Devar/5771/Shemot
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< Devar | 5771
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and they said unto them: 'The LORD look upon you, and judge; because ye have made our savour to be abhorred in the eyes of Pharaoh, and in the eyes of his servants, to put a sword in their hand to slay us.' (Ex 5:12)
Such is the culture of Exile. A man who lives among people who do not value him, who perhaps envy him and in our case, even enslave him -- such a man has no self assurance. He does not feel comfortable in his surroundings, but he is even more uncomfortable leaving that which is familiar to him. He is depressed and downtrodden, shaking like leaf from any bad news and always sees his life in imminent danger.
We saw another example of this phenomenon a few weeks ago: And Jacob said to Simeon and Levi: 'Ye have troubled me, to make me odious unto the inhabitants of the land, even unto the Canaanites and the Perizzites; and, I being few in number, they will gather themselves together against me and smite me; and I shall be destroyed, I and my house' (Gen 34:30). Despite God's promise to Jacob and to the Children of Israel in our portion, that He, blessed is He, would protect them and deliver them from all evils -- nevertheless, they were concerned about the enmity of the surrounding Gentiles, and wanted to avoid "sticking out".
But we have seen over and over in our people's history that those Jews who submitted to the Gentiles, who tried to integrated into the non-Jewish culture and be "like any other nation" -- their end was always to be "nullified by their insignificance", and to be erased, God forbid. This is not the path, the Torah says: rather, each Jew must be first and foremost a proud Jew and know the reason for which he exists -- to serve his Creator with everything he has. And sometimes there is no choice but to "stick out" and do specifically that which the surrounding Gentiles will not like. For it is a good thing to be a stench in their noses, but to be a "pleasing aroma" for God.
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