It's late afternoon on a Friday twenty years ago in
Melbourne, Australia. I am a young girl — eight years
old. My sister and brother and I arrive with my mother at my
grandparents' home. It's almost candle-lighting time. Three
generations of Jewish women pause to gaze at the beautiful,
polished candlesticks upon which stand the proud and pure
tall white candles. Back then, we didn't really know what
Shabbos was about. Over the years of abstraction, neglect,
and callous dismissal of our spiritual heritage, so much has
been lost. But despite time and all else, some few treasured
traditions have managed to survive to tell the tale of our
people and our past, and some scant memory and remnant of
feeling of what was ours alone remains.
Thus the match is struck. The candles are lit. The blessing
is recited. The men leave for shul and return some
time later. Kiddush is made. Fresh challah is passed
around the table. Food is served — fish, hot soup,
chicken. My grandfather leads the family in the singing of
zemiros - - the same words and melodies that he sang
with his father and grandfather when he was a young boy in
Poland. The meaning behind the words has been lost to my
Zaide, but the melody contains an echo of knowing and
understanding that has resounded in our minds for four
thousand years.
The year is 1840, the place — a small village in the
Ukraine, in an area known as the Pale of Settlement. I am the
mother of five children. My oldest boy is twelve. Our lives
are hard. Czar Nicholas I yemach shemo has just
decreed his latest series of laws aimed at our annihilation.
We are no longer allowed to wear traditional "Jewish style"
clothing on the streets nor hire non-Jews to work in our
homes. The men may work in only the lowliest of jobs and
thousands of families have been brutally expelled from their
villages and towns. They appoint our Rabbis for us and our
chadorim are subject to strict government
'supervision.'
Worst of all, they are now stealing our sons away from us at
age twelve for military training, to be enlisted at eighteen
and taken to the front to fight in the Russian army. Needless
to say, they do not return home. Despite all this, we somehow
find the strength to carry on. We kindle the Shabbos lights.
We tell the story of the Exodus from Egypt every seder
night. The men learn Torah together in hiding. And most of
all, we pray. We pray for Hashem to redeem us, to return us
to Zion.
The night is Rosh Hashonoh. The year — 1267.
The place — Yerushalayim, the Holy City. We are one of
the few Jewish families brave enough to inhabit the city
crushed and devastated by the Christian Crusades. The ruins
of our Holy Temple lie only meters from the crumbling stone
walls of our own home, yet we cannot close the distance.
Every minute of the day we fear for our lives, and for those
of our children. But today, a spark of light.
The Torah sage from Spain — Nachmanides —
the Ramban - - who arrived in Eretz Yisroel a month ago, gave
a sermon in our new synagogue. He spoke to us about holiness,
about our responsibility as residents of the Holy Land to
conduct ourselves with the utmost righteousness, for we are
like servants in a palace who must be constantly aware of the
King's presence. Then the great Rav read from the sefer
Torah that he had had transferred from Shechem. We feel
very much inspired, and would not consider abandoning our own
faith for that of our oppressors. We know that Hashem is with
us, sharing the burden of our suffering in these difficult
days.
The year is 320 before the Common Era, the place — the
City of David, just outside the walls of the recently rebuilt
Beis Hamikdosh. We returned not long ago from Bovel, with our
leader, Ezra. This giant of our generation will surely be
recorded in the annals of history as a man of unique
strength, scholarship, devotion and loyalty to the Torah and
to the recently revived Jewish Nation. So much can be said
about this man, and about the one hundred and twenty Men of
the Great Assembly. They gave us our siddur, a
complete Tanach and an Oral Law in writing. And most
importantly, we have the Beis Hamikdosh. We serve Hashem with
so much vigor. The community of Israel has come home.
The year is 2048 of the Jewish calendar. I am standing at the
edge of the Yam Suf — the Sea of Reeds — in the
Sinai Desert. We have just crossed the sea, myself, my
husband and children, my friends, my tribe, all the tribes in
formation, our leaders Moshe and Aaron, all of Klall Yisroel.
