Rabbi Yaakov NeuburgerNon-people

Perhaps we have grown accustomed to having current events vividly bring alive the phrases of our age old Torah. Nevertheless I don't think it wise to lose the opportunity to appreciate the depth and prescience of every nuance in Hashem's word.

This has come to mind unfortunately in the last few years as we read Parshas Ha'azinu, almost always as we find ourselves in introspection of the Yamim Noraim. While expressing profound disappointment in us, Hashem reminds of "hester panim", the times where we will feel Hashem hiding his face from us. It is then that He lays out for us (32:21),"They have caused me to seem jealous [as they pursue] non-gods, they have angered me with their nonsense, and I will make them jealous with a non-people, I will make them angry with a foolish nation."

Our sages as quoted by Rashi and Ramban found in the destruction of the first Beis Hamikdash and the subsequent Diaspora the realization of this prophecy. The culture of the times introduced pagan and obviously powerless and unresponsive deities into our midst. As promised, our fling with non-gods delivered us not too long after, into the hands of the kasdim, a "non-people". What gave them the kasdim this distinction? Chazal submit that they had no land or language of their own and as testimony to their rootless-ness, they borrowed the name of the land in which they were found.

My father-in-law, Harav Zevulun Charlop shlit"a, is wont to point out that once again we are living with this verse as we are incessantly aggravated by a non-people. They do not have a distinctive language or culture and their history is a tapestry of myth and propaganda. Indeed their rootless-ness is bringing them to destroy the concrete historic bonds that we do have to Yerushalayim and its holiest places.

How did the kasdim come about if they in fact come from no where? Chazal explain that Hashem composed them simply to bring us into line. Frightening as it is, it would certainly explain how an organization that began in the seventies and that has terrorized the civilized world has had such a rapid rise, a rarity in world history.

To be sure, this leaves us to speculate what is the "non-god" of our own time. What are the cultural influences that we allow to fill our lives often leaving little room for that which will genuinely resonate within us. This certainly should give us pause as welcome 5763 praying that it is replete with good news for all of us and genuine peace for us all.