Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak (YY) Jacobson introducing President Donald J. Trump,&nbsp;at a luncheon of&nbsp;America First Action,&nbsp;November 12, 2019,&nbsp;at the InterContinental New York Barclay,&nbsp;in Manhattan. The event, organized by Leizer Schiner, brought together American Jewish donors expressing their gratitude to the President for his unique friendship to Israel and the Jewish people.

Program: MC of event was Kivi Bernard. US Anthem by Beri Weber. Invocation by Rabbi Yisroel Reisman. Words of introduction by Rabbi YY Jacobson. Address by President Trump.

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21_7222_rabbi_yy_jacobson_introduces_president_trump_full_video.cb48.mp4

21_7222_rabbi_yy_jacobson_introduces_president_trump_full_video.cb48.mp3

israel

holocaust

a palace in flames

leizer scheiner

barclay hotel

president trump

leibel blum

donald trump

leibele blum

"Mr. President, G-d Promised the First Jew: I Will Bless Those Who Bless You"

America First Action Luncheon for Trump

Rabbi YY Jacobson Introducing President Trump - Full Video

How to Treat Israeli Soldiers.&nbsp;The Terrible Mistake Made by Many Religious Jews

This class was presented by Rabbi YY Jacobson in Tamuz 5777, July 2017, at Ohr Chaim, Monsey, NY.

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21_gemara_thurs_7_13_selfcontained.e295.mp4

21_gemara_thurs_7_13_selfcontained.e295.mp3

tzahal

security of israel

arabs

dasan aviram

love to other jews

israeli soldiers

The Terrible Mistake Made by Many Religious Jews

Hashkafa/Mussar

How to Treat Israeli Soldiers

President Obama’s eulogy at the funeral of Israeli President Shimon Peres, who died on Wednesday, Sep. 28, 2016 at the age of 93, was exceptionally moving, profound and visionary. It was probably one of the better speeches he has given during his presidency. It also demonstrated the positive impact this Jewish leader had on so many world leaders and personalities.

Shimon Peres dedicated his life to the Jewish homeland and was totally committed to the future of his people. For more than seven decades, Peres worked tirelessly to build Israel's military into the powerhouse it is today and to enhance the country in endless ways. One of the most daring and courageous acts of Israel, the rescue of the Jewish hostages in Entebbe in July 1976, is credited largely to Peres, as well as Israel obtaining nuclear power.

The renowned Israeli novelist Amos Oz, during his eulogy, reminded the audience that Peres was mocked for his grand visions of peace and reconciliation. People called him “a dreamer.” Yet Amos Oz compared him to Joseph, who is called in Genesis the “master of dreams,” and whose dreams caused him to save Egypt from devastation. &nbsp;

And that is why it is also important to state, with full respect, where Shimon Peres, of blessed memory, made a mistake. His intentions might have been pure, his dreams grand, but the results were devastating. Peres truly dreamt, as he put it, "of a new Middle East" and took some serious risks to create that Middle East. But it backfired tragically. The Oslo Accords and the Gaza withdrawal will go down as the most irrational decisions of a modern-day government based on delusional faith that someone who screams at every opportunity that he craves to murder all of your children will be transformed if you invite him into your bedroom. Joseph's dreams brought life to the young family of Israel; the dream of Oslo created rivers of blood and tears.

As we recall the legacy of this great man and his extraordinary achievements, it is vital to learn from his errors, even if made with the best intentions and by a man whose many positive contributions to Israel are beyond dispute.&nbsp;

Telling Time

Let me begin, on a lighter note, with this anecdote.

Two elderly Jews, who haven't seen each other in 50 years, meet, slowly recognize one another and embrace. They go back to one of their apartments to talk about the days long ago. 
The conversation continues for hours. Night falls. One asks the other, "Look at your watch. What time is it?" 
"I don't have a watch," says the second. 
"Then look at the clock." 
"I don't have a clock." 
"Then how do you tell the time?" 
"You see that trumpet in the corner?" said the man. "That's how I tell the time." 
"You're crazy," says the first. "How can you tell the time with a trumpet?" 
"I'll show you," said the other man, picking up the trumpet and blowing a deafening blast out the open window. 
Thirty seconds later, an angry neighbor shouts, "Two thirty in the morning, and you're playing the trumpet?" 
The man turns to his friend and says, "You see? That's how you tell the time with a trumpet!"

Confident Speech

There is a lovely short prayer recited many times on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. It reads like this: "And so, Lord our G-d, grant honor to Your people, glory to those who are in awe of You, good hope to those who seek You, confident speech to those who yearn for You, joy to Your land, and gladness to Your city..." 
 
What is the meaning of these words, "Confident speech to those who yearn for You"?

The Obsession

&nbsp;One of the great enigmas of history is the world's obsession with the Jewish people.&nbsp; 
 
From our very inception 3,700 years ago, and throughout our long history until this very day, the Jewish people have evoked&nbsp;passionate responses. Jews, it seems, never knew how to play "little league," staying out of the world's spotlight. We have been always playing "big league," caught up in the center of world events. Over the past four millennia, almost every great culture and civilization has been obsessed with the Jew, for better or for worse. 
 
When a guru sits and meditates on a mountaintop—who blinks an eye? When Indian shamans smoke peyote and go into a trance, who pays attention? When a monk secludes himself in a monastery, who notices? But when the world spots a Jew, even an assimilated and self-hating Jew, it experiences an allergic reaction. Suddenly everyone is sneezing. 
 
Indonesia has a population of 300 million people. How often do you hear about it? Israel has a population of seven million, yet barely a day goes by without&nbsp;front-page news from&nbsp;this little piece of land the size of New Jersey. The Muslims blame all their woes on Israel. Many Christians accuse Jews of deicide, and many extreme liberals and atheists blame the Jews for the scourge of terrorism. Nations who don't see eye to eye on anything, many of whose populations have never even met a Jew, unanimously agree that Israel is guilty of many sins. The only thing you can get the United Nations to agree on is condemning Israel. The Jew appears to be the great unifier, possessing the ability to unite the world in a profound and unique way. 
 
Why the obsession with a people who never constituted more than one percent of the world's population? Why can't the world ever forget about us? Why do we generate so much interest without intentionally wanting to do so?

History as a Progression of Sermons&nbsp;

Israel's first chief rabbi, Abraham Isaac Kook (1865-1935), was a brilliant scholar, mystic and poet. He once formulated his own daring response to this age-old question. Whether one agrees with his conclusions or not, it is an idea&nbsp;worth reflecting upon. 
 
All cultures, civilizations, and peoples, suggested Rabbi Kook, have emerged in the world arena to grant humanity&nbsp;a unique contribution: A philosophical perspective, a scientific truth,&nbsp;an artistic expression,&nbsp;a political principle, a technological development, and the like. Egypt, Assyria, Babylonia, Persia, Greece, Rome, Byzantine, and so many other cultures and states left their individual&nbsp;mark—small or large, positive or negative—on civilization. Once the people or civilization gave the world the gift of&nbsp;its genius, it left the center stage; the civilizations presented their "sermon" with pathos and then moved on to allow for the next "speaker" to emerge and deliver his subsequent message to humanity. 
 
How about the Jews? From the moment they ascended to the center stage of&nbsp;history to deliver their message to the world, they have never descended. They have not even moved&nbsp;slightly off-stage. The Jewish people remained standing in the center of every age and milieu in history. While the Greeks and Romans of old have vanished, the Jews still manage to constitute the hot topic at dinner parties and political conventions the world over. 
&nbsp; 
Why? 
 
Because, says Rabbi Kook, after 4,000 years of existence, they are still stuttering. The Jews have yet to deliver their message to the world with unwavering dignity and unambiguous clarity. We stand there, on center stage, the eyes of the world upon us on a virtually daily basis, but we speak in half sentences and apologetic undertones,&nbsp;continuously turning around to make sure we are not offending anybody. Lacking the courage to present ourselves for who we really are and what we really have to share with the world, humanity awaits with bated breath for the real Jew to stand up and speak. 
&nbsp; 
Some Jews recoil&nbsp;into religion, shunning the world and ignoring its reality. Others travel in the other direction, attempting desperately to accommodate modernity and not come across as "too Jewish."&nbsp;Yet Judaism in its purest sense is the courageous attempt to generate that&nbsp;romantic kiss between heaven and earth, to uncover the truth that the G-d of the heavens and the reality of earth are truly one. 
 
