Does Megilat Esther Prophecy The Hanging of Nazi War Criminals?

 

There’s a Devar Torah wandering around that associates the Ten Sons of Haman, who are recorded as hanging in the Megilah, with the ‘Ten Sons’ of Hitler – the ten senior Nazis who hung as a result of the Nuremberg Trials.

Google suggests a number of tellers of this ‘Devar’ including

Ohr Sameach - https://ohr.edu/holidays/purim/deeper_insights/3440

Rabbi Baruch Mellman - https://www.poconorecord.com/article/20100227/features/2270324

Rabbi Bernhard Rosenberg - https://www.mycentraljersey.com/story/life/faith/2015/03/04/purim-heroine-esther-prophesy-nazis/24273719/

And ‘Ollie’ from J-TV - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzaJZ0bGe0s

Wikipedia attributes the idea to ‘research’ conducted by  Rabbi Mordechai Neugroschel

I first encountered it yesterday in a message that came back from my sons’ school. The incredible Jewish informal education team (known as JIEP) managed to deliver Mishloach Manot to 3,000 home-bound students and in the bag with the edible goodies was this Devar Torah. And I applaud the delivery and the love of the team. But, oh my, did I hate the Devar. So I sent this to the school.

 

 

 

Oh my.

 

JIEP just pulled off a Mishloach Manot home delivery to every student in the school. That is incredible. What an inspiring and deeply touching way to symbolise the bond between students and the school, especially at a time when you as a team, and your students, must be missing the joy of a Purim celebration on campus especially. Thank you, thank you, thank you and hurrah.

 

Can I, however, share one thing. I had a look through the accompanying booklet and, forgive me, I hated the Dvar Torah. It was unattributed (Pirkei Avot 6:6) and I don’t want to be rude, but ….

 

I love Megilat Ester. What could be more inspiring than a tale of a young Jew living in a non-Jewish world who finds the strength to stand strong, even in the face of so much? But the Devar Torah chose to stress the importance of the prescient prophetic nature of the Megilah in predicting the hanging of the ‘Nuremberg Ten’ in the Hebrew year 5707. Well, I can enjoy a good Devar Torah suggesting the prescient nature of our sacred scriptures. But the message was demonstrated with reference to scribal orthography – big letter and small letters. Hmmm. Is the point that the revelation on Sinai included scribal orthography? Of course, scribal orthography has a history, I don’t know anyone who claims the scribal orthography of the Megillah is ‘MiSinai’ and it seems a strange thing to place importance on, not least since there are so many different Megillot with different letters larger or smaller than the letters the Devar Torah found to be so significant. And, yes I know the Gemarah about Moses, Rabbi Akiva and the Tagin but does finding attested Megillot with different sized letter make the Devar Torah weaker? Or the Megilah? Or the faith of my sons, your students?

 

Then there is the matter of the gematria. With a flourish the Devar Torah announces that the three small letters add up to 707 – which is true. And that the large letter, a ‘vav,’ thereby counts as a reference to the sixth century giving rise to Hebrew year 5707. Well, no. Just no. ‘Vav’ is never ‘5.’ I’ve spent time wandering through the gematria obsessed worlds of Chaim Vital and Moshe Cordevero and Baal HaTurim. And reading Vav as 5000+ is … well I’m not world’s greatest Gematria maven, but I’ve never seen it. So maybe ten future evildoers will be hung in the Hebrew year 6707, but I don’t suppose any of us will be around to see it.

 

And hang on (pause while checking Wikipedia), when exactly were these ten modern sons of Haman hung (putting aside the issue of whether the Nazis hung in the Nuremberg trial are indeed the sons of Hitler Yamoch Shemo)? The hangings took place on the 16^th October 1946 which is … drumroll … in the Hebrew year 5708. In other words, in the language and theology of the Devar Torah, the prophetic prescience of the Megilah is wrong. OK, maybe the prophetic prescience of the Megilah accurately predicted the date when the ten Nazi ‘sons’ were sentenced to hang. Well … there were 12 Nazis sentenced to hang in the Hebrew year 5707. Herman Goring committed suicide rather than face the noose and Martin Borman was in absentia.  Does that make the Megilah less impressive? Does that threaten to weaken a love of the Megilah, or Judaism or God? If the wonderful Mishloach Manot came in a sturdy receptacle, the Devar Torah just felt like a wet paper bag.

