Second in a series of five sermons on Sacred Mountains
I was wide awake at 3 AM Sunday night — Monday morning really — watching the hostages return to their loved ones. It felt like the end of a living nightmare. Their reunions brought to mind the Psalmist’s prophecy, “They that sow in tears shall reap in joy.”
Twenty of our living hostages were freed after 738 days. Add those digits up and you get 18 — chai, life. This miracle was made possible by families who refused to stop fighting, soldiers who walked into hell, and those around the world, especially in Israel, who never gave up hope.
The sad and tragic process of bringing our deceased home is ongoing. We will leave no one behind. But this is only a beginning. Is lasting peace at hand or is this merely another pause? Only time will tell.
But lamrot hakol, despite everything, this week in Boone, our children jumped and played on Sunday during our Sukkot celebration, and we danced and sang with one another on Tuesday night with our scrolls to the sound of banjo and fiddle. And we prayed for and remembered all those slain on Simchat Torah two years ago. The pain is still fresh, but for the first time in two years, we were able to exhale, sing, shout, and cry along with the freed hostages and their families, “Am Yisrael Chai!” The People of Israel live.
That’s the question the nations of the world keep asking: what keeps us alive? What has sustained us for thousands of years? Mi k’amcha Yisrael?
Let’s learn from Rav Moshe Shapira z”l, a Gadol b’Torah who was the rosh yeshiva of Yeshiva Pischei Olam in Israel and one of the world’s leading baalei mussar, masters of moral instruction.
In Deuteronomy 4:9 we are commanded not to forget what happened on Mt. Sinai.
“Look out for yourself and guard your life exceedingly, lest you forget the words your eyes witnessed, and lest they are removed from your mind, all the days of your life; you will make them known to your children and to your grandchildren.”
I know what you’re thinking. How can we be told not to forget something unless it is clear to us and we already know it? What is the memory of Sinai that Moses is worried we will forget?
The Talmudic rabbis pose the question, “How is it possible that a person who cannot see or hear can give birth to children who can see and hear?” This is not a question of genetics — of which they were unaware. No. What they are asking is “How is it possible to give to our children that which we do not possess ourselves?”
It’s easy to give a child a tallit, tefillin, a prayerbook, but what about things that we are ourselves may not be connected to? What about mesorah, tradition, or emunah, faith?
The answer from Rav Shapira: When we give life to our children, we give them one unified energy called life which is then refracted into different limbs, senses, and abilities. It is one unified life force that manifests in different parts of our body.
Think of the life force like electricity in the house. It is always live through the wires in the walls — and when you turn an appliance or a light on, it draws upon that energy instantly. Not everything may be on at the same time, but the electricity is always available in an instant, always circulating.
Something changed in us at Sinai. What happened? God gave us God’s self. God gave us, through our brit, our covenant, the energy of life itself.
Standing at Sinai means that this life force, this koach, this circulating power, is in us eternally as Jews. Those that turn away may have children who return. My mother’s family going back into the 19th century were secular Jews in Odessa who practiced nothing. Her parents did not send her to Sunday school or light candles. Yet as a mother, she brought Judaism into the home, sent us to Sunday school, and herself became an adult bat mitzvah. And now? I am a rabbi.
Other members of the Russian family made aliyah in the 1990s, escaping Communism to fulfill the Zionist dream. Their children serve in the army and navy. The energy of Sinai continued to flow through the generations regardless. But how?
The commandment not to forget means that we are already hard wired with this life force — it is who we are. We must know it, otherwise we would not be commanded not to forget it. Generation after generation, Jews have given birth to children who are also part of the covenant formed on the mountain of fire. We all stood there. Every future convert stood there too. This ever-present current is what we give to future generations.
On Sinai, we were given chaim — life itself. No other people has that. It is impossible to be erased. It is deeper than our senses — but it exists.
Now a person can always choose to turn away from Yiddishkeit. God has given us free will and a yetzer hara — a negative inclination. A person can ignore Torah and mitzvot. Think about Korach, that leader who rebelled against Moses and Aaron. He saw Sinai with his own eyes, he was literally physically there! And yet, due to being power hungry, he still ignored everything he had learned and seen, and he sought to overthrow Adonai’s leaders.
Another who ignored his own eyes was Pharaoh. He saw the blood, hail, and boils. Yet he maintained his destructive direction. How could he not see? He blocked it out, stubbornly sticking to his own ill-fated path.
Listen, there are people out there who can talk you into doing anything. Heck, they’ve got a bridge in Brooklyn you might be interested in acquiring. Have you thought about timeshares? (Seriously, ask my dad, he’ll give you an earful on timeshares…) If you’re not careful, they can even talk you out of that which you know to be true.
But there is one truth they cannot talk you out of — that you are ALIVE. The certainty of Sinai, of Torah, of our covenant with Adonai cannot be scraped away or removed by force. We know it with the certainty of life itself. Ibn Ezra, the distinguished medieval commentator, taught us, “Should you forget everything, do not forget the day that you stood at Sinai.”
If we can hold onto Sinai, nothing and no force on earth can destroy us.
The Talmud (Shabbat 88b) tells us that when we first heard the words from Sinai, they were so holy and pure that our souls left our bodies. “At each and every word that went forth from the mouth of the Holy One, blessed be Adonai, the souls of Israel left their bodies… as it is said in Song of Songs 5:6, ‘My soul went out when he spoke’. But if their souls departed with each word, how could they hear the next one? The Holy One brought down the dew with which He will resurrect the dead in the future, and He revived them.”
Hashem gave our lives back to us at Sinai. Life itself changed. We were on the level of the Garden of Eden for a brief moment, and though that did not and could not last due to the sin of the Golden Calf, we were brought back with dew, with Torah, to continue on generation after generation.
This week, twenty hostages were brought back to life. It was a miracle. Our hearts are full.
This week we saw and heard the unity of our brothers and sisters in Eretz Yisrael as they wept, danced, and sang as one. Shofars were blown. Flags were waved. They sang out with broken but joyful hearts the immortal words, “Am Yisrael Chai.”
With the energy of Sinai pulsing through us, the faith of our ancestors, the hope in our children, and the strength of our faith, through God’s help, the people of Israel will continue to live for all eternity. And let us say, Amen.