אני ואתה נשנה את העולם

אני ואתה נשנה את העולם,
אני ואתה ויבואו כבר כולם,
אמרו את זה קודם לפני,
לא משנה – אני ואתה נשנה את העולם.

Anyone with a solid Zionist education has, no doubt, sang this feel-good Israeli song in Hebrew class, yet as I learned it in Ulpan I began to question its legitimacy. “Me and you will change the world”, it claims. That's a pretty hefty statement, in my opinion. It assumes two axioms that need to be further developed. The first, that the world is indeed changeable. That we are not destined to live in the same world tomorrow that we live in today. And the second, that it is we who have the power to change it. That the entire world can be affected by small things – by individuals, by ideas. We, in a modern day North American culture, are certainly familiar with these empowering and optimistic ideals, but I sometimes wonder how deeply we truly understand them. More often than not, they remain cliché statements repeated during “Awareness Week” at school and “Yom Chessed” at camp, instead of becoming integrated values that we understand, never mind truths that we actually live by.


On the commentary on this week's parsha, Parshat Re'eh, we find a small-scale example to better demonstrate this concept. We are introduced to “The Wayward City”- a city so spiritually corrupt that the majority of its citizens are persuaded to worship idols. We are commanded to first investigate the situation, and if it is indeed as bad as it seems, to slaughter all the idol worshipers and to destroy along with them, all of their animals, possessions and property.

"הכה תכה את ישבי העיר ההוא...” (יג:טו) - “You shall surely smite the inhabitants of that city”

Ralbag finds an issue in the diction of the Torah – why does it say “that city” instead of “the city”? In his answer, he reveals something revolutionary. Rambam explains that after the court has established the city as a Wayward City, two Torah scholars are sent there to try and bring the people back to Hashem. Ralbag suggests that in the event that the people repent, the city need not be destroyed, because it is no longer “that city”. He comes to teach us that there are ideas in this world so powerful that they can literally change the status of an entire city. Whether a city follows in the ways of Hashem or strays after other gods is the defining question, one that identifies and characterizes the city.

Like all things in Torah, this concept manifests itself also on a personal level. When I think back to the beginning of my ba'al teshuavah process, I remember realizing that both my conception of and relationship with God were the only things that could literally effect every aspect of my life. Whether or not God exists, what type of God exists, and what, if anything, He expects from us, are questions whose answers have the power to completely change a person. My friend recently shared with me an idea she heard in a shiur from Rabbi Akiva Tatz that illustrates the same point. Rambam explains complete teshuvah, repentance, as when a person is placed in the same situation where he previously sinned, and now he chooses not to. When we are in vulnerable situations and forced to make difficult decisions, our yetzer harah and the evil forces in the world jump at the opportunity to persuade us to do wrong. After we have done teshuvah and find ourselves in the same situation again, these evil forces cannot succeed in persuading us to do evil. Rabbi Tatz explains that the reason these evil forces cannot succeed is because they cannot find us! After a complete, deep, teshuvah process, we literally become new people. The evil forces cannot find the person who sinned, because that person no longer exists – he has connected to an idea so powerful that it has effected his whole being, and he is now a new person.

As we head into the month of Elul, we are reminded that we have the power to reinvent ourselves completely. Through our honest self-introspection, our deep repentance, and our sincere desire to perfect ourselves, we can begin to see our existence in a God-context, thus leaving behind the parts of ourselves that do not fit into that picture. We see that when we attach ourselves to Hashem, as individuals, as a people, and, dare I say, as a modern state of Israel, we have the power to change ourselves, and with us, the entire world.