Yom HaAtzmaut 5784
It takes a home run ball roughly five seconds to travel from home plate and out of the park. Just five seconds. In that brief instant, a game can be decided, an entire season altered. But there’s always more to the story.
Take one of the most iconic home runs ever hit. In Game 1 of the 1988 World Series, Kirk Gibson came up to bat for the Dodgers as a pinch hitter in the bottom of the ninth inning. Gibson faced Dennis Eckersley, the A’s lights-out closer, and, despite being hampered by injuries in both legs, Gibson worked a full count. On the next pitch, Gibson drove the ball for a two run homer, and won the game for the Dodgers who never looked back. They defeated the A’s in five games and were crowned World Series champions.
You might say that the game was won in a mere five seconds, the time it took for that fateful home run to travel from swing to stands. But you’d be wrong.
At the beginning of Parshas Vaeira, Hashem tells Moshe that he will now witness the miraculous salvation of the Jewish People. The plagues would soon begin to unfold, Egypt would be left in shambles, and the Jews would be liberated.
Rashi quotes the Gemara Sanhedrin 11a that places emphasis on the word “ועתה—and now.” Now, at this point in history, Moshe would witness great miracles, but later on, when the Jews would enter the Land of Israel, he would not. Moshe had questioned Hashem’s ways, had second-guessed the merit in being selected as Hashem’s delegate to Pharaoh, and was now punished as a result. Although he would indeed witness the Exodus from Egypt, he would not be present for the conquest of Eretz Yisrael.
We are often surprised to read of the harsh manner in which the giants of the Torah are judged for their seemingly minor errors. Yet even allowing for that reality, in what way does Moshe’s punishment fit the crime? Why is being withheld from the triumphant entry into Israel an appropriate consequence for Moshe’s incredulity over the manner in which the redemption from Egypt unfolded.
Rav Shimon Schwab offers a most interesting explanation. He notes that in Parshas Mishpatim, the Jewish People are told that the conquest of Eretz Yisrael will happen slowly. “מעט מעט אגרשם מפניך—Very slowly shall i expel the nations from before you (Shemos 23:30)”. A process such as this would require patience; an expectation that redemption would unfold at a crawl. One lacking this middah would be unworthy or even incapable of living through such a process. Moshe had shown that, considering the degree of near-perfection expected of him, this particular trait was somehow lacking. If he could not wait patiently through the redemptive process of Yitzias Mitzrayim, he would not merit seeing the eradication of the seven nations of Canaan from before the Jewish People.
If ever there was a redemption that could be characterized as happening in an instant, it was the redemption from Mitzrayim. The Jewish People went from servitude to liberation in less time than it takes to bake a batch of matzos. The word “chipazon—haste” looms large over the narrative of the Exodus, demanding that we remember just how swiftly our salvation occurred.
How, then, can Moshe be reprimanded for expecting the redemption to happen quickly? Isn’t a quick redemption exactly what came about?
It really comes down to when you start the clock.
Kirk Gibson’s home run took mere seconds to clear the outfield fence. But there’s more to the story than the swing alone. At three balls and two strikes, Gibson later related that a thought suddenly pierced his mind like a shard of glass. He recalled that Dodgers scout Mel Didier had told hm that with a full count on a left-handed hitter, Eckersley was sure to throw a backdoor slider. Gibson realized that he now knew exactly what pitch he’d see next. He set up for it, saw it coming his way, and knocked it out of the park.
How long did it take Didier to do the research necessary to glean that bit of information about Eckersley’s habits? How many hours of tape did he need to watch before that pattern became apparent? Two? Five? Twenty?
How much time does it actually take to produce a home run, then? It’s hard to say. Do you start your clock at the batter’s swing on the ball? Or when he first took batting practice that day? Or when his team’s scout first started watching tape of the opposing pitcher he was likely to face that day? Or when he received advice from his coach back in high school on how to stay grounded even in moments of great stress and intensity?
Redemption operates on an ever-unfolding timeline. When measured from the moment immediately before that redemption becomes final, it indeed occurs in a moment of chipazon, of great haste. But it is also true that that moment of haste was launched from a platform that took months to build and years to develop.
A Jew must live with a simultaneous consciousness of both narratives. It is most certainly the case that “ישועת ה׳ כהרף עין—Hashem’s salvation comes in the blink of an eye.” But it is also the case that the years, or even centuries, of sacrifice, dedication, and trauma that precede that single moment are part of the redemptive process as well.
This week marks Yom HaAtzmaut, the anniversary of the miracle that is the founding of the State of Israel. The State of Israel was born in an instant, really. One brief speech from David Ben Gurion in an art gallery in Tel Aviv on that fateful afternoon of May 14, 1948, and the Jewish People had reestablished political autonomy in Israel.
It took but a moment, yet it was so much more than a moment. The UN vote for the partition plan had come months earlier. The first uprisings against the British had come well before that. The Holocaust which so greatly impacted the founding of the Medinah began in 1941. And fervent prayer petitioning the Almighty to allow His children to return home had been underway since the destruction of the Second Bais Hamikdash.
So how long did it take for the State of Israel to be established? Either five seconds or nearly two millennia. It depends when you start the clock.
Simchas Torah marked the greatest single-day massacre of the Jewish People on Israeli soil in two thousand years. Anti-Semitism runs rampant on college campuses and in the streets of major cities across the globe. Resolutions to withhold weapons from Israel it so desperately needs to fight a war it never asked for are being given credence in the halls of power. Double-standards fuel unfair condemnations of Israel and its military activities.
How do we process all we are witnessing? By remembering the two timelines of Yom HaAtzmaut, and every redemption the Jewish People have ever enjoyed. Redemption is both a slow, grueling process, and also occurs in a mere instant, it all depends on when you start the clock. We must remind ourselves that every sacrifice, every act of heroism, every tefilah uttered is counted and slowly mounts to a crescendo of redemption. And we must also remember that that redemption can come in a brief instant. That there will come a great turning point when, in the matter of mere seconds, we will leave the darkness behind and enter a space of unimaginable light.