Our ambivalence often stems from our own confusion about whether we could place our wholehearted trust in our tradition, in our Torah, in our&nbsp;faith.&nbsp;Many of us feel that embracing Torah in a modern world is unsophisticated and fundamentalist. Even Jews who adhere to a lifestyle governed by Torah feel that the Torah is good for their families and communities, but that it can't stand up to the pragmatic reality on earth. Washington and the United Nations are too "goyish" for Torah. They will never accept Torah. So our leaders, rabbis, politicians, journalists, and spokesmen stand there during press conferences and stutter.

Should We Be Ashamed With Judaism?

Sometimes, hearing it from the mouths of non-Jews themselves can be helpful. 
 
Nineteenth-century American president John Adams wrote: "I will insist that the Hebrews have done more to civilize man than any other nation. If I were an atheist who believed or pretended to believe that all is ordered by chance, I should believe that chance has ordered the Jews to preserve and propagate to all mankind the doctrine of a supreme, intelligent, wise, almighty sovereign of the universe, which I believe to be the great essential principle of all morality, and consequently of all civilization." 
 
Another non-Jewish philosopher, Peter Kreeft, wrote these words: "The prophetic spirit of the Jew finds a meaning and a purpose in history, thereby transforming mankind's understanding of history. Their genius for finding meaning everywhere—for example in science and in the world of nature—can be explained in only two ways: either they were simply smarter than anyone else, or it was G-d's doing, not theirs. The notion of the chosen people is really the humblest possible interpretation of their history." 
 
The Torah is the only thing that never let us down and never gave us false hopes. The Torah predicted thousands of years ago that if we forsook our identity as a "kingdom of princes and a holy nation," we would fail miserably. The same Torah also predicted that no matter what happens to us, we will outlive all our enemies and never vanish. The Torah possesses the most enduring, powerful, and relevant truths available to humanity.

Telling the Truth

Let's come back to Shimon Peres and the State of Israel. The Arab world has been thundering for 70 years that we are thieves; we have stolen their land and built a state on Islamic soil. Yet, in our response to the Arab accusations, we are always stuttering. Our leaders talk about Balfour Declarations and United Nations resolutions; we talk about self-defense and our readiness for peace. But we have no answer to the blatant outcry of the Arab world: The "Zionist entity" was built on occupied territory.&nbsp; 
 
The Arabs present their message clearly: All of Palestine belongs to them. The entire State of Israel is one big settlement. That is why there was no peace before the 1967 war, a time of no Jewish settlements and no settlers. Gaza belonged to Egypt, the West Bank and East Jerusalem to Jordan, and the Golan Heights to Syria. Why did six Arab countries decide to invade and exterminate Israel that year? Because in their belief, all of Israel occupies Arab land. According to the Koran, Jews have no right to establish a self-governed homeland on Islamic soil. For a Muslim who believes the Koran to be the word of Allah (G-d), even if Israel conceded 95 percent of its soil to the Arabs, the remaining 5 percent would need to be snatched from them. Non-Muslims are forbidden to govern any land that once belonged to Muslims. 
 
While Israel was once held in awe, today,&nbsp;close to seven decades years after its miraculous founding, it has reached its nadir. Never before has it been so isolated, lonely, abandoned, and maligned, today becoming the world's favorite punching bag. Even in America, Israel's true friend, the intelligentsia on college campuses across the country continue to denigrate, humiliate, and harm Jews by pressuring universities to divest from Israel. Not since Hitler, not since the 1930s, have we seen such overt anti-Semitism rear its ugly head the world over. The Jew-hatred in Europe is beyond scary. 
 
It's high time we cease being on the defensive and let the world in on our big secret. The only reason Jews came from Odessa, Vilna, and Warsaw to the land of Israel is because G-d gave it to them; because the Creator of the heaven and earth chose to give his Holy Land to the children of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as stated clearly in the Torah. There are three billion people in the world who believe in the Bible, who live with the Bible, and who quote the Bible. But you will never catch any self-respecting Jew, the people who gave the world the Bible, dare even to whisper in public the obvious, simple and plain truth that our sole connection to the land of Israel is&nbsp;the Bible. 
 
History has proven scores of times that the acquiescence of Jews has never succeeded in gaining the affection of our non-Jewish neighbors. The world respects Jews who respect themselves and their tradition; the world dislikes Jews who dislike themselves and their Judaism. What we desperately need today are Jews who are not stuttering, who are saturated with the quintessential message of Judaism, that the G-d of heaven and the reality of earth are one. This is the road to peace and reconciliation between the Jewish and non-Jewish world. 
 
Paradoxically, it seems the world is waiting for this. Not only the Christian and Islamic world. Even the secular world seems to respect Jews who respect themselves and their faith. The world is waiting for Israel to treat the land the way Israel should be treated, as G-d's personal gift to the Jewish people. 
 
The world's ongoing obsession with the Jew, according to Rabbi Abraham Kook, is society's subconscious plea to the Jew to stop stuttering and share with the world what it heard at Sinai: that humanity is capable of building a world that will reflect the oneness and harmony of its Divine creator, and that each and every one of us can transform our corner of the universe into a Divine palace. 
 
"Grant confident speech to those who yearn for You," we will pray five times on Yom Kippur. Let our people who deep down believe in You and yearn for You have the confidence to share with the world the revolutionary vision of Judaism that the spiritual and the physical can be seen as one. And that&nbsp;&nbsp;G-d, Israel, and Torah are inseparable.

(Please make even a small and secure contribution to help us continue our work. <a href="https://secure.theyeshiva.net/Donate">Click here</a>.)

Israel, Stop Stuttering: After Four Millennia, the Eyes of the World Are Still On Israel.

