Dissonance | Geulah Brachamim Program – By Pinchas Winston
THE JEWISH PEOPLE have had many enemies over the millennia, but none as ruthless and as dangerous as cognitive dissonance. You know, the state of having inconsistent and conflicting thoughts, beliefs, or attitudes, especially as relating to behavioral decisions and attitude change. Right, THAT cognitive dissonance.
Let’s face it: Moshiach would be a nuisance for many today. Mostly for Jews living comfortably in the Diaspora, but also for many Jews already living in Eretz Yisroel. Obviously for secular Jews, but for a lot of religious Jews as well. Redemption has some very serious implications, and if you’re not into them, then you’re out of them.
The “Haavara Agreement” was an agreement between Nazi Germany and Zionist German Jews signed on August 25, 1933. The agreement was finalized after three months of talks by the Zionists Federation of Germany, the Anglo-Palestine Bank (under the directive of the Jewish Agency) and the economic authorities of Nazi Germany. It was a major factor in making possible the migration of approximately 60,000 German Jews to Eretz Yisroel between 1933 and 1939.
Tragically, 100,000 German Jews did not make it. Not because the Nazis reneged on the deal, or because the British stopped them from coming. THAT did not happen until 1939. No, they CHOSE not to leave Germany, stating that they were as German and as entitled as their gentile compatriots. All of them died in the Holocaust.
This is about more than looking gift horses in the mouth. This is about reading God’s mind. It is about understanding how God works, how redemptions work, small and big. It is about not missing the train because it looked as if it was actually going nowhere.
TAKE KORESH FOR example. Today we look back and appreciate who he was, and what he did. But, at the time, when as king of Persia in 370 CE he allowed the exiled Jews to return and begin reconstructing the Temple, few were impressed. He was a gentile king and probably inspired more fear than respect from his Jewish subjects.
Thus, most balked at Koresh’s offer. It was only 52 years since the destruction of the Temple, and the Jewish people were being granted permission to go back to Eretz Yisroel and begin construction on the Second Temple. Yet, only 42,000 responded to the call. The rest chose to remain in Bavel. God had initiated Kibbutz Golios, but the bulk of the nation wanted no part of it. .
Three years later, construction on the Temple was halted, once the Shomronim convinced Koresh to withdraw his consent. Consequently, the door closed on the redemption from Bavel while it opened for Haman the Evil to rise to power and later threaten the existence of Persian Jews. Until the miracle of Purim, redemption seemed to be in reverse.
Even more so in Egypt. Moshe Rabbeinu showed up on the scene with promises of redemption, only to cause Pharaoh to increase the slavery, not reduce it. Moshe, for his part, had to return to Midian for six months before God came calling again. Even HE, the Torah reveals to us, had difficulty accepting the turn of events.
In more recent times, the formation of the State of Israel certainly seemed Messianic at the beginning. And, when the Israelis were able to counter the attacks of its neighbors, existential war after existential war, the climax being the Six Day War, it seemed to Jews around the world as if the Final Redemption was imminent.
Then things turned around. The Israelis almost lost the ’73 War. The world was angry at them for the war in Lebanon, and the Intifada in 1987 gained international support. Israel, after used to being the “David” was being framed in the Western media as “Goliath.” It has only become worse with each passing year. “Where is the redemption now?” many ask.
Even Moshe Rabbeinu’s own birth worked the same way. The Talmud says that Miriam, Moshe’s sister, had predicted the birth of a savior of the Jewish people. When Moshe was born, it seemed as if her prophecy came true, and Amram, her father, applauded her.
However, when Pharaoh decreed death on all the male babies, forcing Amram and Yocheved to ship the baby Moshe off and take their chances with the Nile river, Amram asked his daughter, “Where is the prophecy NOW?” Even for the leader of the Jewish people at the time, the situation looked worse than bleak.
