Diaspora Jewry’s ‘Shalshelet’ Moment?

In the Book of Genesis, the cantillation mark “shalshelet” appears three times (it appears only once more in the entire five books of Moses). The first time we encounter it is in the parsha of Vayera, which we read last week. The second appears in this week’s parsha Chayei Sarah, and then finally (in Bereishit at least), in Vayeishev.

Its appearance is not only an indication of how the note accompanying a word should sound according to the Masoretic tradition, it is also a musical clue as to the drama unfolding within the story. It connotes some of the internal struggle the character before us is feeling; whether there is a sense of a moral dilemma in the case of Joseph, a struggle with cognitive dissonance with regard to Lot or even the enormous national responsibility Moses must have felt during the only time in Torah the note is used outside of Genesis.

Lot’s internal argument is an acknowledgment – familiar to most – of his reality being something different from the way he had perceived it. After he separates from Abraham so their shepherds will no longer fight over the same grazing land for their respective herds, he settles in the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. The text hints that he knows his decision is not ideal because of the type of people – by necessity – he would be associating with there. However, the fertility of the land is highly attractive to him. The Sodomites were not known for their kindness toward strangers, but Lot, whose daughters had married local men and who was himself a judge, believed he had been accepted. In a single incident, his world was to come crashing down around him.

He provides shelter and lodging to strangers, unbeknownst to him that they were in fact, angels. We know from the text that the sword of destruction hangs over Sodom, with Abraham pleading with God not to destroy it if the requisite number of righteous people could be found. The Torah also takes pains to point out Lot’s property was surrounded by all the men – both young and old, and from every part of the city, to emphasize how widespread the moral decay really was – who demanded he let the hordes in to rape his guests. He was divorced enough from that world to not permit it, but there can be no doubt it opened his eyes to the questionable decision he had taken years previously.

Furthermore, the men threaten that although he considers himself a judge and “one of them,” they will do the same to him and worse, highlighting the very otherness he thought he could leave behind. What he thought was thorough assimilation was in fact a way for the Sodomites to cudgel him for his being an interloper.

The third act of this mini-series is the way his sons-in-law treated him when he urged them to flee with him and the rest of the family, after he repeated the angels’ warning about the city’s coming destruction. They ridiculed him, labeling him a fool, and entirely disbelieving his words. In Lot’s wife’s plaintive look back at the city as they fled, and being turned into a pillar of salt, we have a perfect allegorical example of what happens when it becomes too emotionally difficult to leave the past – and some semblance of security and familiarity – behind.

In Chayei Sarah, Abraham’s servant, who is not named but midrashic tradition assumes to be Eliezer, is sent on a journey to find a wife for Isaac. There is no hint he is anything other than loyal, but in the background we know he held out hope that his daughter would be considered a suitable match for Abraham and Sarah’s son. In fact, if Isaac had not been born, all of Abraham’s considerable wealth would have passed to him. Some interpretations suggest Eliezer’s hesitation, in which the shalshelet appears over the word vayomar relates to his not being certain about which characteristics of the woman he sought should be foremost. Meanwhile, Rabbi Jonathan Sacks zt’l suggests the hesitation was more about his personal ambivalence to the task Abraham asked him to carry out.

The final appearance of the shalshelet in Bereishit relates to Joseph, and his time as a servant in Potiphar’s house. Joseph is one of the few personalities in the Torah whose appearance is acknowledged in any detail, which describes him as handsome. This did not go unnoticed by Potiphar’s wife, who encouraged him to lie with her. Over the word vayema’en – and he hesitated – the shalshelet appears, as if to enmesh us in Joseph’s moral dilemma. Here was a young, attractive man whose brothers – the majority of whom had intended to kill him – eventually settled on selling him into slavery. He was away from his home, his family, effectively a slave. His master’s wife comes onto him and he thinks about giving in to his primal urges… but he refuses.

So, what does all of this have to do with Jews in the Diaspora? As an Oleh, I always find the parshiot of Lech Lecha and Vayera speak to me in a different way. That whole “leave your father’s house and go to the land I will show you,” is a call millions of people have answered. Many of us, myself very much included, did not know exactly what we were going to, but answering the imperative to listen to the small still voice and be open to adventure is something which really resonates.

Thankfully, I was not the recipient of antisemitism in my previous existence in the Diaspora, but I was aware, like Lot, that while many of these people may look like me, they are not mine. The period immediately following the Second Lebanon War was really when my thoughts of Aliyah began to crystallize and harden. I had joined well-attended pro-Israel rallies, although the “counter demonstrations” even then of those carrying “We are All Hezbollah/Hamas” placards, totaled in their thousands, perhaps tens of thousands. For me, the writing was very much on the wall. Since Oct. 7, 2023, the numbers carrying those kinds of messages – whether they are fully cognizant of what they mean or not – have increased exponentially.

Then we arrived at the attempted Amsterdam pogrom. And this is why I think Diaspora Jews may have arrived at their shalshelet moment. In 2010, Frits Bolkenstein, a former EU Commissioner and one-time leader of the Dutch VVD party, was quoted in a book “The Decay; Jews in a Rudderless Netherlands” by Manfred Gerstenfeld, chairman of the Board of Fellows at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs as saying, there is no future for Orthodox Jews in Holland because of “the antisemitism among Dutchmen of Moroccan descent, whose numbers keep growing.” British journalist, polemicist, and author Douglas Murray is of the opinion that the situation is entirely backward, and wrote to this effect in his book “The Strange Death of Europe,” arguing continent’s Jews who have embraced the European culture or at least are not implacably opposed to it should remain, while those openly dismissive of, and virulently hostile to it should be removed to their lands of origin. Many people would no doubt agree with this assessment; however, the results over the last 14 years since Blockstein’s appraisal show a Europe which has imported more migrants, rather than fewer; and the hate and vitriol released after October 7 will not likely be returned to the fragile bottle from which it emanated. It is also exactly this realization, which prompted the Chief Rabbi of the Great Synagogue in Paris earlier this year to urge Jews to abandon France for their own safety.

The shalshelet provokes a fundamental question at a pivotal moment,” Who am I?” The supplemental question of “Who do I want to be?” is just beneath the surface. Perhaps it’s time for Diaspora Jews to listen to the music, and with the heaviest of hearts accept that extending the 1,000 years or so of Jewish civilization in Europe might shortly be untenable.