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jewish survival

jewish pride

Israeli Leaders Had Good Intentions, But They Failed Their People

After Four Millennia, the Eyes of the World Are Still On the Holy Land

Israel Must Change Its Paradigm

Joseph Vs. Moses
"G-d became angry with me because of you, and He did not listen to me," Moses states in the beginning of this week's portion (Vaeschanan). "G-d said to me, ‘It is too much for you! Do not continue to speak to Me further about this matter.’”
Thus, G-d refuses the pleading of His faithful servant, Moses, to be allowed entry into the Promised Land. Instead G-d tells Moses: “Ascend to the top of the cliff and raise your eyes westward, northward, southward, and eastward, and see with your eyes, for you shall not cross this Jordan.<a href="javascript: void(0);" id="_edn1" onclick="ty.scrollTo('_ednref1')">[1]</a>
The Midrash, which transcribes the oral traditions passed down the generations, presents a moving dialogue between Moses and G-d:<a href="javascript: void(0);" id="_edn2" onclick="ty.scrollTo('_ednref2')">[2]</a>
Moses said to G-d, “Master of the universe, the bones of Joseph will enter the land, and I will not?!”
What he meant was this: At the conclusion of Genesis, Joseph the viceroy of Egypt, just before his death, adjured the children of Israel, that they take his bones with them when they leave Egypt. More than a century later, when the Jewish slaves embarked on their path to freedom, “Moses took the bones of Joseph with him, for he [Joseph] had firmly adjured the children of Israel saying, ‘G-d will surely remember you, and you shall bring up my bones from here with you.”<a href="javascript: void(0);" id="_edn3" onclick="ty.scrollTo('_ednref3')">[3]</a>&nbsp;
Joseph’s casket wandered with the Jews during their forty-year sojourn in the desert. When Joshua led the people into the land, Joseph’s bones were interred in the city of Shchem,<a href="javascript: void(0);" id="_edn4" onclick="ty.scrollTo('_ednref4')">[4]</a>&nbsp;known today also as Nablus. (The gravesite was burned and destroyed in October 2000, in the beginning of the second Intifada. Rabbi Hillel Lieberman, who came to protect the site, was murdered. Since then it has become forbidden for Jews to visit the site, besides for certain occasions.)
This was the irony hinted in Moses’ plea to G-d: I was the one who carried Joseph’s bones for forty-years; yet these bones that I carried all this way will enter into the Holy Land, while I will remain behind!
What perturbed Moses, according to this Midrash, was not so much that he wouldn’t be allowed to enter the Land alive. Moses could understand that his leadership was designed for the generation that left Egypt and that now it was time for his pupil Joshua to take over the reins. The brunt of Moses' hurt was that G-d would not allow even his body to be interred in the soil of the Holy Land! The remains of Joseph, who died 180 years earlier, can enter the land, while the body of Moses, who led the Jews all the way till the border, cannot enter?
G-d’s response is nothing less than astounding. It goes like this:
He who acknowledged his land, will be buried in the land; he who did not acknowledge his land, will not be buried in the land. Joseph acknowledged the land; Moses did not.
The Midrash quotes two episodes demonstrating Joseph’s loyalty to the land.
The First Episode
At the age of seventeen, Joseph was living with his father Jacob in Hebron. The young handsome lad was kidnapped by his brothers and sold into Egyptian slavery. There he acquired the trust of his master, Potiphar, who put him in charge of the home, while his wife was unsuccessfully attempting to seduce Joseph into immoral behavior.
One day when nobody was home, the woman held on to Joseph, demanding that he betray his morality. Joseph fled the home leaving his cloak in her hand. She seized the opportunity and cried out: “Look! He [my husband] brought us a Hebrew man to sport with us; he came to lie with me but I screamed out loudly! When he heard that I raised my voice and screamed, he left his garment beside me, fled and went outside!”<a href="javascript: void(0);" id="_edn5" onclick="ty.scrollTo('_ednref5')">[5]</a>&nbsp;
For this, Joseph was sentenced to prison. For twelve years he remained incarcerated in an Egyptian dungeon, until he was finally liberated to interpret a mysterious dream of the Egyptian emperor, Pharaoh, following which he rose to become the viceroy of the country.
How did Potiphar’s wife describe Joseph? As a “Hebrew man” (“Look, he brought us a Hebrew man to sport with us.”) This was a most obvious and conspicuous characteristic of Joseph's. Clearly, he never disguised his origin; everybody was aware that he was member of the Hebrew tribe, coming from the Land of Israel.
The Second Episode
The second episode occurs ten years later, while in the Egyptian dungeon. There, Joseph interprets the enigmatic dreams of two of Pharaoh’s assistants, his baker and his butler. The baker, Joseph predicts, will be executed; the butler will be set free and restored to his previous post in the palace.
Joseph asks of the butler: “If only you can do me a favor, and mention me to Pharaoh, and get me out of this place, for indeed I was kidnapped from the land of the Hebrews, and even here I have done nothing to them to put me in the dungeon.”<a href="javascript: void(0);" id="_edn6" onclick="ty.scrollTo('_ednref6')">[6]</a>
Here again Joseph proclaims his connection to the Holy Land. “I was kidnapped from the land of the Hebrews.”
Indeed, when the butler does present Joseph’s case to Pharaoh, two years later, that is exactly how he describes Joseph: “There [in the dungeon] with us was a Hebrew youth, a slave….<a href="javascript: void(0);" id="_edn7" onclick="ty.scrollTo('_ednref7')">[7]</a> The first characteristic by which he defines Joseph is his being “a Hebrew youth.”
Why Risk Your Freedom?
In Egyptian society, to be a Hebrew was a badge of shame.<a href="javascript: void(0);" id="_edn8" onclick="ty.scrollTo('_ednref8')">[8]</a> That may be the reason why Potiphar’s wife when seeking to gain credibility for her version of the story that Joseph attempted to violate her, defined him first and foremost as a “Hebrew man.” She knew that this would help her case. When people will hear that he is a Jew, they will believe all the ill behavior attributed to him. The Jew is capable of all…
And Joseph made it known that he was a Hebrew, a resident of Israel. Disguising it would perhaps allow him to integrate into Egyptian society, but that would mean lying to himself and to the world. What type of life is that?
Years later, while suffering in prison, attempting to seek the Egyptian ruler’s grace to set him free of his misery, it would have been even more logical for him to underplay his true identity. Why did he tell the butler, “I was kidnapped from the land of the Hebrews” and put his entire freedom at risk?&nbsp;&nbsp;
Furthermore, how can Joseph define the land as “The land of the Hebrews”? At the time, the land was home to 31 kingdoms, consisting of large and powerful tribes, while the Hebrews were comprised of fewer than 70 members,<a href="javascript: void(0);" id="_edn9" onclick="ty.scrollTo('_ednref9')">[9]</a> and lived in part of one city, Hebron?
An Organic Connection
What is the connection between the Jewish people and the Holy Land, both in the past and in the present? Is it merely a national one: Jews reside in Israel they are citizens of the country, so they are naturally connected to it. No! For the last 2000 years, Jews have been exiled and dispersed all over the globe, yet they still spoke of Eretz Israel as their home; they cried for it as their spiritual epicenter. It was the core of their longings, dreams, and aspirations.<a href="javascript: void(0);" id="_edn10" onclick="ty.scrollTo('_ednref10')">[10]</a>]&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
For 2000 years, Jews have prayed three times a day in the direction of Israel; they have beseeched G-d to return them to their homeland; they have concluded every Seder and Yom Kippur service with the declaration, “Next year in Jerusalem!” they have fasted each year, without fail, on the day their exile from Israel began.
Why? If it were merely a nationalistic obsession, it should have diminished with the two millennia of living elsewhere.
The answer to this enigma has been articulated in countless works of Jewish philosophy and mysticism:<a href="javascript: void(0);" id="_edn11" onclick="ty.scrollTo('_ednref11')">[11]</a> Each and every Jew—secular and observant alike—is organically linked to the land of Israel. Israel for the Jew is not merely a nationality; it is the home of the Jewish inner consciousness: The Jewish soul is rooted in the energy vibrating in the atmosphere of Eretz Israel.
The 10th century Jew thriving on the Rhine, the 16th century Jew walking the streets of Krakow, the 20th century Jew struggling in communist Moscow, and the Jew of 21st century sipping coffee in a Soho Starbucks—each of them was and is aware, on a conscious or subconscious level, that his or her soul is inherently interconnected with Eretz Israel. He may have never visited the physical territory, but it is still home. How? Because his or her soul originated there, and was merely grafted to the Diaspora, in order to imbue it with the sanctity of Eretz Israel.
Joseph was a slave, then a prisoner. He was living in Egypt and was powerless to change that. Ultimately he would become the prime minister of the country. But that was only his body; his soul was still living in Eretz Israel. Thus he was never ashamed to remain loyal to himself and declare the truth: I am residing in Egypt, but a part of me has never left the Holy Land. I may one day come to love Egypt, but Eretz Yisroel will always remain my home. Because it is home.&nbsp;&nbsp;
One with the Land
Now let us shift our attention to Moses.
Following his escape from Pharaoh’s sword, Moses spent time at the well of Midyan. There, the Jewish boy who grew up in the Egyptian palace rescued Jethro's seven daughters from the shepherds who were harassing them, and he gave water to their sheep. When the daughters came home and their father asked them how they managed to make it home so quickly, they replied, “An Egyptian man saved us from the shepherds and he even draw water for us and for the sheep.”<a href="javascript: void(0);" id="_edn12" onclick="ty.scrollTo('_ednref12')">[12]</a>
“An Egyptian man” was the way they described Moses. In other words, Moses allowed them to get the impression that he was Egyptian. Moses did not necessarily tell them he was an Egyptian; he merely didn’t protest their impression of him as such.&nbsp;&nbsp;
Joseph, concludes the Midrash, embraced his land, hence he was interred there; Moses did not, hence he remained outside of it.
This was not a punishment. Moses, we can be sure, had good reason for his behavior. (Moses stood up to the superpower of his time, so he clearly suffered not of Jewish self-hate, nor was he fearful of sounding “too Jewish.” The reason he behaved so is beyond the scope of this present essay). Nevertheless, to be worthy of the Land of Israel, you need to be one with it.
The Modern Crisis
In recent years, some of our brothers have lost touch with this innate sense etched in the hearts of our people for four millennia. We began to question our right to that small territory in the Middle East, surrounded by hundreds of millions of Muslims. The Balfour declaration of 1917 and the UN resolution of 1947 became for many the sole basis for our right to establish the State of Israel.
Israel’s neighbors, acutely aware of this change of heart in Israeli modern culture, seized this weakening of the Jewish connection to Israel in order to build their armies with the objective of defeating the country. Instead of giving the terrorists a full blow the moment terror reared its ugly head, Israel was consumed by self-doubt as to its own legitimacy in conquering “Arab land”. Israel had a strong army, but it lost much of the spirit giving the Israeli military a soul and a passion.
Now Israel was horrifically awakened from more than a decade of illusions. The dream that concessions, a withdrawal from the 1967 occupied territories, the creation of a Palestinian state with its capital in East Jerusalem will create a climate for peace, has tragically turned into a nightmare. We hoped the Israeli left would have been proven right, but that was not the case. The country that was relatively safe in the mid-80’s, has, following the Oslo Peace accords, become a bloodbath. Thousands of innocent Jews and Arabs lost their lives in the process.
At this defining moment, we must reclaim our inner sense of unity and purpose, embedded in the depth of every Jewish heart. The Land of Israel is really the land of the Jewish people. It is not about occupation; it is about reality: The Jewish soul is linked with a million chords to the territory of Eretz Yisroel; it is an inherent connection, coded into the very DNA of the universe.
Over the past 4000 years the Torah never let us down. Not once. We can trust it on this truth, too: The land is G-d’s gift to the Jewish people.&nbsp;&nbsp;
Joseph was a man of the world. He walked the corridors of the United Nations and the State Department. He was a loyal and faithful citizen of Egypt, contributing immensely to its economic growth and rescuing it from famine. But he never hesitated to say the truth: that Israel was the eternal home of the Jewish people, given to them as a gift from the Creator of heaven and earth.
Today we all need to be Josephs.
(Please make even a small and secure contribution to help us continue our work.&nbsp;<a href="https://secure.theyeshiva.net/Donate">Click here</a>.)&nbsp;
&nbsp;
<a href="javascript: void(0);" id="_ednref1" onclick="ty.scrollTo('_edn1')">[1]</a> Deuteronomy 3:26-27.
<a href="javascript: void(0);" id="_ednref2" onclick="ty.scrollTo('_edn2')">[2]</a> Midrash Rabah Devarim 2:8.
<a href="javascript: void(0);" id="_ednref3" onclick="ty.scrollTo('_edn3')">[3]</a> Exodus 13:19.
<a href="javascript: void(0);" id="_ednref4" onclick="ty.scrollTo('_edn4')">[4]</a> Joshua 24:32.
<a href="javascript: void(0);" id="_ednref5" onclick="ty.scrollTo('_edn5')">[5]</a> Genesis 39:13
<a href="javascript: void(0);" id="_ednref6" onclick="ty.scrollTo('_edn6')">[6]</a> Ibid. 40:14
<a href="javascript: void(0);" id="_ednref7" onclick="ty.scrollTo('_edn7')">[7]</a> Ibid. 41:12.
<a href="javascript: void(0);" id="_ednref8" onclick="ty.scrollTo('_edn8')">[8]</a> Genesis 43:32.
<a href="javascript: void(0);" id="_ednref9" onclick="ty.scrollTo('_edn9')">[9]</a> Ibid. 46:27
<a href="javascript: void(0);" id="_ednref10" onclick="ty.scrollTo('_edn10')">[10]</a> See, for example, the extraordinarily dramatic poem by Rabbi Yehudah Halevi (12th century Spain), “Zion will you not seek the welfare of your prisoners?”
<a href="javascript: void(0);" id="_ednref11" onclick="ty.scrollTo('_edn11')">[11]</a> See, for example, Likkutei Torah Parshas Massei. Sefas Emes Parshas Balak.
<a href="javascript: void(0);" id="_ednref12" onclick="ty.scrollTo('_edn12')">[12]</a>Exodus 2:19.