Miriam never lost her faith. She stood by the river to see what would become of her prophecy as Moshe floated down the river in a basket, survived the dangers of the river, and ended up in the arms of Pharaoh’s daughter, Batya. Miriam’s father, the Gadol HaDor, did not see the redemption in any of it. She didn’t either, but she trusted that it had to be there.
Mordechai too. He told Esther that God was in the middle of redeeming them. He warned her that if she did not go out on a limb and try and save the Jewish people, God would find another who would. There was a “Hitler” in power who was in the midst of pulling off his own Holocaust and Mordechai was talking redemption. People must have thought he had “lost it.”
In time, Miriam was vindicated. In the end, Mordechai was victorious. They had been right from the start. How did they know?
IT WAS A dejected Moshe Rabbeinu who returned to God at the end of Parashas Shemos and complained that the redemption has backfired. It had even prompted him to question the entire purpose of his mission!
Understandably so. Inadvertently increasing the tor-ture of millions of innocent people SHOULD be upsetting. Who WOULDN’T sympathize with Moshe Rabbeinu about that?
God, for one. It is at that point, the Talmud says, that God told him:
“Too bad about those who are gone and are not to be found! How many times did I reveal Myself to Avraham, Yitzchak, and Ya’akov by the Name ‘El Shaddai,’ and they did not question My character, or say to Me, ‘What is Your name?’ I said to Avraham, ‘Arise, walk the length and breadth of the land, for I will give it to you’ (Bereishis 13:17). Yet, when he sought a place to bury Sarah he did not find one, but had to purchase it for 400 silver shekels! Still, he did not question My character. I said to Yitzchak, ‘Sojourn in this land, and I will be with you, and will bless you’ (Bereishis 26:3). Yet his servants sought water to drink, and did not find it without its being disputed, as it is said, ‘And the herdsmen of Gerar did strive with Yitzchak’s herdsmen saying, “The water is ours” ’ (Bereishis 26:20). Still, he did not question My character. I said to Ya’akov, ‘The land on which you lie I will give to you and to your seed’ (Bereishis 28:13). Yet, when he looked for a place to pitch his tent he did not find one until he purchased it for 100 kesitah, and nevertheless did not question My character or say to me, ‘What is Your name?’ Now you say to Me, “Neither have You delivered Your people at all!” (Shemos 5:23). You will now see what I will do to Pharaoh! You will see the war against Pharaoh, but not the war against the 31 kings [of Canaan]!” (Sanhedrin 111a)
Really? Is this even a fair comparison? Is it not one thing to be promised a land in the future and have to live on it like a stranger in the meantime? Is it not something altogether different to be sent to redeem millions of people and increase their suffering instead! After all, who was Moshe feeling bad for in all of this, himself?
Of course not. God obviously knew that too. That wasn’t the part he called out Moshe on. It was this that resulted in a less-than-favorable Divine reaction:
Neither have You delivered Your people at all!
The most important thing to understand about redemption is that it is always a work in progress. Moshe himself was born 80 years before the exodus from Egypt, but the slavery got a lot worse before it got better during that time. The redemption began with Moshe’s birth, but ended closer to his death.
This is also why Megillas Esther begins with Acha-shveros’s feast and subsequent execution of his queen, Vashti. The rise of Haman comes later, as does the story of Mordechai and Esther. However, the Megillah is telling us, the redemption was set in motion at the time of the feast, because of all the redemption-like events it would lead to.
Likewise, the redemption from Bavel did not fail when Koresh took back his offer to allow the Jews to build the Second Temple. It just incorporated another 18 years and the Purim story before it came to its completion.
IT IS EXTREMELY important to know that Jewish redemptions always occur in TWO phases. This is important because knowing it makes the difference between being ready for redemption, and being caught unprepared when it finally comes. This principle explains why Miriam did not lose hope when her parents had to give up Moshe, or why Mordechai stayed with his plan even after Haman rose to power.
