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The Shame of Love

As we keep our ears tuned to the news coming out of Egypt and things sound relatively peaceful we must remember that the peacefulness of today is of no significance relative to where this growing opposition will go. We must constantly be cautious, or better yet, be fearful of where this upheaval will end. The vultures of Iran and others certainly wait and conspire. They do not hide their intentions and aspirations to harm our people and our Land. We must be vigilant and never tire to do what we can.

As travelers of history we know that there is a Director and we know that He has a plan. We know that His goal is that the entire world will come to recognize His sovereignty with absolute clarity. We also know that our role in that recognition is only passive. We were not given a mandate to go out to teach this to the people of the world. The mandate given to us by the Director was to constantly and consistently focus on the relationship the He and we have with each other. When that relationship has matured and developed to its fullest, then, He will teach the world of His sovereignty using us as His instrument. It was for this that we were chosen.

Coming from this perspective let us focus on the words of the prophet Yechezkel (Ezekiel) which we will read this week as the haftorah. In the name of HaShem, Yechezkel delivers to his people two apparently conflicting messages. "Tell the House of Israel of the Temple (how I destroyed My Temple because of their behavior) and let them be ashamed of their sins; and measure the design (referring to the design of the Temple that will be built with the arrival of Moshiach). And if they are ashamed of all they did, inform them of what I will do for them in the future with all the fine details of the plans of the future Temple."

On one hand HaShem wishes that Yechezkel imparts to His people how He will build the Temple once again in even more magnificence than before and in the very same message HaShem wants us to be ashamed. Does He love us and wishes to return to us or does He want us to feel ashamed?

The answer is obvious. The relationship that has been cast of HaShem and His dear beloved people runs deeper and stronger than Man can comprehend. If we take the strongest bonds of love between two people be it husband and wife or mother and child we will fall short of anything that parallels that eternal unshakeable love and commitment that HaShem has for His people. No matter how far we distance ourselves from Him, no matter how unfaithful we are to Him, no matter how much distrust we have in Him and even when we turn our trust from Him to mortals who have no stability - He waits and longs for us to return. He knows the time will come when we will return to our senses, no, He will create the time that will return us to our senses and recognize Him as our Rock, our Support, and our Director.

Loving relationships cannot be built on force. One party cannot force the other party to accept them. Such an acceptance is contrived at best and certainly not genuine. So too in our relationship with HaShem; HaShem does wish to take away our free-will, our decision-making capability to force us to turn to Him. Instead of forcing us He allows all those who scheme and plot against us to advance their schemes until we wake up on our own and realize with that we have nobody on whom we can trust other than HaShem. When this occurs we will go running to Him recognizing how wrong we were to turn elsewhere, to trust others who themselves are powerless. When this recognition dawns on us we will understand how long He waited for us to return to Him. The shame that will fill our hearts will find no parallel.

The closest hint of such shame might be found in the child who runs away from Momma because someone offered him some sweets. He rejects Momma's cries to come home and runs fast and far away from Momma's reach. Only when he realizes that the stranger had only evil intentions will he run home to Momma's outstretched arms. If this child has any level of intelligence he will be filled with shame how he did not heed his mother's cries to return. He will be filled with shame when thinking of all the times that Momma cared for him selflessly and he returned those caring moments with eyes on the stranger's candies.

This shame is the result of the child's understanding of Momma's love and commitment to him.

The prophet Yechezkel tells us HaShem longs to build for us the eternal Temple that will never be destroyed. He longs to reunite with His beloved children in an eternal bond that will never be broken. But He can only do so when we will be filled with shame. Until that time He will continue directing history in ways that will hopefully bring us to turn to Him.

May we and all the rest of HaShem's children be inspired to turn our trust to Him and recognize that all other sources of strength are truly irrelevant.

Have a wonderful Shabbos.

Paysach Diskind