Ashamed To Defend Their Home - Why Moses was Denied Entry into the Holy Land

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yosef

moshe

moshe not entering holy land

Why Moses was Denied Entry into the Holy Land

Ashamed To Defend Their Home

The Truth About Israel - Why Are We Afraid to Speak the Real Truth?

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22_ac_yisro_to_5771.pdf

devarim

stolen land

terror

Why Are We Afraid to Speak Truth?

Essay Parshas Devarim

The Arab-Israeli Conflict Is Not Territorial

When faced with a gruesome enemy, there are two approaches: Retreat in fear, or go on the offensive.
But what if the enemy will pursue you wherever you are, so that retreat is ineffective? The only option then, it would seem, would be to take on your enemy and crush it; you’ve got no choice.
However, what if that goes against your entire way of thinking? If it runs contrary to everything you told yourself about the world around you? Then there is only one option left—and it is the most dangerous of all: deny the reality of the enemy; make believe he does not exist.
Two centuries ago, the French tyrant Napoleon Bonaparte was master of Europe. In Spain, an embattled English army under the Duke of Wellington was resisting his advance. One day a young lieutenant came into the British general's tent clutching a map in his trembling hands:
"Look, General the enemy is almost upon us!"
"Young man," the general replied coolly, "Get larger maps, the enemy won't seem so close."
This sums up the current mind set of many of our leaders.
Dismissing Reality
After the Islamic State began releasing videos of American citizens being beheaded, White House senior adviser Valerie Jarrett reportedly told President Barack Obama that Americans were worried that they would soon bring this violence here to the United States. Obama was unfazed.
“They’re not coming here to chop our heads off,”&nbsp;the president promised.
In his&nbsp;2016 State of the Union address, Obama blithely dismissed the Islamic State as “fighters on the back of pickup trucks” who he said “do not threaten our national existence.”
As Marc A. Thiessen explained in a recent Washington Post column, Obama has openly&nbsp;declared&nbsp;that climate change is a much higher priority for him than terrorism because “ISIS is not an existential threat to the United States. Climate change is a potential existential threat to the entire world if we don’t do something about it.” Indeed, According to the Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg, who spent hours interviewing Obama about his foreign policy doctrine, the President “gets frustrated that terrorism keeps swamping his larger agenda” and “his advisers are fighting a constant rearguard action to keep Obama from placing terrorism in what he considers its ‘proper’ perspective, out of concern that he will seem insensitive to the fears of the American people.”
The “proper” perspective. No wonder, Mr. Thiessen points out, the president keeps getting the terrorist threat wrong. No wonder, just before the Islamic State took over large swaths of Iraq,&nbsp;Obama said&nbsp;stopping them was not “something that we have to wade into” because they did not pose “a direct threat to us.” No wonder, the day before the Islamic State carried out its massacre Paris, Obama boasted “we have contained them.” No wonder, the day before the San Bernardino, Calif., massacre, Obama assured Americans they were safe from a Paris-style attack, declaring “The American people should feel confident that, you know, we are going to be able to defend ourselves and make sure that, you know, we have a good holiday and go about our lives.”
Well, on June 12, 2016, 49 Americans in Orlando were busy going about their lives when an Islamic State terrorist murdered them in cold blood. Almost the same numbers of travelers in Turkey were going about their lives this past Tuesday, June 28, 2016, as they were blown to pieces.
The Cancer
Responding to criticism of President Obama’s handling of terrorism, White House press secretary Josh Earnest boasted recently of all the setbacks the Islamic State has experienced in recent months, noting that in Iraq “45 percent of the populated area that ISIL previously controlled has been retaken from them. In Syria, that figure is now 20 percent.”
That’s like a patient who ignored a cancer diagnosis bragging that he finally reduced the tumor in his lung — glossing over the fact that he let it spread and metastasize to his other organs. If he had attacked the Islamic State cancer early, Obama could have stopped it from spreading in the first place. But instead, he&nbsp;dismissed the terrorist group as the “JV team” that was “engaged in various local power struggles and disputes” and did not have “the capacity and reach of a bin Laden” and did not pose “a direct threat to us.” He did nothing, while the cancer grew in Syria and then spread in Iraq. Our leaders did nothing as thousands were slain in the most barbaric ways, as genocide and ethnic cleansing became a fun sport, as thousands of girls were sold as sex slaves.
Now the cancer has spread. Its goal is to sow destruction and death everywhere, from Sydney to Orlando.
According to a recent CNN&nbsp;analysis, since declaring its caliphate in 2014, the Islamic State has carried out more than 90 attacks in 21 countries outside of Iraq and Syria that have killed 1,390 people and injured more than 2,000 others. The Islamic State has a presence in more than a dozen countries and has declared “provinces” in Algeria, Libya, Egypt, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Pakistan and Afghanistan. The Washington Post reported in 2015 that “since the withdrawal of most U.S. and international troops in December, the Islamic State has steadily made inroads in Afghanistan” where it has “poured pepper into the wounds of their enemies . . . seared their hands in vats of boiling oil . . . blindfolded, tortured and blown apart [villagers] with explosives buried underneath them.”
Gun Control Debate
Astoundingly, in the aftermath of the Orlando blood bath, our President and many leaders went back to call for gun control.
Sure, anyone with a questionable background and possible link to terror groups and a Jihadist inclination should never be allowed to purchase a weapon. That is common sense. That law should be implemented immediately. But to see the core of the issue as gun control would be akin to saying that the key solution to defeating Nazi Germany in 1945 was to avoid selling guns in Europe to anyone who wanted to own them.
There are 1.6 billion Muslims in the world. FYI, Mohammed is the most popular name for a child today on our planet. If we are to assume that the large majority of them are peaceful citizens, and only a very small fraction, say five percent of Muslims, believe in Jihad, we have on earth today 80 million (!) people who are ready to do what the Jihadist in Orlando did!
That is 80 million who are ready to die so that all “infidels” die!
And even if you are a staunch optimist and claim that only one percent of Muslims embrace Jihad, that is an awful 16 million—more than the entire Jewish nation.
And what if the number is higher than five percent?
Does nobody get this?
“Radical Islam”
Tuesday, June 14, 2016, President Obama, explaining why he doesn’t use the phrase “radical Islam,” asked the question, “What exactly would using this label accomplish? What exactly would it change?”&nbsp;
The question itself indicates the mess we are in. As Ed Rogers put it in a recent essay, the difference is that calling these terrorists what they are — radical Islamists — would be reassuring to those Americans who have doubts about Obama’s proficiency as commander in chief. After all, he is the one who used the term “jayvee team” to describe the Islamic State. He is the one who declared Iraq “sovereign, stable and self-reliant.” He is the one who took six years to declare the Ft. Hood shooting a terrorist attack and not an incident of “workplace violence.”
Using the phrase “radical Islam” isn’t about trying to make the Islamic State “less committed to trying to kill Americans.” Mr. President, it is not about the Islamic State, it’s about you. Your specific refusal to use the term rattles Americans and increases doubts about your grasp of the threat that the Islamic State presents. &nbsp;
Some people like to boast that our Nobel Peace Prize-winning president ended two wars. The fact is, this president has neither won nor ended any wars. At the end of his eight years in office, the United States will be facing more grinding conflicts than existed when he won the presidency.
When it came to terrorist networks, the George W. Bush administration had a mantra: We’re going to fight them over there so that we do not have to face them here at home. Obama abandoned that mantra. And now the danger is getting closer to home with each passing day.
The enemy is ruthless and cruel—a throwback to the 7th century. The greatest crisis today is not ISIS; it is a lack of leadership to confront it, or even demonstrate that it understands what we are dealing with.
At such times, what the world needs is resolute and confident leadership. We need leaders who can name the enemy, who can articulate the evil facing us, and then go ahead to vanquish it. Sadly, we got neither.
Imagine if in 1945, Roosevelt and Churchill would declare that the most serious issue facing humanity was global warming. We would deem them insane. Well, today, we have young Islamists blowing themselves up around the world every week, killing and maiming thousands upon thousands of innocents; we have ISIS operatives everywhere, and our leaders are out for lunch. Do they really not realize the depth of cruelty, barbarity, and hatred we are facing?
It baffles me why is it that as ISIS paraded down public highways in Iraq, with thousands of fighters cheering and dancing we did not bomb them and finish them off? Why did we allow--and we still allow--this most vicious cancer to enjoy the time and freedom to grow and spread around the world? &nbsp;&nbsp;
The Spies
In this week’s Torah portion, ten of the spies whom Moses had sent to spy out the land came back with a report calculated to demoralize the nation.
“We came to the land to which you sent us. It flows with milk and honey, and this is its fruit. However, the people who dwell in the land are strong, and the cities are fortified and very large ... We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we are ... The land, through which we have gone to spy it out, is a land that devours its inhabitants, and all the people that we saw in it are of great height ... We seemed to ourselves like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them.” (Numbers 13: 27-33)
How could they say such nonsense? They had left Egypt, the greatest empire of the ancient world, after a series of plagues that brought that great country to its knees. They crossed the sea that split. They stood at Sinai. They ate the manna.
But they were struck by fear—and this is the nature of fear. When you are afraid of something, it often becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Those who say, “We cannot do it” are probably right, as are those who say, “We can.” If you lack confidence you will lose. If you have it – solid, justified confidence based on preparation and past performance – you will win.
In every generation, we need the leaders who will fearlessly define the enemy, and then fearlessly advance to defeat it.

