e-geress Vol. 1, No. 10 April 7, 2000
Publisher: Rabbi Yechezkel Fox
Editor: Rabbi Yisrael Rutman
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Pope John Paul II made quite a splash last month with his visit to Israel and his sweeping confession of Christian injustices against the Jews. We should applaud the Pontiff for his gesture and reflect with enormous gratitude on how civilized the world has become since Pope Urban II unleashed the murderous hordes of the First Crusade against the Jews, since the ghastly tortures of Torquemada and his Inquisitors, and since the collusive silence of Pius XII during the Holocaust. But the Pope is merely riding the current popular wave of apology. In the last couple of years, a legion of nations and institutions have apologized for all sorts of historic improprieties: slavery, segregation, colonization, apartheid, and the misrepresentation of the harmful effects of nicotine. Indeed, Jewish tradition teaches that confession is an essential element of repentance. By embracing this new global passion for remorse, however, we err in our assumption that confession is the only element of repentance. "I'm sorry" by itself does not automatically heal old wounds, nor does it generate warm, fuzzy relationships. Close relationships are built upon time. Whatever else may go into developing love or friendship, be it affection or attention or commitment or trust, none of these would have any significance if not demonstrated over days and months and years. And, on those occasions when we carelessly or inadvertently hurt a friend or loved one, the restoration of that friendship or love requires repentance, yes, but also time. And so the Jews as a people may rightly say to the Pope: we accept your apology, and we appreciate your good will; but don't imagine that you can make a thousand years of persecution vanish with a wave of your hand and a word of contrition, no matter how heartfelt and sincere. Only time, and plenty of it, can smooth away the ragged edges of the past. Time is opportunity, the chance to define ourselves and our relation- ships with others, for better or worse. It provides the potential to demonstrate love instead of hate, respect instead of scorn, trust instead of duplicity. And it is precisely this potential that we celebrate on the holiday of Pesach. The Jews dwelt in Egypt for 210 years, most of that time as slaves. Their Egyptian masters crushed their collective will, corrupted their sense of right and wrong, and leeched from them any sensitivity to their spiritual essence. The Jewish people were left with no redeeming merits on account of which they deserved Divine salvation. Yet the Almighty had made a promise to the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, that He would bring their descendants out of slavery and into their own land. And so, since we could not pay in cash, our Father in Heaven extended us a line of credit. I will take you out from under the burdens of Egypt, and I will save you from their servitude, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and great judgments, and I will take you to Me as a people. It's an impressive list, so impressive, in fact, that these "four expressions of redemption" resonate throughout the structure of the Pesach Seder, echoed by the four cups of wine, the four sons, and the four questions. But the ultimate significance of Pesach is not what the Almighty did for us, but what He enabled us to do for ourselves: as a people saved from slavery, we have time to devote our energies to the fulfillment of our own destiny; as a people redeemed from the "slave mentality" embedded in us by generations of oppression, we have the desire to scale the heights of human accomplishment; and as a people taken by our Creator, we have received direction in striving to attain moral and spiritual self-perfection. By demon-strating our appreciation of all these Divine gifts over the thousands of years of Jewish history and Jewish survival, we forge a unique relationship with the One who believed in us enough to extend us credit, the One who rejoices when we live lives of virtue and dignity according to the traditions of our ancestors. Let us accept the Pope's gestures of reconciliation. But let us also not forget that love and friendship are not forged in a day, nor even a year, but by traveling the long road of time and overcoming the same obstacles together. Let us also not forget the love that has been offered us from on high, the love that we prove and the love that we return by the way we live our lives. by Rabbi Yonason Goldson Recommended Reading: Herald of Destiny: The Story of the Jews in the Medieval Era by Rabbi Beryl Wein (Artscroll) The Haggadah by Rabbi Joseph Elias (Artscroll) The Book of Our Heritage by Rabbi Eliayahu Ki Tov (Feldheim Publishers) 
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