Once upon a time, a scorpion was standing at the Gaza port, yearning to get out of Gaza and cross the sea. But alas, scorpions don’t swim. Suddenly, the scorpion saw a swan. It asked the swan if it can ride on its back and cross the sea.
The swan refused. “That would be suicidal,” said the swan. “You will give me one bite and I will die,” cried the swan. “Obviously you are dumb,” said the scorpion. “If I bite you, I will drown myself, because I do not swim. If you go down, I go down. So for my own selfish sake, I will never bite you.”
That logic made sense to the swine. It agreed. The swan took the scorpion on its back, they left the Gaza port, and off they went on their voyage across the sea. All seemed peaceful and dandy, the swan was singing its favorite melodies as the scorpion was riding on its back. But suddenly, moments before they reached the other side, the swan felt a sharp sting. The scorpion gave the swine a deadly, venomous bite…
It was a lethal bite. The venom began to spread across the body of the poor swan. It began to drown, as did the scorpion who could not swim. As the swan was going down, it turned to the scorpion and said: Okay, you did it. You bit me, you killed me. But before I go under and die, just explain something to me. Why? Why? Why would you bite me when in fact this is a death sentence for you too? Why… Oh why…? The swan cried. Just tell me why!
“Why would you kill me when this means that you are killing yourself? I understand you want to kill me, but why would you do that at the expense of killing yourself?” And the scorpion responded:
“I can’t help myself. I am a scorpion.”
In this week's portion Vayeshev: It says when Joseph came to his brothers, that they stripped Joseph of his shirt, of the fine woolen coat which was upon him. And they took him and cast him into the pit; now the pit was empty there was no water in it.
When the brothers threw Joseph into the pit, the exile began — not just Joseph’s personal exile from his father’s house and the Land of Israel. From that dark, the empty pit began the exile of the entire Jewish people to Egypt. The Prophet Zechariah compares our exile to an empty pit without water.
Why the emphasis on the empty it with no water—both when it comes to Joseph and when it comes to the Jewish exile? The Torah could have simply stated: “The pit was empty!”
The Talmud, in the middle of its discussion of the Chanukah laws, asks this question and explains that there are three different kinds of pits. There are pits filled with water; there are empty pits. Then there are pits with snakes and scorpions. Had the Torah just said “the pit was empty,” we might think it was simply empty; so the Torah adds, “it had no water,” to intimate that it was empty from water, not from hazardous snakes and scorpions.
There is a vital message here for Jewish existence, which is why the Torah and the prophet both emphasize the nature of the pit.
Some mistake the pit of Exile for a well of water. Yes, one must be careful not to drown in it; but overall, they claim, it is a positive experience. Just like a well, it is not essentially negative, to the contrary, it is a wonderful source of life. It is only our way of interacting with it that can make it damaging, i.e. if we fall into it and drown. Similarly, some Jews believe, the experience of the Jewish people in exile, dispersed around the world living among the nations, is like a well: it can be wonderful and incredibly positive. If Jews are careful not to “drown,” to behave in a manner that will not arouse anti- Semitism, they can dwell comfortably in their foreign homes, forever. Jews can become so integrated and successful in the “pit” of exile, that it becomes like a life-sustaining well. It is the ultimate Jewish dream.
The Talmud teaches that this is a delusional way of thinking. The true nature of Exile is like Joseph’s pit: full of snakes and scorpions. It is a dangerous and deadly place for the Jewish people. It runs contrary to the very core and essence of the Jewish soul. Exile, the Talmud says, is like banishing a small child from the home of his/her father and mother and forcing them to live among strangers. What a tragedy! What a horror! What an injustice! The Jew does not belong in exile.:
Yes, we were sent into exile by our Father in Heaven, for we have a job to do here. But never ought we delude ourselves that exile is anything but a pit filled with “snakes and scorpions.” This is what happened during Channukah: As the Greeks conquered much of the world, most of the Jews began to delude themselves that the Hellenist lifestyle is either a well or an empty pit, but with the proper education and adjustments it can become a comfortable life, and perhaps it is even the greatest dream of the Jewish people to become Hellenized. In reality, it was a pit filled with snakes. And hence the Talmud continues to say, that even as we light the Chanukah menorah outdoors, representing our mission to influence the exile, to cast light on the world around us, we must keep the menorah close to “our home,” we must never forget our true home and destiny, our true identity.
