Three major events recently captured the minds of Jews from across the spectrum of Orthodoxy.
One was the release of a nearly 100-year-old Fox Movietone newsreel clip of the Chofetz Chaim. Virtually everyone who saw the clip was moved by it. The Chofetz Chaim is a larger than life figure in Jewish life and for good reason. His sefer Mishnah Berurah is the definitive halachic work of the last century and his mussar works, in particular the sefer Chofetz Chaim and Shmiras Halashon, devoted to improvement in areas of speech, have had a colossal impact on all of Klal Yisrael.
There are no really clear pictures of the Chofetz Chaim. Thus, seeing an actual moving image of him had a powerful impact on viewers that showed how connected all of Klal Yisrael is with the Chofetz Chaim.
A question to ponder: Is there perhaps a reason why now, after all these years, Hashem see fit to endow us with this film?
The second event was, of course, the Israeli elections. Regardless of one’s political views, I think all of us can agree that the divisiveness, the slander, and the sniping were so pervasive that it made us wistfully dream of better times in our nation’s history.
The third major event will be discussed at length later in this article.
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The upcoming Yom Tov of Pesach and the following Torah thought in that regard have many lessons to offer both on the importance of unity and on how we can reconnect with the Chofetz Chaim – to the purity, unity, and adherence to Torah he so symbolized.
The Gemara (Pesachim 66a) relates that when Erev Pesach once fell on Shabbos, the Bnei Beseirah – the leaders of the Jewish people at the time – could not recall whether the halacha permitted the Korban Pesach to be brought on Shabbos. Hillel then proved from the Torah that the requirement to bring the Korban Pesach overrides the prohibition of melachah on Shabbos. As a result, he was designated the new nasi of Bnei Yisrael.
Another question was then presented to Hillel: If a person forgets to bring a knife to Har Habayis before Shabbos, what should he do? The halacha does not permit violating the Shabbos for anything that could have been done before Shabbos, and it is prohibited to transport an object through the public domain on Shabbos.
Hillel replied, “I learned this halacha but I forgot it. But leave it to the Jewish people, for if they are not prophets, then they are the sons of prophets.” In other words, as Rashi explains, Hillel understood that the halacha would be revealed by the actions of the Jewish people.
Indeed, on Shabbos many people came to Har Habayis leading sheep or young goats to be used for the Korban Pesach with knives tied up in the sheep’s wool or wedged in the horns of the goats. Upon seeing this, Hillel declared, “This is what I was taught by Shemayah and Avtalyon!”
This incident certainly requires further explanation. How did the Jewish people know how to transport their knives to Har Habayis? How was it that they knew the halacha on their own?
Maharsha (Chiddushei Aggados, ad loc.) posits that there were some elderly Jews who recalled how the situation had been handled in the previous generation. Ben Yehoyada, however, takes Hillel’s statement at face value: Even if the Jewish people were not “prophets” who would be aware of the exact halacha, they were still “sons of prophets,” inherently worthy of prophecy. It was therefore reasonable to assume they would divine the true halacha through Ruach HaKodesh. The Tosefta’s version of Hillel’s statement (Pesachim 4:11) seems to support Ben Yehoyada’s understanding: “He said to them, ‘Leave them, for they possess Ruach HaKodesh; if they are not prophets, they are the sons of prophets.”
