SHABBAT ZACHOR 5782
Zelenskyy, Our Purim Hero
Who are our heroes today? When you were kids, who were your heroes? I remember dressing up in my cowboy outfit when I was 6, pretending to be the Lone Ranger or Hopalong Cassidy. Am I dating myself? Sometimes I would tie a big towel around my neck, and I’d be Superman. It’s great for kids to have heroes to look up to—heroes that stand for the values of goodness and decency.
Wednesday night we will celebrate Purim. It’s the story of ordinary people—like Mordecai and Esther—who became extraordinary in response to crisis and challenge. Tina Turner sang, “We don’t need another hero.” Actually, she was wrong. It turns out that this moment in history calls out for heroism—and one man has conspicuously heeded that call—the Jewish president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Like Mordecai who stood and refused to cower or kneel down before Haman, Zelenskyy bravely refuses to bow down before Vladimir Putin, denying him the adoration he craves.
By all accounts, Zelenskyy was NOT originally a leader of men. Yes, he had achieved some notoriety as a comedian, actor, and producer. But politically speaking, he had no ambitions until he saw a need that no one else was filling. In that respect he was an ordinary man like Mordecai and Esther. And so, when faced with extraordinary circumstances in response to crisis and challenge at home in Ukraine, he became one of its greatest leaders!
And when Vladimir Putin attacked, he shed his usual presidential street garb of suit and tie for hunting gear. It looked like Russia would swallow up the Ukraine in a brief few days. And so, Joe Biden and others offered to transport Zelenskyy and his family to safety in London. Defiantly he said to them, “I don’t need a ride. I need more ammunition.” Zelenskyy is one tough Jew—an ordinary man who has become a Jewish superhero!
Some have called him a “modern Maccabee,” for he also successfully picked up arms against a much more powerful aggressor. I echo others calling him a Jewish Churchill, who chose honor over surrender and who fought for his country even when reality seemed impossibly bleak.
Today’s Torah portion, Vayikra, tells of the importance of making sacrifices. Gd tells Moses (Vayikra 1:2) to tell the Jewish people that when you sacrifice to Gd, it must be mikem, which literally translates as, “from yourself”—i.e. it must be yours. The Sforno (16th cent.) in his commentary notes that this actually means, “from you,” indicating that a true offering to Gd is when you give of yourself.
It’s hard to find today a world leader who has sacrificed so much of himself and his family for his people. We simply don’t see this type of leadership anymore—with an unembarrassed, defiant belief in their cause. In the past we had known intellectually that freedom was worth fighting for. Now, we see it 1st-hand.
For a thousand years the Ukraine was the seat of the worst violence and persecution against Jews. In the 1648, Bogdan Khmelnitsky, a Ukrainian prince led a revolt and slaughtered over 100,000 Jews—20% of the Jews of the world at that time. Unbelievably, a large monument and statue still stands in Kyiv today in Khmelnitsky’s honor!
There were more 19th and early 20th century pogroms in Ukraine than I care to count. Thank Gd, my father and his family escaped after the Kishinev pogroms. In WWII, Ukrainians aided the Nazis in shooting almost 34,000 Jews at Babi Yar—the largest total of Jews killed in one day during the Holocaust. Another 40,000 were slaughtered at a concentration camp called Yanovska, near Lviv.
And yet, I don’t hold animosity to today’s Ukrainians facing the largest refugee crisis in Europe since 1945. I cry for their children and their families. Yet my tears of pain for them are mingled with tears of joy and pride in Zelenskyy—their Jewish champion. Amazing! Never before in modern history have the world’s eyes so clearly focused on a Jew, demonstrating a sweet mix of leadership, character, patriotism and sheer courage.
Every Jew in the world today can hold his/her head up higher because of Zelenskyy. More than that: Every Jewish young person now has a hero they can call their own—greater even then the Braves’ Max Fried or the Dodgers’ Sandy Koufax.
We usually see Diaspora Jews living in their heads and hearts as competent professionals, businesspeople, entertainers, etc. Here’s a Jew who—while capable of living in his head and heart—also lives putting his body on the line. This is why it’s important to remember who Volodymyr Zelenskyy is—a comedian, yes, but a Jew whose grandfather fought Nazis in World War II, a Jew who lost family members in the Holocaust. And think about this. Ukrainians elected him as its president with 70% of the vote along with another a Jew, Volodymyr Groysman, as prime minister!?? Wait. In this, the land of the Cossacks they elected Jews to be at the very head of their government? Really?
As Rabbi Jeffrey Salkin asks: “Kind of makes you wonder: What would happen if Jon Stewart ran for president of the United States?” So, yes, it’s happening in the Ukraine, which for 1,000 years, was also the seat of Jewish scholarship and spirituality. Here’s a partial list:
The birthplace of the Baal Shem Tov, the founder of Hasidism
The birthplace of Rebbe Nachman of Breslov
The birthplace of early Zionism
The birthplace of such Jewish literary and spiritual heroes like Sholom Aleichem, Hayyim Nachman Bialik, Ahad Haam
The birthplace of Israel’s Prime Ministers Levi Eshkol, Golda Meir and Moshe Sharett, as well as Natan Sharansky
The Jewish story in Ukraine testifies to the ambiguity of history—to the absolute impossibility of making an absolute moral judgment against a country and its history.
Gal Beckerman, a historian of the Soviet Jewry movement, writes: If Zelensky has now become synonymous with the blue-and-yellow flag of his country, it might signal an unexpected outcome of this conflict that has found Jews feeling finally, improbably, one with a land that has perpetually tried to spit them out.
Currently, there are about 200,000 Jews in the Ukraine—many of whom have joined the exodus of refugees. Zelensky challenged the Jews of the world: “Do not remain silent right now … Don’t you see why this happening? ... Nazism is born in silence, so shout about the killings of civilians. Shout about the killings of Ukrainians.”
So no, my friends, I’m not with Tina Turner who sings, “We don’t need another hero.” For us, President Zelenskyy is today’s Purim hero. Amen!
