Regards from Alaska!

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Encountering the Most Powerful Force on Earth

My wife and I are spending a few days in Alaska for our summer break. We’ve discovered one of the most beautiful places on Earth where the sky seems to melt into the snow-capped mountains all the way down to the shimmering oceans, wherever you turn. The wildlife is unlike anything we’ve seen before with spectacular whale breaches and the breathtaking salmon run where these large fish fight currents, rocks, and uphill waterfalls with amazing tenacity to return to the place of their birth to spawn their eggs and die.

Shabbos is particularly challenging here since the night remains light in a phenomenon known as the “white night.” We’re going to begin Shabbos at around 9pm and end it on Sunday morning!

But more sensational than anything we’ve encountered is the most powerful force on planet Earth – the majestic glacier. Glaciers are formed in places with so much snowfall that the accumulating snow has no time to melt. With nowhere else to go, the snow becomes ice as it packs thousands of tons of weight from the endless snowfall. Eventually, the massive amount of ice – often stretching hundreds of miles in length and hundreds of feet high – begins to slowly move over the surface of the earth. Hence, a glacier is known as a slow moving river of ice, moving as little as an inch each month. This slow movement grinds the face of the earth like sandpaper, chiseling deep valleys through majestic mountains as one would run a knife through butter. When seawater flows into these valleys, they are called fjords.

Incidentally, it’s these glaciers that lie at the core of the debate on global warming as many worry that their increased rate of erosion will cause the world’s sea levels to dramatically rise.

We found it providential to learn about these gargantuan geological beasts when the weekly Torah portion tells us the peculiar story of Korach, a cousin of Moses who led a mutinous rebellion against him. This offensive rebellion against the man appointed by G-d to lead the nation resulted in a tectonic shift in the earth, that opened a massive sinkhole that swallowed Korach and all of his rebels for good. Whilst it was clearly an act of Divine intervention that led to this astonishing outcome, there is a profound lesson for us to learn from this phenomenon.

The mighty glacier is created from humble snowflakes. On their own, they are utterly powerless. But when united together, they incredulously form the world’s most powerful force.

In much the same way, history has proven that the Jewish people are the world’s most powerful and enduring nation. But this is only possible when we stand united as one. If G-d forbid, we resort to infighting, we create a circular firing squad, losing our power and placing ourselves at the mercy of our enemies and detractors. If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.

Now more than ever before, we need to stand united. Despite intensely divisive issues such as the US Presidential Election, political discord in Israel and other differentiating views and opinions, we must find a way to be like mighty glaciers. Pointing accusatory fingers at each other might feel good in the short term, with disastrous effects in the long term. Hate divides us, love unites us. We don’t need to like each other, but as Jews it is imperative that we love each other. To like someone is to agree with them, to love another is to accept them despite it all. We cannot afford to win the battle and lose the war. Individually, we are a single color. Together we make a rainbow.

Korach represents division, discord and ego. His end was bitter. Moses’ humility and his meticulous efforts to keep the nation united result in the survival of our ancestors through all the challenges of their forty years of wandering through the desert until they successfully reached the Promised Land. Glaciers prove that even the weak become strong when they are united.

Concentrate on what unites us. We already know what divides us.

Rabbi Dovid Vigler
Chabad of Palm Beach Gardens
6100 PGA Blvd, Palm Beach Gardens, FL 33418
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