Rabbi's Derasha

When one begins this Parasha, one can barely suppress the urge to quote, “And now for something completely different.”  Architecture.  Interior design.  Artisans.  All well and good, but we were just at the foot of the mountain, following a story which obviously reached its peak.  Everything from Avraham Avinu ends with that scene at the mountain, first at the foot and then with Moshe Rabenu climbing up.

But now what?  

The Ramban says that the Miskhan is the continuation of Har Sinai.  One strong piece of  evidence for that is the abrupt transition from the end of last week’s Parasha to this week’s.  Once one reaches a goal, there is always a question of what next?  But if that goal was a pinnacle experience, the next question is slightly different: How can we make this last?  How can we make this into something that does not end here?  

The building of the Mishkan is that continuation.  It was a continuation of everything we had at Har Sinai -- of prophecy in particular but of Torah in general.  That’s why the Aron is the first thing that has to be made, the center of everything.  The Aron was the carrier of the light, of Oraita.  That is why the awesomeness of the experience at Sinai is also carried in the Aron.  A sage once pointed out that the word “Aron” spelled backwards is “Nora,” or awesome.  [In modern Hebrew, the word means “terrible,” but even that stems from the original meaning of the word as that which inspires awe or even fear.]  The Aron in the Mishkan and eventually in the Beit HaMikdash was the source of the continuation of this awesomeness -- as a verse in Tehillim says (68:36), “the awesomeness of the Lord is in his holy places” (נורא אלקים ממקדשיך).   

The great crisis in Jewish history is what happens when the Aron disappears.  There came a time in Jewish history when the prophets themselves could not invoke Nora when describing Hashem.  Moshe Rabenu called Hashem “Hagadol, Hagibur V’HaNora” (the giving, the strong and the awesome).  But when non-Jews were dancing in the sanctuary of the Beit Hamikdash, the prophet Yirmiyahu could no longer say Nora.  He left it out.  In modern Hebrew, what does the word Aron mean?  It means locker, or cabinet.  That’s a good gauge of how unthreatening the Aron can be.  This is precisely what the Gemora is pointing out when it notes that the prophet refuses to say that Hashem is indeed Nora.  

But we do say the word Nora in the Amida today.  It was restored by the Men of the Great Assembly during the establishment of the second Temple.  That Beit HaMikdash lacked an Aron.  When the exiles come back to Yerushalayim and rebuilt the Beit Hamikdash, there was no Aron.  Without an Aron, what is the source of the Nora’ut?  The answer was that these were the people who had just passed through the miracle of Purim.  They had seen Nora’ut manifested in a different way.   The Men of the Great Assembly said that the continuation of the Jewish people in the face of the hostility of the other nations was a sign that Nora’ut -- awesomeness -- endures.  That came in two forms: In the effectiveness of the Jews in fighting back and in the defiance Mordechai demonstrated in the face of Haman.  Those are what sustained the Jewish people, and they demonstrate that the Nora’ut of the second Temple and beyond is embodied in the Jewish people.  R’ Moshe Shapiro used to say that it is no longer in the Aron but in them. 

The awesomeness of Hashem is embodied in the unity of the Jewish people, in their love of -- and bond with -- each other, and in their taking responsibility for each other.  [This is also why the second Temple is vulnerable when the Jewish people hate each other.] 

In the Megilla, we hear toward the end that there was mass conversion after the Purim story.  

ובכל מדינה ומדינה ובכל עיר ועיר מקום אשר דבר המלך ודתו מגיע שמחה וששון ליהודים משתה ויום טוב ורבים מעמי הארץ מתיהדים כי נפל פחד היהודים עליהם

And in every province and in every city, wherever the word of the King reached, there was happiness and joy to the Jews, a party and a holiday, and many of the nations of the land became Jews, for the fear of the Jews befell them.  

These were not people converting out of fear of the Jews.  The phrase Pachad HaYehudim does not mean fear FROM the Jews.  It means that they had the fear OF the Jews in the sense of the same fear that the Jews have, of Hashem.  This comes out of palpable sense of Nora’ut, awesomeness.    

The hostages have emerged battered, beaten, and emaciated.  They have also emerged as Jews through and through.  We have seen over and over that when one squeezes a Jew, like when one squeezes an olive, pure oil comes out.  What we are seeing, what the world is seeing, is Nora’ut.  The IDF is helpful; American weapons are helpful.  But if you want to defeat Hamas, it’s a matter of Nora’ut.  The contrast is so clear.  Hamas thinks that just surviving as a murderous force shows its strength.  Rather, it is thriving in the embrace of Jewish life that shows real strength.