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Our Greatest Crisis Is Not ISIS, But Our Denial of It

ISIS, Obama and the Spies

The Lie

The joker in town approached a little wise Jewish boy, Hersheleh, and says: I will give you a ruble if you tell me a lie right here on the spot!

To which Hersheleh responds: You said you would give me two!

High Five

In this week’s portion, the Torah describes the ceremony by which the Levites were formally consecrated for service in the Sanctuary. G-d describes the selection process as follows:

יט. וָאֶתְּנָה אֶת הַלְוִיִּם נְתֻנִים לְאַהֲרֹן וּלְבָנָיו מִתּוֹךְ בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל לַעֲבֹד אֶת עֲבֹדַת בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל בְּאֹהֶל מוֹעֵד וּלְכַפֵּר עַל בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל וְלֹא יִהְיֶה בִּבְנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל נֶגֶף בְּגֶשֶׁת בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל אֶל הַקֹּדֶשׁ:

I have given the Levites as a gift to Aaron and his sons from among the children of Israel, to perform the service for the children of Israel in the Tent of Meeting, and to atone on behalf of the children of Israel, so that the children of Israel will not be inflicted with plague, when the children of Israel approach the Sanctuary.

Do you notice what is peculiar and awkward about this verse? In one paragraph, defying all laws of syntax, grammar, diction, and proper writing, the Torah employs the term “Children of Israel” FIVE times. Instead of using the term once, and then writing “they,” it repeats this title five times.

Rashi presents a lovely interpretation, one that has inspired our people for centuries:

ואתנה וגו': חמשה פעמים נאמר בני ישראל במקרא זה, להודיע חבתן שנכפלו אזכרותיהן במקרא אחד כמנין חמשה חומשי תורה, וכך ראיתי בבראשית רבה:

“The children of Israel” is mentioned five times in this verse, thus declaring the affection [G-d has] for them, for their mention is repeated in one verse as many times as the five books of the Torah.”

The use of the phrase “high five”—the high five is a celebratory hand gesture that occurs when two people simultaneously raise one hand, about head high, and push, slide or slap the flat of their palm&nbsp;against the palm&nbsp;of their partner—as a noun has been part of the Oxford English Dictionary since 1980 and as a verb since 1981. Yet even “high five” originates in Torah. Where? Right here in this verse, the Torah gives a “high five” to the Children of Israel, repeating their name five times in one verse, comparing them to the five books of Moses.

But there are two questions: 1) Why suddenly here? Why in the middle of the book of Numbers, while discussing the service of the Levites in the Sanctuary, does G-d “remind” us that he loves His people? 2) The significance of mentioning them five times, Rashi explains, is to compare them to the five books of the Torah. But of what significance is it that G-d repeats the term "Benei Yisrael" the same number of times as the number of the Torah books? What is the message being conveyed behind this particular praise?

Love of Truth

The Chidushei HaRim (Rabbi Yitzchak Meir Altar of Gur) presents a beautiful answer:

Let us take a closer look at what is happening at this point in Israel’s history. One group of people, the tribe is Levi, has been singled out for a unique vocation: to perform the Divine service in the sanctuary. Now, this position belonged previously to the first born of each family (the “bechorim”), as discussed at length in the portion of Bamidbar. Now it was taken from them and given to the Levites. After the sin of the Golden Calf, with the only tribe abstaining and fighting for the truth was Levi, the spiritual service was taken from the first born and given to the Levits.

The Gift of Leadership

Now, the Talmud makes an incredible observation:

מנחות קט, ב: תניא אמר ר' יהושע בן פרחיה בתחלה כל האומר עלה לה אני כופתו ונותנו לפני הארי עתה כל האומר לי לירד ממנה אני מטיל עליו קומקום של חמין שהרי שאול ברח ממנה וכשעלה בקש להרוג את דוד.&nbsp;

Rabbi Yehoshua ben Perachya said, "In the beginning, had someone told me go assume a position of leadership, I would have bound and set him in front of a lion. Now that I achieved a high position, anyone who would tell me to give it up and descend from it, I would pour a pitcher of hot water over him.

Consider the story of King Saul: First he fled from the position of royalty. But one he became king, he wishes to kill David out of fear that he will usurp his position.

This is a vital insight.&nbsp;Leadership illicits a deep chord in the human psyche; it triggers a “note” which the mystics called “Malchus,” royalty. A certain fuse of the human soul is ignited you when you are elevated to a position of leadership. Leaving that behind is painful.

