These are certainly unsettling times. The heartbreak and sadness cuts deep and it’s still so difficult to comprehend the magnitude of the tragedy in Israel. The worry of the possibility of international retaliatory terrorism acts can feel nothing short of crippling.
Yet, in these frightening times, I am overwhelmed by the incredible Chabad family we are so blessed to be a part of. The standing-room-only crowd at the prayer gathering on Tuesday night, the piles of supplies dropped off in just a few short hours on Wednesday morning, and the crowd of women joining together to pray for Israel as we bake challah together, are just representations of what being part of our local community and the Jewish people means to you. Each and every one of you are mobilized with an incredible sense of urgency to do something - whatever it is - to support our brethren in the Land of Israel.
This week we start from the beginning. But how do we do that? Beginnings are meant to be joyous, happy occasions. Yet, these days, our hearts are filled with so much sorrow and pain.
However, just like each soldier knows, now is not the time to think about the atrocities that we see and read about, as that will just traumatize us. We must fight the evil with good. The greater the evil, the more light we have to bring into this dark world.
We start this week at the beginning of the Torah again. Looking at the first letter of the Torah, we would expect a large Aleph, the first letter of the Aleph-Bet. The letter that is equivalent to the number one, representing one G-d, one universe, unity. But no, the letter that the Torah starts with is the second letter, the letter Bet. Why is that so?
There are a few explanations for this. One that is relevant today is that the Aleph teaches us that the first thing that we need to know, even before we start to learn Torah, is that we need to know whose Torah it is that we are learning.
First comes Aleph, G-d. Judaism is not just an intellectual exercise, a theological idea that is passed down from generation to generation. The Torah is G-d’s knowledge put into a book that we call the Torah. That is why before we read from the Torah, we say this blessing: asher natan lanu et Tora’to. meaning G-d gave us His Torah, His knowledge. Once we have this foundation, we can move on to the second step and learn the Torah itself. Bet.
We cannot, nor should we, try to understand what went on this week in Israel. However, we do need to know that A) There is a G-d in this world and B) We have a responsibility to right the wrong. To bring light where there is darkness. To complete the unfinished work that needs to be done.
May we see a swift end to the suffering of the Jewish people with the coming of Moshiach now.