Passover Divrei Torah - 1977

K A H A NE
The magazine of the authentic Jewish Idea
Shavat –5737 February – 1977

DIVREI  TORAH

“And Pharaoh called to Moses, saying: Go and worship the L-rd. Only your sheep and cattle will remain – your children will also go with you. And Moses said: You will also give us offerings and sacrifices for the L-rd our G-d, and our flocks will go with us…” (Shmot 10:24-26)

The ninth plague-darkness – has struck Egypt with a vengeance and Pharaoh breaks. Step by step he has retreated and after the eighth plague – locusts – he was prepared to allow the Jews to leave except for their children. Now he surrenders almost entirely as he agrees that all the Jews can leave. He only asks one thing, one compromise, one small victory for himself, that the Jewish cattle remain behind.

Consider; the Jews have been slaves for 210 years. They have lived in misery and persecution. They suffered decrees such as the one casting their male children into the sea. They cried out unto the L-rd for freedom and salvation. Now, apparently the great moment has arrived! Pharaoh agrees that they shall go free! What does it matter that he asks for their cattle? Give it to him! The main thing is peace and salvation and we are willing to give up cattle for peace!

But Moses knows that this is not the purpose of the freedom of the Jewish people and of the story of the slavery and exodus. He is not prepared to compromise one inch because he knows what the purpose of G-d is. When Moses first entered the presence of Pharaoh and said: “The L-rd, G-d of the Hebrews, has said: Let my people go!” Pharaoh contemptuously answered: “Who is the L-rd? I know not the L-rd and will not let Israel go!” Here is where the battle was joined. Here is the purpose and aim of creation – to have the world recognize the dominion and kingship of the L-rd being challenged. Pharaoh must be made to recognize and totally acknowledge the sovereignty of the L-rd over him and his people. He cannot make compromises; he cannot strike bargains. He must submit totally!

“And I shall be glorified through (the defeat of) Pharaoh and his army and Egypt shall know that I am the L-rd.” Only the total defeat of the wicked can raise and honor the name of the L-rd, says the Biblical commentator Rashi. This is why there will be no compromise with Pharaoh. He must totally submit, he must totally surrender.

And even when he apparently does this, after the plague of the first born, when he runs to Moses and says: “Get out, take your flocks with you, just leave and ask the L-rd to bless me!” Moses refuses and in the words of the Mechilta; “And he called unto Moses and Aaron in the middle of the night and said: get up and leave! Said Moses unto him: No, we have been ordered not to leave our houses until morning. What are we, thieves that we should slink out in the night? No, we will leave only in the morning with an upraised arm before the eyes of all the Egyptians!”

Not one inch of retreat here. The lesson of the L-rd being the Omnipotent, king of the universe must be seen and acknowledged.

The lesson is an eternal one and must be learned in our time, too. The question of peace in the Middle East is a question of the Arabs and the world acknowledging the total sovereignty of the All Mighty. There can be no compromise on this. It is only a peace that comes with Arabs submitting to the yoke of the heavenly kingdom that will be a permanent one and the Jew who gives up part of his land as a compromise, violates the entire purpose of the rise of the Jewish State and the demand of the All Mighty that the nations acknowledge Him as King. There can be no retreat from land because that is in essence a retreat also from the Kingship of the
L-rd
 
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We want to wish everyone a Happy Passover.  A meaninful Passover where we understand to trust in Hashem not man.  Our enemies plan to destroy Eretz Yisrael and the Jewish people - Hashem destroys our destroyers

 

The Great Sabbath- 1989

“K A H A N E”
The magazine of the authentic Jewish Idea
Nissan -5749   April-1989
 

D I V R E I  T O R A H

 THE GREAT SABBATH

 
It is the necessary, the indispensable preface and introduction to Passover.  It is the explanation that cries out the ultimate message of the holiday, the basic lesson of the feats of our freedom.  It is the foundation of foundations that raises Passover from an insipid, saccharine social custom beginning and ending with recipes printed in the New York Times women’s section; from a golden opportunity for Manischewitz to return to Jewishness through capitalist Passover profits even as the truly frum, raise their level of religiosity by raising the level of prices; from a Jewish people that marches on its Seder stomach even as it moves on to the annual national lie. “Next Year in Jerusalem.”  It is the Great Sabbath, which attempts to save Judaism from myopic ritualism, to make the Jew, Jewish and the Orthodox, religious.
 

Sabbath Hagadol, the great Sabbath.  The Sabbath preceding the Passover, the Sabbath that cries out the basic, the ultimate message of the enormous Exodus from Egypt, of Passover itself.  Sabbath Hagadol that gives us the lesson without which Passover, the Jewish people itself, lose all reason for being.  Sabbath Hagadol commemorating the basic lesson of Judaism: Faith, real faith, faith in G-d who really is greater than the mighty Pharaoh, or the regal Reagan or the burningless Bush – Sabbath Hagadol. The great Sabbath, that began more than 3,000 years ago on a Sabbath in Imperial Egypt.

