The Miracles and the Aftermath of the Six Day War
"You Have Seen What I Have Done to Egypt..."
- May 29, 2017
- |
- 4 Sivan 5777
Rabbi YY Jacobson
17 viewsThe Miracles and the Aftermath of the Six Day War
"You Have Seen What I Have Done to Egypt..."
Rabbi YY Jacobson
- May 29, 2017
Obituary
A woman once called a newspaper to put in an obituary that her husband had died. The newspaper representative said, “You have to pay by the word.”
The woman answered, “Ok. Write: Max Schwartz died.” They responded, “There is a six word minimum.”
She replied, “Ok. Write: Max Schwartz died; Cadillac for sale.”
“You Have Seen”
In the Torah reading of the first day of Shavuos, we recall the message G-d communicated to the Jews days before the giving of the Torah at Sinai.
יתרו יט, ד: אַתֶּם רְאִיתֶם אֲשֶׁר עָשִׂיתִי לְמִצְרָיִם וָאֶשָּׂא אֶתְכֶם עַל כַּנְפֵי נְשָׁרִים וָאָבִא אֶתְכֶם אֵלָי: ה וְעַתָּה אִם שָׁמוֹעַ תִּשְׁמְעוּ בְּקֹלִי וּשְׁמַרְתֶּם אֶת בְּרִיתִי וִהְיִיתֶם לִי סְגֻלָּה מִכָּל הָעַמִּים כִּי לִי כָּל הָאָרֶץ:
You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and [how] I bore you on eagles' wings, and I brought you to Me.
And now, if you obey Me and keep My covenant, you shall be to Me a treasure out of all peoples, for Mine is the entire earth.
“You have seen what I did to the Egyptians,” is how G-d opens His words. They are the clincher. When Jews can reflect on what G-d did for them in Egypt, everything would be put into perspective. Their relationship with Him would be experienced as the most natural, organic, exciting life they can live. The covenant they would make with Him would be eternal and unflinching.
It is these words that have a special resonance on this present holiday of Shavuos, as we celebrate 50 years since the victory of the Six Day War.
It was some 50 years ago, when the Lubavitcher Rebbe spoke of these verses in Exodus and explained how the events during the Six Day War were a reenactment of these very biblical verses said to our ancestors 3300 years ago at the foot of Sinai,[1] and ought to inspire similar results.
This story, I feel, must be retold on this year Shavuos.
We Can’t Emulate
Moshe Keinan, a senior IDF officer, wrote a book called Am Yisrael Chai, The Nation of Israel Lives. In his book he wrote of a discussion with an officer of the Singapore army who was deeply impressed with the many miracles that happened to Israel during the 6 day war, in June 1967.
Moshe relates this story: “When I was training in a ‘special unit’s commander course,’ there was a parallel course to mine but with foreign officers, with similar content. I became friendly with one of the officers from the Singapore army, a commander named Lee. We spoke a lot and I was deeply impressed with his knowledge of the history of wars around the whole world and his knowledge of names of generals leading each battle and their exact dates,” Moshe Keinan wrote.
“Lee told me in one of our conversations: You know we learn the history of battles and analyze them to learn lessons from them we can use in our battles when necessary. Every battle and victory is understandable, we can analyze them and we can use them as a model to adapt for ourselves.Moshe was certain that the Six Day War, which occurred exactly 50 years ago, in June 1967, would be a template to study, a model to emulate.
But, Lee said, that they do not use these wars In Israel a template and blueprint.
Lee explained that for them the study of the Six Day War would be futile. We can’t emulate it, he said. We can’t learn from it, he maintained. What happened at that war was so extraordinary and stupendous that it does not fit into the laws and strategies that goveen normal warfair.
“Until today I have no idea how you, such a small nation, succeeded in your war? What exactly can I learn from you when Avigdor Kahalani stopped 140 Syrian tanks with only 3 of his own? What can I learn from the fact that in only 6 days you defeated Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Libya, Morocco, Jordan, Egypt and Iraq, fueled by the Soviets?
“What should I learn from the Gulf War”, continues the officer, “Saddam Hussein launces 39 Scud Missiles at you, 10,500 apartments are harmed yet documents show only one person, Eitan Greenwald, died, and even that was not from the missile. Tell me truthfully as one officer to another, what conclusions can I make from these wars?”
Yizkor
What did Lee mean? What was he referring to?
As we celebrate Shavuos, 50 years later, it behooves us to tell the story, at least touch on it. Today, during Yizkor, we will remember the 777 young soldiers who fell in battle in 67, together with all of the soldiers who fell in battle over the long decades of war before and after, among all of our loved ones who we remember today during Yizkor.
Six Days
The six days between Monday, June 5th until Shabbos, June 10, 1967 (26 Iyar—2 Sivan, 5727) are without parallel in the story of human warfare. These 6 days are also without parallel as far as modern day miracles are concerned. Prior to 1967, who had ever heard of a full-scale war measured in days? One which began at 7:45 Monday morning and was over dramatically on Saturday of the same week. This was a war in which one tiny country—Israel—faced many hostile Arab countries.Egypt, Syria, Jordan, with assistance from Iraq and Lebanon and with a combined military might of twice the number of soldiers, three times the amount of tanks and four times the amount of fighter aircraft, mobilized to destroy our homeland.
In the weeks before the Six-Day War, Egypt, Syria, and Jordan announced a military alliance with the goal of destroying the State of Israel. Egypt’s President Gamal Abdel Nasser, President of the United Arab Republic, closed the Suez Canal to all international ships bringing goods to Israel..
The Arab coalition had a combined force of 465,000 troops, 2,880 tanks and 900 aircraft compared to Israel’s 264,000 soldiers (of which 200,000 were reservists), 800 tanks and 200 aircraft. The outlook was so grim that all of Jerusalem’s parks were prepared to become mass graveyards. The three-week period preceding the Six-Day War was one of dread, shock and fright for the residents of the Holy Land.
It became clear that Israel had no choice but to fight when Nasser closed the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping, expelled the U.N. peacekeeping forces from the Sinai, and brought up troops and heavy artillery to take their place.
On May 28, 1967, the Egyptian leader Nasser, said, “We plan to open a general assault on Israel. This will be total war. Our basic aim is the destruction of Israel.”
One week earlier, Israel had called up all army reservists for active duty. News of the pact between Egypt, Syria and Jordan, effectively creating a noose around Israel’s borders, brought home to a frightened Israeli public the reality of an impending war. The media began discussing the prospects of a war with much bloodshed. The term “second Holocaust” was bandied around. It was only 20 years after the Holocaust and for three million Jews living in the Holy Land, dread and fear penetrated their hearts.
Egypt and Syria military forces were trained by leading Soviet military advisors and armed with the most sophisticated weaponry in the Soviet arsenal. This was a war when, even in the event of victory, some experts assessed the expected Israeli death toll to be as high as 100,000 causalities.
On the 27th of May, the Israeli government began instructing its citizens to prepare themselves for war, offering self-defense primers. Bomb shelters were prepared, and students dug bunkers across the land.
Israeli Prime Minister Levi Eshkol delivered a national radio address in an attempt to calm the populace. Instead, he projected confusion and hesitancy. The Israeli public was in shock over the lack of confidence their prime minister demonstrated. The nation’s panic thickened.
A Lone Voice
As foreign embassies called for their citizens to immediately evacuate from Israel, and foreign airlines were contemplating terminating their flights to Israel, the Israeli daily Yediot Achronot carried a surprisingly uplifting headline: “G-d Is Watching over the Holy Land, and Salvation Is Near,” the headline screamed. The article contained a message by the Lubavitcher Rebbe: “There is no reason to be afraid, and there is no reason to frighten others. I am displeased with the exaggerations being disseminated and the panicking of the citizens in Israel..."
Newspapers across Israel, from Haaretz to Al Hamishmar, carried uplifting headlines in the Rebbe’s name. The Rebbe’s reassuring talk at the Lag BaOmer parade reached the studios of Israel’s national radio, Kol Yisrael, and was broadcast with simultaneous translation from the original Yiddish to Hebrew.
The media also made note of the fact that the Rebbe urged all foreigners who were in Israel to remain there.
War Begins
And then it happened.
It all began on Monday, June 5, 1967. 7:15 AM
Surrounded by mobilized hostiles on all of its borders, the Israeli air force brazenly threw the first stone.
At 7:15 Monday morning, almost all the planes (about 200) in the Israeli Air Force (IAF) set off to attack the Egyptian Air Force, its planes and airfields. Only 12 Fighter Jets stayed and patrolled the open skies of all of Israel to protect the center of the country.