 

Aside from being wrong and without scientific justification, I have a problem with the whole notion of placing this kind of emphasis on the prophetic prescience of the Megilah – especially when the Megilah is connected to modern sources of evil.

 

As Eliot Horowitz showed in his book Reckless Rites: Purim and the Legacy of Jewish Violence, there is a direct connection between this sort of ‘Torah’ drawn from the Megilah and Jewish violence. This Devar Torah is just the sort of ‘Torah’ marshalled by Baruch Goldstein and his supporters to justify a massacre by a Jew, A JEW, at Hebron, on Purim 1994, or as we are now supposedly supposed to call it ותשנ'ד. Spurred on by just this kind of ‘theology’ and ‘exegesis’ Goldstein felt somehow justified in seeing the living image of sons of Haman before him in the Cave of Machpelah and shot dead 29 innocent humans created in the image of God. Cheerleading for prophetic prescience in sacred texts is one thing, but the Megilah is a dangerous text to be used in the context of modern evils – especially so tendentiously. I’m not suggesting that this is within a million miles of the intent of the author of this Devar Torah. But the Devar Torah is a strengthening of a ‘theology’ which leaves me utterly cold.

 

Hitler’s ‘ten sons’ were hung because of the exercise of justice and as a result of their own actions for which they rightly paid a price. They weren’t hung because of a gematria in the Megilah. I mean what if we really took seriously the notion that God did intend for our ancient Megilah to encode a secret message (one that could only be read post-hoc of course) that von Ribbentrop and Streicher and the rest of them would be hung some time in the mid-twentieth century? Does that mean that God was secretly moving chess pieces into position to ensure that Holocaust happened? Or does it mean that God had the Hashgachah and inclination to save the Jews of Shushan and encode an esotery into our ancient scripture but didn’t choose and/or wasn’t able to avert the murders of 6 million Jews under the Nazis? I mean the more I think about this Devar Torah the more I dislike it.

 

OK, rant over, thank you for hearing me out. And again, thank you and a huge hurrah and a happy Purim.

 

Remember This - Even When Tired

On the Shabbat before Purim – and this is the Shabbat before Purim – we read a passage reminding us of an attack on the Israelites,  “when you were tired – Ayef - and weary – Yagaya - and had no awe – Yirah - for God.” Amalek came then and, we are warned, Amalek will come again and again into our national future. Even beyond the point where God has given us rest from all the other enemies surrounding us.

 

Sure enough, in Kings we read of the battle between Saul and the Amalekite King Agag, and then, of course, comes Haman (boo) the Agagite.

 

In Chasidic thought Amalek becomes no longer a physical opponent, but rather a state of mind, the weakness that preys on our tiredness and weariness and our lack of Yirah – awe. It’s an interesting triplet. Tiredness, of course, comes to us all – it’s a function of sleep and effort and exists in the realm of the physical. If weariness is not to be identical with tiredness, therefore, it therefore becomes a more existential behaviour; giving up, not wanting to go on. And Yirah (for God) is entirely within the realm of the spiritual. Yirah is that which reminds who we are and our relationship with our Creator. Yirah reminds us how much we have to be grateful for. Yirah lifts us beyond our physical immediacy and places us before the Kiseh Cavod – God’s throne of glory. It becomes the force that can and should pull us away from existential torpor and give us strength, even in our physical tiredness. Its root is in the ability to turn our attention to that which is beyond our immediate physical need and tiredness. And Amalek is that which preys on an existential torpor grounded in a failure to realise we should be grateful.

 

Everyone gets tired, and these are surely the most wearisome of times, but we can’t allow our weariness to strip us of Yirah. In fact a little Yirah will give us strength even in the face of weariness. Feeling tired? Get out the house (if allowed), look towards the heavens, express gratitude. Feeling weary? Do something for someone else. Develop a sense of Yirah, particularly on Shabbat. Daven. Join us on-line or find your own way. Don’t lose Yirah, even when tired. Purim is coming.

