It's a pleasure to be here.

You know spending time as a patient in a hospital can result in certain ethical insights. The hospital routine has a way of making whatever claims to personal significance you might harbor totally irrelevant. The doctors are concerned with "how things are going." They don't care too much about how you are.

I'll illustrate what I mean. During this operation that I had, they were going to slit my knee open for one reason or another. And I'm lying there in the operating room. The surgeon enters. Now, the only way to know that he's the surgeon is because he's the last one in. According to the pecking order the surgeon won't come in until there's nothing left to do except cut. Before this, there's a little parade: there's a nurse who pushes you this way and someone else who pulls you that way, and then the surgeon comes in and he cuts. So, eventually, the surgeon came in and I guess he cut, but I couldn't see this because they put up a little screen to shield me from experiencing myself.

During the surgery, everyone in the operating room looks exactly the same: they're all dressed like Captain Marvel or something. So anyway, they start doing the surgery. At least that's what I think because they're standing on the other side of the screen and it looks to me like they're doing the dishes. You know, someone who does the dishes puts his hands in the soap and then he puts something over here and then puts something over there. So, I learned that surgery is like doing the dishes.

At some point, the surgeon says to the head nurse, "my child just got married do you know where I can buy a cheap apartment." And the nurse answers, and that's part of her job- to be helpful, that she's heard that in Chashmonaim there are some good deals on apartments. So, the surgeon says, "I'm so happy I came to do this surgery today."

At this, I turn to the anesthesiologist. He sits next to the person who is being operated upon and provides entertainment: if you want to talk to somebody, you talk to the anesthesiologist. So, I say, to the anesthesiologist "what's going on here?" And the anesthesiologist says, "what do you mean?"

I said, "Look, shouldn't they be talking about the operation? Why are they talking about real estate?" So he assures me, "the surgeon can do the operation without thinking about it, but real estate is a real problem for him." So, I said, "maybe, I can just leave my leg here and come back for it tomorrow?"

This story has an ethical subtext. It was my first experience, as a patient, in an operating room. I'm not complaining; it was all right. The people were very friendly. But we get to the point where we think we're important; we all think we're important. Then it can happen, that we are placed on an operating table, and all that matters is the cut. We are not interesting. I found this quite remarkable.

Now, I'll mention something that I've discussed on other occasions, at least enough times that I have a clear memory of it. The first Rashi in Chumash asks the famous question about why the Torah starts with Bereshis, the account of creation. Rashi then gives his famous answer.

There's a question about the question and a question about the answer. Rashi quotes Tehillim, "The power of G-D is taught to us in the Torah." Rashi tells us that the power which G-d has is to give us the land of the nations [Eretz Yisrael]. This power Rashi explains is relevant to the question of why the Torah starts with the account of creation: "If the nations come to Bnei Yisrael and say 'you are robbers, that you captured the land of the seven nations.' We will say to them: 'everything belongs to G-d. When G-d decides to give the land to the seven nations, he gives it to them. G-d can also decide to take it away and give it to Am Yisrael.'"

Who are the parties to the discussion, these nations? Are the Ammorites going to come and have a claim against Bnei Yisrael. Would we care about their claim if they did?

This question needs some basis, some framework. How does this conversation and this claim reach us? If some court had authorization to decide this case and we were summoned to appear before it. Our task would be to convince. Each side, the nations and us, would come up with arguments. But Rashi does not assume any such court.

And besides does anyone think that we can convince these goyim? Of course not. It's the nature of things. We think we're right because we have a Torah and we have prophecies. We have G-d's promises and operate on the basis of those promises. But goyim don't recognize the Torah, they put no faith in our prophecies and our talk of promises. What is there to talk about? There is no basis for a conversation.

So who's having the conversation that Rashi is talking mentions? Who are these umot haolam? Who comes to accuse us?

In our own time, we see that we have a peculiar kind of trouble explaining ourselves. Why do we have this trouble? If we understand ourselves, then we shouldn't have trouble explaining ourselves. That's an obvious thing. If you know what you're doing, if you're not a raving lunatic, why would you have trouble explaining yourself?

Why do we feel that the television is against us, that the newspapers are against us? In what way are they against us? Why should they be against us? Okay, grant that they are against us. In the long haul, wouldn't you think that after all these years we would be able to explain ourselves? We would be able to say, "here it is; this is what we're doing' so that everybody can understand.

