A Very Stubborn People

 Two years ago I spent two weeks lecturing in South Africa. The high spot in the tour was a Shabbaton set amongst some stunning African countryside. One of the participants was a young man who had become religious. He attended all of my Shiurim but there seemed to be something about Yiddishkeit, which was troubling him. At the last event, an "Ask the Rabbi" session, I finally discovered what it was.

He explained that he was deeply disturbed by the treatment meted out to some of the greatest of our Gedolim sometimes by other Gedolim. In particular he could not understand how the Rambam could have been so criticised and attacked especially after the writing of Moreh HaNevuchim.

His question could of course been much wider. He could have referred to the hand of suspicion that was pointed at the Ramchal and Reb Yonassan Eibeshitz in the after shock of the earthquake caused by Shabtai Tzi. In fact he could have referred to the histories of countless Gedolim of Klal Yisroel.

I gave him an answer that I knew, at first he would not understand. I said that what he was referring to, was of course a true and painful chapter in our history. (Rabbeinu Yonah was supposed to have written Shaarei Teshuva to make amends for his erstwhile opposition to the Rambam.) "But despite his distress and knowledge that his critics were mistaken" I continued, "The Rambam would have ultimately been quite content and even happy that he was suffering such an attack."

Ha Kadosh Boruch Hu, once describes the nature and character of Klal Yisroel in the Torah. After the making of the Aigel HaZohov, He says " Hinei Am Kashe Oruf Hu." But obviously, HaShem knew that this was our special and specific Middo long before anyone thought of a Golden Calf. We are after all Bnei Avrohom, Yitzchok and Yaakov who stood alone against the entire world.

The Baalei Mussar point out that Middos are neither good nor bad, they are neutral. How we use them determines whether they become good or bad. Rabbi Dessler says that even "Azus" Brazenness, a Middo we pray every day to avoid "Shetatzileini HaYom U’Bchol Yom M’Azei Ponim U’m’Azus Ponim" still has a positive function. Azus was the Middo, which the Hashmonaim used to defeat the Greeks, Azus D’Kedusha.

After the famous incident when Avrohom smashed the Idols, Nimrod condemned him to be chained in a dungeon for ten long cold, damp and dark years. As yet he has had no proof sent Min Ha Shomayim, that his belief in a Creator was right. At any time he could have saved himself by denying what he held to be certain truth and walked away a free man. After those ten years he was again brought before Nimrod and invited to renounce his claims. Again he refused. Avrohom was then placed in Stocks in the city and made to watch as the people brought wood for the burning of this "heretic."

His mother, Amosleah Bas Karnevo came and begged him to give in and once more he refused. It was only after the miracle when the flames could not touch him, that HaShem spoke to him for the first time "Lech Lechoh."

Reb Simcha Zissel, asks why this incident is only hinted to in the Torah and not a whole Parsha in it’s own right like Akeidas Yitzchok? He answers that Ur Kasdim was the necessary test before Torah. Avrohom had to prove that he could carry the Torah to the next generation. Avrohom had to be "Stubborn."

If HaShem wanted to find a people who would be able to carry the Torah through the Millennia, unswervingly, despite Crusade, Inquisition, Pogrom and even Holocaust, He would have to find a people who were stubborn. Such a nation would be deeply suspicious of anything or anyone, who seemed to deviate from their Messora. The criticism and suspicion that the Rambam and so may other Gedolim experienced attested to the very great care that nation takes in guarding it’s Torah. It attests to the tenaciouness of Klal Yisroel, Kashius HaOruf D’Kedusha.

We have no shortage of Seforim which inspire us with the lives of our Rabbonim, Rebbes and Roshei Yeshiva. Every Yid though is a story and always when I hear the phrase a "Poshete Yid" I hear myself saying, "There is no such thing."

When He was Eighty years old, Morris Wide married a member of my wife’s family. It was his third marriage and her second. Morris would eventually move to Eretz Yisroel where a few years ago aged Ninety-six, he returned his soul to Shomayim.

Morris was born in Breslau in Germany. Once, while he was sitting at our Friday night table, one of my sons asked him if he had ever been a soldier. Morris looked at him and asked, "In which war? In the first war I was in the Artillery, the German Artillery. In the second war, again I was in the artillery, the British Artillery!"

During the Nineteen thirties, he managed to escape as a refugee to Britain. He knew the British would only accept people who had a skill which the country could use, so he got someone to teach him the rudiments of carpentry and joined other refugees at a special camp called the "Kitchener Camp". Finally he became a naturalised citizen and immediately started the process of having his wife and six-year old son join him. He was in London filling out the relevant forms when Britain declared war on Germany. He never saw them again. After the War he moved to Rhodesia and married a second time. After his second wife passed away, he returned to Britain and settled in Manchester.

When he and his new wife made their last move, to Eretz Yisroel, he was obliged to

travel back to Manchester for prolonged stays in order to settle various business affairs. Every Friday night he spent Shabbos with us.

On one return trip because he had been sitting too long in the one position he suffered a Deep-Vein Thrombosis and spent two weeks in hospital. He was released on the Friday and upon crossing a busy road was knocked down by a Truck. I was called to the hospital and we waited as for the results of the x-ray. The doctors thought he had fractured his skull, broken his hip and broken his leg. The outlook for a man of his age was very gloomy. The x-ray results came back. He had not fractured his skull, nor broken his hip nor even his badly cut leg.

Morris came home to us and had his usual Friday night meal. He was however in extreme pain from his leg and the next day I passed his room and peeked through the door to see if he was all right. Morris was sitting on his bed stretching his damaged leg. The pain expressed on his face was excruciating, brought tears to his eyes and robbed him of his breath. He tried again. If anything the pain looked worse. Despite clear agony, again and again, Morris stretched the damaged leg. By Sunday morning our "patient" was demanding to be taken back to his own apartment. Eventually we had to give in and together with a friend we borrowed a wheelchair and finally lifted him up the stairs to his front door. I told him I would pop back later that afternoon to make sure he was OK. There was no need, two hours later Morris, stick in hand, walked past our house.

Two weeks later he went back to the hospital for a routine x-ray on his leg to check on the Thrombosis. It was then that they discovered that the leg was, after all indeed broken. They had failed to notice the fracture after the accident. As Morris was doing fine without a Cast they decided to leave him as he was.

Morris was "the perfect gentleman" and faithful Jew who not once during his entire front line service from 1914 to 1918 allowed himself to eat Traife. When he was in hospital for the last time in when he was ninety-six, he called over to a nurse. "Does this hospital have a Minyan on Shabbos?" The nurse replied that it depended on who were the patients at any given time. Morris insisted that there must be a Minyan, "It is my Bar Mitzva on Shabbos and I have Leined the Parsha and Haftora without fail for the last Eighty Three years!"

Whenever I think of Morris, I remind myself of Klal Yisroel’s most special attribute and Middo and how it should be used positively.

The young South African had his answer and understood. Certainly the Rambam and the other Gedolim knew, that only a people totally dedicated to protecting their Torah, could subject them to such close scrutiny and inspection.

The source of that process, their very stubbornness would become the essential Middo that would produce hundreds of thousands of Morris Wides. It would be the essential Middo that would carry the Torah through three and half Millennia and once more back to Yerushalayim.