A number of years ago I was asked to do a ‘lunch n’ learn’ talk to the JSoc of the Manchester Grammar School. I was asked to speak about the England football team’s visit to Poland where they had taken time out of their busy schedule(!) to visit Auschwitz – a news item that was very widely read and watched. The talk never materialised but the following is part of what I would have said.
In July 2006 there was another group who went to visit Poland and the sites of the Holocaust – Rabbi Noach Weinberg the Dean of Aish Hatorah led a group of sixty Aish Rabbis to visit the concentration camps. What led the then aging Rosh Hayeshiva to run this trip?
The Aish rabbis visited the Majdanek concentration camp. Standing in front of a two-ton mound of human ash at Majdanek, Rabbi Eric Coopersmith asked Rabbi Weinberg what is the message to take from all this. Rabbi Weinberg said three words, “We’re not serious.” He explained: The Nazis were serious. They didn’t stop improving their methods until they were operating at full efficiency.
Rabbi Weinberg said that those who perpetrated the physical Holocaust can serve as a model for the strategies, tools and manpower – as well as the commitment and dedication – necessary to fight the contemporary threats to our people, whether it is Jewish education or the threats from Iran and other radicals. “Just as the Nazis were motivated to destroy the Jewish people, we have to be motivated to build the Jewish people,” he said.
Years ago, at the bris of Rabbi Weinberg’s son, the great Rav Shach came to Aish HaTorah in Jerusalem. He was inspired by the young men he met, and coined a phrase that he would subsequently repeat many times: “If one man can kill 6 million people, so too we can save 6 million.”
I’m not sure what the motivation was for the England team but the Aish Rabbis trip reminded me of a Rashi in this week’s Parshah. Yaakov is coming to greet his brother Eisov after years of standoff. Yaakov famously davens, and sends Eisov presents to placate him before preparing for battle. In his message to his brother, Yaakov says the following, “with Lavan “garti” – I have dwelled”. The Medresh homiletically points out that the word “garti” has the numerical value of 613. Yaakov was telling Eisov that “although I have dwelled with Lavan I still kept the 613 mitzvah’s, and I did not learn from his bad deeds”. Various explanations are suggested as to why Yaakov was telling Eisov about his MItzvah observance at this juncture.
The Chofetz Chaim suggests that Yaakov was sending the following message. I lived all these years with Lavan but I still could not match up to Lavan’s enthusiasm and energy. I should have learnt from him how to serve Hashem. Although Lavan was channelling his zeal to do bad I should have learnt from him how to do good with that same energy. Said the Chofetz Chaim, we need to learn from the enthusiasm of the spiritual descendants of Lavan! Is this not the message of Rabbi Wienberg – to realise how much strategy and energy the perpetrators of evil put in and then learn from this as to how we must act accordingly.
I remember once walking to Yeshiva in Har-Nof when I bumped into a neighbour of mine. Reb Wolfson was also walking to his shul, Gemora tucked under his arm to spend some hours learning. We then saw the postman doing his rounds. In the heat of the day with a rather large rucksack on his back he was jogging along past us delivering letters. I’ll never forget Reb Wolfson’s observation, “do we run to our learning with that same passion?”
This was our patriarch Yaakov – someone who used every opportunity to learn from.
Yaakov’s very essence from the very start was this. Eisov’s was called so because he was born ‘made’. Eisov was finished the moment he was born, he was perfect – therefore stagnant in personal growth and not even looking to grow from what was around him. Yaakov was anything but that, he was constantly growing, moving forward and thus his name means heel – because Yaakov was on the road, heading somewhere, always looking for growth. We are truly wicked like Eisov only when we think we are perfect!
Rav Wolbe outlines a basic problem in personal growth. We are walking a tightrope – either side of our personal growth lies two traps. On one side is the trap that if we achieve our goals then we feel a sense of haughtiness, “I’ve made it – I’m done” – much like Eisov. To the other side is the trap of resistance. As soon as we set ourselves a goal to achieve we hit upon tremendous resistance. What then is the path of personal growth? No goals!
When we have no goals to achieve then we are free to grow! When every opportunity is just used to learn from, then the dangers have passed. If there is no goal then you can never feel like you have made it to perfection. Similarly without the goal the resistance disappears! The trick is to always be a learner – no one wants to be in the car with someone who has just passed!
The world has a plethora of opportunities from which to learn – there is just one condition, we have to just want to grow. As the Mishnah says, “Who is wise? He who learns from all men” Because as we see from the Aish Rabbis trip who took a leaf from Yaakov there is something to learn from every situation and from everybody, even the Nazis.
Good Shabbos, Yaakov