I recently saw the new movie "Castaway" starring Tom Hanks. Tom Hanks works for Fed-Ex, and while he is on an overseas flight for work, the plane crashs into the water. Fortunately, Hanks is able to find a life-boat and lands safely on a small, deserted island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. The movie chronicles his struggle to survive on the island. Within the first few days, Hanks desperately tries to create fire for warmth and cooking. He literally rubs two sticks together and, after an heroic effort, is eventually able to produce fire. Hanks is so happy that he dances around the huge bonfire, yelling and screaming. During this part of the movie all of I could think of was Rabbah bar bar Hannah, the great rabbi of the Talmud.
More than 1500 years earlier, Rabbah bar bar Hannah had his own castaway experience. The Talmud in Massekhet Baba Batra (73b) tells the strange story of what happened to him. Rabbah bar bar Hannah says, "We were once traveling on a boat and saw a small Island. So we got off the boat and settled on the dry land. We pitched our tent, set up camp and started a fire to cook some food. When the fire got really hot, all of a sudden the island started to flip over! It turned out that the island wasn't really an island after all: it was a fish! It was so big that sand had collected on its back. When the fire got too hot, the fish rolled over and we were tossed off. If it wasn't for the fact that we were close to our boat, we all would have drowned!" As Tom Hanks' fire grew bigger and bigger, I was waiting for his island to flip over. To see if it did, you have to go see the movie.
This whole incident with Rabbah bar bar Hannah may seem a bit strange, but the Maharsha -- the great talmudic commentator printed in the back of the Talmud -- shows that it contains a very important message. The Maharsha explains that this story is a parable. The sea is "Galut" - the exile of the Jewish People from our land of Israel. We travel in this stormy sea, and see an island, an oasis. So we get off the boat, we settle on dry land, we cook, we buy houses, we raise children and grandchildren. Everything is wonderful. The island is so good, in fact, that we tell ourselves that this isn't Galut – this isn't exile. But then suddenly, sometimes out of nowhere, the fish flips over -- there are expulsions, pogroms, crusades, and Holocausts -- and we are thrust back in the sea. If we are lucky, we are close to our boat and survive. Rabbah bar bar Hannah explains that this is the nature of being in exile - even in the best of circumstances.
I am not trying to be an alarmist or a prophet of doom, declaring that everything in America will eventually come crashing down on us. But I am saying that we can become so comfortable here, so at "home," that we forget that we are in exile; that our true home is Eretz Yisrael - the Land of Israel - and that Jerusalem is the center of our world. We must always remember that we are living on the back of a fish and that our greatest desire -- for which we pray three times a day -- is to return with the rest of the Jewish People to our homeland. Most of us have forgotten this; most of us view this place as the Promised Land, as our final destination Others have made the same mistake before, and their fish has flipped over.
The Maharsha says that the lesson of Rabbah bar bar Hannah can be seen most clearly in the Megillah we read on Purim, which we will celebrate this week. The Megillah says that the Jewish People living in King Ahasuerus' kingdom were dispersed and living among the non-Jews (Esther 3:8). They bought houses and raised children as if they weren't in exile. The Megillah even describes the party of King Ahasuerus as "Sheti'ah Kedat" which the Talmud (Megillah 12a) explains as meaning that the food and the drink were kosher. In ancient Persia, it was even possible to get a kosher meal at the White House. That's how much the Jews were at home. But we see that Haman appears out of nowhere and the fish starts to flip over. Suddenly, the Jews remember they were in exile. Only because they did Teshuvah - repented - did they avoid being plunged into the stormy seas. But after Haman, none of the Jews mistook Persia or Media as the land flowing with milk and honey.
The story of Purim reminds us that as long as we are in Galut - exile - we are like Rabbah bar bar Hannah on the back of a sandy fish. We must constantly work and pray toward returning to our real home.
Rabbi
Mordechai Friedfertig
Congregation B'nai Shalom
Williamsville,
New York
Email: mordechai at utj.org
Copyright 2001-2003 by Mordechai Friedfertig