In honor of Yom Yerushalyim I want to share with you a quote of Rav Soloveitchik from a special Torah session that he presented at the Rabbinical Council of America convention on June 27, 1967 at the Pine View Hotel in Fallsburg, NY. The lecture was dedicated in memory of the Rav’s wife, Dr. Tonya Soloveitchik, who had passed away a little over three months before. Rav Soloveitchik spoke for about two and a half hours; mostly about his wife but also took the opportunity to comment on the significance of Israel’s victory during the Six Day War. This quote can be found in the new volume of the Rav’s addresses, The Return to Zion, recently published by OU Press (pp. 224-225) in time for Israel’s 75th birthday.
When we study Chazal and the prophets and we search for a criterion by which we could determine whether certain events are related to redemption or just to success- because not every success can be called redemption, not every victory is redemption and not every battle won on the field is considered a battle for redemption…. What is the criterion by which we can recognize or discriminate between success and redemption, between victory and redemption? Chazal said….that redemption-related events must excite universal wondering and amazement. They must puzzle the people of the earth, they must fascinate them and also frighten them. Many will admire, some will envy, and some will begin to hate the Jewish people with a greater intensity and greater fury, but everybody must be somehow involved in the great events. “Then shall they say among the nations ’The Lord has done great things for them.” (Tehillim 126:2) is the criterion by which we may identify events related to redemption.
Of course, “The Lord has done great things for them” lends itself to a double interpretation: to an affirmative statement- that will really acknowledge the historical reality and exclaim “The Lord has done great things for them”! It may also suggest to us a question that some nations will say to each other incredulously: ‘Is it true, is it really true- what do you read, what do you hear- that the Jewish people have triumphed over a hundred million enemies? Is it possible? “The Lord has done great things for them”?! Is it possible, is it feasible that the cowardly Jew, who used to fight by proxy and hated military service, has smashed the mighty armies? Is it true that “the Lord has done great things for them”? No, it is not true, and if it is true let us make the triumph untrue, convert it into an illusion, into deception, into mirage.
Of course we answer all those …….who question and doubt our great historical metamorphosis, which took place in the unfolding of our historical destiny. Our answer to them is firm and articulate, non-equivocal: Yes, “The Lord has done great things for us”. Willy-nilly, you will have to acknowledge, you will have to consent, concur with us that “the Lord has done great things for us”. And we are ready to perpetuate His great miracle and to rejoice in it for many years to come- “and we shall celebrate.”
(RYW: Let’s keep this idea in mind when we recite these words, quoted by the Rav, before Birkat Hamazon in Shir Hamaalot, over Shabbat and Shavuot: אָ֖ז יֹֽאמְר֣וּ בַגּוֹיִ֑ם הִגְדִּ֥יל ה לַֽעֲשׂ֥וֹת עִם־אֵֽלֶּה:
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