No matter how far we go from home, either running from who we are
or lured and lulled by the fake gods that taunt us, something always drives us
home. A family sickness, a funeral, sometimes even something good, but fate
brings us home. And who are we when we return to the scene of our prime?
Do we at all resemble that soul that our feet took wandering through the dark crevices
of exile? Are there any traces of the Source inside us? Drink the bitter water;
it shall tell us what we’ve become.[1]
A great nation blessed by G-d Himself, chosen for “monogamy,” has
morphed into gross polytheists and selfish polygamists. And now,
the waters of truth are gathering around our door, the torrents are not far
behind. “Deliver me, O God, for the waters have reached until my soul! I
have sunk in muddy depths without foothold; I have come into deep waters, and
the current sweeps me away.’ (Psalms 69:2-3) Yes, my beloved Jews the waters
are rising, our faltering footholds are becoming strangleholds, and as always
and as promised we are being forced back home.
We ran from who we are and where we belong because we forsook our
G-d and got seduced by a world of lies. But the world isn’t lying anymore. The
old masks have dropped, albeit now we wear new ones. Anti-Semitism, the
one virus for which no vaccine will ever be found, is flooding reasonableness, muddying
our waters, building up pressure; and the dam will surely fall. It’s
spreading, it’s infiltrating and all our materialistic and institutional
strongholds are exposed for what they are, vapors and illusions. When things
get hot those illusory safeguards leave us cold. We’ve walked the streets of
the Diaspora, we ate among strangers and dressed like them, pursued their gods
and cheated, lied, stole and slandered for their sake. In our high-tech modern
world, we had no place for an ancient desert G-d. Luxury labels in our collars,
brand items on our wrists. Now the looters and rioters sport the very same. Are
we now equals? These fake gods, Chanel, Gucci, BMW--are they kingmakers? For
then now all men are kings. No, we were an anointed nation by holy oil, a
nation of priests, especially chosen to be the light. But we muffled our ears
to our own Divine calling and sought our strength from make-believe muses and
mellifluous memes. All in vain. “Hear, O Israel, the L-rd is our G-d, the L-rd
is ONE.”
The streets of the world again are beating with the thumps of
protest and hatred. “You are a Jew.” If you forgot, they will remind you. Our
Jewish institutions are vandalized, our holy objects desecrated--why should
they care if we don’t? Did we scream, fast and cry when we heard our holy Torah
was thrown on the floor and profaned like we would if our Mercedes were
scratched or our dog hurt his paw. Our people attacked, our race forever
blamed...the threats are getting louder. It’s time to go home. We have
one G-d, one Torah, and one home: Israel. The burden of “never again” falls not
to the nations of the world, but upon us. We learned from the smoke and ashes
that when we hem and haw and falter, tomorrow is too late. Some adhere to the
calling, others are stirred by the shouting. And so I now remember the words of
Israel’s former chief rabbi, Meir Lau who evokes the two images of the Prophet Isaiah
regarding the return of the exiles to Israel: the cloud and the dove. "Who
are these that fly like a cloud and like doves to their nests?" (Isaiah
60:8). The cloud is moved by the external force of the wind; the dove has an
internal homing sense that returns it to its land. No matter what propels us,
it’s time to go home. It’s time to return not just to the land that G-d gave us
but also to Him and His Torah. For not even in the Promised Land nor with a
million angelic voices singing Hatikva will we find hope, promise and
peace if we dismiss the very land deed which bequeathed it to us, i.e.,
the Torah.
“...And you will return to the Lord, your God, with all your
heart and with all your soul, and you will listen to His voice according to all
that I am commanding you this day you and your children,
then, the Lord, your God, will bring back your exiles, and He
will have mercy upon you. He will once again gather you from all the nations,
where the Lord, your God, had dispersed you.
” (Deuteronomy 30:1-4)
As Rabbi Avraham Tanis says: “Man believes in himself and
questions the Almighty, when really, we should believe in the Almighty and
question ourselves.” Friends we’ve had our run, a long run of arrogance and
rebellion; I’m tired of running. It’s time to go home.
1. If a woman was
suspected of adultery, she was brought before the Kohen and made to drink water
wherein a scroll with G-d’s name written forward and in reverse was
dissolved. The results of drinking would reveal her innocence or guilt. (Bamidbar 5:11-31)
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