And this is exactly what happened in this story: The Bechurim, the oldest members of each Jewish family, were in a position of spiritual leadership. Now, they were instructed to give it all up, transferring the mantle to the Levites.

No Mutiny

And yet, astoundingly, we find no mutiny, rebellion, not even a protest, or outcry. For a nation that did not stop bickering and protesting, for a nation that would produce a Korach who would protest the positions of Moses and Aaron, it is fascinating that the first born accepted this transfer with grace and peace of mind, and the entire people of Israel embraced it with serenity.

Why not? The answer consists of one word: Truth.

The first born, and the Jews at large, realized the truth: The position belongs to the Levites, and it would be best performed by them. What mattered was not personal agendas, but truth. The Levites as a tribe professed a level of loyalty, dedication and commitment, and the courage to stand up for truth, and hence would do the job best.

It is this quality that G-d is praising, by mentioning the Jewish people five times in one verse, comparing them to the five books of the Torah. What is the core uniqueness of Torah? The answer is one words: Truth. “Asher nasan lanu Toras Emes,” we recite in the blessing after the reading of the Torah. “He gave us a Torah of Truth.” The key ingredient of Torah is Truth. It is interested in nothing else but truth. It speaks the truth, it demands the truth, it asks of us to live up to truth.

Its truth—like all truth—is sometimes harsh. Torah spares no one. Even its own writer and greatest hero, Moses, is not spared by Torah. Adam, Abraham, Moses, and King David—everyone is depicted in Torah with full truth. Their heroism and shortcoming (of course relative to their sublime and lofty spiritual level), their positive actions and their errors (again relative to their level), are all portrayed in Torah unflinchingly. The Torah will not bend truth for the sake of making people feel good. It will show empathy but never deceive you into thinking you are doing the right thing when you are destroying yourself. &nbsp;

And it is this truth that Torah demands of its students. One of the most inspiring components in Talmud study is noticing the intellectual integrity of the Talmudic sages. What matters in every discussion in the entire Talmud is one thing and one thing only: the truth. Sages may have maintained a position for decades, yet when they discovered their error, they retract their position, because it is against the truth.

Retract

The Talmud relates this story:

פסחים כב: שמעון העמסוני, ואמרי לה נחמיה העמסוני, היה דורש כל אתין שבתורה, כיון שהגיע ל"את ה' אלהיך תירא" פירש. אמרו לו תלמידיו: רבי, כל אתין שדרשת מה תהא עליהם? אמר להם: כשם שקבלתי שכר על הדרישה, כך קבלתי על הפרישה. עד שבא רבי עקיבא ולימד: את ה' אלהיך תירא—לרבות תלמידי חכמים.

Shimon the Imsonite—others state, Nechemiah the Imsonite—used to interpret every 'eth' in the Torah, but when he came to the verse You shall fear [eth] the Lord your G-d, he retracted. His disciples said to him: "Master, what is to become of all the ethin you have interpreted?" He replied, "Just as I received reward for the exposition, so I will receive reward for the retraction." When Rabbi Akiva, however, came, he taught: “You shall fear eth the Lord your G-d” implies that the scholarly disciples are also to be feared. &nbsp;

Shimon the Amsonite said these words to his probably stunned disciples who just observed a life-long search go up in flames: “Just as I received reward for the exposition, so I will receive reward for the retraction." How majestic a response! I I am not here to make a name for myself; I am here to search for truth. And if the truth proves me wrong, I am happy to communicate this as well. If the truth wins, I have won. I have been rewarded. To be defeated by truth is the only defeat that spells a victory.

Reb Chaim’s Lecture

A story:

Rabbi Yosef Dov Soloveitchik (1903-1993) related an incident involving his grandfather, the famous Rabbi Chaim Soloveitchik, known as Reb Chaim Brisker (1853-1918). When Reb Chaim Solovteichik started saying Torah discourses in the famed Lithuanian Volozhin Yeshiva, some young, brilliant but arrogant students complained that Reb Chaim was unworthy of teaching in that Yeshiva. Who is this Reb Chaim anyway? They believed that he only received the position because he married the granddaughter of the Rosh Yeshiva, Rabbi Naftali Tzvi Yehudah Berln, known as the Netziv.

The resolution of this "complaint" was that the yeshiva brought in three great Torah scholars to rule whether Rabbi Chaim was worthy to give lectures in Volozhin. (One of these great men was Rabbi Yitzchak Elchanan Spektor, the famed Rabbi of the Lithuanian city of Kovne).

The students, some of them great minds, prepared for intellectual “war.” They prepared themselves well on the subject he would discuss. They were determined to “bring him down.”

Reb Chaim began a shiur on the subject of Aylonis (an adult woman without the signs of maturity in terms of her haclchik status) in the Talmudic Tractate Yevomos and was in the middle of reconciling a difficult passage of Rambam in his Mishna Torah (Maimonides in his code of law.)

In middle of the presentation, Reb Chaim remembered something. He recalled a statement from the Rambam's commentary to the Mishnah, in which the Rambam seemingly advanced a position that was inconsistent with the whole approach that Reb Chaim was trying to develop.

In front of the three sages, present to determine if he was fit for the prestigious job, Reb Chaim gave a bang on his lectern and said, "The shiur that I had prepared is false. My hypothesis was wrong, the Rambam says otherwise in his Mishnah Commentary." He left the lectern.

Some of the students attempted to show that his hypothesis was not wrong; that the contradiction can be reconciled. But Reb Chaim said: All your ideas are sharp answers, but not true answers. I have made a mistake. My lecture was built on a mistaken premise.

Reb Chaim sat down.

His enemies were thrilled. He was defeated. He admitted his own ineptness. Yet to their shock the three great rabbis concluded, "He is worthy to be a Rosh Yeshiva in Volozhin." Any person who cares about the truth so much that he is willing to suffer the embarrassment of having to admit his own mistake for the sake of truth, is definitely worthy to be a Rosh Yeshiva in Volozhin.

To be a Torah personality, to be a Torah Jew, does not mean to be perfect. It means first and foremost to be a man of truth. To never ever lie. Not to others and not to yourself. It means to demand of yourself the highest and deepest levels of integrity, to be committed to the complete “emes,” truth, and to nothing but the truth.

In the words of the Tzemach Tzedek, the third Lubavitcher Rebbe, in his book “Sefer Hachakirah,” a work on Jewish philosophy:

אהוב את אריסטו, אהוב את סיקריטוס, אהוב את אפלטון, אבל אהוב את האמת יותר מכולם.

“Love Aristotle, Love Socrates, Love Plato. But love the truth more than all of them.”

The Quality of Truth

This is the quality of the Jewish people conveyed in this verse. Truth is the most valuable commodity in life. Because it is reality; it is real. When the Jewish people realized the seed was not growing, the firstborn can’t do the job, instead of lying to themselves and to others and saying, “let’s maintain the façade,” they exposed the barren seed, and declared: Time to move on; time to bring in the Levites. It is this quality that conferred upon our people the number of the five books of the Torah—the Torah of truth.

It is true in each of our lives: Only when you become completely honest with your own condition and reality, confessing that your seed has grown nothing, can you truly make something of yourself and become a genuine source of leadership and inspiration to yourself and others.

Today’s Libels

What happened to this obsession with truth in the political leadership and in the media today? The entire purpose of media is to tell the true story. Yet we painfully wonder what happened with the search for truth concerning Jihad, Israel, morality, abortion, transgender, Trump, and issues concerning the future of civilization?

We are witnessing a culture in which even media outlets are often ready to eclipse or partially ignore aspects of truth for all types of considerations, chief among them is a lack of respect for truth.

The value of truth is no more—unless each and every one of us will stand up for truth. It begins in our own lives, and it continues to influence communities around us.

1 Rashi concludes: I saw this in Genesis Rabbah [3:5]. Note that this is not found in Gen. Rabbah, but in Leviticus Rabbah 2:4. 
2 See Talmud Bava Kama 92, as explained at length in Sichas Shabbos Eikev 5748. 
3 There may be another hint in the comparison to the five books of the Chumash: Although the Torah divides into five sections, it nevertheless constitutes one, single entity. There is one Torah, not five. Similarly, although the Levits had a unique position, the Jews understood that we are still one. We all together form a single, indivisible nation. The nation is one, and no faction may consider itself inherently superior to any other, even though each one serves G-d in its own unique way. 
Ironically, this very same principle prompted the disastrous rebellion led by Korach, as we will read in two weeks. Korach and his followers argued that "the entire nation - they are all sacred," and thus challenged the authority of Moshe and Aaron. The rebels failed to realize that equality does not negate the need for authority. Rather, it means that regardless of where one stands on the hierarchy, he ultimately possesses the same, inherent value as everyone else above and below. It means that both the leaders and their constituents share equal responsibility and must view themselves as equally important in the formation and functioning of society.