The wonders that have taken place these last ten months I can
hardly believe, and yet I do believe, for I saw them with my
own eyes. We all did.
The ten plagues that destroyed Egypt, measure for measure.
Our oppressors — oppressed, our torturers tortured. We
saw their fields stripped of crops after the locusts came,
smelled the putrid carcasses of their cattle stricken with
pestilence. And in the middle of the night we heard the
petrified screams of agony and anguish from city and village -
- from across the land — as their firstborn were
destroyed.
As Moshe led us out of Egypt — our animals laden with
treasure — we knew that Hashem had remembered us and
redeemed us. This morning, as we made our way through the
sea, there were still more wonders. Each tribe was given its
own passage, with the frozen divisions between pathways
sprouting fruit trees and fountains. A mosaic path formed
beneath our feet. And when the last of our people had reached
the northern bank, the solid frozen walls collapsed.
We heard the cries of our pursuers. We saw their forms being
thrown in and out of the now furious sea, and then we saw
their bones being spewed out onto the shore. We camp tonight
in the wilderness. Our children's children and their children
must know of all that we have witnessed. Soon we will receive
the Torah at Mt. Sinai, and then our nation will be led into
the land that was promised to our forefathers — Eretz
Yisroel.
The place is Eretz Canaan; the year — 2088 of the
Jewish calendar. This is the wedding day of Rivka Imeinu:
I departed today at noon from my father's house in Charan. My
maidservant Devorah and I were led along the way to Beer
Sheva by Eliezer, the faithful servant of Yitzchok's father,
Avrohom. As we approached Mt. Moriah, I saw him —
Yitzchok - - standing in a field praying to our Hashem. He
was still some distance away, yet I could make out his right
hand extended towards the sky. He was surrounded by the glow
of the Shechinah and guarded by an angel. I hastened to voice
my prayers of gratitude, for I understood that I was destined
to marry this great tzaddik, patriarch of the great
nation that would one day be as numerous as the stars in the
sky — the Chosen People.
Yitzchok looked towards us and began to approach us. I
covered myself with my veil, and before a few hours had
passed, we were married. My new husband led me into his late
mother's tent, and the three beautiful blessings that Soroh
had merited throughout her own married life suddenly
rematerialized — the Shabbos candles that would burn
from week to week, the challah dough that was
constantly fresh, and the Cloud of Glory resting above. The
legacy of Soroh — who was meticulous in kindling the
Shabbos lights, separating her challah, and upholding
family purity laws — will always be continued and
preserved, by myself and by future generations of our
descendants, until the End of Days and the final redemption
of our people.
Whoever said that baalei teshuvoh don't have
yichus? We are the children and grandchildren of 4,000
years of Torah scholars, righteous people, Jewish mothers and
fathers, brave, kind and honorable souls who lived and died
with self-sacrifice and great devotion to Hashem.
In Parshas Bamidbor Moshe and Aaron are commanded to
count the legions of Klall Yisroel. As it says, "They
gathered together the entire assembly on the first of the
second month, and they established their genealogy according
to their families, according to their fathers' household."
Rashi says this means that each individual had to bring with
him his documents of lineage, as well as witnesses to his
status, so as to be able to trace his ancestry to the
particular tribe to which he claimed to belong. Evidence of
lineage had not been requested in previous censuses. However,
as the Sforno comments, victory in the impending wars relied
on the merits of the forefathers. The desert encampment and
traveling arrangement under the tribal banners also needed to
be established. A direct bloodline was thus needed to be
proven at this time.
We also learn something else about lineage here. When Hashem
tells Moshe and Aaron to gather together the princes of each
tribe to assist them in the tally, he says, "And with you
shall be one man from each tribe, each man should be the head
of his family." In other words, each man should be the head
of his family unit, of respectable standing and a role model
for generations to follow. This is the main thing.