“Operation Moked” (Operation Focus) which launched the war, carried strategic and existential risks. Egypt had a well-developed, advanced anti-aircraft arsenal, boasting dozens of missiles and hundreds of cannons, generously supplied by the Soviet Union and her satellite states. In complete contrast, most of the Israeli planes were old French models, hardly fitting for the operational needs at hand. Had the Israeli attacking force been detected on their way, before the attack, they could have easily been knocked out of the air and Israel would have remained defenseless with a totally destroyed air force.
It was precisely then that one of the greatest miracle occurred. All of the aircraft reached the Egyptian airfields in Sinai, along the Suez Canal and the Nile River without even one being detected! The entire Egyptian anti-aircraft batteries lined all along the border perimeters of Egypt, didn’t function. The Israeli pilots flew in total silence at an altitude of only 80 feet above the sea, to avoid radar detection. At exactly 7:45, the Israeli planes hovered over the Egyptian airfields and bombed the runways, effectively putting the Egyptian Air force out of action. Within one hour more than 200 Egyptian planes had been destroyed, all of Egypt’s military runways were bombed preventing any remaining Egyptian planes from taking off, turning these fighter aircraft into sitting ducks to be destroyed by the 2nd sweep of Israeli bombers.
General Motti Hod, the head of the IAF at the time, was quoted as stating “Even in my wildest dreams I could not have imagined such as achievement,” adding: “Who can express the power of G-d, tell all His praise?” (Psalms 106:2).
Exactly three hours after the start of Operation Moked, at 10:45 AM, the war had been won. Approximately 300 Egyptian planes had been destroyed and all airfields disabled.
A Series of “Accidents”
How did this happen?
It is almost impossible to believe.
In Northern Jordan, Egyptian radar operators on duty picked up the radar signature of a large Israeli air force flying low over the Mediterranean and sent a flash message to their headquarters in Cairo. However, the encryption codes for their unit had been changed the previous day, but nobody had updated the codebooks in the decoding room of the command post. The duty officer tried to decipher the message using the previous day’s code and failed.
What is more, a full three hours before the Israeli airstrike, Egyptian intelligence issued a warning that an Israeli air attack was imminent. The message arrived at central command Cairo, where a junior officer received the message, but for some unknown reason the message never made it to the head of the Egyptian Air Force.
But there was much more.
4 days earlier, on June 1, the Commander of Egyptian forces in the Sinai, Egyptian Field Marshal Abdel Hakim Amer was ordered to change commanders in most of his brigades, replacing them with officers who didn’t know the terrain or their forces, leaving them unprepared for the Israeli attack.
It’s gets even better. When Marshall Amer and his staff flew to the Sinai for a meeting with high-level Iraqis the next day, the Egyptian soldiers manning the anti-air defense systems effectively shut down their systems for fear of shooting down their commander. So that when Israeli plains arrived, the system was down…
But here was the most insane miracle. Marshall Amer and all senior commanders decided to throw a party the night before, Sunday night, June 4. They had a little too much to drink, and most of them slept in late… As Israel attacked 7:45 AM, the senior command was having sweet dreams!
Now, Egypt’s allies –- Jordan, Syria and Iraq –- believed the Egyptians’ false announcements of great victories against Israel and rushed into the fray, eager to be part of the “Great Victory.” Arab planes attacked Israeli towns and army bases, but before they had a chance to cause any serious damage, Israel’s combat pilots and anti-aircraft batteries had shot them down. Following this attack, Israel decided to expand Operation Moked and destroy Syrian and Jordanian aerial power. So at 12:45, the third wave took form and by 3:45, more than 100 Jordanian and Syrian planes had been destroyed and all airfields paralyzed. Within 24 hours, all within the first day of the Six Day War, three major Arab nations threatening Israel had no more air power and the Israeli Air Force was the sole ruler of Middle Eastern skies.
Other Major Miracles
Over the next few days, Israel’s armed forces witnessed hundreds and hundreds of miracles. I will name a few.
The battle of Shechem, Nablus, in the West Bank (annexed by Jordan since 1948) was expected to be one of the hardest and bloodiest. But when Israeli forces approached the town from an unexpected direction—east instead of west--heavily armed Arabs in Shechem greeted them nicely. The Jews could not grasp what in the world is going on!
Coloner Ben Ari was commander of the Tank Division. He related:
“When we entered Nablus thousands of people were waving white flags at us and clapping. We innocently smiled back and waved. We came into the town and we were wondering; how can it be there are no disturbances from the population, the local watch with their weapons, keeping order and the crowds are cheering us? How could that be? We are the enemy!
I understood only later that the local people of Nablus mistakenly thought we were the Iraqi tank brigade that was supposed to meet them in Nablus coming in from Jordan. There were many Arab tanks right outside Nablus waiting for the Iraqis but it didn’t dawn on them to shoot at us because they thought that we were Iraqi. They only later learned of their mistake.”
Can you imagine? Who ever heard of this? You mistake your enemy soldiers as your friends? As a result, the Israelis were warmly welcomed and the city easily fell into their hands. This helped Israel regain much of the rest of the West Bank from Jordan with minimal resistance.
The Golan: David and Goliath
The Israelis were originally reluctant to invade the Golan Heights. It would be an uphill battle against a well-entrenched and fortified position, protected by an army of 75,000 Syrian troops. The Syrian troops and munitions were entrenched in deep bunkers which were immune to air attack. One noted Israeli general estimated that such a battle would cost the Israelis 30,000 lives. Incredibly, though, after only seven hours of heavy fighting on June 9th, IDF commanders established strongholds in the northern and central sectors of the Golan.
The next morning dawned with the Israeli forces apprehensively awaiting another day of fierce fighting. The Syrians, however, had other plans. In a sudden panic, before the Israelis even approached their positions, they pulled out of the Golan and fled in total chaos, leaving most of their weaponry behind. The mountaintops that were strategically utilized to murder Jews in the Holy Land were now in the hands of the Israelis.
In Sinai, the miracle was no smaller. Within a couple of days of Israel's airstrike on its military planes, Egypt began blowing up or abandoning its other military bases, seemingly inexplicably. As a result, Israel easily took both the Sinai and Gaza, the latter of which Egypt had illegally annexed in 1948.
Jerusalem
And then came the spectacular highlight.
International pressure forced Israel to accept a ceasefire proposed by King Hussein of Jordan. But at the last moment, Hussein nixed essential terms of the ceasefire he himself had initiated. This gave Israel the extra time needed to annihilate their enemies' military infrastructure.
It was the morning of Wednesday, June 7, 1967, which corresponded to the Hebrew calendar date of the 28th of Iyar, just a week before the festival of Shavuot.
The war had begun two days earlier, and — at that stage — no one dreamt that it would all be over only four days later. Jewish Jerusalem was suddenly bombarded by artillery fire, despite Israel’s behind-the-scenes appeals to Jordan’s King Hussein to stay out of the war, so as to avoid potentially devastating consequences for both sides. Israel’s emergency government then decided to advance into East Jerusalem, and to try and capture the Old City and Temple Mount, which had been under Jordanian control since 1948.
I listened recently to audio highlights of Israel Radio’s live reporting as the day unfolded. General Uzi Narkiss, the local IDF commander, can be heard asking, “Tell me, where is the Western Wall? How do we get there?”
Radio reporter Yossi Ronen, a macho, secular Israeli, was embedded with the soldiers as they battled their way through the winding alleyways of the Old City. His voice is emotional as he improvises a live commentary:
"... Shortly we're going to go into the Old City of Jerusalem that all generations have dreamed about. ... Ahead we go, through the Lion's Gate! ... I'm with the first unit to break through into the Old City. ... The Temple Mount is in our hands! I repeat, the Temple Mount is in our hands! ... All forces, stop firing... I'm walking right now down the steps towards the Western Wall. I'm not a religious man, I never have been, but this is the Western Wall and I'm touching the stones of the Western Wall. ... [The soldiers spontaneously recite together:] 'Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu melech haolam, she-hechianu ve-kiemanu ve-hegianu la-zman ha-zeh'" (Blessed are You, Lord G-d, King of the Universe, Who has sustained us, kept us and brought us to this day).
Rabbi Shlomo Goren, the chief rabbi of the IDF, his voice choking and excited, recites a unique blessing: “Blessed is God, who comforts Zion and builds Jerusalem.” The soldiers with him respond with a resounding “Amen!” You can hear many of them weeping. The shofar is sounded, and the weeping continues.
