Substack

My good friend Fern Sidman, the editor of The Jewish Voice, accompanied me to some of our childhood neighborhoods in Brooklyn. This time, we did not revisit my hometown of Borough Park. We were headed to a bench on the boardwalk to soak up the rays overlooking the Atlantic Ocean.

Fat chance. Instead, we toured, by car, Coney Island, Brighton Beach, Manhattan Beach, Sheepshead Bay, Midwood, and Flatbush. Some houses remained as they once were but as for good old Coney Island on the Atlantic--fuggedaboudit!

The merry-go-round, my childhood delight, was gone; the Washington Baths were not there either (they had a pool, changing rooms, and lockers); and there was no longer the spooky wax museum which had once terrified and delighted me. Nathan's looked down-in-the-mouth, and the fabled Lundy's was also gone. (Another restaurant has taken over the building.)

Well--what really lasts, and what stays the same? Even our souls come and go. Nature itself keeps changing. Thus, as soon as we arrived, the hot and yellow day cooled down, the sun departed, the skies turned a very forbidding gray, then became even darker (where was the great landscape painter William Turner when you needed him?) and soon enough, the heavens opened up...in short, there was no joy in Mudville, our mighty plans had been upended, and we just made it to the most extraordinary dairy kosher restaurant (Pescada) in Midwood mere minutes before a mighty thunderstorm began, so mighty that the lights inside kept flickering on and off for quite a while.

But small miracles abound. In the restaurant, a Manhattan shul-mate, Jamie Lassner, was there and with him was a veteran from an elite Israeli unit, who had lost his leg fighting in Gaza. He was here to be fitted for a prosthesis--and his plan, immediately thereafter, was to join a group of other disabled veterans, organized by Lassner, to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro in Africa. I blew a kiss at his young, exceptionally sweet face and said: "Take me with you! I am also a disabled veteran of many wars."

But that's not all. Fern had just given me a present--a new Koren-Magerman edition of the Torah with commentaries by R. Jonathan Sacks, Rashi, and Onkelos. Of course, I ripped off the plastic and began looking it over. You can't imagine the page I immediately found!

As we know, Israel now stands accused of monstrous blood libels; while Israel is not perfect--which nation is? None of these Big Lies is true and yet all of them are believed around the world. We are surrounded by menace. What to do, what to think, where to turn?

And there it was, an unbelievably timely and comforting interpretation of last week's and this week's parashiot by R. Jonathan Sacks z"l. Commenting upon the words in Eikav: "Perhaps you may think to yourself, 'These nations are more numerous than I, how can I inherit (defeat) them?' Do not fear them" (7:17-18); "do not be intimidated by them, because Adonoy, your God, is amid you" (7:21).

R. Jonathan, both here and in his Covenant and Conversation, on both chapters Va'ethhnan and Eikav, writes: "Israel will be the smallest of the nations for a reason that goes to the very heart of its existence as a nation. It will show the world that a people does not have to be large in order to defeat its enemies. Small groups can make a large difference....This small people has outlived all the world's great empires to deliver to humanity a message of hope: You need not be large to be great. What you need is to be open to a power greater than yourself.

That it is the nature of Jewish faith--not security but the courage to live with insecurity, knowing that life is a battle, but that if we do justice and practice compassion, if we honor (both) great and small, alike...this small, vulnerable people is capable of great, even astonishing achievements."

And then this: "It is said that King Louis XIV of France once asked Blaise Pascal, the brilliant mathematician and theologian, to give him proof of the existence of God. Pascal is said to have replied: "Your Majesty, the Jews!"

Am Yisrael Chai! And Shabbat Eikav Shalom to One and All.