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Moshe Kempinski , author of The Teacher and the Preacher, is the editor of the Jerusalem Insights weekly email journal and co-owner of Shorashim, a Biblical shop and learning center in the Old City of Jerusalem.
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By Moshe Kempinski
January 10, 2007
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Over two hundred years of exile and slavery in Egypt almost destroyed the Jewish people. What has two thousand years of exile wrought? Dealing with the daily challenges and traumas of life in exile has lowered the eyesight of a people who have been called to keep their eyes focused on a much higher purpose and directed towards a much loftier vision. It has made many of them feel unworthy of anything other than exile.
As is the case around the world, Israel is experiencing a deep and traumatic crisis in leadership and direction. One has lost count of the number of cases involving corruption and wrongdoing that Prime Minister Olmert's name has been linked to. The Minister of Defense, the Chief of Staff and the heads of the Police department are all under threats of removal from office. The Tax Authorities are being investigated for corruption and there are persistent rumors of misdealing in the Ministry of justice and the Supreme Court. The rot is spreading quickly.
Harav Kook predicted that if secular Zionism becomes disconnected from Judaism's eternal vision it would crumble and disintegrate. The shell of this protective acorn would be destined to decompose. Yet its disintegration would release the healthy seed to take root and begin to blossom and flourish.
Yet the darkness seems to be creeping into every corner of this land and a sense of morose and hopelessness seems to be gripping every heart. Throughout the land there is a foreboding sense that this people have lost the strength to surge forward through history.
That perception is utterly mistaken.
Over three thousand years a young Moshe (Moses) ventures out of pharaoh's palace to explore the state of his people. He sees a Hebrew slave almost being beaten to death, and after looking around and seeing that "there was no man around" (exodus 2:12), he intervenes and kills the assailant. Later he encounters two Hebrew slaves fighting each other and when he tries again to intervene he is chastised by one of them and reference is made of the killing of the Egyptian slave master. Moshe escapes to Midyan when he realizes that" the thing is known"(exodus 2:14), Our sages explain the thing that became known was not just the fact of the dead Egyptian but also an answer to a question that was perplexing Moshe for a very long time. How low had this people sunk? Were they incapable of raising themselves to achieve liberation? After seeing that there was no man who would be man enough to stop the murderous beating of a fellow Hebrew, and that two Hebrew men would refuse to be reconciled, he began to believe that this people was beyond salvage.
So Moses escapes to Midyan and he is not heard from, for over sixty years. In his despondency he escapes into anonymity.
It is only after the age of eighty that he is confronted with the burning bush on Horev, the mountain of G-d. Moshe makes a determined decision to investigate this mystery. "And Moses said: 'I will turn aside now, and see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt.' (Exodus 3:3). With that determined step out of anonymity Moshe receives a clear message that just as this small burning bush was not to be consumed, this people of Israel, his people, were not to be consumed by the fires of slavery either. Moshe is clearly being told not to lose faith in this people. They are capable of and destined for greater things.
In the midst of the darkness that has permeated sectors of this land, I have been looking for hints of the burning bush around us. To my great relief these hints are everywhere to be found. This week I attended the wedding of Yoni and Bat Ami. Many of the important rabbis of the religious Zionist public were in attendance yet the main focus of all that attended was "the burning bush" in the middle of the hall.
The circles within circles of dancers were filled with a frenetic energy that would not be extinguished. The band stopped playing yet the dancing continued. The food was served and removed and still the dancing continued. That dancing was celebrating the new couple, yet was also a reaffirmation of faith and determination, as an antidote to the darkness in the air. Every individual in the hall could not help but be drawn to the warmth and healing power of this fire that would seemingly not be extinguished. It was an assurance that the vision of this people has not died. While in the corridors of power this vision may have been clouded over by the enticements of power and prestige, the healthy heart of Israel was still beating.
These last couple of weeks the old city of Jerusalem has been inundated with hundreds of young participants of the birthright program, many of them visiting Israel for the first time. There were groups organized by the Orthodox NCSY movement, the Reform Kesher organization, the Conservative movement, Chabad, Young Judea, Bnei Akiva and many others. In a most dramatic way we were able to discern the flames of that burning bush in almost every one of those young people's eyes. Another confirmation that the exile may have dimmed the fires but it would not and could not extinguish that eternal flame.
Throughout the country the Bayit Yehudi centers run by Mayanot Hayeshuah and the OU Israel Center have been inundated by calls and requests from Israelis from all walks of life yearning to discover more ways to express the Jewish flame burning in their soul. Again sparks from that unquenchable burning bush.
All these are mere sparks, yet together become the flame of that burning bush. In the cold eyes of the cynical and the doomsayers, such a flame will only be smothered by the heavy blanket of the forces of mediocrity. Yet history has proven time and again that the direction of history and destiny is determined by the few with passion and vision and not by the many who may have lost their sense of direction. Israel's battered and faltering leadership will continue to sputter and spew pronouncements but the healthy part of this country is reaching and yearning for much more. The burning bush is indeed eternal.
Views expressed by the author do not
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