You can still hear gunfire in the background as Rabbi Goren shouts: “Le-shana HAZOT be-Yerushalayim!” — altering the perennial Jewish prayer of hope, ‘Next year in Jerusalem,’ into a declaration that translates: “This year in Jerusalem!”
The following day, Israel’s secular newspapers gushed with the story of Jerusalem’s recapture. Ma’ariv’s headline read, “The place for which we have waited for 2,000 years,” while Yedioth Ahronoth included a verse from Isaiah 52 on its masthead: “G-d has comforted His People, He has redeemed Jerusalem!”
Wiesel’s Letter to Obama
In April 2010, Nobel Prize-winning author and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, who died last summer, today took out a full-page ad in the Wall Street Journal, in the form an open letter to President Obama, with whom Wiesel visited the Buchenwald death camp a year earlier.
“It was inevitable,” Wiesel began the letter. “Jerusalem once again is at the center of political debates and international storms. New and old tensions surface at a disturbing pace. Seventeen times destroyed and seventeen times rebuilt, it is still in the middle of diplomatic confrontations that could lead to armed conflict. Neither Athens nor Rome has aroused that many passions.
For me, the Jew that I am, Jerusalem is above politics. It is mentioned more than six hundred times in Scripture-and not a single time in the Koran. Its presence in Jewish history is overwhelming. There is no more moving prayer in Jewish history than the one expressing our yearning to return to Jerusalem. To many theologians, it IS Jewish history, to many poets, a source of inspiration. It belongs to the Jewish people and is much more than a city, it is what binds one Jew to another in a way that remains hard to explain. When a Jew visits Jerusalem for the first time, it is not the first time; it is a homecoming.The first song I heard was my mother’s lullaby about and for Jerusalem. Its sadness and its joy are part of our collective memory.
When a Jew visits Jerusalem for the first time, it is a homecoming.
Since King David took Jerusalem as his capital, Jews have dwelled inside its walls with only two interruptions; when Roman invaders forbade them access to the city and again, when under Jordanian occupation. Jews, regardless of nationality, were refused entry into the old Jewish quarter to meditate and pray at the Wall, the last vestige of Solomon’s temple. It is important to remember: had Jordan not joined Egypt and Syria in the 1967 war against Israel, the old city of Jerusalem would still be Arab. Clearly, while Jews were ready to die for Jerusalem they would not kill for Jerusalem….
Jerusalem must remain the world’s Jewish spiritual capital, not a symbol of anguish and bitterness, but a symbol of trust and hope. As the Hasidic master Rebbe Nahman of Bratslav said, “Everything in this world has a heart; the heart itself has its own heart.”
“Jerusalem is the heart of our heart, the soul of our soul.”
Shavuos, 1967: The Great Ascent
Back to 1967. A euphoric and relieved Israeli population now awaited the day when they would once again be allowed to visit the Western Wall, the Kotel, in the Old City of Jerusalem. On the holiday of Shavuot, June 14, the holy site was opened for civilians. More than 200,000 came; they cried, prayed, and thanked G-d for His incredible miracles and salvation.
On the very next day, the Chabad-Lubavitch tefillin booth was established in the plaza facing the Wall. In its first year alone, one and a half million people donned tefillin at the Wall. The booth, now a permanent fixture of the Western Wall, is manned daily from shortly after dawn until dusk.
The Statistics
The statistics from the war are amazing. For every Israeli who perished in the conflict, 25 of the enemy died. For every Israeli prisoner of war, there were over 394 Arab POWs. For every Israeli plane that was downed, more than 11 Arab planes were lost. Some thought 100,000 Jews would die. At the end, 777 fighters lost their lives. May G-d avenge their sacred blood. The Arabs called the conflict an-Naksah, or “The Setback.” The Israelis called it the “Six-Day War”—not only to identify the miraculously short length of the war, but also to evoke the six days of creation, followed by the 7th day of Shabat rest.
History books speak of the “Hundred Years’ War,” the “Thirty Years’ War,” and many other long-fought battles. Here, in a matter of six short days, a nation managed to utterly rout not one, but four powerful enemies! And tripled its original size! It was in this war that Israel liberated and united the City of Jerusalem and returned to the heartland of her ancient homeland – Judea and Samaria, all prophesized in the Torah.
Ezer Weizman, who had built the Israeli Air Force and was Head of Operations during the war, was asked to explain the astounding success of the air force on the first day of the war. All he could think of was a verse from the Bible, in which Pharaoh’s greatest sorcerers and advisor submitted to a met-physical explanation of the plagues: “It is the Finger of G-d.”
The then Chief of Staff, Yitzchak Rabin, summed up the war with a message in a telegram sent to the post-war celebrations in Tel-Aviv, with the following quote from the Hallel prayer we say on Shavuos as well: “This is the day that Hashem made; we shall exult and rejoice on it.”
A new reality had been created. Something of Biblical proportions. Something in the human order had irrevocable changed. The core of this shift was not only the miraculous nature of the war but the fact that the Jewish people had returned for the first time in 2000 years, to their eternal capital, and their holiest site.
The Shepherd
Moshe Keinan concludes his story in the above book:
“It seems this question [by Lee] was already dealt with almost 2,000 years ago when Hadrian, the Roman leader, continued the destruction wrought by Titus on the holy land. Despite the great destruction that was wrought, Hadrian was impressed by the survival of the Jews. He told Rabbi Joshua: “The sheep surrounded by 70 wolves is very great!” Rabbi Joshua answered: “Great is the shepherd that saves her protects her and breaks those wolves before her.[2]
This is the answer for the Singapore army officer: Our wars are led by G-d, not in a natural way.
“You Have Seen”
And so the Rebbe said, the words of G-d to His people, “you have seen what I did to Egypt,” is something that was re-experienced during the Six Day War in 1967. The miracles were simply astounding. Even the most secular individual at the time had no choice but to submit that this was something out of this world. Or as Yogi Berra put it: ““That’s too coincidental to be a coincidence.”
When Jews see such types of events, it ought to reinvigorate—as the Torah continues—them to renew their covenant with G-d with a new vigor, vitality, freshness, passion and commitment.
Why the Shame
Moshe Keinan concludes the above story with a painful observation.
“In one of my conversations with my friend Lee, the Singapore army officer, we were in the hallway between our classrooms at a break between classes. There were refreshments. Lee poured me a coffee and handed me a slice of cake and he immediately started eating. I held the cake in my right hand and made a blessing; “Blessed are you G-d … creator of various types of foods.” I was hoping that the blessing would peak Lee’s interest and perhaps he would ask about it, but lee kept on eating.
I asked him; “Aren’t you curious about the blessing I made?”“Blessing?” he asked, “it’s not the first time I saw you talking to your food!”
I smiled and responded “I’m not talking to my food I pray to G-d and thank G-d for my food!”
“G-d?” Lee asked astounded, “You Jews don’t believe in G-d! Muslims believe in G-d Catholics believe in G-d but you believe in yourselves?!”
I told Lee that it simply wasn’t’ true and asked him: “How did you ever get to that conclusion?”
Lee stood up and said: “Listen, besides visiting the Israeli army we visited the Egyptian army and the U.S. army. Over there I heard G-d all the time. Generals would mention G-d in every class. Any lecture or instruction you’d always hear G-d being mentioned.“I’m here visiting the IDF for 3 months and this is the first time I’m openly hearing that Israel has a G-d!”
He looked at me and asked; “Moshe from who are you all embarrassed?”
“I was quiet”, Moshe Keinan writes, I didn’t know what to answer him.”
Our Challenge
For me, this sad ending of the story represents one of our profoundest challenges. The people who gave the world G-d and moral monotheism, find it so hard to declare that conviction with pride and dignity.
And if you want to understand what happened to Israel over the last 50 years, how did such an astounding victory result in so many challenges and problems, on a political, social, and military level? I think it can be summed up in the above story. Our own inner shame and sense of discomfort with who we are as a people and our lack of pride in our own Torah and faith, is what allowed us to turn one of the greatest miracles of modern times into an international disaster. Israel allowed itself to become the punching bag of international opinion, because of the inner doubt that torments us internally. The lack of genuine Jewish pride and dignity, appreciating who we are as a people, what Israel represents, and what is our role in history, caused us to squander one of the greatest opportunities and Divine gifts in our long, painful and glorious story.
50 years later, it is time to change course.
You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and [how] I bore you on eagles' wings, and I brought you to Me.
And now, if you obey Me and keep My covenant, you shall be to Me a treasure out of all peoples, for Mine is the entire earth.
