BECHUKOSAI - HISTORY

May 19, 1994

"And if you will not yet for these things hearken to Me, then I will chastise you seven times more for your sins.  And I will break the pride of your power." Leviticus 26:18

Certainly the Jewish People can be proud of their accomplishments during their long history.  Being the standard bearer for God, religion, and ethics has resulted in their spreading a great deal of light in a world that so often veers towards barbarism.. 

But at the same time we have experienced an enormous amount of suffering.  Starting with the 210 years of bitter slavery in Egypt, there has been a stream of painful experiences and destructions.  The 10 tribes of Israel were pushed into oblivion by the Assyrians,  the Temples were destroyed by the Babylonians and Romans, and European Jewish history has been puncutated by the Inquistion, countless pogroms, and the Holocaust. 

The religious Jew believes that the Jewish people have a covenant with an all powerful God.  Then why has Jewish history been so painful? 

We understand that this is a variation of the question that Moses asked God, why do the reighteous suffer?  And we don't expect to come up with any satisfactory answer to this difficult question.  But we want to shed some light on some aspects of the question.

First, in addition to God having a covenant with the Jewish People, God also has a covenant with Mankind as a whole, that could be called a 'covenant of free-will'. God in His infinite wisdom has given people free will, allowing people to choose between good and bad.  Rabbi Chaim Luzzatto in 'The Way of God' suggests that one reason for this is that we are then rewarded or punished according to the path we choose.  If people didn't have the choice to be good or bad, we would be little more than robots.  Apparantly God wanted to create a heartier, more full bodied human being, who has freedom to choose his actions. 

As a result, people have the option to choose to do bad things, even to be evil, and can cause pain to others.  God, as He abides by the terms of the 'covenant of free-will', lets people be bad.  And that has resulted in a great deal of suffering on the part of innocent victims.  Hitler killed 25 million people and Stalin killed 50 million people.  That's a lot of suffering at the hands of extremely bad people.  But the alternative is that people would not have freedom, and the implication is that that would be worse.

But since the Jews have a covenant with God, why hasn't He shielded the Jews from the bad people? The Tochacha (chastisements) in the Bible suggests that the amount of protection we receive from God is variable, from a great deal to less, depending on how well we are fulfilling our part of the covenant.  If we generate a lot of 'zchus' (merit), God protects us a lot.  And it's a sliding scale from there.  The fact that the Jewish people still exist is evidence that we have warranted, and received, a measure of protection.

The Tochacha hints at another possible reason for the suffering in Jewish history. Towards the beginning of the Tochacha in Leviticus, God says He will try to break the 'goan uzecha', the 'pride of your power'.  The word 'goan' has the same root as the word 'gaiva', arrogance.  Towards the end of the Tochacha, God says that He will try to remove the 'oral', the uncircumcised layer, that surrounds our heart, and humble us.  Why is God so intent on using suffering to break our arrogance, humbling us, and burning away the shield around a proud heart?

One possible reason is that our covenant with God mandates that we be the bearers of Torah and truth, a kingdom of Priests.  And Torah cannot be borne, accepted, and understood by people who are arrogant.  Only humble people find room in their hearts for the truths of Torah.  Perhaps a reason we had to begin our nationhood in the iron-furnace of Egyptian slavery was to burn away arrogance and leave us humble enough for the Torah when it was given at Sinai. 

We are in the final stages of Jewish history, and people can sense we are in the footsteps of redemption.  But the Gemorah doesn't speak of the period leading up to the redemption as being peaceful.  The Gemorah in Sotah (49b) says that during the footsteps of the Moshiach, the people who live on the borders of Israel (the 'anshay gvul') will go from city to city looking for help and no one will help them.  It also says the 'Gablon' (usually interpreted to mean the 'Golan', will become desolate. These events sound only too familiar.  But why can't the redemption come peacefully?

Perhaps one reason is that our hearts must be open to receive the ultimate truth, the truth presented by Moshiach.  And if our hearts are protected by a shield of arrogance, God must provide experiences that will burn away the shield, dispel the arrogance, and fill our heart with humility so we can receive and shine with the truth of Torah and Moshiach.