Ignore the Cynics and Naysayers

Insight of the Week

In 1943, shortly after arriving in the United States, Rav Aharon Kotler founded the Lakewood yeshiva with a small group of approximately fifteen students. The establishment of such an institution was seen as crazy. At that time, America was not a place where people sat and learned Torah. America was a place where Jews worked and made money. If necessary, they worked on Shabbat. It definitely wasn’t suitable for a European-style yeshiva. Many American Jews ridiculed and criticized Rav Aharon Kotler for starting the yeshiva. They insisted that America wasn’t Poland or Lithuania, and this institution had no chance of succeeding. Today, the yeshiva has some 8700 students. There is a pair of pesukim in Parashat Behaalotecha which is marked off in the Torah scroll by unusual symbols. These symbols – two upside-down נ ’s – serve as “parentheses,” setting these two pesukim apart. According to one view in the Gemara, these two pesukim are set aside because they comprise their own sefer , a separate book of the Torah. Meaning, according to this opinion, there are not five books in the Torah, but seven: 1) Bereshit; 2) Shemot; 3) Vayikra; 4) the first part of Bamidbar, until these two pesukim ; 5) these two pesukim ; 6) the rest of Bamidbar; 7) Devarim. Let’s look at these two pesukim , and try to figure out why they are so special that they are considered their own ”book”: ויהי בנסוע הארון ויאמר משה: קומה ה' ויפוצו אויביך וינוסו משנאיך מפניך. ובנוחה יאמר: שובה ה' רבבות אלפי ישראל. When the ark traveled, Moshe said: Arise, O G-d, and Your enemies shall be scattered, and Your foes shall flee. And when it rested, he said: Take residence, O G-d, among the hundreds of thousands of Israel . These are the pronouncements that Moshe Rabbenu made when the aron (ark) would begin to move as Beneh Yisrael traveled, and when the ark stopped as the people encamped. Why do these pesukim form their own “ sefer ”?? In this brief section, the Torah is teaching us how the “ aron ,” our tradition, “travels” through history, how it is preserved and perpetuated. This is done through קומה , by standing tall and proud, with confidence and courage. Like Rav Aharon Kotler, we need to stand up and do the right thing, ignoring our critics and naysayers. When we do that, then ויפוצו אויביך, וינוסו משנאיך – our adversaries will “flee,” they will be silenced. I have seen this happen so often here in our community. Families were reluctant to raise their standards of Torah observance, to devote themselves more fully to religion, as they feared the comments that people would make about them, how they would be looked at, the ridicule and scorn that they would be subjecting themselves to. But they courageously made the decision of קומה ה' , to stand tall and proud, and do what they knew was right. And when they did, everything was fine. ויפוצו אויביך . Nobody said anything. To the contrary, ובנוחה – when the family “came to rest,” upon settling into its new level of commitment, שובה ה' רבבות אלפי ישראל – they earned the respect of many, and inspired others to follow their example. This is what this little “book” is about – perpetuating our legacy, our Torah tradition, by ignoring אוביך and משנאיך , those who ridicule and mock, and moving forward in the right direction, undeterred and unaffected by their murmurings. When we do this, then we end up with more respect, more admiration, and more of an influence upon our surroundings.