In Every Generation: From Pharaoh to Hitler to Hamas

In his final moments, in a dimly lit bunker under a destroyed Berlin, Hitler y”sh, felt the deepest despair. His “Thousand Year Reich” had disintegrated before his eyes, shattered in little more than a decade. His despair was compounded by the realization that the people he sought to erase from the face of the Earth would outlive him and his empire. The thought that the Jews would survive and rebuild was the bitterest of all the bitter pills he had to swallow in his bitter final days.

Yet, Hitler was just one in a long line of tyrants throughout history with ambitions to wipe out the Jewish people. Again and again, enemies rose, promising to end the Jewish story. But each time, they themselves disappeared, becoming mere footnotes in the long history of a people who have faced many threats and emerged resilient.

The Historical Pattern

That, Rav Avigdor Miller says, is the most straightforward way to understand the famous question we ask at the Seder: “Pesach… al shum mah — Why do we call it Pesach”?

And the famous answer is: “Because Hakadosh Baruch Hu passed over the houses of our ancestors in Egypt.”

As the Malach Hamavess wended its way throughout the land of Egypt striking in every house and skipping over every home of the Bnei Yisrael, Rav Miller says, it was setting in motion an historical pattern for eternity. The Angel of Destruction may lay waste to nations, but it will pass over the Jewish people. The Bnei Yisrael are destined to continue forever. Empires will nations rise and fall, succumbing to destruction one after another, but the Bnei Yisrael endure.

This is an especially meaningful message today as the Jews the world over face a new existential threat. Enemies without and within are knocking at the door. Now, more than ever in recent history, the words of the Haggadah come into sharp focus: “In every generation, they rise against us to destroy us, but Hakadosh Baruch Hu saves us from their hand.”

It’s vital to have bitachon that Hashem completely controls and runs all events – and it’s even more important that it be not only intellectual trust in Hashem but a very real, tangible sense of His dominance in all matters. Therefore, let’s take a brief journey through history to drive home the point. And we’ll use the words of Rav Miller to do so. (The following is based on his lecture #954.)

The Legacy of Lost Civilizations

We have to know that the malach that passed over Egypt passes over all the nations.

If you’re an explorer and travel in Central America, into the rainforest, it’s so thick with vegetation that you have to have to hack your through. It’s hard to imagine that at one time the rainforest was home to a teeming civilization of roads, buildings and big cities. Yes, in Central America. Maybe there’s a clearing here and there where some backward tribes live but the big cities that once existed are no longer there.

Same in the Middle East. There was once a Hittite empire. Most people have never heard of the Hittite empire. We know about the Chitim in Eretz Canaan but they were only a small portion of a huge Hittite empire. Today, that empire is so far gone that people don’t even know it existed once upon a time.

There used to be an empire called Shinar. If you look on maps of very, very ancient history you’ll find an empire called “Sumer,” which is Shinar. Shinar is mentioned agav orcha, incidentally in the Chumash. What happened to them? Gone.

What happened to the great empire of Ashur (Assyria), the one that carried off the Ten Tribes into galus? Gone. What happened to Bavel, the empire that took over the land of Ashur? Bavel had tremendous cities, big buildings, walls, towers, roads, and an organized government. It’s under the ground now. You need shovels and bulldozers to discover what was once Bavel.

The destroying angel passed over ancient Persia, which ruled over 127 provinces once upon a time. Their wealth is described at the beginning of Megillas Esther. The extravagance of the great banquet of King Achashverosh gives us a glimpse of their power and wealth. But his palace has been underground for 2,000 years! They excavated it recently and were amazed to see that the description fits exactly with the details in Megillas Esther. How could anyone know that without being there? Nobody had seen it for 2,000 thousand years? They only discovered it recently.

We have to learn this with a serious frame of mind. Don’t say it’s a davar pashut. Don’t say, well it’s just the nature of ancient empires. We have to know that it’s a shitah, a derech of Hakadosh Baruch Hu that He sends a malach that destroys all the nations.

Echoes of the Fallen Empires

Greece conquered Persia or a big part of it and it ruled in great power. It had beautiful cities, culture, education — but the Greek gods are dead forever. The Greek temples no longer have any offerings; they don’t even exist. Archaeologists find columns still standing but they’re only ruins. The old Greek culture has disappeared from the face of the Earth. If you would have told that to people in those days they would have laughed in your face.

When Yeshaya Ha’navi foretold, “V’ha’elilim kalil yachalofun — The idols will depart entirely” (Yeshaya 2:18) it was thought to be ridiculous at that time. Now, looking back we see that’s what happened — all the great forms of worship, the pageantry, the wealth, the priesthood, the power, the beautiful temples, and the masses in the millions that participated in their religion, all have disappeared. Nothing is left of the old Persian religion, of the Greek gods.