The first stage of redemption is called “Pekidah,” and it was about THIS that Yosef told his brothers when he said, just prior to his death:
God will surely REMEMBER you—PAKOD YIFKOD—and take you up out of this land to the land that He swore to Avraham, to Yitzchak, and to Ya’akov. (Ber- eishis 50:24)
A “pekidah” initiates a redemption. It can be a single short-lived event, or several. It can also be so inconspicuous as to escape the attention of most but, nevertheless, it is a SIGN that redemption is on its way—even if just the opposite looks true.
Thus, when Moshe Rabbeinu first told the Jews in Egypt about their coming redemption, it says:
And the people believed, and they heard that God had REMEMBERED—PAKAD—the Children of Isra-el . . . (Shemos 4:31)
They had been far from redeemed at the time. On the contrary, they were still quite enslaved. But they ASSUMED that Moshe had come down to Egypt to change all that THIS time, and that in a SHORT while they would be free. When instead the slavery became worse and Moshe left them for six months, they assumed that the redemption had in fact failed.
Likewise in Koresh’s time. When the 42,000 Jews returned to Eretz Yisroel from Bavel and began work on the Second Temple, they assumed that they would finish it THAT time. They figured that they would soon be followed by the rest of the nation. When they weren’t, and permission to build had been revoked, everyone assumed that the redemption had failed as well.
It hadn’t.
Far from it.
It was just the Pekidah-Phase of redemption coming to a close. What had to be done for the time being had been done. From that point onward, it would take a specific amount of time and certain events to bring the Jewish people up to redemption speed, to the second and final phase of redemption, “Zechirah,” referred to here:
I will REMEMBER—V’ZACHARTI—for them the co-venant [made with] the ancestors . . . (Vayikra 26:45)
In Egypt, this began with Moshe Rabbeinu’s return to Egypt after six months in Midian, and the Ten Plagues that followed. With each plague Egypt became weaker and the Jewish people became stronger. Six months later, they were completely free. Another six months later, and they were on their way out of Egypt. They never looked back, especially once the sea drowned the rest of the Egyptian army.
In Persia, the Zechirah began with Achashveros’s feast. It was the feast that led to the unusual execution of Vashti, making room for Esther to become queen. This is what Mordechai told Esther at her moment of truth:
“Do not imagine that you will be able to escape in the king’s palace any more than the rest of the Jews. For if you continue to remain silent at a time like this, relief and salvation will come to the Jews from another place, while you and your father’s house will perish. And, who knows whether it was for such a time as this that you attained the royal position!” (Esther 4:13)
By the time it comes to a Zechirah, it is quite conclusive that redemption is at hand. It is clear that God is doing it, and it is clear through whom He is working. By the third plague, the Egyptian sorcerers admitted it was God doing the plagues. By the fifth, even Pharaoh had to acknowledge His hand. Even before the 10th plague, the Egyptian people actually feared Moshe.
A Pekidah is different. The event on its own can be considered Messianic because of the direction it is going. But, the way it occurs or the people through whom it happens can blur the picture and distract most people away from the true meaning of the occurrence. It may be Heaven’s way of disguising what it is doing, or the nation’s lack of focus on redemption may limit their ability to recognize it.
What about the birth of the modern State of Israel? Clearly it was not the ZECHIRAH-Phase of redemption. So many negative events have happened to the Israeli people since then. Anti-Semitism world-wide is VERY high. Infighting in Israel is at a feverish pitch. While the Torah element continues to grow, the State, overall, becomes increasingly more secular.
Was it then a PEKIDAH?
On this point there is a “loud” argument.
Both sides are vehement.
Who is right?
Well, if a redemption is all-or-nothing, then the Rejectionists would seem to be right. But, if redemption is two-phased, then there is PLENTY of room to say yes, the founding of the modern State of Israel was indeed a Pekidah-based event. It is important to understand HOW to break through the wall of cognitive dissonance.
Pinchas Winston
Thirtysix.org
