Parshas Bamidbar (Shavuot Edition) 5778
By Rabbi David Zauderer of Toronto, Canada
As anybody following the news in Gaza these days knows, the United Nations is not exactly a fan of the State of Israel.
In fact, it has never been a fan. Here is one example of this: Did you know that as of 2013, Israel had been condemned in 45 resolutions by the United Nations Human Rights Council? These 45 resolutions comprised almost half (45.9%) of all country-specific resolutions passed by the Council!
All the one-sided resolutions and condemnations emanating from the Security Council and the General Assembly of the U.N. throughout the years reflect an almost irrational hatred and contempt that many nations feel towards the State of Israel and the Jewish people.
[Years ago, when I used to take Jewish students from Toronto on fun, educational trips to New York City, we almost always included a tour of the U.N. on our itinerary. On the bus to the U.N., I would always give the students the following humorous introduction to this ‘hallowed’ institution: There are three things you need to know about the U.N.: (1) The official name of the U.N. is “The United Nations Against Israelâ€; (2) To become the Secretary-General of the U.N., you must either be a former Nazi (think Kurt Waldheim) or have a strange or unpronounceable name (think Trygve Lie, Dag Hammarskjöld, U Thant, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, etc.). (3) The U.N. as an institution hasn’t really accomplished much since its inception … much like the Toronto Blue Jays!]
Which is why many if not most Jews generally have a negative view of the United Nations, especially as it relates to the State of Israel.
Former Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion said it best during a 1955 debate within the Israeli cabinet regarding his plan to take the Gaza Strip from Egypt in response to the increasing fedayeen terror attacks. When questioned about the potential backlash from the U.N., he famously replied, “Um, Shmum!†(Um is the Hebrew acronymic pronunciation for "U.N.", whose full name in Hebrew is Umot Me’uchadot, and the "shm"-prefix signifies dismissal and contempt.) This utterance towards the United Nations is an expression that reflects, even as to date, the way many Israelis feel about the institution.
King David, the “sweet singer of Israelâ€, almost certainly had the U.N. in mind when he wrote Psalm 83:
A song with musical accompaniment by Assaf. O G-d, do not hold Yourself silent; be not deaf and be not still, O G-d; For behold, Your foes are in uproar, And those who hate You have raised their head. Against Your nation they plot deviously, They take counsel against those whom You protect They said, ‘Come, let us cut them off from nationhood, So Israel’s name will be remembered no more!’ For they take counsel together unanimously, against you they strike a covenant…
Did you ever wonder why the world hates the Jewish people so much? What is the source of all this seemingly irrational animosity from the United Nations towards the State of Israel that never seems to go away?
The Talmud in Shabbos 89a provides us with a fascinating answer to this enigma: Rav Chisda and Rabbah the son of Rav Huna both said: Why is it called Sinai? Because it is the mountain from which hatred (Hebrew: sinah) came down to the nations of the world against the Jews.
In this clever play on words (the Hebrew pronunciation of "Sinai" is almost identical to the Hebrew word for "hatred" – sinah) the Sages are teaching us an amazing thing - that the source of much of the anti-semitism and Jew-hatred in the world throughout history can be traced back to that one fateful day when we stood together as one nation at Mount Sinai and received G-d’s Torah.
There are many ways to understand why our receiving the Torah at Mount Sinai would cause the nations of the world to start hating us.
On a simple level, we can say that by our accepting this beautiful gift from G-d – the Torah is a way of life that is so incredibly meaningful and rewarding – we incurred the wrath and hatred of all the other nations who had previously rejected the Torah and were now jealous of us for having accepted it.
But it goes much deeper than that. As Rabbi Raphael Shore writes in a fascinating essay titled Why the Jews: Understanding the Root of the World's Longest Hatred:
At Sinai Jews were told that there is one G-d, Who makes moral demands on all of humanity. Consequently, at Sinai the Jewish nation became the target for the hatred of those whose strongest drive is to liberate mankind from the shackles of conscience and morality.
At Sinai the Jewish nation was appointed to be "a light unto the nations". There are those who embrace Jews and the Jewish faith because of that light; but there are also those who want the world to be a place of spiritual darkness. They object to morality. Those would-be harbingers of darkness attack the Jews as the lightning rod for their hatred. This "call to Sinai" - the message entrusted to and borne by the Jews - ultimately transforms the world. Yet, it is this very message that draws forth the wrath of those who would give their last ounce of strength to resist it.
A great many people simply can't cope with the burden of being good. However, when they act in ways that are bad, they can't cope with the resultant feelings of guilt. Try as they may, they can never cut themselves loose from the standards of absolute morality dictated by the Torah. Stuck in this "Catch-22" situation, people turn with their mounting frustrations against the Jews, whom they perceive as personifying humanity's collective conscience.
When the Jews entered the theological arena, they showed people all the mistakes they had been making: Pagan gods are nonsense - there is only one G-d for all of mankind, Who is invisible, infinite and perfect. Infanticide and human sacrifice are unacceptable. Every human being is born with specific rights. No one can live as he pleases, for everyone must surrender his will to a higher Authority.
On a certain conscious level, people recognize the Jews' message as truth. Those unwilling to embrace the truth have found that the only way to rid themselves of it is to destroy the messengers - for the message itself is too potent to be dismissed.
That is what is so irksome about the Jews, and that is why, for some people, nothing less than total destruction of the Jews will do.
I think the take-home message here – as we begin to celebrate yet another Festival of Shavuos (the holiday begins at sundown this Saturday evening May 19th) which commemorates the receiving of the Torah at Mount Sinai – is that if the nations of the world are so jealous of us for the Torah that we have – a Torah that literally transformed the world with its message of truth, goodness and morality - we would be wise to explore for ourselves more deeply just what makes this Torah of ours so special. After all, the nations must be on to something …
CHAG SAMEACH!
http://www.torchweb.org/torah_detail.php?id=514