It is as simple as that, friends.
- Comment
Class Summary:
In the Torah reading of the first day of Shavuos, we recall the message G-d communicated to the Jews days before the giving of the Torah at Sinai. You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and [how] I bore you on eagles' wings, and I brought you to Me. And now, if you obey Me and keep My covenant, you shall be to Me a treasure out of all peoples, for Mine is the entire earth.
These words that have a special resonance on this present holiday of Shavuos, as we celebrate 50 years since the victory of the Six Day War. It was during that time when the Lubavitcher Rebbe spoke of these verses in Exodus and explained how the events during the Six Day War were a reenactment of these very biblical verses said to our ancestors 3300 years ago at the foot of Sinai, and ought to inspire similar results.
The sermon retells the story of the June 1967 War, but with one particular angle: the incredible miracles upon miracles that created an unprecedented victory. From a drinking party in Egypt to a code error in Jordan, from an unbelievable mistake in Nablus to a panic in the Golan.
How a Singapore commander explained to an Israeli officer why they do not study the Six Day War as a model of how to fight a war, and how Eli Wiesel explained to Barack Obama the meaning of Jerusalem.
The sermon explains what happened to Israel over the last 50 years and how it is time to change course, reclaiming those biblical words read on Shavuos and uttered by the Rebbe after the Six Day War, 50 years ago.
Obituary
A woman once called a newspaper to put in an obituary that her husband had died. The newspaper representative said, “You have to pay by the word.”
The woman answered, “Ok. Write: Max Schwartz died.” They responded, “There is a six word minimum.”
She replied, “Ok. Write: Max Schwartz died; Cadillac for sale.”
“You Have Seen”
In the Torah reading of the first day of Shavuos, we recall the message G-d communicated to the Jews days before the giving of the Torah at Sinai.
יתרו יט, ד: אַתֶּם רְאִיתֶם אֲשֶׁר עָשִׂיתִי לְמִצְרָיִם וָאֶשָּׂא אֶתְכֶם עַל כַּנְפֵי נְשָׁרִים וָאָבִא אֶתְכֶם אֵלָי: ה וְעַתָּה אִם שָׁמוֹעַ תִּשְׁמְעוּ בְּקֹלִי וּשְׁמַרְתֶּם אֶת בְּרִיתִי וִהְיִיתֶם לִי סְגֻלָּה מִכָּל הָעַמִּים כִּי לִי כָּל הָאָרֶץ:
You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and [how] I bore you on eagles' wings, and I brought you to Me.
And now, if you obey Me and keep My covenant, you shall be to Me a treasure out of all peoples, for Mine is the entire earth.
“You have seen what I did to the Egyptians,” is how G-d opens His words. They are the clincher. When Jews can reflect on what G-d did for them in Egypt, everything would be put into perspective. Their relationship with Him would be experienced as the most natural, organic, exciting life they can live. The covenant they would make with Him would be eternal and unflinching.
It is these words that have a special resonance on this present holiday of Shavuos, as we celebrate 50 years since the victory of the Six Day War.
It was some 50 years ago, when the Lubavitcher Rebbe spoke of these verses in Exodus and explained how the events during the Six Day War were a reenactment of these very biblical verses said to our ancestors 3300 years ago at the foot of Sinai,[1] and ought to inspire similar results.
This story, I feel, must be retold on this year Shavuos.
We Can’t Emulate
Moshe Keinan, a senior IDF officer, wrote a book called Am Yisrael Chai, The Nation of Israel Lives. In his book he wrote of a discussion with an officer of the Singapore army who was deeply impressed with the many miracles that happened to Israel during the 6 day war, in June 1967.
Moshe relates this story: “When I was training in a ‘special unit’s commander course,’ there was a parallel course to mine but with foreign officers, with similar content. I became friendly with one of the officers from the Singapore army, a commander named Lee. We spoke a lot and I was deeply impressed with his knowledge of the history of wars around the whole world and his knowledge of names of generals leading each battle and their exact dates,” Moshe Keinan wrote.
“Lee told me in one of our conversations: You know we learn the history of battles and analyze them to learn lessons from them we can use in our battles when necessary. Every battle and victory is understandable, we can analyze them and we can use them as a model to adapt for ourselves.
Moshe was certain that the Six Day War, which occurred exactly 50 years ago, in June 1967, would be a template to study, a model to emulate.
But, Lee said, that they do not use these wars In Israel a template and blueprint.
Lee explained that for them the study of the Six Day War would be futile. We can’t emulate it, he said. We can’t learn from it, he maintained. What happened at that war was so extraordinary and stupendous that it does not fit into the laws and strategies that goveen normal warfair.
“Until today I have no idea how you, such a small nation, succeeded in your war? What exactly can I learn from you when Avigdor Kahalani stopped 140 Syrian tanks with only 3 of his own? What can I learn from the fact that in only 6 days you defeated Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Libya, Morocco, Jordan, Egypt and Iraq, fueled by the Soviets?
“What should I learn from the Gulf War”, continues the officer, “Saddam Hussein launces 39 Scud Missiles at you, 10,500 apartments are harmed yet documents show only one person, Eitan Greenwald, died, and even that was not from the missile. Tell me truthfully as one officer to another, what conclusions can I make from these wars?”
Yizkor
What did Lee mean? What was he referring to?
As we celebrate Shavuos, 50 years later, it behooves us to tell the story, at least touch on it. Today, during Yizkor, we will remember the 777 young soldiers who fell in battle in 67, together with all of the soldiers who fell in battle over the long decades of war before and after, among all of our loved ones who we remember today during Yizkor.
Six Days
The six days between Monday, June 5th until Shabbos, June 10, 1967 (26 Iyar—2 Sivan, 5727) are without parallel in the story of human warfare. These 6 days are also without parallel as far as modern day miracles are concerned. Prior to 1967, who had ever heard of a full-scale war measured in days? One which began at 7:45 Monday morning and was over dramatically on Saturday of the same week. This was a war in which one tiny country—Israel—faced many hostile Arab countries.Egypt, Syria, Jordan, with assistance from Iraq and Lebanon and with a combined military might of twice the number of soldiers, three times the amount of tanks and four times the amount of fighter aircraft, mobilized to destroy our homeland.
In the weeks before the Six-Day War, Egypt, Syria, and Jordan announced a military alliance with the goal of destroying the State of Israel. Egypt’s President Gamal Abdel Nasser, President of the United Arab Republic, closed the Suez Canal to all international ships bringing goods to Israel..
The Arab coalition had a combined force of 465,000 troops, 2,880 tanks and 900 aircraft compared to Israel’s 264,000 soldiers (of which 200,000 were reservists), 800 tanks and 200 aircraft. The outlook was so grim that all of Jerusalem’s parks were prepared to become mass graveyards. The three-week period preceding the Six-Day War was one of dread, shock and fright for the residents of the Holy Land.
It became clear that Israel had no choice but to fight when Nasser closed the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping, expelled the U.N. peacekeeping forces from the Sinai, and brought up troops and heavy artillery to take their place.
On May 28, 1967, the Egyptian leader Nasser, said, “We plan to open a general assault on Israel. This will be total war. Our basic aim is the destruction of Israel.”
One week earlier, Israel had called up all army reservists for active duty. News of the pact between Egypt, Syria and Jordan, effectively creating a noose around Israel’s borders, brought home to a frightened Israeli public the reality of an impending war. The media began discussing the prospects of a war with much bloodshed. The term “second Holocaust” was bandied around. It was only 20 years after the Holocaust and for three million Jews living in the Holy Land, dread and fear penetrated their hearts.
Egypt and Syria military forces were trained by leading Soviet military advisors and armed with the most sophisticated weaponry in the Soviet arsenal. This was a war when, even in the event of victory, some experts assessed the expected Israeli death toll to be as high as 100,000 causalities.
On the 27th of May, the Israeli government began instructing its citizens to prepare themselves for war, offering self-defense primers. Bomb shelters were prepared, and students dug bunkers across the land.
Israeli Prime Minister Levi Eshkol delivered a national radio address in an attempt to calm the populace. Instead, he projected confusion and hesitancy. The Israeli public was in shock over the lack of confidence their prime minister demonstrated. The nation’s panic thickened.
A Lone Voice
As foreign embassies called for their citizens to immediately evacuate from Israel, and foreign airlines were contemplating terminating their flights to Israel, the Israeli daily Yediot Achronot carried a surprisingly uplifting headline: “G-d Is Watching over the Holy Land, and Salvation Is Near,” the headline screamed. The article contained a message by the Lubavitcher Rebbe: “There is no reason to be afraid, and there is no reason to frighten others. I am displeased with the exaggerations being disseminated and the panicking of the citizens in Israel..."
