Rabbi's Corner

In this week's parashah, Parashat Bo, we read the following: "But against the B'nei Yisrael, no dog shall wag its tongue."  (Shemot 11:7)  In last year's "Rabbi's Corner" I spoke of our beautiful dog Lorelai.  We were truly blessed to have her with us for almost 16 years.  My wife and I were deeply saddened when she passed from this world last October, but we quickly added a new puppy, Cocoa, to our family.  We know how special Lorelai was and how she gave us so much love and devotion, and our family life felt empty without a dog.  The Hebrew word for "dog" ("calev") can be translated "as a heart," and that is what a dog is: one big loving and caring heart.  Now, I am not the only member of Am Yisrael (the People Israel) who feels this way.  A Midrash (Yalkut Shimoni 187) tells of how Rabbi Chanina ben Dosa had a disciple named Rabbi Yeshaya who fasted for 85 days.  Why did he do this?  He could not understand the teaching of the Sages that dogs will one day sing a shirah (song) containing the following words: "Come!  Let us prostrate ourselves and bow down; let us kneel before Hashem, our Maker!  For He is our G-d, and we are the people of his pasture and the flock of H-s hand...." (Tehillim 95:6-7)  It seems as though Rabbi Yeshaya was bothered by the fact that dogs are described by our Sages as "azei nefesh" (brazen of spirit).  How could such creatures merit being allowed to sing such a special shirah?

This Midrash continues by stating that an angel came down from Heaven and said this to Rabbi Yeshaya: "Yeshaya, until when will you fast?  It is a decree from HaKadosh Baruch Hu (the Holy One, blessed be He) from the day he revealed H-s secret to the prophet Chabakkuk.  He never revealed it to any creature in the world.  Since you are a disciple of a great scholar, however, I have been sent to tell you the secret.  Dogs are meritorious [and will therefore be rewarded with reciting this shirah] because they did not bark when the Jews left Egypt."  It is a fact that dogs bark.  Lorelai barked at everything and anything that came within her sight as she would sit by the front door.  Cocoa has yet to do this, but I expect it to happen with her as well.  Why?  Because dogs bark as a reflex especially when there is something that spooks them or that they do not recognize.  They are very intuitive and easily sense danger.  On the night of Yetziat Mitzrayim (the Exodus from Egypt), everyone one was crying because death was all over.  All the firstborn in the Eretz MItzrayim (the Land of Egypt) had died.   Logic would dictate that all dogs should have been barking their heads off.  But while the dogs of the Egyptians did, the dogs of the B'nei Yisrael were silent.  And it is because the dogs of the B'nei Yisrael resisted their inner nature to bark that all dogs will merit to sing this shirah.  Like the dogs of the B'Nei Yisrael, may we also fight our inner nature to resist learning and living our Torah so that we, too, may sing this shirah!