Lessons From the Eyelid

Pareshat Haazinu is always read in the beginning of the year, either before or after Yom Kippur, at a time when we feel close to the Al-mighty. The Commentators note several references to the High Holiday season in the Paresha and I would like to share with you one of them.

The song of Haazinu describes the journey of humanity and the Jewish people.

When expressing the kindness of Hashem to the children of Israel in the wilderness the verse states: "He found them in a desert land, and in the waste howling wilderness; he surrounded them, he instructed them, he protected them like the Ishon of his eye." Rashi, in his commentary to the Torah, explains the word Ishon as the blackness of the eye- the pupil. According to this reading Hashem protects the children of Israel with great sensitivity just as one protects his pupil. Rabbi Shmuel ben Meir, the grandson of Rashi, has a different understanding of the word Ishon. Rabbi Shmuel ben Meir understands the word Ishon to be the “flesh that is drawn down over the eye” namely, the eyelid. In biblical Hebrew Ishon means darkness thus the eyelid is an Ishon because it makes things dark. According to Rabbi Shmuel ben Meir the verse is telling us that Hashem protected the children of Israel in the wilderness just as the eyelid protects the eye.

Rabbi Shmuel ben Meir identifies Hashem’s protection of the Jewish people as that of an eyelid. To better appreciate what the Al-mighty is doing for the sake of the children of Israel, we must understand the significant role of the eyelid and blinking. Blinking automatically supplies moisture to our eyes to keep them from drying out. In addition, it keeps foreign matter from entering and irritating our eyes. Accordingly, Hashem, metaphorically, gives these services to the Jewish people.

Every year during the special period of Aseret Yemei Teshuva, Hashem, by being close to every single Jew, provides an opportunity for the Jew to revitalize his spiritual health and avoid a spiritual dry-out. In addition, it is a time to remove the impurities of sin through Teshuva. The two functions of the eyelid and blinking come to life during this wonderful period, and therefore the song of Haazinu, that describes Hashem as the eyelid, is appropriate for this time.

Shabbat Shalom

Gmar Chatima Tova

Inauthentic Jew

In Parashat Ki Tavo we read the difficult chapter of the national curses known as the Tochecha (Admonition). In the last verse of this dreadful chapter Moshe warns the children of Israel that “Hashem will send you back in ships to Egypt on a journey I said you should never make again. There you will offer yourselves for sale to your enemies as slaves and maidservants but there will be no buyer.” Commentators point out that this last statement deals with the sad reality of assimilation.

The great rabbi of Dvinsk, Latvia, Rabbi Meir Simcha Hakohen, sensing the desire for assimilation by many Jews of the late nineteenth century, warned that when the Jew abandons his faith for the sake of social integration, society reminds the Jew of his unique task, in the form of Anti-Semitism. Not only Jewish thinkers make reference to this idea.

The great French philosopher, Jean-Paul Sartre, wrote a short book entitled, “Anti Semite and Jew”. Sartre alleged that the Jew always is attempting to prove himself more French than the Frenchman. Sartre labelled the Jew who tries to flee Jewish reality, an inauthentic Jew. Yet as much as the Jew tries to escape his reality, the anti-Semite makes him a Jew in spite of himself.

This is what the Torah is telling us at the end of the admonition. Even if we try to “sell ourselves”, the nations of the world will not buy it. Anti-Semitism cannot be purged by rejecting Jewish tradition and identity, but rather by strengthening it.

Shabbat Shalom