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We are ill equipped emotionally to deal with the unexpected though all of us are buffeted by the unexpected repeatedly in our lives. We are surprised and disappointed when things do not go as planned though in reality we should be surprised and delighted when plans do work out. Murphy’s famous law that whatever can go wrong will eventually go wrong has more than a grain of truth to it. And we are all aware of the famous maxim about the best laid plans of mice and men.
In short, we should learn to expect the unexpected and be able to deal with it as it arises, as it surely will. In an uncertain world, uncertainty will always reign. It is the person who is flexible and who easily adjusts to new circumstances that will be most successful in life. Those who are irretrievably set in their ways will find life to be enormously frustrating, disappointing and depressing.
Often this mindset of rigidity leads to domestic discord, business failure and even social violence. It is this inability to cope with the constantly changing world that causes enormous problems in human and national society. We should be aware and wary of this.
The Jewish people have had to be the most adjustable and flexible of nations in having to deal with the centuries of change that it faced. In certain areas the Jewish people were very successful in dealing with these unexpected changes. They learned to adjust to exile, persecution, Christianity and Islam without sacrificing their central core beliefs and practices rooted in the eternal Torah. They created languages, societies and vital movements within the Jewish society all within the parameters of Jewish tradition and Torah values.
However the unexpected changes caused by the rise of the ideas of the eighteenth century European Enlightenment posed great challenges which the Jewish world is struggling with until today. Modernity, democracy, scientific discoveries and new theories regarding nature, astronomy, creation and human behavior and psyche all posed and still pose today challenges to traditional Judaism that were not present for many previous centuries.
Traditional Jewish thought was blindsided by the onslaught of the ideas and new certainties of that Enlightenment. Many of those certainties of the Enlightenment itself have been proved wrong by further changing circumstances. The Enlightenment was certain that education was the key to solve all human problems. Yet in the Holocaust a high proportion of the executives of the Nazi death camps were PhD’s and MD’s. What about the great believers in Communism, Lenin, Stalin and the Marxist wave of the future? The difficulty to deal with unexpected changes is not restricted to traditional Judaism.
The sweep of secularism and assimilation that swept the Jewish world in the wake of the ideas of modernity forced traditional Judaism to take a conservative, defensive view of its world. Paradoxically, this at one and the same time saved the core of the Jewish people from spiritual destruction while at the same time it weakened its ability to have to deal with newly unexpectedly changing circumstances.
There is no doubt that our world today after the Holocaust, the creation and growth of the State of Israel, and the vast changes in the Jewish Diaspora, is a completely different world than that of Eastern European Jewry in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Yet somehow we have not adjusted to these sea changes in our condition. We will undoubtedly be challenged by even further unexpected changes that will fall upon us.
There will be no avoiding these changes, just as one cannot be on a flight that an airline has cancelled. (Take my word for the accuracy of that last statement!)
Flexibility and adjustment to changing circumstances and societal norms will be demanded of us. We must preserve the Torah at all costs and it cannot be preserved by violating it - driving to the synagogue on Shabat only eventually helped destroy the Shabat and weaken the synagogue. Yet we cannot recreate seventeenth century shtetl Eastern Europe. How we will deal with these unexpected, and yet certain to come, changes in our world will define our mettle and success.
Rabbis in Midrash
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Chukat "HOW ENTEBBE STOLE THE BICENTENNIAL
The Difference Between Historic & Eternal"
As we approach America's 250th birthday, it's worth remembering her 200th Bicentennial birthday, on Jul. 4th 1976, when Israel "stole the show" by shocking the world & miraculously saving 101 hostages in a foreign continent. As Pres. As Pres. Trump decides which countries get priority in his new Middle-East, it's worth reminding him of the difference between historic events and eternally historic ones. This obviously connects with this week's parsha, as well!
Kuzari -Rabbi Ari Shvat Kuzari class 6 - The Parable of the King of India
The advantages of testimony over circumstantial evidence or philosophical speculation.
Kuzari -Rabbi Ari Shvat Kuzari class 5- "Proofs of G-d"
This may be the most important class of the entire book, where we finally get to the Jewish proof of the existence of G-d and truth of the Torah. We should follow His own direction where He tells us how to get to Him: through the Nation of Israel: Jewish history, Jewish prophets (and today, prophecies fulfilled), and national reward & punishment towards Am Yisrael.
Ein Aya One Humanity, One Creator, One Jerusalem
Rav Kook innovatively and beautifully explains this aggadeta where our sages say that after Jerusalem was destroyed her cinnamon fragrance is only found locked in a particular kingdom's treasury.
Shlach Lecha "Why So Many Don't Make Aliya?" - Parshat Shlach
This short article deals with the weird phenomena that every single time Am Yisrael is meant to enter the Land of Israel, throughout the Tanach, 2nd Temple and until today, they "chicken out" and look for excuses. What's the problem with this mitzvah that proves so challenging. The article, based on sources, suggests that the difficulties of Eretz Yisrael is precisely her secret and beauty!
Kuzari -Rabbi Ari Shvat Kuzari class 4
The class deals with Islam and how the Muslim tries convincing the King of the Khazars, and why he was also rejected.
Beha'alotcha JEWISH STATE= GUIDE TO G-DLINESS & SELFLESSNESS
A Jewish State not only is a good idea, but educates us towards selflessness, altruism and G-dliness in our daily lives.
Ein Aya In Zion Even the Smoke of the Bark is Sweet
Just as Jewish nationalism is different from others, so too our capitol of Jerusalem is totally different than other national capitols. Rav Kook beautifully explains the passage in the Talmud that the trees of Yerushalayim were cinnamon trees.
