A lonely frog, desperate for any form of company, telephoned the Psychic Hotline to find out what the future has in store for him.
His Personal Psychic Advisor advises him, "You are going to meet a beautiful young girl who will want to know everything about you."
The frog is thrilled and says, "This is great! Where will I meet her, at work? At a party?"
"No," says the psychic, "in a biology class."
Says the Talmud: Rabban Gamliel, Rabbi Elazar ben Azaria, Rabbi Joshua and Rabbi Akiva went up to Jerusalem. When they reached the Temple Mount, they saw a fox emerging from the place of the Holy of Holies. The others started weeping; Rabbi Akiva laughed.
Said they to him: "Why are you laughing?"
Said he to them: "Why are you weeping?"
Said they to him: "A place so holy and now foxes traverse it, and we shouldn't weep?"
Said he to them: “For that very reason, I am laughing…
“The prophet Uriah says: Therefore, because of you, Zion shall be plowed as a field. Zachariah the prophet states: Old men and women shall yet sit in the streets of Jerusalem. As long as Uriah's prophecy had not been fulfilled, I feared that Zechariah's prophecy may not be fulfilled either. But now that Uriah's prophecy has been fulfilled, it is certain that Zechariah's prophecy will be fulfilled."
With these words they replied to him: "Akiva, you have consoled us! Akiva, you have consoled us!"
When we reflect on the story, some questions come to mind. Here are a few,
1. Why did Rabbi Akiva ask them why they were crying? Did he not appreciate the gravity of what they observed? Did he really not understand why they wept?
2. Why indeed, was it only Reb Akiva who laughed? Why did the other sages not see what he saw?
The Rebbe offered the following explanation. The Rebbe saw the conversation between the sages as both literal and symbolic.
Torah is to Jewish survival, said Rabbi Akiva, Yes, we are in danger, but if we were to leave Torah, which sustains our existence, for the arid and dry habitat of contemporary culture, we would certainly perish.
We are all foxes, in our own way. To make a living you got to work hard. But then the sages observed how the fox was emerging from the Holy of Holies. And this made them weep.
What this represents, is when the Jew employs his craftiness, wisdom, sharpness, to “leave the holy of holies.”
This was the metaphor Rabbi Akiva employed—because this was the image Rabbi Akiva observed on the Temple Mount.
Torah for the Jew is what water is for the fish. Torah is not a luxury for the people of Israel; it is our very source of living. It is our oxygen. You remove Torah from the Jewish people, and you destroy them.
And so, in each generation, there are the foxes—the crafty minds of men—who tell us the same thing: the voice of the foxes among us say to us: Torah is your problem; leave the sea and you will find safety and security.
The results? The fox exits the Holy of Holies. Our crafty and talented “minds” are used to justify and encourage a mass Jewish “exodus” from our Holy of Holies—the space where there was nothing but the Holy Ark, the Two Tablets of Moses, and the Torah Scroll, the “water” that sustained and sustains the fish, the People of the Book.
And this is when the sages begin to sob. The Temple may be physically desolate, but as long as the Holy of the Jewish consciousness was alive, they knew it would ultimately be rebuilt. When they observed, however, a fox running out of the Holy of Holies, it represented something far direr: The Jewish people have lost touch with their source of water; they are exiting the Holy of Holies and going to the “dry land.”
This is what I feel some times when I read of:
Mark Zuckerberg the CEO of Facebook. “I’m Jewish,” the Facebook chief executive said in an interview, “and there’s a set of people who deny the Holocaust happened. I find that deeply offensive. But at the end of the day, I don’t believe that our platform should take that down because I think there are things that different people get wrong. I don’t think that they’re intentionally getting it wrong, but it’s hard to impugn intent and to understand the intent…
It is hard for me to digest a Jewish boy saying such words. First, there’s Holocaust denial itself. If there’s anywhere intent is not hard to understand, it’s in an anti-Semitic conspiracy that passes off the genocide of millions as something Jews made up to promote their own interests. Assuming good faith of Holocaust deniers assumes good faith of essentially everyone, including every criminal who ever lived!
But there’s a bigger issue with Zuckerberg’s statement, naive assumptions aside. In the world we live in, intent means very little; more important is the impact words have.
