Shattered Idols

Galus is not merely a punishment, but rather a journey. It is a painful journey indeed, but one that enables us to learn wrong from right, often by experiencing terrible disappointment in the idols we worship.

The neviim describe Klal Yisrael as an unfaithful woman who falls for the glamorous “other,” only to be humiliated by rejection from that same “other.” The neviim paint wrenching scenes of betrayal and regret, but after we are rejected, we come back to the One Who loves us faithfully and unconditionally.

This was true of the galus of Yavan. The tragedy of that galus lay not so much in the Yevanim as in the Jews who followed them, thinking they had found a better way of life. Yavan’s cruelty toward us opened the eyes of many of these people; Klal Yisrael returned to Hashem and the eternal light of the Menorah.

This pattern repeats itself time and again, even in our own times. Science and philosophy were thought to be the harbingers of a beautiful new world — an enlightened and civilized society. No country embodied this “advanced civilization” to the extent Germany did. Its people were the most educated, its scientists the most advanced, its thinkers and poets most profound. The country was a paradigm of what science and reason could achieve. It is no wonder, then, that German Jews so idolized their country, and that it played so prominent a role in their identity. In fact, this national pride gave birth to convoluted formulations that described the Jewish and German identity as being one and the same.