In his book, Growth Through Torah, Rav Pliskin
provides the following parable (in the name of Rav Moshe
Chaifetz) to underscore this point: "A simple and boorish
person who came from distinguished lineage was arguing with a
wise scholar who came from a very plain family. The coarse
ignoramus boasted about his illustrious ancestors. 'I am a
scion of great people. Your ancestors are nothing compared to
mine', he arrogantly said. The scholar wanted to put him in
his place and said to him; 'True, you come from a long line
of great people. But unfortunately, the line ends with you.
My family tree begins with me.' "
Just as one individual can taint a great and respected family
name, another — through Torah study, community work and
outstanding character traits, can plant the seeds for a
family tree with massive roots. This is a message that we
must carry with us throughout our lives. Certainly, our
bodies and souls contain both the physical and spiritual
genes of our original forebears, as wells as the tens of
generations of Torah scholars, Jewish leaders and martyrs.
This holds true whether or not we are literally able to trace
our lineage back through the generations to Avrohom Ovinu.
But despite this, merely by virtue of our commitment to
living a life of Torah and mitzvos, Hashem will surely
help us to build us own Jewish dynasties.
This is a concept that can be further illustrated by the fact
that our Imahos — Soroh, Rivka, Rochel and Leah -
- had no spectacular lineage of their own. Yet because of
their exemplary conduct they were chosen as the wives of the
Ovos and were immortalized in the Torah for all
generations to know and to emulate.
Rabbi Akiva is regarded as the greatest Torah scholar and
Jewish leader since Moshe Rabbenu. Moshe, having himself
witnessed the greatness of Rabbi Akiva by way of a long-
range prophetic vision, queried Hashem, "Lord of the
Universe, You have such a person as Rabbi Akiva through whom
You could grant the Torah to Israel, and You have instead
chosen to do so through me?"
Rabbi Akiva did not begin learning Torah until age forty. Not
only that, his yichus was far from impressive, his
father being a convert. But at middle age, Rabbi Akiva
started learning, and learning and learning, and was away
from home learning in Yeshiva for a total of twenty-four
years. And he reached the highest of heights.
Through personal commitment, he came to represent Torah
scholarship unequalled. He became an outstanding leader who
was devoted to the poor. He was gentle, kind, compassionate
and humble. He had tens of thousands of disciples during his
lifetime, and he merited dying al Kiddush Hashem. He
is immortalized as one of the ten great martyrs of our
history — and all this from a baal teshuvoh, the
son of gerim, who had no fine lineage.
Ruth, too, is a case in point. She was born and raised in
Moav, a spiritually bankrupt society full of shameless,
malicious individuals — the antithesis of the Jewish
nation. Of her own free will and without a word of
encouragement or support from her contemporaries, she chose
to throw in her lot with the Jewish people. Ruth's greatness
lay in the fact that she embodied the traits of modesty,
courage, kindness and strength of conviction. She strove for
truth. As a result of all this, she merited to have her
megillah read each year on Shavuos (at the time of
Matan Torah) and to give birth to the future
grandfather of Dovid HaMelech, from whose family line
Moshiach ben Dovid will eventually come.
The world in which I grew up — like that of Ruth's
— was a world in which Hashem's light was concealed
behind the blanket of darkness with which — since days
long past — the nations have striven to smother Klall
Yisroel. Certainly, I had some major advantages over my great
ancestress in that I was raised with some semblance of Jewish
tradition and in a time of relative religious freedom. Thus
in my early twenties, I found my way back. My brother too.
And it is with immense focus and determination that we
continue to strive to redraft the script penned by our more
recent forebears until it more closely resembles the
masterpiece crafted for eternity by those of earlier
times.
May Hashem help us all to tap into the greatness of our
original ancestors — Avrahom, Yitzchok and Yaakov,
Soroh, Rivka, Rachel and Leah — as well the other great
men and women over the past four thousand years of our
history who, with great self-sacrifice and commitment to the
true Torah way have instilled within us the ability to serve
Hashem with such devotion.
More than that, may He answer our prayers to become
patriarchs and matriarchs in our own right, of future
generations of talmidei chachomim who will lead Klall
Yisroel, until that time when we merit greeting Moshiach, may
it be speedily, in our days.