I am sure, Mark’s intentions are wonderful and noble. But the damage! You will give a respectable platform for Holocaust deniers! And you compare it to the mistakes all of us make in our speeches?!
Mark Zuckerberg is a brilliant young man—but how confused! Here we have the example of a modern fox, a crafty mind, who has left the Holy of Holies.
And then we have And the recent fiasco involving Birthright, in which young participants brought to Israel on the dime of Jewish communal funds seized the opportunity to abandon the trip to visit with Israel’s enemies!
A group of young Jewish students decided to go visit the homes and families of terrorists who have murdered Jews!
I am sure their intentions are noble. They have been indoctrinated. Their wisdom and nobility, instead of being used to create more goodness and holiness in the world has been seized by the “fox” to run from the Holy of Holies, to support terrorists who want to see Jews dead.
Never mind, that they do not even see the absurdity of going on a free trip to Israel; taking someone’s money and diverting it for your own purposes, contrary to the purpose of the trip
The sages wept—but Reb Akiva laughed. Why?
Reb Akiva argued, that paradoxically, this travesty of a fox leaving the Holy of
Holies will stir the soul of the Jewish people. They will not be able to deceive themselves any longer that Jewish life can survive without Torah. Reb Akiva argued that the fox coming out of the Holy of Holies can turn into a blessing, the blessing of awareness. Till this moment, Jews may argue that they were defeated by Rome due to military and political reasons. But Rome could not arrange for a fox coming out from all places from the Holy of Holies—the holiest site of the world. This, at last, will show every Jew, that it is the spiritual devastation of Jewish life that constitutes their greatest threat.
Reb Akiva, who was a son of converts, was fearless of crisis because he believed in the power of radical transformation. He and his parents were born as non-Jews, and they became Jewish. What is more, for his first 40 years, he was ignorant of Torah. And then one day, observing a cleft made in a rock from drops of water flowing for years onto it, Reb Akiva appreciated the power of even drops of Torah to penetrate a rock. I may be a rock, he said to himself, but Torah will transform me. He rose to become the greatest sage in Jewish history!
That is why Reb Akiva chose the prophecy that Zion will be plowed like a field. When a field is plowed it is not being destroyed; it is bringing prepared for new growth. In the plowing of Zion, Reb Akiva saw the genesis of growth and renewal.
So Reb Akiva said to his friends, now is not the time to cry. Now is the time to turn crisis into opportunity, to transform despair into rejuvenation, and tears into actions. Now is the time to rebuild Jewish life. Reb Akiva was saying: You are observing a confused Jewish world? Beautiful and precious young Jewish minds surrendering their identity and soul to the fox taking them out of the Holy of Holies? So, come out with me, and let’s bring them back.
Now, that denial is not an option when it is clear that there is only one path for the future and destiny of the Jewish people, let us go and bring back every Jewish boy and girl to Torah and Yiddishkeit!
So Reb Akiva said to them: Why are you crying?! Of course, he knew the reason for their sobs. My laughter is not ignoring the tragedy you are crying over; my laughter is coming from your tears. It is the very destruction that you observe that gives me the feelings of resolve and comfort. Such a moment of great confusion can become moments of great awareness, as we reach out to our brothers and sisters and teach them who they are and what is their calling at this very moment.
This remains our calling today—1900 years after the above story, as we observe so many foxes wanting to shlep our best and brightest out of the Holy of Holies. This is not the time to sob or complain. It is the time to roll up our sleeves and take initiative! To get involved, with every fiber of our being, in the work on outreach and in-reach—to bring every Jewish soul back to the Holy of Holies!
The great Jewish American novelist, Herman Wouk, once asked the Rebbe – this was back in the 50’s – “Do you really believe that you can tell young American Jews what to do?”
And the Rebbe responded: “The American youth can’t be told to do anything; they can be explained to do everything.”
Everyone has influence, in their own way. Each of us can do our part in inspiring one Jew to embrace his or her innate connection to Torah and Mitzvot—and through this rebuild the spiritual and the physical Holy of Holies, speedily in our days, when “Old men and women shall yet sit in the streets of Jerusalem,” with the third Holy Temple, Now!
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Yoseph Geisinsky
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