And the same with Rome. Everybody knows that Rome even ruled over Europe as far as Scotland. The Romans built roads in England. They had their government everywhere. Romans laws were implemented all over Europe. Everybody thought Rome would last forever and ever. And the Jews? Who are they? Nobodies. They’re just a wandering nation. They were sent into exile.

But we are still here — and the Romans are not. We walk on the ruins of our oppressors.

The Soviet Union’s Unexpected Collapse

We’ll take a more recent example to save time. Most of you people are very young. You don’t know that until recently communist Russia was one of the very big oppressors of our people. You couldn’t keep Torah openly in communist Russia. You couldn’t circumcise your son. If you did you’d be sent to prison. You couldn’t teach your child Judaism. They said that when the child turns eighteen let him choose but until eighteen don’t teach him anything. If you taught him Torah they would take him away, hand him over to some peasant in remote Siberia and the parent would never see him again. Sometimes they sent the parent to Siberia and put the child in a communist orphanage. Sometimes they killed the parent.

That’s what happened. We don’t know how many frum Jews perished in Siberia, lost their lives or were imprisoned in insane asylums. Why? Because they baked matzos, they circumcised their sons, they taught them a little Torah. We don’t know how many perished from cold, starvation and beatings.

It seemed there was no way out except to escape Communist oppression. Nobody dreamed the day would come when the Communist empire would collapse. It was a miracle when it did. Of course, people looking back now say it had to happen. They point to internal dissention, it was never built on solid foundation — all kinds of excuses.

But at the time Communist Russia was one of the most organized and powerful militaries in the world. They supplied arms to countries all over the world, from South America to Asia. They instigate revolts everywhere in the world. They had plenty of money and plenty of weapons to supply to everybody. They were America’s foremost competitor in everything, even in the Space Race.

Who would have dreamed that one day the bubble would burst and they’d completely crumble.

Beyond the Shadow of Nations

That’s what the word “Pesach” means. The Destroying Angel destroys nations but “passes over” our houses. We’re still around. The fact is that we’re sitting here with yarmulkas or hats on our heads. The fact is that we have tzitzis hanging from our garments. We still learn and keep the Torah. The fact is that we are organized, not merely individual congregations; we’re united as a nation. Whether you’re Sephardi or Ashkenazi, Litvak or a Galitzianer, everybody subscribes to the Torah. We’re one people and we’re still here.

Of course, it wouldn’t be harmful to have a little more unity, a little more harmony. Certainly, it wouldn’t harm. But we’re one people and we should keep it in mind. That’s what the korban Pesach is saying. Asher pasach al batei bnei Yisrael — He skipped over. He passed over us as He destroyed all the other nations.

The afikomen is only a zecher l’korban Pesach today. We don’t have the privilege of the korban Pesach. It’s good to keep in mind. But keep in mind its symbolism that we are forever and ever. That’s what “Pesach” says. Our nation is going to exist, we are the eternal people — only our nation.

America will someday disappear. It’s breaking up today too, I’m sorry to say. I don’t want to say bad news. England is disappearing slowly. England once covered the map. Wherever you looked you saw England’s possessions. Spain used to control a big part of the world, but it’s a small country today.

I guarantee you every nation will disappear — unless Mashiach comes quickly before the nations have a chance to disappear. But they did so much disappearing historically that the prophecy of the korban Pesach is already justified.

The March of the Jewish Nation

But not only do they disappear. That’s only part of it. “V’es bateinu hitzil — He rescued our houses.” We’re going to be forever. That’s the important lesson. We have no korban Pesach but we celebrate Pesach and eat the afikomen zecher l’korban Pesach. We eat the afikomen at the end, which means we’ll be there at the end. We’ll be forever and ever no matter what. That’s why we’re called Yaakov. Yaakov means from the word ekev, the “heel.” Yaakov is the one who comes out alive at the end.

We’re also called Yitzchak, the one who will “laugh at the end.” We’re going to laugh at the whole world at the end. Today we have enough of a track record that if people aren’t convinced that we’re an eternal nation, there is little hope for them.

The Kuzari was written about eight hundred years ago and he said that if you wish to see something resembling the great miracles of the ancient times, look at the fact that we’re still in existence today. If that was a miracle, then today we should be even more convinced. For the past eight hundred years there’s been many great attempts to annihilate us.

