a higher form of being by consecrating it such as dedicating an animal for a korban or using an animal hide for a Sefer Torah or tefillin. Prior to our act this object was receiving its creative energy through the kelipos and nature; now it has been elevated to receive its creative energy from the side of kedusha. This is an act of creation.
Walking away from questions and doubts is a sacrifice. One sacrifices his human nature and tendency which wishes to understand everything and to figure out everything and submits himself to the will of Hashem.
This is not a copout. Logically one must ultimately come to the realization not everything can be understood. The strength is to recognize his limits when he can rather than when he must; to be a believer before he’s in the foxhole.
3. “Living with the times,” we all learned our Chitas this past Sunday including the entire Parshas V’zos Habracha, and found many allusions and hints to the current situation in the holy words of the Torah, including, of course the very first Rashi of the Torah refuting the claim of the nations of the world to Eretz Yisrael.
One particular outstanding remez was Rashi’s second commentary on the passuk “Af chovev amim, kol kedoshav b’yadecha — Indeed, You showed love for peoples; all his holy ones are in Your hand, for they let themselves be centered at Your feet, bearing Your utterances.” (V’zos Habracha 33:3)
Rashi’s words, which I’m sure many Jews over the years found relevant throughout the many atrocities Am Yisrael has endured over the generations, are shocking and painful and at the same time comforting and uplifting:
Which nations did Hashem “show love” for?
Doesn’t Hashem have one chosen nation which he chooses to show love and celebrate alone with on Shemini Atzeres with one ox and one ram? As Rashi says (Pinchas 29:36):
One ox, One ram: These correspond to Israel. [Hashem said,] “Remain with Me a little longer.” It expresses His affection [for Israel]. It is like children taking leave of their father, who says to them, “It is difficult for me to part with you; stay one more day.”
Zogt der heiliger Rashi:
“Even when You displayed Your affection towards the nations of the world, showing them a smiling [friendly] face and You delivered Israel into their hand” still, “All Israel’s righteous and good people clung to You; they did not turn away from You, and You guarded them.”
What do Yidden do in the face of atrocities such as these, when close to 1,000 kedoshim have been gathered into Hashem’s hands and many more are fighting for their lives in hospitals and in the hands of their cruel captors?
“They accept Your decrees and Your laws with joy. And these are their words: The Torah that Moshe commanded us is a legacy for the congregation of Yaakov: We have taken hold of it, and we will not forsake it!”
While “גזירותיך” in this context, in the pshat, is probably related to the mitzvos, one cannot help but wonder if it means also gezeiros as in harsh decrees…
What did we do about it? Rashi tells us: “They accept it with joy.” Which is exactly what we did this Shemini Atzeres — we accepted Hashem’s gezeiros with joy and song and dancing. But not the kind of joy the world is used to; rather the kind of joy Torah teaches us.
Accepting is not a passive state, it’s an active state.
4. The human weakness of joy is to react to a pleasant situation with a feeling which can be best described as a chemical reaction beyond man’s control to a given situation. Animals too can be happy when they have what they need and sad when they don’t. On this level, both joy and sadness enslave us to the circumstances around us.
But there’s a human strength of joy; the power to realize that while there can be many good and justifiable reasons why the last thing you want to do is get up on your feet, wipe away the tears, sing, clap your hands and jump up and down like there’s no worry in the world — you do it anyway!
This type of joy gives us an edge over the circumstances around us and subjugates those circumstances to us. Through simcha shel mitzva (“they accept your decrees with joy”) one creates a new reality. Kabbalah and Chassidus teach us (See Iggeres HaKodesh of Tanya siman 11) how “Simcha sweetens judgments at their roots.”
5. At one shul that was visited during tahalucha this Simchas Torah, a large group of happy bachurim from the yeshivos in Eretz Yisrael and in the West Coast were doing a superb job “raising the roof” of the shul but were in a rush to leave. The shliach at this shul who needed their chizuk for at least a few minutes longer, stopped the singing of Reb Levik’s hakafos niggun amid the part which is repeated over and over (“ay-ya-ya-ya-hey, ay-ya-ya, ay-ya-ya-yai”) and told them this:
“If you knew that every ay-ya-ya-ya-hey rids us of another terrorist and saves another Jewish life, would you stop now?”
Needless to say, the simcha went on for many more longer minutes and many more ay-ya-ya-ya-hey’s…
“Accepting” is not a chemical reaction, it is a proactive stance. When we choose to rejoice we transform and create a happy reality.
6. A Chassid who lives in a Brooklyn neighborhood and never missed a Simchas Torah walking up to 770 since he got to know the Rebbe over forty years ago, told me that after dancing he went up to the door of the Rebbe’s room and asked for a bracha for the situation in Eretz Yisrael. When he got home later that night, he got word that sixty Yidden who were held hostage in a Kibbutz dining room were miraculously released, all their captors were shot dead, and the brave soldiers were only lightly injured in the fire exchange.
We don’t know for certain which tefilla and which tefillin and which kapitel tehillim and which dance and which ay-ya-ya-ya-hey protected which soldier and released which captive and healed which injured Jew, but we do know that each such act does not go unanswered and recreates the hidden good into a revealed good.
How did the Baal Shem Tov respond to Reb Pinchas and help him walk away from his questions? “Whoever needs proof for the existence of Hashem can find it in the fact that when one prays Hashem answers!”
7. Our enemies, following the example of their spiritual father Haman, thought they chose a good day to start up with us and break our spirits. A good day indeed it was, because between the gates unlocked in Heaven from the tears and the gates breached with the buckets of perspiration from the 48 hours of simcha (which should, and surely will, continue until we will begin to dance in celebration of the great miracles we are destined to see) they stand no chance and they will be wiped away from under the face of the earth forever!
To paraphrase the Gemera’s words about Haman (Megillah 13b): “Once the lot fell on Simchas Torah, the enemies of Israel greatly rejoiced, for they saw this as a favorable way to make the Jews all over the world sad and depressed and dejected. But they did not know that not only do Jews not stop dancing and being happy when their enemies strike them, but they increase in joy and dance harder, stronger and happier!”
One of the last pesukim in Eicha reads “Nehepach l’evel mecholeinu — Our dancing has turned into mourning.” May we suggest that we read this passuk — which seems so relevant in this light of the recent events — in a slightly different way: “Nahafoch evel bi’mecholeinu — Let us transform our morning through dancing.”
8. In a famous letter to President Ben-Zvi the Rebbe wrote:
“From the time I was going to cheder — and even before — a vision of the future Geula began to form in my mind: Such a Geula through which all the suffering of exile, the persecutions and massacres will finally be understood;
Understood in the fullest sense, with a complete heart, to the point that we will look back and say thank you to Hashem for all that we went through.” (Free translation from Igros, Vo. 12 letter nu. 422)
Let us not only walk away from the questions; let us dance away from the questions right towards the only acceptable answer. ■
Please send comments to levi@beismoshiach.org
Reprinted with permission from a special Edition of Beis Moshiach Magazine published in connection the war in Eretz Yisrael.
