Two Texans are sitting on a plane from Dallas and an old Jew is sitting between them. The first Texan says, “My name is Roger. I own 250,000 acres. I have 1,000 head of cattle and they call my place ‘The Jolly Roger’.” The second Texan says, “My name is John. I own 350,000 acres. I have 5,000 head of cattle and they call my place ‘Big John's.” They both look down at the Jewish man who says, “My name is Irving and I own only 300 acres.” Roger says, “300 acres? What do you raise?” “Nothing really,” Irving says. “Well then,” asks John, “what do they call your place?” Irving says, “They call it, Downtown Dallas.”
The Jewish people are small in number but we punch above our weight. We’ve always been small. As we read in the Haggadah, “Few in number...with seventy souls we went down to Egypt.” But each Jew counts. No one is insignificant. The great Talmudic scholar Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik once went to hear the Boston Symphony Orchestra. He observed that the harpist worked very hard throughout the performance, but the fellow on the cymbals struck the instrument only three times during the entire evening. Rabbi Soloveitchik wondered — in classic Jewish fashion — whether they both got paid the same amount since the effort they expended was definitely not equal.
He went and asked the cymbalist if it were so. The musician not only confirmed that they were paid the same but that their importance was equal. “Without those three clashes of the cymbals,” he said, “the entire concert would fall apart, for the essential thing about an orchestra is that every single sound is balanced with another; if one sound is missing, then the entire combination fails.”
The Jewish people are a great symphony, but to reach perfection, to fulfill our mission, we need the moral notes and musical sounds of each and every one of us. This has been true since the day when Abraham and Sarah were summoned by G-d to be His ambassadors on earth. They were charged with the mission of building a righteous world through love, justice, compassion, and Mitzvot. A world where the Divine Presence rests.
This always was and remains a tough task, yet Judaism did not shy away from it. It knew from the beginning that transforming society would take many generations — therefore the importance of telling our story and passing on our ideals to the next generation. It takes many gifts and many different kinds of talent. Therefore the importance of Jews as a people working together —all are needed: the harpist, the violinist, the cymbalist. None is gifted with everything, but each of us has something vital to contribute.
And though Jews are a tiny people, we are a mere fifth of a percent of the population of the world. Yet, despite this, our symphony has made a contribution to civilization out of all proportion to our numbers. But the crescendo — the days of Mashiach — are still ahead. To reach our destination, we need the moral notes and gifts of all of us. We each have a unique contribution to make. Recently, I read an article in the New York Times about a small fish called the Moses Sole that lives in the Red Sea. Those waters also contain sharks that feast on small fish. But a group of scientists noticed something strange. Although the sharks eat all of the other small fish of a similar size, for some reason they don’t eat the Moses Sole. The reason is Moses Sole’s outstanding defense system. Whenever it senses danger, it secretes poisonous toxins that cause the sharks’ jaws to freeze.
You can watch a video of a shark bearing down on a Moses Sole with its jaws wide open until the little Moses is inside the shark’s mouth. All the shark has to do is make a blessing, bite down, and a sushi lunch is served. But the shark suddenly stops without closing its jaws and pulls back. It jerks its head from side to side, dashing around, holding its mouth open for several seconds, sometimes for up to three minutes. And the Moses Sole swims away.
For centuries, the Jews have been surrounded by anti-Semitic sharks in history’s stormy seas. That is what the Haggadah means when it says, “In every generation, they rise against us and seek our annihilation.” And yet, like the Moses Sole, we have managed miraculous escapes time and again, even from enemies who are much stronger than we are. “Because G-d breaks their grip and we are saved.”
Walker Percy, the great 20th-century novelist, wrote about the Jews’ remarkable survival in his book, The Message in the Bottle: “Where are the Hittites? Why does no one find it remarkable that in most world cities today there are Jews but not one single Hittite, even though the Hittites had a great flourishing civilization while the Jews nearby were a weak and obscure people?”
Percy continued: “When one meets a Jew in New York or New Orleans or Paris or Melbourne, it is remarkable that no one considers the event remarkable. What are they doing here? But it is even more remarkable to wonder if there are Jews here, why are there not Hittites here? Where are the Hittites? Show me one Hittite in New York City.”
Empire after empire declared the Jews’ destruction. Yet those empires, like the Hittites, have vanished, while the people of Israel live. Pharaoh is a long-forgotten, mummy in a museum. But the “Moses Sole” swims on. Tomorrow night, we will sit at the Seder with pride and humility, and by telling our story, continue our march across the ages.
Shabbat Shalom and a Happy and Sweet Pesach,
Rabbi Yoseph Geisinsky
Jason Bennett wrote...