Our romance with exile stems only from the fact that we both do not appreciate who we really are, what we can be, what we should be—what redemption is; hence exile is normal and beloved. When you do not know you have a father and a mother, you can make peace with never seeing them and being with them.
Such a pit has only one redeeming quality, intrinsic to its very nature: it will never mislead the Jews into mistaking it for their permanent homeland. Even Jews who have tried to deceive themselves that the put if exile is truly benign, and is the eternal resting place of the Jewish people are reminded by this type of pit the truth about our state of exile—and not the only exile here in America, but also Exile in our own homeland, until the day when Moshiach comes.
Tanchum means comfort and solace, was telling the Jewish people that there is one comfort in anti-Semitism: It ensures that Jews never forget who they are; the snakes and scorpions have always reminded us that we are Jews even when we tried to run in the other direction.
What is the difference between these two dangerous animals? A snake bites with its head, while a scorpion stings with its tail. The snakebite is a planned and intentional act, executed by the conscious directives of the snake’s brain. A scorpion usually stings from its tail instinctively, without much thought. On the other hand, the scorpion sting often penetrates far deeper than the snakebite: it often affects the entire nervous system.
Exile is accompanied by both of these hazards. There are times of intentional and malevolent persecution, such as those perpetrated by the Crusaders, Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russia, and today Islamists and Arab terrorists. Hamas, ISIS, Hezbollah, the Palestinian Authority, Iran, Syria, these are the sinister snakes of history.
But then there are the continual, unintentional scorpion stings, which penetrate very deeply. These are the forces of assimilation, apathy, indifference, intermarriage, ignorance of who we are, what we represent and what our destiny is. These forces take their slow, unintended toll on the Jewish people and their connection to their past and future.
The Rebbe of Modzitz had Chassidim throughout the major towns of Poland. One of these was Reb Azriel David Fastag, who was noted for his exceptional voice throughout Warsaw. Many came to the shul where Reb Azriel David and his brothers, who were also blessed with lovely voices, would pray on the High Holy Days. Reb Azriel David would lead the prayers, while his brothers accompanied him as a choir. His crisp, clear and moving voice had a profound effect on all who heard him.
Reb Azriel David lived simply, earning his livelihood from a small clothing store, but his happiness and fulfillment came from another source -- the world of Chassidic music. His moving tunes made their way to Otvoczk (a suburb of Warsaw), where The Modzitzer Rebbe appreciated them immensely. The day a new melody by Reb Azriel David arrived was a festive day for the Rebbe.
Dark clouds began to cover the skies of Europe -- the clouds of Nazism. In spite of the terrible decrees, the yellow patch and the ghettoes, most Jews could not fathom what was about to befall them. Only a few managed to escape the clutches of the Nazi occupation to safe havens. One of them was the Modzitzer Rebbe, whose Chassidim made a tremendous effort to save him. As the Nazis entered Poland, the Chassidim smuggled him out of Poland to Vilna, in Lithuania, and from there he made his way across Russia to Shanghai, China, eventually arriving in America in 1940.
Meanwhile in Poland tens of thousands of Jews were being shipped off daily to their death in cattle cars that were part of the railway system. Roused from their warm beds in Warsaw in the middle of the night, husbands were separated from their wives, children wrested from the arms of their parents. The elderly were often shot on the spot, in front of their loved ones. Then the Jews were gathered and sent off in those trains to a place where their existence would no longer trouble the Nazis -- to Auschwitz, Treblinka, Majdanek.