But if we assume that the Torah is directing us then, obviously, we can't explain ourselves. The problem becomes a kind of expected problem. We might be able to explain our position to people who also believe that the Torah directs us. But to whom else? Who is Rashi's hypothetical conversation between? Who calls us thieves? And whom do we pacify with our religious claim that we're following G-d's directions?

The answer is that the whole of this conversation takes place internally, among ourselves. We are brought to ask the question regarding our own project. We say that if Hakadosh Baruch Hu created the world in seven days, and if all the things that G-d created in the world are kind of there from the beginning. That's the way the world runs. The grass grows, and the rain rains and the animals reproduce etc. It all works the way G-d wanted it to work. The world that G-d created is constant. In that world, which G-d created, we find in Eretz Yisrael seven nations. Other people live there.

If they live there, because they live there, G-d must have willed them there. And if G-d put them there, then we ask ourselves, how can we dislocate them? Even prophecy becomes difficult if it contradicts an accepted Torah teaching. We can't have a prophecy against Torah. The Torah always wins. If the Torah says that G-d created the world and that the way G-d created the world is how it is, then it's very difficult for us to justify changing it. So Rashi, comes along and says, that the stories of Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov and Yosef are the stories that teach us that within creation, what people do, the way we behave, our willingness to accept the Torah, can bring about changes.

Yes, Eretz Yisrael was given to the seven nations, but Avraham and Yitzchak and Yaakov and Yosef change that and could change it. Space for that change is part of the way that the world was created. So that's the answer according to Rashi of what we have to learn from the parsha of Bereishit, and even the book of Bereshit. [See the Ramban's kasha and teretz to that particular question.] What we have to learn is, that even though the world is created in a certain way, change is possible if we act in accordance with the dictates of the Torah.

"Listim atem" is self-accusatory. We have to understand ourselves that things in the world can change provided we are responsible to the Torah and deserve the Torah's blessings.

You know, one of these days that I missed shule, Simchas Torah, we read the haftorah about Yehoshua bin Nun. He sent spies to Eretz Yisrael. Quite a remarkable thing to do after what happened when Moshe Rabbeinu sent spies. You would think that Yehoshua would do everything he could to avoid that. Nonetheless, those spies came to Yericho. They hid out for a little on Rachav's roof; afterwards, they returned to Yehoshua bin Nun and reported.

What did these spies report? They said, "we went out there and we looked around and talked to the people." And what did those people say? The people said, "we know that the Bnei Yisrael are coming on a mission from Hakadosh Baruch Hu." So, Yehoshua bin Nun says, "Oh! They know!"

Yehoshua concludes, based on this report, that we can offer those people a choice, issue a condition to the people. Remember the condition? We tell them that if they want to make peace, we'll make peace, but that if they want to make war, we'll make war. It sounds sort of ridiculous.

If you come from some fierce horde that wants to overrun Rome perhaps you say, "we'll make a deal: if you want to make peace and let us take over, we'll take over. If not, we'll make war against you and kill you all." Who accepts a deal like that? Where's the great humanity of Yehoshua bin Nun? Imagine: "Peace, okay, we'll make peace, and then we'll just make you all slaves. Oh, you want to make war, okay, we'll kill you all." Great guy. But no, the spies came to Yehoshua bin Nun and said 'they know.' And what did they know? They know that Bnei Yisrael is acting on Divine direction. That makes a difference.

The nation itself understood that they might have to move over. They knew that they'd been idolatrous for a long time and that G-d had a claim against them. War was permitted because anything else would have been a denial of Divine authority.

This message fits with what we found in Rashi's comment on the first pasuk. So, I think we have to remember. There are always difficult times. We, baruch Hashem, live in a time that is a lot less difficult than many other times that the Jewish people have had in their history, and we should be grateful for it. But just because we live in times that are less difficult doesn't mean that we don't have obligations.

People that learn Torah understand that the foothold that we have in Eretz Yisrael, the attempts to maintain that foothold, and to strengthen our connection to the promise that Hakadosh Baruch Hu makes to us depends very much on our awareness of where the righteousness of our position comes from.

We're not right simply because we're here. We're right because this is what the Torah wants us to be doing. We need to have that awareness. We need to remember what Rashi said and to remember Yehoshua bin Nun.

I thank you all for being here and for greeting me this morning. Everyone should eat some cake. I'm trying not to eat cake. You know, when you get out of a difficult situation you try to act responsibly for at least a week. So I still have a couple of days left. All the best. Let's get back to the Bet Medrash.

To get further issues of "Conversations with Rabbi Brovender" please write to David Rozenson at alumni@yhol.org.il

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