| JAHG-USA Web Site | Subscribe to our newsletter Home | |
"The water came back and covered the chariots and the horsemen of the entire army of Pharaoh, who were coming behind them in the sea--there remained not one of them."1
So ended the miracle of the "splitting of the sea" in this week's parsha, Beshalach. But what happened to Pharaoh himself?
According to Pirkai R. Eliezer, Pharaoh acknowledged G-d while drowning and Hashem therefore spared him, after which he fled to--and became king of--Ninveh, the First Temple era Assyrian capital. Pharaoh became the very king, in fact, who personally repented and called on his entire kingdom to repent after hearing of the warning issued by the prophet Jonah.2
This one hundred eighty degree turn in the life of Pharaoh [who earlier proclaimed, "Who is Hashem that I should send out Israel? I do not know Hashem ..."],3 fulfilled the verse mmediately preceding the splitting of the sea: "Egypt will know that I am Hashem when I am glorified through Pharaoh...."4
Why then did Jonah hesitate when called upon by G-d to facilitate this fulfillment of scripture? Was the Jewish prophet hesitant out of a concern that the gentiles of Ninveh would reject his demand that they abandon false religious practices and observe the Torah Laws incumbent upon gentiles, i.e., the Seven Laws of Noah?
No. Jonah fully expected the residents of Ninveh to repent. He feared, however, that the unrepentant Jews would then suffer in comparison. In fact, even after he followed G-d's instructions and successfully led the people of Ninveh to Torah observance, he was distressed to the point of desiring death at the thought of the harsh punishment he expected the Jewish people to receive.5
In response, Hashem created a shady plant to shade Jonah from the sun and then caused that plant to be destroyed. When Jonah wept over the loss of the plant, Hashem declared,
"You took pity on the kikayon [plant] for which you did not labor, nor did you make it grow; it lived [one] night and perished after one night. And I shall not take pity upon Ninveh the great city, in which there are more than one hundred twenty thousand persons...."6
Today, six billion people face the possibility of losing a share in the world to come, unless the Jewish people fulfill the mitzvah of leading those gentiles to abandon all religious practices not based in Torah. As Rambam explains, "Needless to say, [a Gentile] is liable [for violation of the Noachide Laws] if he creates a religious festival for himself."7 Moreover, with regard to the two billion Christians of the world, the Lubavitcher Rebbe has explained that, "according to the well known Jewish legal ruling, Christians are practicers of idol worship."8 Furthermore, Isaiah informs the world:
"Gather yourselves, come and approach together, Oh survivors of the nations, who do not know, who carry about the wood of their graven image [crosses?], and pray to a god who cannot save [Yoshka?] Proclaim and approach ... Turn to me and be saved, all ends of the earth, for I am G-d and there is no other ... to Me every knee shall kneel and every tongue shall swear.... All the seed of Israel [on the other hand] will be vindicated and will glory in Hashem," regardless of their individual levels of Torah observance.9
G-d, clearly then, cherishes every person He creates and deeply desires that they abandon false religions in lieu of Torah observance and receive a share in the world to come. Moreover, it is one of the 613 commandments that Jews do everything in their ability to actualize this. As Maimonidies writes, positive commandment three "includes an obligation to call upon all mankind to serve Him, exalted be He, and to have faith in Him"10 Moreover, today it is clearly a situation of "pikuach nefesh" (the saving of a life), as the Noachide campaign is poised to stop America's funding of the PLO's preparations for its planed massacre of millions of Jews as well as Arabs, G-d forbid.
And yet, in an address on the significance of Jonah's spreading Torah observance to Ninveh, the Lubavitcher Rebbe warned that certain people within the chassidic movement are already attempting to stop such outreach efforts. The rationale these Jews offer, explained the Rebbe, is that, although Moshiach is coming, the world is not ready to follow Torah. Thus, instead of creating a world of six billion Torah observant people, through human effort, which would, of course, automatically convert this time period into the redemptive period, Jews should passively "wait" for the redemption to be divinely initiated.
Who are these chassidic enemies of G-d? The Rebbe describes them:
"The role of purifying the world is also hinted at [in the story of Jonah] ... the effort is so broad that it also exerts influence on the gentile nations.... [But the generation immediately before Moshiach] will fulfill the verse, 'Your enemies have taunted, Oh Hashem, they have taunted the footsteps of your Moshiach'11 These Jews generally appear to be 'believers' in Hashem and his Torah. They might even be Torah scholars! But they are weak in their faith in the redemption, to the degree that they taunt the footsteps of Moshiach. That is, they taunt and mock this concept.
"This is unbelievably strange. Who would have believed eighty years ago that there would be such a strange creature: a Jew who believes in G-d and his Torah, but taunts the footsteps of Moshiach? ... [T]hey cloak their agnostic philosophy in the mantle of 'fear of Heaven!' ... [T]here have arisen today such people, who claim to be faithful Jews and yet when someone speaks of the 'footsteps of Moshiach,' or mentions that 'he stands behind the wall' [ready to be 'pulled in' by our actions], they cannot bear it and they insult and scoff! What's more, they educate Jewish children in this spirit, to taunt the 'footsteps of Moshiach'....
"[They say] we must sit and wait. Meanwhile they want us to be stuck in the Diaspora and what will they do? Dance in front of the gentiles. Since hundreds of years ago Jews were forced to dance, wearing bear suits, in front of the gentiles, when we speak of bringing the redemption ... they say better to dance in front of the gentiles.
"Such conduct, masked in 'fear of heaven,' is motivated by the 'sly one' [the evil inclination] itself, which is known to wrap itself in a mantle of holiness, according to the well known chassidic saying that Esav wears a silk kapota with a gartel [traditional chassidic clothing]....
"[W]e should follow the clear ruling of the Rambam that a Jew must greatly exert himself--in a manner of inspiring a gentile in the ways of Torah--to influence the gentile to fulfill the Seven Noachide Laws, because they were commanded by G-d, in the Torah. Certainly, a Jew should not dance before the gentiles because it was done three hundred years before....
"Action is the main thing--to increase all activities of spreading Torah and Judaism, including the activities encouraging the nations of the world to observe the mitzvot commanded to the Children of Noah."12
In practice, the best way to encourage gentiles to follow the Torah is to point out to them how their current religious practices violate G-d's Law.
1Shemos 14:28
2Pirkai D' Rabbi Eliezer 33; Mechilta, Rokeach, Yalkut, Jonah 3:6-9
3Shemos 5:2
4Shemos 14:18
5Jonah 4:1-4
6Jonah 4:10-11
7Mishneh Torah, Hil. Mel. 10:9
8Likutei Sichos, 37:198, from a letter of the Rebbe dated 26 Iyar, 5726
9Isaiah 45:20-25
10Sefer HaMitzvot, Positive Commandment 3
11Tehillim/Psalms 89:52
12Public address of Shabbos, Parshas Chaya Sarah, 5745