 

Weddings, Forts, Ports and Covid

There are reports from Stamford Hill of ultra-orthodox Jewish weddings which are taking place illegally, stupidly and frankly murderously. The reports fill me with shame and anger. As one of the millions, no billions, of us struggling to hold life and soul gently in these pandemic-riddled times, I'm appalled. The notion that, today, these weddings are taking place is stunning.

Except, I suppose, it isn't.

Somehow, these weddings connect to a web of related tendencies, less criminal and less dangerous, but nonetheless connected. Theodor Zeldin, in his remarkable book, The Hidden Pleasures of Life, writes that the clash of civilisations can be attributed to the difference between those who wish to live in forts, and those who wish to live in ports. Says Zeldin 'fort dwellers see that which is beyond their immediate control as a threat, they turn inwards and seek to erect ever greater barricades to repulse a world beyond. On the other hand, port dwellers look to that which is beyond as the origin of hope, creativity and growth'.

We, at New London, are a true community of Port Jews; inheritors of the attitude of our founder Rabbi who was excited by the possibility of new knowledge even if it felt dangerous. In turn, Rabbi Jacobs was an inheritor of an attitude towards the Enlightenment that drew Jews out of ghettos self-imposed and otherwise. But ultra-orthodoxy built its remarkable strength on a rejection of new knowledge and its leaders have ploughed rejectionist furrows with ever greater fervour for the past hundred and fifty years. This is the attitude that resulted in ultra-orthodox leadership pillorying university education in the late 1800s, bullying Rabbi Jacobs in the 1960s, and treating Israeli society as a pork-barrel. It is, of course, vital to understand that so many of those who are swept up by the fervour and passion of these positions are simply naïve, but at a leadership level there is venality. And it hurts.

I'm still feeling raw - two weeks and 5,000km away - as a result of the 'Washington Insurrection.' That deathly attack on democracy is also part of a similar pathology that refuses to countenance sacred cows being threatened and calls for higher and thicker walls as if forts are the best way to face a world that is always changing.

It's so easy to feel fort-longing, particularly as we retreat behind closed doors to keep this virus at bay. But ports are stronger than forts. The walls of Jericho fell, as all walls do. The survival of humanity is not due to exoskeletons or claws or fangs. Rather we have survived to this point in our history through adaptability and the ability to assimilate the new.

From behind our doors, in this necessary quarantine, we must hold fast to our belief in the values of living as port Jews. We must keep our hearts and minds open. We must challenge the appeal of a lapse into insularity when we find it ourself, and in others. As Rav Kook said, the new must be rendered holy, and there is certainly much holy rendering of the new to be done. But it cannot be beaten back. Onwards, onwards,

Shabbat Shalom

https://jewishnews.timesofisrael.com/jn-investigation.../

The Times of Israel

Three Scrolls

A bit of a pop-quiz, for those who like that sort of thing and partic for those for whom sight of even one Torah Scroll would be a treat.

 

There are four times in the Jewish year when it’s necessary to read from three Torah scrolls.

 

And one is this week. It’s the first of the special extra readings that path the way towards Pesach (darkness to freedom, everyone, it is coming). The first of this is Parashat Shekalim – get your census payment ready, we all need to demonstrate we are still here. So we read that together with the weekly portion, Mishpatim – a collection of rules opening with a section inspiring us to take the brave step out of confinement into freedom. Shekalim is read on the Shabbat before Rosh Chodesh Adar, or on Rosh Chodesh Adar if Rosh Chodesh falls on Shabbat, as it does this year. So a third scroll. And Rosh Chodesh? A celebration of the light of the moon re-emerging, even if its glow has been in retreat for a while.

 

What a Shabbat for looking forward with a gentle optimism. I know, not ‘there’ yet, but, there is hope, there is a three-fold chord of Torah to sustain us. As it says in Proverbs, the three fold chord is not easily undone. We can do this.

 

In our streamed service this Shabbat, bit of Mishpatim, bit of Shekalim and Hallel with Rabbi Natasha and I and special guest Angela Gluck.

 

10:30am www.newlondon.org.uk/digital

(Bonus points – don’t cheat now 😊) when are the other occasions we read from three scrolls.