&nbsp;

The Torah describes the ceremony by which the Levites were formally consecrated for service in the Sanctuary. G-d describes the selection process as follows: &ldquo;I have given the Levites as a gift to Aaron and his sons from among the children of Israel, to perform the service for the children of Israel in the Tent of Meeting and to atone on behalf of the children of Israel, so that the children of Israel will not be inflicted with plague when the children of Israel approach the Sanctuary.&rdquo;

Do you notice what is peculiar and awkward about this verse? In one paragraph, defying all laws of proper writing, the Torah employs the term &ldquo;Children of Israel&rdquo; FIVE times. Instead of using the term once, and then writing &ldquo;they,&rdquo; it repeats this title five times.

Rashi presents a lovely interpretation, one that has inspired our people for centuries: &nbsp;&ldquo;The children of Israel&rdquo; is mentioned five times in this verse, thus declaring the affection [G-d has] for them, for their mention is repeated in one verse as many times as the five books of the Torah.&rdquo; 

But there are two questions: 1) Why suddenly here? Why in the middle of the book of Numbers, while discussing the service of the Levites in the Sanctuary, does G-d &ldquo;remind&rdquo; us that he loves His people? 2) The significance of mentioning them five times, Rashi explains, is to compare them to the five books of the Torah. But of what significance is it that G-d repeats the term &quot;Benei Yisrael&quot; the same number of times as the number of the Torah books? What is the message being conveyed behind this particular praise?

The answer lies in one word: Truth.

&nbsp;

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What Is the Value of Truth in Today’s World?

Essay Behaaloscha

Give Me Truth

Moses' Profile

As terror continues to threaten&nbsp;our brothers and sisters in Israel, let us turn to the greatest leader of the Jewish people, Moses, for a genuine road map toward peace and liberation.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 

The Hebrew Bible shares only three incidents about Moses' life prior to G-d choosing him as a leader and prophet (Exodus Chapter 2, this week's portion): 
 
1) As a young man, Moses goes out among his brethren and sees an Egyptian overseer brutally beating a Hebrew. He strikes down the oppressor, burying him in the sand.&nbsp; 
 
2) The next day, Moses attempts to bring peace between two Hebrews who are fighting, but the aggressor is indignant and says, "Who appointed you as a prince and leader over us? Do you mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?" Realizing that his intervention the previous day had already become known, Moses escapes from Egypt and finds refuge in Midian.&nbsp; 
 
3) In Midian, Moses probably wants nothing more than peace and tranquility. Instead, he finds himself embroiled in yet another conflict. He witnesses the local shepherds bullying a group of girls who were first in line to draw water from a well. He immediately rises to their defense, driving off the offending shepherds. 
 
These are the only episodes we know about Moses (besides the circumstances of his birth) prior to his selection by G-d as a leader, because they express a paradigm indispensable to leadership: A leader must have the courage to battle injustice wherever it exists. In all three instances, Moses is deeply committed to fighting injustice. He intervenes when a non-Jew oppresses a Jew, when two Jews fight, and when non-Jewish men oppress non-Jewish women. When it is necessary to kill, he is willing to kill. When it is sufficient to talk he is ready to talk; when it is necessary to fight, he is prepared to fight. One who rejects the choice of aggression out of a sense of compassion may be a kind human being but a wholly inadequate leader, because the long-term results of a failure to battle evil are far worse. 

Politically Incorrect

In modern terms, Moses is politically incorrect. He does not lecture the Egyptian taskmaster about "the cycle of violence" or give him a lesson on "rage management." Moses knows that by the time he will complete his lecture the Hebrew slave might be dead. Moses is aware that at times, violence is a moral, though difficult, choice. It saves the lives of the innocent. 
 
Prohibiting moral killing, guarantees immoral killing. It is violence used by police that stops violent criminals from murdering and hurting innocent people. There are many innocent men and women alive today solely because someone used violence to save their lives. If someone had killed the hijackers of 9/11 before they commandeered the planes, thousands of lives would have been saved. If Someone killed the Hamas terrorists before October 7th 2023, thousands would be saved.

Gandhi's Advice

Throughout history, many chose not to emulate Moses' example. During the Second World War, for example, when it appeared that Nazi Germany will attempt to capture England, Mahatma Gandhi offered the British the following advice: 
 
"I would like you to lay down the arms you have which are useless for saving you or humanity. You will invite Herr Hitler and Signor Mussolini to take what they want of the countries you call your possessions. Let them take possession... If these gentlemen choose to occupy your homes, you will vacate them. If they do not give you free passage out, you will allow yourself, man, woman and child, to be slaughtered, but you will refuse to owe allegiance to them." 
 
To the Jews of Germany Gandhi offered a similar message: 
 
"I am as certain as I am dictating these words that the stoniest German heart will melt [if the Jews] adopt active non-violence. Human nature ... unfailingly responds to the advances of love. I do not despair of his [Hitler's] responding to human suffering even though caused by him." Had Gandhi convinced the English to lay down their arms and practice non-violence, the Jewish people would have been annihilated, democracy and human rights would have disappeared, and the world would have been plunged into a new Dark Age of unimaginable cruelty. War, while always unfortunate and painful, is not always evil; sometimes, fighting a war is the most moral thing to do. 
 
Astonishingly, the nation that Moses created -- Israel -- has in recent years emulated Gandhi rather than Moses. With the Oslo accords, we invited our sworn enemies to take parts of our homeland in the belief that they would reciprocate with peace and good will. Instead of declaring outright war against the terrorists and their infrastructure, we chose to practice restraint and non-violent diplomacy. Many of us believed then, and some&nbsp;Jews still believe, that the stoniest terrorist heart will melt in response to our peaceful advances. 

Chamberlain and Churchill

In 1938, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain appeased Adolf Hitler, by allowing the German Fuhrer to occupy the Sudetenland for a mere promise of peace. Chamberlain then returned to England and announced that he had brought "Peace in our time."&nbsp;Winston Churchill denounced him as a naive appeaser who believed that he could buy Hitler's good will by giving in to his immoral demands. "You were given a choice between war and dishonor. You chose dishonor and you will have war."&nbsp; 
 
Sadly, the same has transpired with Israel. By relinquishing parts of our homeland, Israel chose dishonor. In return, Israel received war. Today we are in the midst of the worst bloodletting in Israeli history. The relentless terror is a direct result of the tragic policy that believes in appeasing terrorists and not destroying them. Appeasement is suicidal for the innocent and ensures victory for the evil. 
 
The terror war on Israel, like World War II, is a war against the Jews. Losing is catastrophic. Losing is not an option. This is no time for appeasement or restraint. This is a time for righteous might. 
 
The prophets of Israel were the first to conceive of peace as an ideal. Isaiah gave voice to the great words engraved in the imagination of the West: "Nation shall not lift up sword against Nation; neither shall they learn war anymore."&nbsp;But the way to hasten Isaiah's vision is to fight evil, not allow it to flourish. At another time when the Jews needed to forcefully confront their enemies, the prophet Joel declared, "Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruning hooks into spears." The use of moral violence must always be the last resort. But when all other attempts fail, righteous might is the only response to immoral violence.

