NO ONE WILL BE LEFT BEHIND

There's big controversy on the Jewish view of when life begins. In Jewish tradition, the fetus is not considered viable until after it graduates from medical school..

For us, education is almost everything. My child must become a doctor. If he is slow, I will settle for a lawyer. If he is retarded, okay, an accountant. If he is completely mentally decapitated, then we settle for a Rabbi!...

This week portion of Bo tells the story of the Exodus. Three times in the course of twochapters, Moses tells the Israelites about their duties to their children. Even before they have left Egypt, he instructs them to hand on the future generations the story of the events though which they were living. Hence, we became a people obsessed with education, for good. This is fascinating. Moses communicates four distinct passages about talking to our children about the Exodus of Egypt. Why the need for four separate passages? Famously, these four passages became the basis of the four sons of the Haggadah. Our sages in their brilliant sensitivity to nuance deduced that Moses was addressing four different types of children. We must speak to each of our children, but we cannot speak in the same way, with the same language. Each child requires individual language that relates to his or her composition, challenges and strengths. What modern education techniques have discovered in the last half-a-century, the Torah has articulated 3300 years ago.

We all remember the tragic story when in February 2002, Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl had been kidnapped in Karachi, Pakistan. His kidnappers accused him of being a spy -- an accusation strongly denied by the CIA and his newspaper -- and vowed to kill him if their demands were not met. Indeed the terrorists barbarically killed Daniel Pearl and he was confirmed dead on February 21.

The fact that Daniel Pearl happened to be Jewish was, at first, not believed to be a factor. Of course it wasn't going to help him, either, but it wasn't initially the "reason" given for his capture. His French non-Jewish wife, while hoping for his return, kept impressing upon the media what a universalist Pearl was, what a man of the world he was, he was married to a non-Jewish woman, as if his being Jewish was only a blip in the story, not even worth mentioning. However, upon release of the horrible videotape of his incarceration, we learned that he made a statement—or was forced to make a statement—of his Jewish identity. Until then, Daniel Pearl had never been identified as a "Jewish" reporter, though he never hid his identity and knew it might get him into danger in the parts of the word he frequented. He had not covered the "Middle East" beat, nor had he ever analyzed so-called "Jewish" events. He wasn't a presence at Jewish organizations and, though a proud "ethnic" or secular Jew, had never publicly identified with any "Jewish causes."

But something happened at the last moments. Right before he died Daniel made this statement: "My father is Jewish, my mother is Jewish, I am Jewish." Then he told his captors — and the world — that his great-grandfather Chayim Pearl had a street named after him in the city of Bnei Brak in Israel...

Samuel Freedman, a writer for the New York Times and USA Today, wrote, "When Daniel Pearl hovered in limbo, missing but presumably alive, his wife and colleagues and friends emphasized what a universalist he was, as if that might spare him death. In death, however, the meaning of Daniel Pearl changed, or, I might say, it grew complete. He lived as a universalist, but he died as a Jew, inescapably Jewish. While some of what Pearl said was probably coerced...it is impossible to avoid in his words the sense of some agency, some autonomy, some principled self-determination."

Let me share with you a story. Chaim Cohen, was a very prominent Supreme Court Israeli Judge. He served as the Minister of Justice, the Attorney General. He also defined himself as a bona fide heretic. Chaim was born in Germany to a religious orthodox family, and both of his grandfathers were Rabbis. As a young man, he moved to Israel where he studied for years in the best Yeshivot in Israel, under the famous Chief Rabbi Avraham Yitzchok Kook. However he then abandoned the Yeshiva, became a lawyer and proclaimed himself a proud atheist.

As a very influential member of the Israeli Judicial system, Chaim Cohen devoted most of his career to fighting anything that smelled even remotely of Torah and of Jewish law. But then, on Simchat Torah 1975, he arrived at 770 Eastern Parkway to the hakafot of the Lubavitcher Rebbe. Mr. Cohen, the man who had devoted his life to fight Torah-Judaism, decided to join.

Chabad is famous for its all-inclusive and unconditional acceptance of any Jew. But there were those in the Synagogue that night who felt that Chaim Cohen was perhaps the only exception alive to even Chabad-style love. They felt indignant that he had the chutzpah to even show up, as if to mock once again all that they held sacred. Someone asked the Rebbe whether they are permitted to give Chaim Cohen the Torah to dance with? The Rebbe said: “A Jew wants to accept upon himself the yoke of Torah and you want to stop him!?”

The Rebbe honored him. First, the Rebbe gave him to read aloud one of the verses we recite prior to Hakafot. Then, the Rebbe asked him to hold a Torah for a Hakafa, the greatest privilege of the night. One of the attendants gave him a heavy Torah Scroll. Now he was not a young man at the time—he was 65 years old. Someone said, “It’s too heavy for him!” let’s give him a lighter one.

And the Rebbe replied: “For a Jew, the Torah is never too heavy.” And then the impossible happened: Justice Chaim Cohen, the self-proclaimed heretic, held on to that Torah for the entire hakafa, for forty-five full minutes. And danced, and danced. And the Rebbe stood there, waving his hands, and encouraging him on and on and on. He did not become an observant Jew. But something even deeper happened.

After returning from 770 on Simchas Torah, he told his close friend, his host, “I am too old to change my ways, but please make sure that after I die, I am buried according to Jewish Law, according to Torah.” When he died in 2002, the Israeli newspapers wondered why would Cohen ask to be buried in a religious manner when his entire life was devoted to fight religion?

Very few people knew that it was because of that Simchat Torah experience with the Rebbe in 770. Friends, this commentary of the Rebbe ought to be taught to ever single Jew living today. Our people would look different if we can cultivate this approach with genuineness and with integrity. Because when Moshiach comes very soon, NO ONE WILL BE LEFT BEHIND.

Shabbat Shalom and Chodesh tov,

Rabbi Yoseph Geisinsky