Newspapers across Israel, from Haaretz to Al Hamishmar, carried uplifting headlines in the Rebbe’s name. The Rebbe’s reassuring talk at the Lag BaOmer parade reached the studios of Israel’s national radio, Kol Yisrael, and was broadcast with simultaneous translation from the original Yiddish to Hebrew.
The media also made note of the fact that the Rebbe urged all foreigners who were in Israel to remain there.
War Begins
And then it happened.
It all began on Monday, June 5, 1967. 7:15 AM
Surrounded by mobilized hostiles on all of its borders, the Israeli air force brazenly threw the first stone.
At 7:15 Monday morning, almost all the planes (about 200) in the Israeli Air Force (IAF) set off to attack the Egyptian Air Force, its planes and airfields. Only 12 Fighter Jets stayed and patrolled the open skies of all of Israel to protect the center of the country.
“Operation Moked” (Operation Focus) which launched the war, carried strategic and existential risks. Egypt had a well-developed, advanced anti-aircraft arsenal, boasting dozens of missiles and hundreds of cannons, generously supplied by the Soviet Union and her satellite states. In complete contrast, most of the Israeli planes were old French models, hardly fitting for the operational needs at hand. Had the Israeli attacking force been detected on their way, before the attack, they could have easily been knocked out of the air and Israel would have remained defenseless with a totally destroyed air force.
It was precisely then that one of the greatest miracle occurred. All of the aircraft reached the Egyptian airfields in Sinai, along the Suez Canal and the Nile River without even one being detected! The entire Egyptian anti-aircraft batteries lined all along the border perimeters of Egypt, didn’t function. The Israeli pilots flew in total silence at an altitude of only 80 feet above the sea, to avoid radar detection. At exactly 7:45, the Israeli planes hovered over the Egyptian airfields and bombed the runways, effectively putting the Egyptian Air force out of action. Within one hour more than 200 Egyptian planes had been destroyed, all of Egypt’s military runways were bombed preventing any remaining Egyptian planes from taking off, turning these fighter aircraft into sitting ducks to be destroyed by the 2nd sweep of Israeli bombers.
General Motti Hod, the head of the IAF at the time, was quoted as stating “Even in my wildest dreams I could not have imagined such as achievement,” adding: “Who can express the power of G-d, tell all His praise?” (Psalms 106:2).
Exactly three hours after the start of Operation Moked, at 10:45 AM, the war had been won. Approximately 300 Egyptian planes had been destroyed and all airfields disabled.
A Series of “Accidents”
How did this happen?
It is almost impossible to believe.
In Northern Jordan, Egyptian radar operators on duty picked up the radar signature of a large Israeli air force flying low over the Mediterranean and sent a flash message to their headquarters in Cairo. However, the encryption codes for their unit had been changed the previous day, but nobody had updated the codebooks in the decoding room of the command post. The duty officer tried to decipher the message using the previous day’s code and failed.
What is more, a full three hours before the Israeli airstrike, Egyptian intelligence issued a warning that an Israeli air attack was imminent. The message arrived at central command Cairo, where a junior officer received the message, but for some unknown reason the message never made it to the head of the Egyptian Air Force.
But there was much more.
4 days earlier, on June 1, the Commander of Egyptian forces in the Sinai, Egyptian Field Marshal Abdel Hakim Amer was ordered to change commanders in most of his brigades, replacing them with officers who didn’t know the terrain or their forces, leaving them unprepared for the Israeli attack.
It’s gets even better. When Marshall Amer and his staff flew to the Sinai for a meeting with high-level Iraqis the next day, the Egyptian soldiers manning the anti-air defense systems effectively shut down their systems for fear of shooting down their commander. So that when Israeli plains arrived, the system was down…
But here was the most insane miracle. Marshall Amer and all senior commanders decided to throw a party the night before, Sunday night, June 4. They had a little too much to drink, and most of them slept in late… As Israel attacked 7:45 AM, the senior command was having sweet dreams!
Now, Egypt’s allies –- Jordan, Syria and Iraq –- believed the Egyptians’ false announcements of great victories against Israel and rushed into the fray, eager to be part of the “Great Victory.” Arab planes attacked Israeli towns and army bases, but before they had a chance to cause any serious damage, Israel’s combat pilots and anti-aircraft batteries had shot them down. Following this attack, Israel decided to expand Operation Moked and destroy Syrian and Jordanian aerial power. So at 12:45, the third wave took form and by 3:45, more than 100 Jordanian and Syrian planes had been destroyed and all airfields paralyzed. Within 24 hours, all within the first day of the Six Day War, three major Arab nations threatening Israel had no more air power and the Israeli Air Force was the sole ruler of Middle Eastern skies.
Other Major Miracles
Over the next few days, Israel’s armed forces witnessed hundreds and hundreds of miracles. I will name a few.
The battle of Shechem, Nablus, in the West Bank (annexed by Jordan since 1948) was expected to be one of the hardest and bloodiest. But when Israeli forces approached the town from an unexpected direction—east instead of west--heavily armed Arabs in Shechem greeted them nicely. The Jews could not grasp what in the world is going on!
Coloner Ben Ari was commander of the Tank Division. He related:
“When we entered Nablus thousands of people were waving white flags at us and clapping. We innocently smiled back and waved. We came into the town and we were wondering; how can it be there are no disturbances from the population, the local watch with their weapons, keeping order and the crowds are cheering us? How could that be? We are the enemy!
I understood only later that the local people of Nablus mistakenly thought we were the Iraqi tank brigade that was supposed to meet them in Nablus coming in from Jordan. There were many Arab tanks right outside Nablus waiting for the Iraqis but it didn’t dawn on them to shoot at us because they thought that we were Iraqi. They only later learned of their mistake.”
Can you imagine? Who ever heard of this? You mistake your enemy soldiers as your friends? As a result, the Israelis were warmly welcomed and the city easily fell into their hands. This helped Israel regain much of the rest of the West Bank from Jordan with minimal resistance.
The Golan: David and Goliath
The Israelis were originally reluctant to invade the Golan Heights. It would be an uphill battle against a well-entrenched and fortified position, protected by an army of 75,000 Syrian troops. The Syrian troops and munitions were entrenched in deep bunkers which were immune to air attack. One noted Israeli general estimated that such a battle would cost the Israelis 30,000 lives. Incredibly, though, after only seven hours of heavy fighting on June 9th, IDF commanders established strongholds in the northern and central sectors of the Golan.
The next morning dawned with the Israeli forces apprehensively awaiting another day of fierce fighting. The Syrians, however, had other plans. In a sudden panic, before the Israelis even approached their positions, they pulled out of the Golan and fled in total chaos, leaving most of their weaponry behind. The mountaintops that were strategically utilized to murder Jews in the Holy Land were now in the hands of the Israelis.
In Sinai, the miracle was no smaller. Within a couple of days of Israel's airstrike on its military planes, Egypt began blowing up or abandoning its other military bases, seemingly inexplicably. As a result, Israel easily took both the Sinai and Gaza, the latter of which Egypt had illegally annexed in 1948.
Jerusalem
And then came the spectacular highlight.
International pressure forced Israel to accept a ceasefire proposed by King Hussein of Jordan. But at the last moment, Hussein nixed essential terms of the ceasefire he himself had initiated. This gave Israel the extra time needed to annihilate their enemies' military infrastructure.
It was the morning of Wednesday, June 7, 1967, which corresponded to the Hebrew calendar date of the 28th of Iyar, just a week before the festival of Shavuot.
The war had begun two days earlier, and — at that stage — no one dreamt that it would all be over only four days later. Jewish Jerusalem was suddenly bombarded by artillery fire, despite Israel’s behind-the-scenes appeals to Jordan’s King Hussein to stay out of the war, so as to avoid potentially devastating consequences for both sides. Israel’s emergency government then decided to advance into East Jerusalem, and to try and capture the Old City and Temple Mount, which had been under Jordanian control since 1948.
I listened recently to audio highlights of Israel Radio’s live reporting as the day unfolded. General Uzi Narkiss, the local IDF commander, can be heard asking, “Tell me, where is the Western Wall? How do we get there?”