The Greatest Miracle

Until here is Rav Miller’s lecture. We can update the Kuzari’s idea with the words of Rav Yaakov Emden from some 200 years ago:

“Who is so blind as not to see the Hand of Providence in the preservation of the Jewish people — the exiled nation, the scattered flock — to this very day. How many waves of persecution have come crashing down on us, more than any other nation in history! How numerous and how powerful have been our enemies, who have endeavored to destroy us, to uproot us, because of their hatred that is rooted in jealousy? But they have not succeeded in destroying us. All the powerful nations of antiquity have faded into nothingness. But we who have clung to Hashem are alive and vibrant today, with our Written and Oral Torahs intact, untarnished by the inexorable march of time!

“Can the brilliant philosopher really think that all this has been the result of random chance? Why, I swear by my life that when I contemplate these extraordinary wonders, I consider them to be greater than all the miracles and wonders that the Holy One, Blessed is He, did for our ancestors in Egypt and the Wilderness and the Land of Israel! And the longer this exile endures, the more evident is the miracle of our survival and the greater is the display of God’s might and power.”

Twain and Tolstoy on Jewish Eternity

And it’s not only Jewish sources. Some of the more honest non-Jews have noted the same thing. When Frederick the Great asked his physical for proof of God he replied, “The Jews.”

Mark Twain famously wrote:

“The Egyptian, the Babylonian, and the Persian rose filled the planet with sound and splendor, and then faded to dream stuff and passed away; the Greek and the Roman followed, and made a vast noise, and they are gone; other peoples have sprung up and held their torch high for a time, but it burned out, and they sit in twilight now, or have vanished. The Jew saw them all, beat them all, and is now what he always was, exhibiting no decadence, no infirmities of age, no weakening of his parts, no slowing of his energies, no dulling of his alert and aggressive mind. All things are mortal, but the Jew; all other forces pass, but he remains. What is the secret of his immortality?” (“Concerning the Jews” Harper’s Magazine in 1899)

Twain was not the only well-known and respected non-Jew who recognized the greatness of the Jew. Leo Tolstoy, considered by many as the greatest novelist, authored an article entitled “What is a Jew?”

“What is a Jew? This question is not at all so odd as it seems. Let us see what kind of peculiar creature the Jew is, which all the rulers and all the nations have, together and separately, abused and molested, oppressed and persecuted, trampled and butchered, burned and hanged, and in spite of all this, is yet alive. What is a Jew, who has never allowed himself to be led astray by all the earthly possessions which his oppressors and persecutors constantly offered him, in order that he should change his faith and forsake his own Jewish religion.”

At the end of the article, he concludes:

“The Jew is the emblem of eternity. He who neither slaughter nor torture of thousands of years could destroy. He who neither fire nor sword nor inquisition was able to wipe off the face of the earth. He who was the first [last and only one] to produce the oracles of G–d. He who has been for so long the guardian of prophecy and who transmitted it to the rest of the world. Such a nation cannot be destroyed. The Jew is as everlasting as is eternity itself.”

Twain and Tolstoy were dead by the early 1900s. One can only wonder what they would have written about Jewish eternity after the persecutions and pogroms in Czarist Russia. What would they have said after World War I and the Holocaust? What would they have said after all the wars in Eretz Yisrael? And what would they say after learning how even 70 years of living under oppressive Communist rule in Russia could not squelch the Jew and his spirit?

That’s the eternity of the Jew. There are other examples, but the point is made. Anyone who is honest will have to admit that the Jews are eternal.

Destined for the Dustbin

This year, the words “in every generation they rise against us to destroy us” holds amplified meaning. Hamas, their Islamist sponsors in the Middle East, the mealy-mouthed Western press and academic and political leaders who enable them are only the most recent expression of that ancient theme. Of course, the threat is very real but the latter part of the phrase is more real: “But Hakadosh Baruch Hu saves us from their hand.”

These words echo down the generations and resonate deeply in every Jewish heart. They remind us that through every trial and tribulation, Hashem has been our shield and savior. It is His hand that has guided our survival. Our ancestors in Egypt were saved by His directive for the destroying angel to “pass over” their homes — and that same directive still operates today.

One day, Hamas and the vast body of Islamist powers will join the ancient Egyptians, Babylonians, Persians and Greeks, as well as the mighty Roman Empire and all the other tyrannical regimes throughout the ages that sought to oppress or annihilate the Jewish people. And after they disappear the Jewish people will live on — “Am Yisrael chai!” This is not just a proclamation of survival but a declaration of the profound relationship between the Jewish people and Hashem. It is a testament to the fact that our endurance is not a mere accident of history but the result of Hashem’s promise and protection.

The navi says, “I, Hashem, have not changed, and you the bnei Yaakov will never come to an end” (Malachi 3:6). Empires come and go but the Jewish people will never come to an end. No matter how great the might and pomp of our adversaries, they are destined for the dustbin of history.