There’s an old expression that goes like this: For every question there are three possible answers – the right answer, the wrong answer, and the real answer! Now, nobody really cares about the wrong answer, unless, of course, you use it to respond to a question from your spouse and end up in the doghouse for a week! The real answer is what you would say to a specific question if, 1) You were so rich and independent that you could buy a mayoral election, 2) You were a terrorist mastermind who issued statements through videotape, 3) You were talking about your mother-in-law – provided that no words actually came out of your mouth! 4) You have no friends! The right answer, for all it’s simplicity and obvious rhetoric, is just that – the right answer! It’s what you would say if you want to be able to keep talking (or in some cases, keep walking!). Some may call it the cowardly way, but I can tell you in the most definitive of terms, call me a coward before I’ll hedge on any question posed to me by my wife about her food, her looks or her mother! And if G-d-forbid there’s ever a question between your wife and your mother – don’t even bother, there is no answer. Period!
In modern diplomacy, political correctness is all-important, and as a result, ask any candidate or contestant what is the greatest wish that one could ever hope for, and the answer would invariably have to be …….. World peace! Not that that’s a bad thing, of course, after all, if there was no strife anywhere in the world, wouldn’t national leaders the world over turn their attention inwards and do their utmost to better the domestic and economic plight of all the citizens of their domain? Um …. yeah, right, and the discriminatory and murderous terrorist policies of the Taliban regime are not a true reflection of their “peace-loving and culture-friendly” religious views! Well, the Jewish people have a whole different perspective about what is world peace and how to achieve it. The Chasam Sofer writes an incredible idea: In order for the world to remain constant, Hashem created every type of human trait that is possessed by man, to co-exist in the world at all times. Not only must they co-exist, but it is impossible to uproot any one of these qualities and erase it from the world. For example, good qualities such as piety, humbleness, modesty, peace and glory can always be found in righteous people and these people understand that they are acting in a godly manner. However, even areas of conduct that are not approved of, such as conceit, embarrassment, brazenness and anger – these too, must manifest itself in the world, albeit all for the service of G-d. If one were truly acting in a way to create a Kiddush Hashem, even evil traits can be manipulated and employed for the sake of a mitzvah.
The Chasam Sofer adds yet another quality that must be maintained in the world, a quality that is hard to fathom as being even the slightest bit good. That would be the midah of Machlokess – argument, strife, conflict, and any other term that one could think of to describe a typical session in the Israeli knesset. How could fighting possibly be good? From all that we’ve learned and been taught by Chazal, Machlokess is the root of all evil. Any disaster that has occurred in Jewish history, and even world history, has come about because of disputes and differences between individuals and nations. Our holy Temples were destroyed and all of the exiles throughout the annals of Jewish history came about through some sort of clash. Okay, so you’ll say, “What his he making such a big deal about? Obviously the Chasam Sofer is not talking about that kind of Machkokess, he means to say a Machlokess L’Shem Shomayim – Arguing for the sake of Heaven, like the famous Mishna in Pirkei Avos, right?” Wrong! Even such an argument is still an argument and it leaves an aura of conflict in its wake. When Pinchos righteously killed the Prince of Shevet Shimon while he was in the midst of committing a public sin, he obviously did it L’Shem Shomayim, yet he was deemed a zealot who acted out of righteous anger, and only the greatest of men who are on the level of a Pinchos are permitted to fight in the way that he fought. There are many safeguards that are given in the Torah for people who embark on a Milchemes Mitzvah – a righteous, Divinely sanctioned war against evil, for even such noble warriors can find themselves in compromising positions, which potentially spells disaster. Moreover, we know that on the second day of creation, Hashem divided the upper waters from the lower waters. However writes the Kli Yakar, the Torah does not state, “And it was good,” by the end of the second day like it does by other days because since it was the first time anything in the world had to be separated and split apart, says the Kli Yakar, it is to be considered the beginning of all strife in the world! Let me repeat that – the second day of creation is considered the beginning of all strife in the world. Even Divine, Heavenly division, is a division nonetheless, and creates a negative effect in the world. How much more so when human beings quarrell and battle over small insignificancies, does the negativism abound!
The answer, “the real answer” is very simple, it’s the recipe for world peace and understanding, it promotes the goodness of Heaven and the virtue of the Torah – and we gloss over it every day without even realizing it! We daven each morning, “Talmidei Chachomim Marbim Sholom B’olam” – Learned scholars bring peace to the world. Explains the Chasam Sofer, these unique individuals, Torah scholars, are the ones who control and maintain the levels of calm and tranquility in the world by exhausting the quota of argument and debate in the world. When Torah scholars are “engaged” in a “battle” of words and ideas, using their intellectual “capabilities” and their “weapons” of “mass dissemination” to “vanquish” their “opponent” and realize the true meaning of the Gemara, Rashi and Tosfos, this generates a positive Machlokess that grows and “engulfs” (Gulf War, maybe…..!) all the “forces” of evil that lurk waiting to “seek and destroy.” The more Torah is learned and the more scholars “Koch” in learning, creating maelstroms with their insight and tumultous towers of brilliance with their dizzying rationale, the less room there is for actual war and destruction, for although, as we said, Hashem allows for each quality to exist and maintain its place in the world, there is but a said, specific amount of each trait, no more and no less. Thus, the Chasam Sofer ends off with, “The world cannot go on without this trait (Machlokess), and if it is not manifested through purity and holiness, it will instead be portrayed through impurity and corruption.”
Thus we all owe a great debt of gratitude to our very own scholarly “troops” who “bunker” down in their “central command center” – the Beis Midrash – and “wage a war” against terrorism, against corruption, against forces who wish to “wreak havoc” and cause people to clash with one another. I don’t just mean actual military combat, but even petty arguments between friends, sholom bayis problems between husband and wife, issues relating to youths at risk, and even great personalities, Rabbonim and otherwise, who think that only their position is the correct one and will humiliate and invalidate others – and sometimes even worse – in an attempt to destroy their credibility. By “Tumulling” in learning, Torah is “cooked up” and spread throughout the world, and there will be no choice but for the evils that abound to “surrender” or “flee for the hills”. It is our “honorable duty” (I don’t know if you realize by now, but I’m really getting the hang of this metaphor!) to support and encourage these – and I say it with the utmost respect – “Benk-Kvetchers” (Either you know what this means or you don’t, I’m not trying to translate!) through all means available, because their presence on the “battle-field” as a “peacekeeping force,” fighting under the Supreme Commander of all Commanders, allows us “civilians” to live our lives in tranquility, with peace and harmony unto all nations.
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