Radio reporter Yossi Ronen, a macho, secular Israeli, was embedded with the soldiers as they battled their way through the winding alleyways of the Old City. His voice is emotional as he improvises a live commentary:
"... Shortly we're going to go into the Old City of Jerusalem that all generations have dreamed about. ... Ahead we go, through the Lion's Gate! ... I'm with the first unit to break through into the Old City. ... The Temple Mount is in our hands! I repeat, the Temple Mount is in our hands! ... All forces, stop firing... I'm walking right now down the steps towards the Western Wall. I'm not a religious man, I never have been, but this is the Western Wall and I'm touching the stones of the Western Wall. ... [The soldiers spontaneously recite together:] 'Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu melech haolam, she-hechianu ve-kiemanu ve-hegianu la-zman ha-zeh'" (Blessed are You, Lord G-d, King of the Universe, Who has sustained us, kept us and brought us to this day).
Rabbi Shlomo Goren, the chief rabbi of the IDF, his voice choking and excited, recites a unique blessing: “Blessed is God, who comforts Zion and builds Jerusalem.” The soldiers with him respond with a resounding “Amen!” You can hear many of them weeping. The shofar is sounded, and the weeping continues.
You can still hear gunfire in the background as Rabbi Goren shouts: “Le-shana HAZOT be-Yerushalayim!” — altering the perennial Jewish prayer of hope, ‘Next year in Jerusalem,’ into a declaration that translates: “This year in Jerusalem!”
The following day, Israel’s secular newspapers gushed with the story of Jerusalem’s recapture. Ma’ariv’s headline read, “The place for which we have waited for 2,000 years,” while Yedioth Ahronoth included a verse from Isaiah 52 on its masthead: “G-d has comforted His People, He has redeemed Jerusalem!”
Wiesel’s Letter to Obama
In April 2010, Nobel Prize-winning author and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, who died last summer, today took out a full-page ad in the Wall Street Journal, in the form an open letter to President Obama, with whom Wiesel visited the Buchenwald death camp a year earlier.
“It was inevitable,” Wiesel began the letter. “Jerusalem once again is at the center of political debates and international storms. New and old tensions surface at a disturbing pace. Seventeen times destroyed and seventeen times rebuilt, it is still in the middle of diplomatic confrontations that could lead to armed conflict. Neither Athens nor Rome has aroused that many passions.
For me, the Jew that I am, Jerusalem is above politics. It is mentioned more than six hundred times in Scripture-and not a single time in the Koran. Its presence in Jewish history is overwhelming. There is no more moving prayer in Jewish history than the one expressing our yearning to return to Jerusalem. To many theologians, it IS Jewish history, to many poets, a source of inspiration. It belongs to the Jewish people and is much more than a city, it is what binds one Jew to another in a way that remains hard to explain. When a Jew visits Jerusalem for the first time, it is not the first time; it is a homecoming.The first song I heard was my mother’s lullaby about and for Jerusalem. Its sadness and its joy are part of our collective memory.
When a Jew visits Jerusalem for the first time, it is a homecoming.
Since King David took Jerusalem as his capital, Jews have dwelled inside its walls with only two interruptions; when Roman invaders forbade them access to the city and again, when under Jordanian occupation. Jews, regardless of nationality, were refused entry into the old Jewish quarter to meditate and pray at the Wall, the last vestige of Solomon’s temple. It is important to remember: had Jordan not joined Egypt and Syria in the 1967 war against Israel, the old city of Jerusalem would still be Arab. Clearly, while Jews were ready to die for Jerusalem they would not kill for Jerusalem….
Jerusalem must remain the world’s Jewish spiritual capital, not a symbol of anguish and bitterness, but a symbol of trust and hope. As the Hasidic master Rebbe Nahman of Bratslav said, “Everything in this world has a heart; the heart itself has its own heart.”
“Jerusalem is the heart of our heart, the soul of our soul.”
Shavuos, 1967: The Great Ascent
Back to 1967. A euphoric and relieved Israeli population now awaited the day when they would once again be allowed to visit the Western Wall, the Kotel, in the Old City of Jerusalem. On the holiday of Shavuot, June 14, the holy site was opened for civilians. More than 200,000 came; they cried, prayed, and thanked G-d for His incredible miracles and salvation.
On the very next day, the Chabad-Lubavitch tefillin booth was established in the plaza facing the Wall. In its first year alone, one and a half million people donned tefillin at the Wall. The booth, now a permanent fixture of the Western Wall, is manned daily from shortly after dawn until dusk.
The Statistics
The statistics from the war are amazing. For every Israeli who perished in the conflict, 25 of the enemy died. For every Israeli prisoner of war, there were over 394 Arab POWs. For every Israeli plane that was downed, more than 11 Arab planes were lost. Some thought 100,000 Jews would die. At the end, 777 fighters lost their lives. May G-d avenge their sacred blood. The Arabs called the conflict an-Naksah, or “The Setback.” The Israelis called it the “Six-Day War”—not only to identify the miraculously short length of the war, but also to evoke the six days of creation, followed by the 7th day of Shabat rest.
History books speak of the “Hundred Years’ War,” the “Thirty Years’ War,” and many other long-fought battles. Here, in a matter of six short days, a nation managed to utterly rout not one, but four powerful enemies! And tripled its original size! It was in this war that Israel liberated and united the City of Jerusalem and returned to the heartland of her ancient homeland – Judea and Samaria, all prophesized in the Torah.
Ezer Weizman, who had built the Israeli Air Force and was Head of Operations during the war, was asked to explain the astounding success of the air force on the first day of the war. All he could think of was a verse from the Bible, in which Pharaoh’s greatest sorcerers and advisor submitted to a met-physical explanation of the plagues: “It is the Finger of G-d.”
The then Chief of Staff, Yitzchak Rabin, summed up the war with a message in a telegram sent to the post-war celebrations in Tel-Aviv, with the following quote from the Hallel prayer we say on Shavuos as well: “This is the day that Hashem made; we shall exult and rejoice on it.”
A new reality had been created. Something of Biblical proportions. Something in the human order had irrevocable changed. The core of this shift was not only the miraculous nature of the war but the fact that the Jewish people had returned for the first time in 2000 years, to their eternal capital, and their holiest site.
The Shepherd
Moshe Keinan concludes his story in the above book:
“It seems this question [by Lee] was already dealt with almost 2,000 years ago when Hadrian, the Roman leader, continued the destruction wrought by Titus on the holy land. Despite the great destruction that was wrought, Hadrian was impressed by the survival of the Jews. He told Rabbi Joshua: “The sheep surrounded by 70 wolves is very great!” Rabbi Joshua answered: “Great is the shepherd that saves her protects her and breaks those wolves before her.[2]
This is the answer for the Singapore army officer: Our wars are led by G-d, not in a natural way.
“You Have Seen”
And so the Rebbe said, the words of G-d to His people, “you have seen what I did to Egypt,” is something that was re-experienced during the Six Day War in 1967. The miracles were simply astounding. Even the most secular individual at the time had no choice but to submit that this was something out of this world. Or as Yogi Berra put it: ““That’s too coincidental to be a coincidence.”
When Jews see such types of events, it ought to reinvigorate—as the Torah continues—them to renew their covenant with G-d with a new vigor, vitality, freshness, passion and commitment.
Why the Shame
Moshe Keinan concludes the above story with a painful observation.
“In one of my conversations with my friend Lee, the Singapore army officer, we were in the hallway between our classrooms at a break between classes. There were refreshments. Lee poured me a coffee and handed me a slice of cake and he immediately started eating. I held the cake in my right hand and made a blessing; “Blessed are you G-d … creator of various types of foods.” I was hoping that the blessing would peak Lee’s interest and perhaps he would ask about it, but lee kept on eating.
I asked him; “Aren’t you curious about the blessing I made?”
“Blessing?” he asked, “it’s not the first time I saw you talking to your food!”
I smiled and responded “I’m not talking to my food I pray to G-d and thank G-d for my food!”
“G-d?” Lee asked astounded, “You Jews don’t believe in G-d! Muslims believe in G-d Catholics believe in G-d but you believe in yourselves?!”
I told Lee that it simply wasn’t’ true and asked him: “How did you ever get to that conclusion?”
Lee stood up and said: “Listen, besides visiting the Israeli army we visited the Egyptian army and the U.S. army. Over there I heard G-d all the time. Generals would mention G-d in every class. Any lecture or instruction you’d always hear G-d being mentioned.
“I’m here visiting the IDF for 3 months and this is the first time I’m openly hearing that Israel has a G-d!”
He looked at me and asked; “Moshe from who are you all embarrassed?”
“I was quiet”, Moshe Keinan writes, I didn’t know what to answer him.”
