In the past, rabbis were staunchly against assimilation. This is no longer viewed as an issue to combat. The American Jew now identifies himself with his people – and even his tradition – with pride. He willingly and lovingly accepts his distinction as a Jew.But this is a major problem – he is only Jewish by distinction. Unfortunately, there is frequently a distinction without a difference. As Talmud students say – עס איז א חילוק אהן א נפקא מינא. In superficial manifestations, such a Jew distinguishes himself from the non-Jew, but deep down, there is no difference. In sum, the problem in 1952 is that there is a distinction without the difference. After the third plague, Moses said: ושמתי פדת בין עמי ובין עמך, “And I shall place a פדת between my nation and your nation.” What פדת means is a matter for debate. The English translation is “division,” but that is half the story. A disagreement between great classical translators points to a difference in outlook. The Syrian translation is פרשנא, meaning a distinction or separation. In this sense, Moses tells Pharaoh that G-d will make a distinction between our respective peoples.

The Aramaic translations of Onkelos and Yonathan translate the verse as ואשוי פרקן לעמי ועל עמך, “I will redeem my people from your people.” פורקן is the primary intention here. Moses thus says to Pharaoh: “Do you think my people’s cultural level sunk to that of your people?

פורקן, redemption, is not simple idea. To redeem physically, one must first separate from an entity, another cultural unit. This requires more than פרנשא, distinction. Distinction is superficial division. Redemption requires something deeper – it requires a real difference.

To illustrate, I will provide some examples of a distinction without a difference.

Cigarette brands may have packages with different colors and with different names. They are distinct from each other, but they are not different from each other. The matter only stops at פרשנא, the distinction without the difference.

In American politics the right-wing of the South are Democrats, and the right-wing in the North are Republicans. The labels are different, but the contents are the same. Oh yes, a Southern Democrat may say “Y’all,” and a Northern Republican would say “You bet,” but the political outlook and actions of both are strikingly the same. Between them there is a distinction, a פרשנא, without much of a real difference.

On a Jewish level, there is a university which purports to be Jewish, with Jewish funds, mostly Jewish students and faculty, and a Jewish name – Brandeis University. However, it plays football on Shabbos. There is no difference between them and St. John’s, NYU, or Fordham. Thus, it is Jewish by distinction, but not by difference.

And this is what Targum Yonathan objected to. Moses had a higher ambition when he said פדת. Making Jews eat gefilte fish and cholent was not Moses’ goal. As a matter of fact, Jews were already a distinct people. After all, the rabbis say that there was no change in their language, dress, or naming conventions during their stay in Egypt. Certainly, there was פרשנא, distinction, in Egypt. But there was no real difference between the Jews and Egyptians. Our ancestors were Egyptianized to a level that they sunk to the 49th gate of impurity. Between them and the Egyptians, the labels were different but the contents were the same. And this is what irked Moses. For a situation such as this, you require the פדת, which means פורקן, redemption through real, hard differences of quality. You have to rescue this people from their degenerate task-masters. You must retrieve the spark of G-d which is so different from the impurity of the Egyptian milieu.

The ושמתי פדת, as Targum Yonathan understood it, is an all-important imperative for modern man in his individual outlook upon life. It enlightens him as to what is and what is not the way to his personal redemption, the salvaging of his indigenous talents and native abilities. Psychologists say that, in the order of human impulses, next to self-preservation and sex is the herd-instinct. Democratization of the individual leads to the submerging of all differences of personality. Man, especially the modern American man, is afraid to diverge from the pattern of conformity. He simply wishes to be like everyone else.

Of course, he feels that he is different and unique. Never before have we had so many initialed tie-clips, belt buckles, silverware, wallets, and briefcases. One may think that such trinkets allow us to express our personalities. But are we? Are we really redeeming ourselves from the mediocrity which surrounds us? Are we really redeeming from ourselves that creative urge, that drive for constructive good, that lies dormant within each of us? Is this not a distinction without a difference, a פרשנא without a פרקנא, the wrong type of פדת? How many of us bravely express religious ideas that are unacceptable among our friends? How many of us act as traditionally if we are picked up and placed in an environment hostile to religion? As individuals, we are distinct from each other, with so very very little difference.

“Difference” as a prerequisite to “redemption” means uplifting, extracting, and raising ourselves above the average. The פורקן which Targum Yonathan saw in פדת means that G-d was going to go down into that cultural cesspool that was Egypt and spiritually lift the Jews up and out of it.

“Creating a people or creating a personality is like creating a structure.” There are two machines that are used in construction. The bulldozer levels differences and submerges ups and downs, treating good and bad material the same. The crane, on the other hand, is a machine which drops its mechanical hand into a heterogenous pile and lifts up choice parts that are needed for construction. It chooses the proper block and raises it. It redeems, so to speak, the better quality stones which are different from and superior to the mass of unusable rock. Redemption is that crane. It lifts up the Jewish people from among the Egyptians, the creative urge of the individual from his mediocre qualities. When there is a real difference in quality, the crane goes to work.

Our fellow traditional Jews need the crane of פרקן. So many are traditional by label rather than content – a distinction rather than a difference. They are traditionalists of פרשנא rather than פרקנא. Of course, it is gratifying to hear that so many Jews are becoming members of Orthodox synagogues. A roll call over the continent would show that most Jews answer to the name “Traditional.” But an analysis of religious behavior does not give the same results. The trend back to Orthodoxy must mean more than the acceptance of a label; it must mean new contents. There is no such thing as a card-carrying member of Traditional Jewry. You are either a redeemed Jew, a Jew who has been lifted up by the crane of Tradition from the other, non-observing Jews, or you are one of them. The פרשנא traditionalist, he who is Orthodox only by distinction, is unredeemed. There is no פדת.

G-d said to Jacob: ואנכי אעלך גם עלה, “And I will surely bring thee up again.” The same Targum Yonathan who translates פדת to mean פרקן, here wonders – this seems to be a redundance in G-d’s language. Why? He interpolates: ומימרי יעלינך תמן, אוף יסיק ית בנך; G-d promised one עלה to Jacob, and the second to his children. How true! If the father is only Jewish by distinction – through Jewish food, idiom, or synagogue – if one is not really different, if one is not the kind that rises – עלה – then the second generation will be Egyptian mediocrities. But if the father strives for אעלך, for being different and higher than the cultural modicum, then גם עלה, the children will achieve the same high level.

If the Jew of today insists on being Jewish by distinction only, then his children will fall prey to the bulldozer and will not retain even their father’s Jewish distinctiveness. If he is really and radically different, then his children will be lifted by the crane of פורקן, redemption, to a new high level of living. On this level, the Jew, uninhibited by the instinct to copy mediocrity, will create a new spiritual superiority.