"Parashat Vayeshev-Chanukah 5786, 2025: "To Be Hashem’s People"

 













Rabbi David Etengoff
 
ה' יעזור וירחם על אחינו כל בני ישראל בארץ ישראל ובכל חלקי הארץ
 
Al HaNissim is recited in the Shemoneh Esrai and Birkat Hamazon on the two rabbinically-enacted chagim of Chanukah and Purim. Chanukah’s version contains the expression “am’echa Yisrael—Your people, Israel.” We are no strangers to this term, since it is found in Tefilat Minchah for Shabbat: “Atah echad v’shimchah echad, u’mi k’am’echa Yisrael, You are one and Your essence is one, and who may be compared to Your people Israel?” Yet, what does it really mean to be Hashem’s people?”
 
We are fortunate that my rebbe and mentor, Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik zatzal (1903-1993), known as “the Rav” by his students and followers, analyzed our expression in a public lecture delivered in Boston on December 18, 1971. (The following quotes are based upon my partial transcription of the shiur.) The Rav notes that am’echa Yisrael first and foremost means “we belong to Thee, even when we go astray, [and that] we are still committed to Thee even when we are guilty of certain offenses and certain sins.”
 
The Rav continues the theme of the inextricable link that eternally joins our people to the Master of the Universe by noting, “in am’echa what comes to expression is the old idea, ‘Yisrael af al pi sh’chata Yisrael hu’—A Jew, even when he sins, remains a Jew.” (Talmud Bavli, Sanhedrin 44a) The Rav analyzes it by first asking, “What did Chazal want to express through this expression?” His answer helps us understand the genuine meaning of “am’echa Yisrael:”

It means that there is an eternal commitment in the Jew to Hakadosh Baruch Hu. Sometimes it is a conscious commitment, sometimes it is a non-conscious commitment, but there is a commitment…[and] that commitment is like a load resting upon the frail shoulders of every Jew…He might fight this commitment, he might hate this commitment —but there is a commitment on the part of every Jew.
 
For the Rav, am’echa Yisrael means that there is “compulsory belonging on the part of the Jew to God—willy-nilly he belongs to Him.” At this juncture, the Rav notes that we learn from the writings of Chabad that “the Jew has a natural love for God, an ahavah tevayit— whether he wants to love God, or does not want to love God.” This is based on “an instinctual drive, an urge to find God that is in the Jew.” As the founder of Chabad Chasidism, Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi zatzal (1745-1812) states in Tanya, I:19, “There is an “ahavah tevayit of the divine soul that is found in all Jews, the intrinsic desire and will to be attached to its origin and source in the light of the Ein Sof (He who is without end).” For the Rav, the Jewish people’s natural love of, and search for, Hashem reflects the very essence of our being and thereby represents what it ultimately means to be am’echa Yisrael.
 
With Hashem’s help, may we be zocheh to ever express our ahavah tevayit for Him as we continue our life-long journey to stand before His holy presence. V’chane yihi ratzon.
 
Shabbat Shalom and Chanukah Sameach!
 
Past drashot may be found at my blog-website: http://reparashathashavuah.org
They may also be found on http://www.yutorah.org using the search criteria Etengoff and the parasha’s name.
 
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*** My audio shiurim on the topics of Tefilah and Tanach may be found at: https://www.box.com/s/7bf01f9abcabf02e25c3
 
*** I have posted 164+ of Rabbi Soloveitchik’s English language audio shiurim (MP3 format) spanning the years 1958-1984. Please click on the highlighted link.
 

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