Our Challenge
For me, this sad ending of the story represents one of our profoundest challenges. The people who gave the world G-d and moral monotheism, find it so hard to declare that conviction with pride and dignity.
And if you want to understand what happened to Israel over the last 50 years, how did such an astounding victory result in so many challenges and problems, on a political, social, and military level? I think it can be summed up in the above story. Our own inner shame and sense of discomfort with who we are as a people and our lack of pride in our own Torah and faith, is what allowed us to turn one of the greatest miracles of modern times into an international disaster. Israel allowed itself to become the punching bag of international opinion, because of the inner doubt that torments us internally. The lack of genuine Jewish pride and dignity, appreciating who we are as a people, what Israel represents, and what is our role in history, caused us to squander one of the greatest opportunities and Divine gifts in our long, painful and glorious story.
50 years later, it is time to change course.
You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and [how] I bore you on eagles' wings, and I brought you to Me.
And now, if you obey Me and keep My covenant, you shall be to Me a treasure out of all peoples, for Mine is the entire earth.
It is as simple as that, friends.
Categories
Shavuos 5777
Rabbi YY Jacobson
- May 29, 2017
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- 4 Sivan 5777
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- 17 views
The Miracles and the Aftermath of the Six Day War
"You Have Seen What I Have Done to Egypt..."
Rabbi YY Jacobson
- May 29, 2017
Obituary
A woman once called a newspaper to put in an obituary that her husband had died. The newspaper representative said, “You have to pay by the word.”
The woman answered, “Ok. Write: Max Schwartz died.” They responded, “There is a six word minimum.”
She replied, “Ok. Write: Max Schwartz died; Cadillac for sale.”
“You Have Seen”
In the Torah reading of the first day of Shavuos, we recall the message G-d communicated to the Jews days before the giving of the Torah at Sinai.
יתרו יט, ד: אַתֶּם רְאִיתֶם אֲשֶׁר עָשִׂיתִי לְמִצְרָיִם וָאֶשָּׂא אֶתְכֶם עַל כַּנְפֵי נְשָׁרִים וָאָבִא אֶתְכֶם אֵלָי: ה וְעַתָּה אִם שָׁמוֹעַ תִּשְׁמְעוּ בְּקֹלִי וּשְׁמַרְתֶּם אֶת בְּרִיתִי וִהְיִיתֶם לִי סְגֻלָּה מִכָּל הָעַמִּים כִּי לִי כָּל הָאָרֶץ:
You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and [how] I bore you on eagles' wings, and I brought you to Me.
And now, if you obey Me and keep My covenant, you shall be to Me a treasure out of all peoples, for Mine is the entire earth.
“You have seen what I did to the Egyptians,” is how G-d opens His words. They are the clincher. When Jews can reflect on what G-d did for them in Egypt, everything would be put into perspective. Their relationship with Him would be experienced as the most natural, organic, exciting life they can live. The covenant they would make with Him would be eternal and unflinching.
It is these words that have a special resonance on this present holiday of Shavuos, as we celebrate 50 years since the victory of the Six Day War.
It was some 50 years ago, when the Lubavitcher Rebbe spoke of these verses in Exodus and explained how the events during the Six Day War were a reenactment of these very biblical verses said to our ancestors 3300 years ago at the foot of Sinai,[1] and ought to inspire similar results.
This story, I feel, must be retold on this year Shavuos.
We Can’t Emulate
Moshe Keinan, a senior IDF officer, wrote a book called Am Yisrael Chai, The Nation of Israel Lives. In his book he wrote of a discussion with an officer of the Singapore army who was deeply impressed with the many miracles that happened to Israel during the 6 day war, in June 1967.
Moshe relates this story: “When I was training in a ‘special unit’s commander course,’ there was a parallel course to mine but with foreign officers, with similar content. I became friendly with one of the officers from the Singapore army, a commander named Lee. We spoke a lot and I was deeply impressed with his knowledge of the history of wars around the whole world and his knowledge of names of generals leading each battle and their exact dates,” Moshe Keinan wrote.
“Lee told me in one of our conversations: You know we learn the history of battles and analyze them to learn lessons from them we can use in our battles when necessary. Every battle and victory is understandable, we can analyze them and we can use them as a model to adapt for ourselves.Moshe was certain that the Six Day War, which occurred exactly 50 years ago, in June 1967, would be a template to study, a model to emulate.
But, Lee said, that they do not use these wars In Israel a template and blueprint.
Lee explained that for them the study of the Six Day War would be futile. We can’t emulate it, he said. We can’t learn from it, he maintained. What happened at that war was so extraordinary and stupendous that it does not fit into the laws and strategies that goveen normal warfair.
“Until today I have no idea how you, such a small nation, succeeded in your war? What exactly can I learn from you when Avigdor Kahalani stopped 140 Syrian tanks with only 3 of his own? What can I learn from the fact that in only 6 days you defeated Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Libya, Morocco, Jordan, Egypt and Iraq, fueled by the Soviets?
“What should I learn from the Gulf War”, continues the officer, “Saddam Hussein launces 39 Scud Missiles at you, 10,500 apartments are harmed yet documents show only one person, Eitan Greenwald, died, and even that was not from the missile. Tell me truthfully as one officer to another, what conclusions can I make from these wars?”
Yizkor
What did Lee mean? What was he referring to?
As we celebrate Shavuos, 50 years later, it behooves us to tell the story, at least touch on it. Today, during Yizkor, we will remember the 777 young soldiers who fell in battle in 67, together with all of the soldiers who fell in battle over the long decades of war before and after, among all of our loved ones who we remember today during Yizkor.
Six Days
The six days between Monday, June 5th until Shabbos, June 10, 1967 (26 Iyar—2 Sivan, 5727) are without parallel in the story of human warfare. These 6 days are also without parallel as far as modern day miracles are concerned. Prior to 1967, who had ever heard of a full-scale war measured in days? One which began at 7:45 Monday morning and was over dramatically on Saturday of the same week. This was a war in which one tiny country—Israel—faced many hostile Arab countries.Egypt, Syria, Jordan, with assistance from Iraq and Lebanon and with a combined military might of twice the number of soldiers, three times the amount of tanks and four times the amount of fighter aircraft, mobilized to destroy our homeland.
In the weeks before the Six-Day War, Egypt, Syria, and Jordan announced a military alliance with the goal of destroying the State of Israel. Egypt’s President Gamal Abdel Nasser, President of the United Arab Republic, closed the Suez Canal to all international ships bringing goods to Israel..
The Arab coalition had a combined force of 465,000 troops, 2,880 tanks and 900 aircraft compared to Israel’s 264,000 soldiers (of which 200,000 were reservists), 800 tanks and 200 aircraft. The outlook was so grim that all of Jerusalem’s parks were prepared to become mass graveyards. The three-week period preceding the Six-Day War was one of dread, shock and fright for the residents of the Holy Land.
It became clear that Israel had no choice but to fight when Nasser closed the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping, expelled the U.N. peacekeeping forces from the Sinai, and brought up troops and heavy artillery to take their place.
On May 28, 1967, the Egyptian leader Nasser, said, “We plan to open a general assault on Israel. This will be total war. Our basic aim is the destruction of Israel.”
One week earlier, Israel had called up all army reservists for active duty. News of the pact between Egypt, Syria and Jordan, effectively creating a noose around Israel’s borders, brought home to a frightened Israeli public the reality of an impending war. The media began discussing the prospects of a war with much bloodshed. The term “second Holocaust” was bandied around. It was only 20 years after the Holocaust and for three million Jews living in the Holy Land, dread and fear penetrated their hearts.
Egypt and Syria military forces were trained by leading Soviet military advisors and armed with the most sophisticated weaponry in the Soviet arsenal. This was a war when, even in the event of victory, some experts assessed the expected Israeli death toll to be as high as 100,000 causalities.
On the 27th of May, the Israeli government began instructing its citizens to prepare themselves for war, offering self-defense primers. Bomb shelters were prepared, and students dug bunkers across the land.
Israeli Prime Minister Levi Eshkol delivered a national radio address in an attempt to calm the populace. Instead, he projected confusion and hesitancy. The Israeli public was in shock over the lack of confidence their prime minister demonstrated. The nation’s panic thickened.
A Lone Voice
As foreign embassies called for their citizens to immediately evacuate from Israel, and foreign airlines were contemplating terminating their flights to Israel, the Israeli daily Yediot Achronot carried a surprisingly uplifting headline: “G-d Is Watching over the Holy Land, and Salvation Is Near,” the headline screamed. The article contained a message by the Lubavitcher Rebbe: “There is no reason to be afraid, and there is no reason to frighten others. I am displeased with the exaggerations being disseminated and the panicking of the citizens in Israel..."
