In this week’s Torah portion, following the inglorious termination of the Korach rebellion, a plague broke out killing thousands of Jews who complained about the way the insurgency was quelled. Moses instructs his brother Aaron to take a pan of incense and stand between the dead and the living to stop the plague. When Aaron arrives, he encounters the Angel of Death, who challenges Aaron’s right to stop him from carrying out his mission of death. Rashi records their dialogue. Aaron declares, “Moses commanded me to prevent you.” The angel challenged, “I am the agent of G-d whereas you are the agent of Moses.” Aaron replied, “Moses says nothing of his own accord, only at the command of the Almighty. If you don’t believe me, behold G-d and Moses are at the door of the Tabernacle, come with me to inquire.”
This narrative intrigues me every year when we learn this Parsha. (For earlier thoughts on this: www.chabadneworleans.com/templates/blog/post.asp?aid=1203266&PostID=38452&p=1.)
This year I had a new insight into the story, or more accurately a parallel to this story in our times. The gist of the story is that Moses inspires Aaron with the confidence and the urgency to stand up to a powerful force to save the Jewish people.
I was thinking about the post-Holocaust generation. What has been the Angel of Death – the greatest cause of lost Jewish lives in the last 80 years? Most people’s gut reaction would be antisemitism – assaults against Jewish people in Israel and around the world. Yet, in reality, physical attacks against the Jewish people have resulted “only” in several thousand deaths (including the 1,200 on October 7). When you factor IDF soldiers into the equation, add another 24,000. Every Jewish life lost is a tragedy. Even one life is a whole world. But 30,000 lives lost in 80 years pales in proportion to the historic losses we suffered over the thousands of years of our people’s existence. Certainly, having an army to defend us has played a critical role and for that we are grateful to every IDF soldier past and present. Ultimately, our gratitude to Hashem for allowing us to live in a time when, for the most part, the vast majority of our people have not lived under that sort of threat.
Our Angel of Death since the Holocaust has been assimilation. Millions of Jewish lives have been lost to assimilation. The plague of assimilation has been running through the Jewish people in a most destructive manner. One man, the Moses of our time, saw this plague and said, “we must do something to stop it.” He inspired thousands of his followers to be like Aaron. Young couples were instructed to go to a locale and stop the Angel of Death by standing between the dead and the living with a “pan of incense” that would reinvigorate Jewish life the world over. Young men and women, mere teenagers, are taught to give of their free time and share the joy and vibrancy of Judaism with others.
This Sunday will be 31 years since the Rebbe’s physical passing. Yet, young Chabad boys, girls, and couples are lining up for the privilege to take an incense pan and confront the Angel of Death that is assimilation.
Our Parsha tells us that through the efforts of Aaron by the instruction of Moses, “the plague was stopped.” So too shall it be in our time. We will stop the plague of assimilation. It will be the young Aarons of our time that are inspired by the Rebbe, who bring an end to assimilation and usher in the complete and final redemption.
Shabbat Shalom
Rabbi Mendel Rivkin