Inside the crowded cars, over the clatter of the cattle cars' wheels, rose the sounds of people gasping, sighing, weeping and dying. One could hear the stifled cries of children crushed together. But in one such car, headed toward the infamous death camp Treblinka, the sound of singing could be heard.
It seems that an elderly Jew, wrapped up in his ragged clothing, his face white as snow, had made his way over to his neighbor on the death train, begging him to remind him of the tune of Ma'areh Kohen sung by Modzitzer Rebbe during the Yom Kippur service.
"Now? Now, what you want to hear the songs?" answered the other, with a hard look at the Chassid, thinking that maybe all the suffering had caused him to lose his mind.
But this Modzitzer Chassid, Reb Azriel David was no longer paying attention to his friend, or to anyone else on the train. In his mind, he was at the prayer stand next to his Rebbe on Yom Kippur, and it is he who was leading the prayer before the Rebbe and all the Chassidim.
Suddenly, there appeared before his eyes the words of the twelfth of the Thirteen Principles of Jewish Faith: Ani ma'amin b'emuna sheleima, b'viat hamoshiach;…"I believe with perfect faith in the coming of the Moshiach; and even though he may tarry, nevertheless, I wait each day for his coming." Closing his eyes, he meditated on these words and thought, "Just now, when everything seems lost, is a Jew's faith put to the test."
It was not long before he began to hum a quiet tune to these words. There, amidst the death and despair on the train to Treblinka, the Chassid was transformed into a pillar of song, bringing forth out of his bloodied lungs the song of the eternity of the Jewish People. He was unaware of the silence in the cattle car, and of the hundreds of ears listening attentively in amazement. He also didn't hear the voices as they gradually joined his song, at first quietly, but soon growing louder and louder.
The song spread from car to car. Every mouth that could still draw a breath joined in Reb Azriel Dovid's Ani Ma'amin.
As if waking from a dream, Reb Azriel David opened his eyes to the sight of the singing train. His eyes were red from crying, his cheeks wet with tears. In a choked voice, he cried out: "I will give half of my portion in the World to Come to whoever can take my song to the Modzitzer Rebbe!"
A hushed silence descended upon the train. Two young men appeared, promising to bring the song to the Rebbe at any cost. One of them climbed upon the other and finding a small crack of the train's roof broke out a hole from which to escape. Poking his head out under the open sky, he said, "I see the blue heavens above us, the stars are twinkling and the moon, with a fatherly face, is looking at me."
"And what do you hear?" asked his companion.
"I hear," the young man answered, "the angels on high singing Ani Ma'amin, and it's ascending to the seven firmaments of heaven!"
Bidding farewell to their brothers and sisters on the train, the two proceeded to jump off, one after the other. One was killed instantly from the fall. The other survived, taking the memory of the song with him. He eventually found his way to Land of Israel perhaps to the Modzitzer Rebbe's son, in Tel-Aviv, and the notes were sent by mail to The Modzitzer Rebbe in New York.
Upon receiving the notes and having the Reb Azriel Dovid's Ani Ma'amin sung before him, the Modzitzer Rebbe said: "When they sang Ani Ma'amin on the death train, the pillars of the world was shaking. The Almighty said, 'Whenever the Jews will sing Ani Ma'amin, I will remember the six million victims and have mercy on the rest of My People.'"
It is told that on the first Yom Kippur that the Modzitzer Rebbe sang the Ani Ma'amin, there were thousands of Jews in the shul. The entire congregation burst into tears, which fell like water into the pool of tears and blood of the Jewish people. The tune soon spread throughout world Jewry.
"With this song," said The Modzitzetr Rebbe, "the Jewish people went to the gas chambers. And with this song, the Jews will march to greet Moshiach."
It is sung today by Jews the world ever.
We must never accept it or make peace with it. We will be Jews in exile, we will do our job here, but we will never ever think for a second that this is the future, this is the dream, this is the ultimate reality. We want Moshiach now!
Shabbat Shalom and Happy Chanukah,
Rabbi Yoseph Geisinsky
Tom Peacock wrote...