“Speak unto all the congregation of Israel, saying: In the tenth day of this month, they shall take to them every man a lamb…”

It is a special, an awesome commandment, one that is given to every Jew, hence the unique words “Speak unto all the congregation.”  Take a lamb and bind it up for four days.

 

You believe that this is a simple commandment.  Hardly.  The lamb is more than an animal; it is the very god of Egypt.  It is a deity, a hallowed creature before whom the Egyptian bows and whose meat dare not touch his mouth.  And the Jews, “every man” thereof, are commanded to take this lamb, this Egyptian god, the deity of their masters, and tie it to their beds, to their posts, bind it up.  And when the astonished and outraged Egyptian masters will ask: “What are you doing? The answer shall be: We shall soon slaughter this lamb, the deity, your god, and eat it.

Do you still think this is a simple, bland commandment?  It is a commandment fraught with danger to life, a commandment that surely sent fear down the spines of the Jewish slaves, that, without a doubt, led scholars to rush and ponder whether pikuach nefesh, danger to life might perhaps demand the postponing of the dangerous commandment.

 

Nor does the Almighty stop there.  He insists on a policy of extremism, of goading the gentile.  Not content with a commandment that cries desecration of the Egyptian god, that taunts him with the sight of his deity bound up, the G-d of Israel insists that the Jew add salt to the wound.

 

“And they shall eat the flesh in that night, roasted with fire… eat it not partially cooked, nor boiled in water, but roasted with fire, its head with its legs and with its insides complete.”

 

Awake and consider!  This is what Passover is all about; only this! This is Judaism what Judaism is all about; only this!  This is what the duty and the role and the essence of the Jew is all about; only this!  To affirm to the world, but first to ourselves that the L-rd, the G-d of Israel, is.  That He truly does exist, that He is the One, the only One, that He, only He, directs the world, the fate of man, the destiny of His people.  That whatever will be for the Jew will be only because He so decrees.  That the gentile has no relevance to the Jewish fate, that the Pharaohs of all time, the ones in Egypt and the ones in Washington are utterly irrelevant to what will be with the Jew.

 

On the Great Sabbath in Egypt, the L-rd taught us the lesson that we trampled in the dust, the dust of secularism and the dust of the yeshiva world alike: The lesson that the Jew must raise high, must flaunt the glory and Omnipotence of his G-d.  That the world must be compelled to see their deities, their gods and idols, bound up and humiliated and destroyed.  That one must goad the gentile in order to raise high the banner of the L-rd.  That Kiddush Hashem, the sanctification of the Name of the G-d of Israel, demands an open, fearless, flaunting sacrifice of the idols and deities of the gentiles that deny the uniqueness of the G-d of Israel, His exclusiveness, His Oneness!  The lamb is openly tied and those who tremble and whisper: “But we dare not goad the gentile,” are silenced with thunderous contempt.  The lamb is slaughtered and roasted whole and fully and openly.  It cannot be hastily covered in a pot where it will not be seen.  Its identity cannot be disguised by cutting its body into pieces.  We cannot escape the danger of the gentile by avoiding confronting and goading him.  No.  Precisely the opposite!

 

The same gentile who thundered and thunders: “Who is the L-rd?  I know not the L-rd and will not let Israel go!” must be taught the eternal lesson of: “The L-rd is G-d, the L-rd is G-d!”  The gentile does not wish to “know” G-d, to acknowledge His exclusive kingship.  He must be taught that lesson in an open and bold and humiliating way.  He and his idols must be humbled and broken.  The lamb is taken openly.  The lamb is slaughtered openly.   And those who cringe in populism and whisper:  “But one dare not goad the gentiles…” are silenced by the thunder of the L-rd, whose commandment is eternalized by the Rabbis of the Great Sabbath, Sabbath Hagadol.  So, let that Sabbath be understood and appreciated and embraced.  For without it, there cannot be a Passover, an understanding of what that Passover really is.  And without that, when the Jewish child asks for the meaning of this night, the pathetic father who knows not what to tell him will doom his child to become a pathetic as he: practitioner of Jewish ritual, but never, never a religious Jews.

 

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Rabbi Kahane's Books Reprinted and on Sale

Dear Friend,

The Institute for Publication of Writings of Rabbi Kahane is proud to announce newly published reprints of his books at reduced prices for the pre-Passover season.

There is no better gift to give to your friends and relatives. Simply order from Amazon.com at these new low prices:

Listen Jew, Listen World - $13.95
Time to Go Home- $14.75
Uncomfortable Questions for Comfortable Jews - $18.95

Still available on Amazon.com: Beyond Words, the definitive collection of Rabbi Kahane's articles on topics such as Judaism, Zionism, Israel, the Holocaust, assimilation, territorial concessions, violence, peace. (To see all seven volumes of Beyond Words, type: “Kahane Beyond Words”)
His writings inspire, teach and chastise as they did when they first appeared. They will serve as a guide to every thinking person for whom the destiny of the Jewish people is important.

Sincerely,

Libby Kahane