Seizing the moment to transform potential into destiny

There are places in this world that are so powerful, so full of meaning that they allow us to tap in to why we are really here. Such a place is Emek HaBacha, The Valley of Tears. In this valley, deep in the Golan Heights, in the Yom Kippur War in 1973, a small group of men held off the might of the Syrian Armored Corps, and saved the State of Israel. There is a power to this place, and if you listen carefully to the wind howling through the hills, you can still hear the cries of the men who fell there.

We took a group of our students there a few years ago on Israel’s memorial day. As I was sharing the story of the battle, I noticed a fellow standing off to the side watching us. You could tell from his eyes that he had ‘been there,’ so I went to catch him before he left. His story made a powerful impression on us all.

“You know,” he said, “There are heroes of this war who have never really been

recognized.

“Everyone speaks of the men in the tanks who risked everything, but not all the heroes that day were in the tanks.

“In the middle of the battle, a couple of the tanks began pulling back to re-load and re-supply. We were hopelessly outnumbered and had been fighting for hours, struggling desperately to hold the line against far superior forces. 650 Syrian tanks had poured into this valley in the afternoon of Yom Kippur, and we were only one battalion, about 35 tanks. We were almost out of ammo, and our fuel was dangerously low, so this platoon commander began pulling his two remaining tanks back to re-fuel and load up on more tank shells.

“Kahalani, the battalion commander, saw these two tanks pulling back, and gave immediate orders that they should hold their ground. The young lieutenant responded over the radio that he was almost out of fuel and shells, to which Kahalani responded that if they had no ammo they should move around and make dust, along with machine gun fire. And if they ran out of fuel, they should rotate their turrets, but that they were absolutely not to pull back. The entire balance of the battle was hanging by a thread, and if the Syrians saw a few tanks pulling back they might think it was a retreat, which could cause a rout. So the tanks stayed where they were.

“A truck driver, back at the fuel depot, hearing this on the radio, jumped on his fuel truck, drove straight into the valley, and began re-fuelling the tanks. Can you imagine? This man drove a fuel truck, loaded with gasoline, into the heat of battle, under fire, with no armor to protect him, and began refueling the tanks! There are moments when history hangs in the balance, and special individuals rise to the challenge…”

I have never looked at a truck driver in Israel in quite the same way since…

One of the central mitzvoth of Pesach (Passover) is the injunction not to eat any Chametz, or unleavened bread. Instead, we are commanded to eat Matzah for the entire week of Pesach.

Indeed, the concepts of Chametz and Matzah (leavened and unleavened bread) are introduced as a central part of the story of the exodus from Egypt, and thus are an important concept related specifically to the festival of Pesach.

Rav Tzadok HaKohen of Lublin, in his Tzidkat HaTzaddik, alludes to an interesting question. Most people, if asked why we eat Matzah on Pesach, would probably recall that when we finally left Egypt, we had no time to bake bread for the journey. So we had to take the dough with us, even though it had not yet risen. Hence, to commemorate this event, we eat Matzah on Passover today. Now, to be fair, this would be the correct answer, as attested to in the Torah.

The Jews, say the verses, “took their dough before it could rise,” (Exodus 12: 34). And the reason for this was “because they were chased out of Egypt and they could not tarry, and had prepared no fare for the way…” (Exodus12: 39).

So in fact the Jews baked Matzah because they were in such a rush they could not afford the time to allow the dough to rise.

But it’s not so simple. Because the Torah also tells us, at the beginning of the same chapter (Exodus 12: 15) nearly a week before the Jews ultimately leave Egypt (and before even receiving the mitzvah to take the paschal lamb) that the Jewish people will have a festival on which they will eat Matzah for seven days….

So we were given the mitzvah of Matzah a week before we ever left Egypt! Why then, did we not have enough time to bake bread?

While it may be true that our departure ended up being in a hurry, without the time to bake the bread, Hashem (G-d) who knew all this in advance could certainly have arranged for some advanced challah baking! Obviously Hashem engineered such a departure because there was a message we needed to learn which is represented in the mitzvah of Matzah.

There are certain moments, suggests the Tzidkat HaTzaddik, when we are presented with a window, an opening to come closer to a relationship with G-d. Such windows appear all too infrequently, and remain open only briefly. In life you have to grab those moments when they appear, otherwise, you miss them.

Each of us, every day, has our own moments of enormous potential, just like that truck driver in the Yom Kippur war. The question is, do we rise to meet them? Do we transform those gifts into Jewish destiny? Do we change the script we have fallen into, and become partners in an entirely new world, the world we are born into every moment?

May Hashem bless us, this Pesach, to re-connect with our potential, as individuals, and as a people, so that one day soon, we can all dance together in the beautiful hills and valleys of Jerusalem, on our way up to celebrate the festival of Pesach the way it was really meant to be.

Best wishes for a wonderful Pesach,

Rabbi Binny Freedman