Shimon and Levi annihilated the residents of Shechem for failing to bring Shechem ben Chamor to justice for what he did to their sister Dina.
What was behind this seemingly excessive, disproportionate “Goldstonian” reaction by two nice Jewish boys?
Rage is the reaction of normal people. That’s the way human beings are wired when a loved one is murdered. It is sanctioned by the Creator but channeled by Halacha to be implemented only when the murderer is outside a city of refuge.
Last week we were traumatized by a terror act of unadulterated hate by two Arabs who went on a pre-planned rampage of wanton murder in a bet knesset in the Har Nof neighborhood of Yerushalayim. They murdered four Jews in the middle of their prayers and wounded 7 more. It is not the Zionist who is being targeted, it is the Jew.
“Show Your truth to Ya’akov (fulfill Your truthful promise to Ya’akov that his descendants will be as multifold as the soil, in the merit of Ya’akov’s quality of truth) and show compassion to Abraham (in the merit of Avraham’s quality of compassion) as you pledged on oath to our ancestors (to Yitzchak at Mount Moriah) in days long ago.”
Micha is informing us that Avraham was the master of compassion and Ya’akov the master of truth. However, the reality of Avraham’s and Ya’akov’s lives, as recorded in the few incidences in the Torah, seemingly does not substantiate this assessment.
Our rabbis have taught that Hashem put Avraham Avinu through ten challenging, painful and formidable tests. The ninth was the “binding of Yitzchak” (akeidat Yitzchak) and the tenth, the negotiations between Avraham and the Hittite Council of Elders for the purchase of Ma’arat Ha’machpela as a burial site for Sarah.
Logic dictates that every succeeding test increased in difficulty, so what was the focus of this last test set before Avraham which caused it to be more demanding than any of the previous nine?
It was Shaul’s misguided pity on Agag, King of Amalek, by sparing his life when the Torah commands the total annihilation of Amalekite, which as a nation had breached all the norms of civilized humanity, that led the world in hatred of Am Yisrael.
What caused the nation to rally together an army of 400,000 fighters against 26,000 of Binyamin, reducing the tribe to 600 men?
What does these episodes and that of Sedom have in common? And how does this all apply to our current society and world?
Avram and his entourage returned safely from Egypt where they accumulated incredible wealth. And as it has been from time immemorial, to this day, and well into the foreseeable future, great wealth most often invigorates even the most dormant ego (the difference between a pane of glass which permits one to see out to others and a mirror where one sees only himself is the thin veneer of silver on one side of the mirror).