Rabbi Dov Greenberg is the director of Chabad at Stanford University

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Moses Vs. Gandhi 

Essay on Israel & Its Neighbors

A Road-Map to Peace in Israel

President Barack Obama may genuinely believe that the Iran nuclear agreement will foster world peace and stop Iran from getting the bomb.
Perhaps he is right; perhaps he is wrong. But if he is making an error, the effects for him are not the same as the consequences for the Jewish people.
A few months ago, President Obama met a number of American Jewish leaders concerning the Iran deal. One of the people present at the White House meeting shared with me the following day that the President remarked: &ldquo;If Iran attacks Israel, we will defend it.&rdquo;
To which this Jew responded: &ldquo;But that initial attack might claim 700,000 Jewish lives. We can&rsquo;t afford that.&rdquo;
In 1938, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain went to Munich to negotiate with Adolf Hitler. He left believing Hitler&rsquo;s promise of peace in exchange for Germany being allowed to annex large parts of Czechoslovakia. Chamberlain returned to England and announced that he had brought "Peace in our time." Winston Churchill denounced him as a naive appeaser who believed that he could buy Hitler's good will by giving in to his immoral demands: "You were given a choice between war and dishonor. You chose dishonor and you will have war."
Today, people mock Chamberlain. But might we not be making the same error?
Many maintain that the agreement with Iran is good as it has the capacity to bring Iran into &ldquo;the community of nations.&rdquo; We will no more isolate Iran and will thus be able to influence the Republic to be more peaceful and logical.
If only. The entire state apparatus of the Islamic Republic, from the Revolutionary Guards to the supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei, genuinely believe that G-d craves &ldquo;Death to America,&rdquo; as they have been chanting for decades. The Iranian regime is composed of religious fanatics with similar ideologies to ISIS, al-Qaida, Boko Haram and all the other mass-murdering Islamist movements, for whom human life means absolutely nothing.
We are about to award Iran $150 billion in currently frozen assets, plus the right to keep its nuclear program. Would we do this for ISIS? Would we do this is Iran was just at our border? And Iran is far more dangerous than ISIS. Iran openly calls for genocide, for wiping out six million Jews living in Israel from the map. Its Supreme Leader said a few weeks ago that the destruction of Israel is non-negotiable. No other country in the world is committed to annihilating another country, besides Iran. In Iran you have mass demonstrations, with the participation of its leaders, chanting &ldquo;death to America&rdquo;! Iran is the world&rsquo;s greatest funder of terror organizations. Iran funds and directs the Lebanese terror organization Hezbollah, the most powerful military organization in Lebanon. Iran is the major funder of Hamas, which plans on a daily basis the destruction of Israel. Would we give 150 billion to Hamas?
Trust Your Enemy
Our people endured a long and tumultuous history &ndash; perhaps longer than any other People. If there&rsquo;s one thing that we have learned over the past 4000 years it is this: When a regime or a leader pledges to wipe the Jews off the face of the earth, we should take them seriously. We have been here before.
Within days of signing this agreement, Iran&rsquo;s Supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei couldn&rsquo;t help himself and strongly reiterated Iran&rsquo;s mission to annihilate Israel. Just four days after the deal was announced, Iran&rsquo;s Supreme Leader declared: &ldquo;Whether the deal is approved or disapproved, we will never stop supporting our friends in the region and the people of Palestine, Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Bahrain and Lebanon. Even after this deal our policy towards the arrogant US will not change.&rdquo;
Logically he should have waited a few months, till the money started flowing in. But the hate Iran has to Israel is so profound and runs so deep, that it could not be contained even as the world agreed to remove the sanctions.
Should we trust Iran? Of course! Trust Iran when it declares: &ldquo;The Holocaust is an event whose reality is uncertain.&rdquo;
Trust Iran, when it states: &ldquo;The cancerous tumor called Israel must be uprooted from the region.&rdquo;
Trust Iran when it proclaims: &ldquo;The foundation of the Islamic regime is opposition to Israel and&hellip;the elimination of Israel from the region.&rdquo;
Trust Iran as the world refused to trust last century&rsquo;s Nazi propaganda machine.
The negotiations and deal never required the Iranian leadership to halt its relentless incitement for the destruction of the United States and Israel. Yes, one has to negotiate with one&rsquo;s enemies. But that is with enemies who demonstrate some good will; not with enemies who continue to seek your demise and will use your money and appeasement to achieve that goal. Even as the talks proceeded, and since they were concluded, the poisonous rhetoric &mdash; rhetoric with inevitable violent consequence &mdash; has continued unabated.
The negotiations never stipulated that Iran cease its encouragement, training and arming of terrorist organizations such as Hamas and Hezbollah. Iran promised all of this will continue.
What If?
Since 1945, when the horrors of the Holocaust became known, many good people&mdash;non-Jews and Jews alike&mdash;asked themselves, &ldquo;what if?&rdquo; What if we would have taken Hitler&rsquo;s &ldquo;Mein Kampf&rdquo; seriously? What if we would have believed him? What if we would have done more to stop him?
The people who could have done more to prevent the Holocaust died with guilt, but they could claim ignorance. We aren&rsquo;t going to have that excuse. We can&rsquo;t afford to sit around in twenty years and ask: What if we had taken Iran seriously?
If there&rsquo;s another thing that we&rsquo;ve learned over the past millennia it is that we Jews tend to agree about almost nothing. The U.S. has 50 states and 2 parties; Israel is 1 state with 50 parties. And yet, on this issue &ndash; and I can&rsquo;t recall another one like it &ndash; there is unanimous consensus among each and every Jewish party in the Knesset, from the left to the right. This is not about Netanyahu. This is not about oil or money. The People who stand to lose the most stand united in asking the US leadership not to aid, reward and embolden the enemy.
The Deal
The President maintains that even if Iran will not change, the deal will do the job. It will prevent Iran from getting the bomb.
I fail to see how.
Inspections? As Charles Krauthammer put in in a recent Washington Post article: &ldquo;Everyone now knows that &ldquo;anytime, anywhere&rdquo; &mdash; indispensable for a clandestine program in a country twice the size of Texas with a long history of hiding and cheating &mdash; has been changed to &ldquo;You&rsquo;ve got 24 days and then we&rsquo;re coming in for a surprise visit.&rdquo; New York restaurants, observed Jackie Mason, &ldquo;get more intrusive inspections than the Iranian nuclear program.&rdquo;
The only type of inspection that matters is &ldquo;anytime, anywhere;&rdquo; but that does not exist. If the International Atomic Energy Agency suspects cheating, it gives Iran up to a 24-day notice. What is more, the United States is prohibited from ever sending in its own inspectors.
Plus, no military sites can ever be inspected. Iran can establish or move nuclear facilities to whatever area it wishes and label those areas &ldquo;military.&rdquo;
Which brings us to Wednesday&rsquo;s Associated Press report that one of the side deals reached between Iran and the UN&rsquo;s International Atomic Energy Agency provides for Iran to carry out its own inspection work at the Parchin military facility where the IAEA has long alleged it experimented with high-explosive detonators for nuclear arms. This is beyond absurd. As David Horowitz put it, &ldquo;It&rsquo;s akin to having Bernie Madoff scrutinize his own business practices, or Tour de France cyclists conduct their own doping tests&hellip; except it has global life-and-death implications.&rdquo;
Why did Obama not share this with the American People? Olli Heinonen, who was in charge of the Iran probe as deputy IAEA director general from 2005 to 2010, told the AP on Wednesday he could recall no previous instance where a country being probed for nuclear wrongdoing was allowed to conduct its own investigation.
Even if one believes the agreement to be effective, it does little or nothing to prevent Iran from making nuclear weapons in 10 years.
During his speech a few weeks at the American University, the President said: &ldquo;There will be 24/7 monitoring of Iran&rsquo;s key nuclear facilities.&rdquo; He left out one detail. There is no 24/7 monitoring of anything Iran doesn&rsquo;t want monitored 24/7 and no monitoring at all of any facility Iran labels &ldquo;military.&rdquo;
Alexander the Great reportedly once said, &ldquo;I am not afraid of an army of sheep led by a lion; I am afraid of an army of lions led by a sheep.&rdquo;&nbsp; We are a nation of lions, but it feels like we are being led by sheep.
A Time To Act
This is a moment that calls on every one of us, particularly people of influence, to contact our representatives in Congress, and ask them to, in the words of the President at his American University speech, &ldquo;leave behind a world that is more secure and more peaceful for our children.&rdquo; Ask them to trust Iran.
Churchill once said, &ldquo;An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.&rdquo;
&ldquo;The Guardian of Israel will neither slumber nor sleep,&rdquo; said the Psalmist. But we must do our part to deny the crocodile the freedom and money to prepare his next feast.

A Op-ed outlining the details and the consequences of the Iran Nuclear deal.

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Reflections on the Iran nuclear agreement 

I Also Trust Iran

Live Radio show on the Nachum Segal Network on February 28, 2015.

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On Purim, Obama, and Anti-Semitism

Netanyahu's Address to US Congress on Iran

The history of Islam and Judaism. Can we ever live in peace? A "Two State Solution" -- Is It a Solution? 

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Is A Palestinian State the Solution tot he Conflict?  

Islam & the Jews 

This radio show was aired on March 21, 2015, on the Nachum Segal Network, a few days after Benjamin Netanyahu&#39;s victory in the Israeli elections.

Is Netanyahu the Obstacle to Peace?

A Conversation about the Prospects of Palestinian Statehood

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