B’CHOL DOR VADOR – In every generation. That famous Hagaddah phrase occurs twice, with two different endings.
In every generation someone stands up against us, the Jewish People, to vanquish us. In every generation, a person is obligated to see himself as if he actually came out of Egypt.
Almost as soon as we finish with Pesach, and we take note of the calendar, we are confronted by what might be the greatest, most horrifying example of the first B’CHOL DOR VADOR.
Less than a week after Pesach, we are confronted by the 27th of Nissan – YOM HASHOAH V’HAG’VURA. Holocaust Memorial Day. If anyone was having trouble getting the point of what happens to the Jewish People in every generation – there it is.
During the lifetime of some of us. Relatively recently for the rest of us. First generation survivors. Second generation. Third. Even fourth. But plenty of people still around telling us about the horrors of the Holocaust. Plenty of books and films and museums to remind us and refresh our mental images.
Let’s look at the other B’CHOL DOR VADOR. It isn’t just the Exodus from Egypt that we must internalize and personalize. And update. Rashi’s comment on, And in the third moth following the Exodus, on THIS day (in Sivan)… Why DAYOM HAZEH rather than BAYOM HAHU, on that day – that’s how you tell stories.
But it isn’t a story of once upon a time a long time ago. The receiving of the Torah must be fresh in our eyes as if we received it today. Another form of saying B’CHOL DOR VADOR. And the counting of the Omer, the counting of the days from the Exodus until Revelation at Sinai? That too must be B’CHOL DOR VADOR… That too must be a personalized, internalized experience for each and every one of us. So must all the good episodes of Jewish History, but also the bad ones.
In order for us to understand the B’CHOL DOR VADOR of our enemies standing against us, we must apply the other B’CHOL DOR VADOR of reliving all the Jewish experiences. Those remaining survivors of the Holocaust do not need to apply B’CHOL DOR VADOR. But the rest of us do. We need to make the experiences we hear about and read about as personal as we can. We need it for sympathy and empathy.
We need it to properly educate the next generation. And the one after that. And the one after that. And we need it to look around us today and see the ugly anti-Semitism that is still alive and thriving in so many places in the world. And we must apply the B’CHOL DOR VADOR lessons to the enemies that surround our relatively small, soon to be 68 year old country and passionately desire our destruction. Perhaps, when we accomplish some of the above, we will be ready for the continuing Ingathering of the Exiles, the rebuilding of the Beit HaMikdash, and the Geula Sh’leima.
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