Newspapers across Israel, from Haaretz to Al Hamishmar, carried uplifting headlines in the Rebbe’s name. The Rebbe’s reassuring talk at the Lag BaOmer parade reached the studios of Israel’s national radio, Kol Yisrael, and was broadcast with simultaneous translation from the original Yiddish to Hebrew.
The media also made note of the fact that the Rebbe urged all foreigners who were in Israel to remain there.
War Begins
And then it happened.
It all began on Monday, June 5, 1967. 7:15 AM
Surrounded by mobilized hostiles on all of its borders, the Israeli air force brazenly threw the first stone.
At 7:15 Monday morning, almost all the planes (about 200) in the Israeli Air Force (IAF) set off to attack the Egyptian Air Force, its planes and airfields. Only 12 Fighter Jets stayed and patrolled the open skies of all of Israel to protect the center of the country.
“Operation Moked” (Operation Focus) which launched the war, carried strategic and existential risks. Egypt had a well-developed, advanced anti-aircraft arsenal, boasting dozens of missiles and hundreds of cannons, generously supplied by the Soviet Union and her satellite states. In complete contrast, most of the Israeli planes were old French models, hardly fitting for the operational needs at hand. Had the Israeli attacking force been detected on their way, before the attack, they could have easily been knocked out of the air and Israel would have remained defenseless with a totally destroyed air force.
It was precisely then that one of the greatest miracle occurred. All of the aircraft reached the Egyptian airfields in Sinai, along the Suez Canal and the Nile River without even one being detected! The entire Egyptian anti-aircraft batteries lined all along the border perimeters of Egypt, didn’t function. The Israeli pilots flew in total silence at an altitude of only 80 feet above the sea, to avoid radar detection. At exactly 7:45, the Israeli planes hovered over the Egyptian airfields and bombed the runways, effectively putting the Egyptian Air force out of action. Within one hour more than 200 Egyptian planes had been destroyed, all of Egypt’s military runways were bombed preventing any remaining Egyptian planes from taking off, turning these fighter aircraft into sitting ducks to be destroyed by the 2nd sweep of Israeli bombers.
General Motti Hod, the head of the IAF at the time, was quoted as stating “Even in my wildest dreams I could not have imagined such as achievement,” adding: “Who can express the power of G-d, tell all His praise?” (Psalms 106:2).
Exactly three hours after the start of Operation Moked, at 10:45 AM, the war had been won. Approximately 300 Egyptian planes had been destroyed and all airfields disabled.
A Series of “Accidents”
How did this happen?
It is almost impossible to believe.
In Northern Jordan, Egyptian radar operators on duty picked up the radar signature of a large Israeli air force flying low over the Mediterranean and sent a flash message to their headquarters in Cairo. However, the encryption codes for their unit had been changed the previous day, but nobody had updated the codebooks in the decoding room of the command post. The duty officer tried to decipher the message using the previous day’s code and failed.
What is more, a full three hours before the Israeli airstrike, Egyptian intelligence issued a warning that an Israeli air attack was imminent. The message arrived at central command Cairo, where a junior officer received the message, but for some unknown reason the message never made it to the head of the Egyptian Air Force.
But there was much more.
4 days earlier, on June 1, the Commander of Egyptian forces in the Sinai, Egyptian Field Marshal Abdel Hakim Amer was ordered to change commanders in most of his brigades, replacing them with officers who didn’t know the terrain or their forces, leaving them unprepared for the Israeli attack.
It’s gets even better. When Marshall Amer and his staff flew to the Sinai for a meeting with high-level Iraqis the next day, the Egyptian soldiers manning the anti-air defense systems effectively shut down their systems for fear of shooting down their commander. So that when Israeli plains arrived, the system was down…
But here was the most insane miracle. Marshall Amer and all senior commanders decided to throw a party the night before, Sunday night, June 4. They had a little too much to drink, and most of them slept in late… As Israel attacked 7:45 AM, the senior command was having sweet dreams!
Now, Egypt’s allies –- Jordan, Syria and Iraq –- believed the Egyptians’ false announcements of great victories against Israel and rushed into the fray, eager to be part of the “Great Victory.” Arab planes attacked Israeli towns and army bases, but before they had a chance to cause any serious damage, Israel’s combat pilots and anti-aircraft batteries had shot them down. Following this attack, Israel decided to expand Operation Moked and destroy Syrian and Jordanian aerial power. So at 12:45, the third wave took form and by 3:45, more than 100 Jordanian and Syrian planes had been destroyed and all airfields paralyzed. Within 24 hours, all within the first day of the Six Day War, three major Arab nations threatening Israel had no more air power and the Israeli Air Force was the sole ruler of Middle Eastern skies.
Other Major Miracles
Over the next few days, Israel’s armed forces witnessed hundreds and hundreds of miracles. I will name a few.
The battle of Shechem, Nablus, in the West Bank (annexed by Jordan since 1948) was expected to be one of the hardest and bloodiest. But when Israeli forces approached the town from an unexpected direction—east instead of west--heavily armed Arabs in Shechem greeted them nicely. The Jews could not grasp what in the world is going on!
Coloner Ben Ari was commander of the Tank Division. He related:
“When we entered Nablus thousands of people were waving white flags at us and clapping. We innocently smiled back and waved. We came into the town and we were wondering; how can it be there are no disturbances from the population, the local watch with their weapons, keeping order and the crowds are cheering us? How could that be? We are the enemy!
I understood only later that the local people of Nablus mistakenly thought we were the Iraqi tank brigade that was supposed to meet them in Nablus coming in from Jordan. There were many Arab tanks right outside Nablus waiting for the Iraqis but it didn’t dawn on them to shoot at us because they thought that we were Iraqi. They only later learned of their mistake.”
Can you imagine? Who ever heard of this? You mistake your enemy soldiers as your friends? As a result, the Israelis were warmly welcomed and the city easily fell into their hands. This helped Israel regain much of the rest of the West Bank from Jordan with minimal resistance.
The Golan: David and Goliath
The Israelis were originally reluctant to invade the Golan Heights. It would be an uphill battle against a well-entrenched and fortified position, protected by an army of 75,000 Syrian troops. The Syrian troops and munitions were entrenched in deep bunkers which were immune to air attack. One noted Israeli general estimated that such a battle would cost the Israelis 30,000 lives. Incredibly, though, after only seven hours of heavy fighting on June 9th, IDF commanders established strongholds in the northern and central sectors of the Golan.
The next morning dawned with the Israeli forces apprehensively awaiting another day of fierce fighting. The Syrians, however, had other plans. In a sudden panic, before the Israelis even approached their positions, they pulled out of the Golan and fled in total chaos, leaving most of their weaponry behind. The mountaintops that were strategically utilized to murder Jews in the Holy Land were now in the hands of the Israelis.
In Sinai, the miracle was no smaller. Within a couple of days of Israel's airstrike on its military planes, Egypt began blowing up or abandoning its other military bases, seemingly inexplicably. As a result, Israel easily took both the Sinai and Gaza, the latter of which Egypt had illegally annexed in 1948.
Jerusalem
And then came the spectacular highlight.
International pressure forced Israel to accept a ceasefire proposed by King Hussein of Jordan. But at the last moment, Hussein nixed essential terms of the ceasefire he himself had initiated. This gave Israel the extra time needed to annihilate their enemies' military infrastructure.
It was the morning of Wednesday, June 7, 1967, which corresponded to the Hebrew calendar date of the 28th of Iyar, just a week before the festival of Shavuot.
The war had begun two days earlier, and — at that stage — no one dreamt that it would all be over only four days later. Jewish Jerusalem was suddenly bombarded by artillery fire, despite Israel’s behind-the-scenes appeals to Jordan’s King Hussein to stay out of the war, so as to avoid potentially devastating consequences for both sides. Israel’s emergency government then decided to advance into East Jerusalem, and to try and capture the Old City and Temple Mount, which had been under Jordanian control since 1948.
I listened recently to audio highlights of Israel Radio’s live reporting as the day unfolded. General Uzi Narkiss, the local IDF commander, can be heard asking, “Tell me, where is the Western Wall? How do we get there?”
Radio reporter Yossi Ronen, a macho, secular Israeli, was embedded with the soldiers as they battled their way through the winding alleyways of the Old City. His voice is emotional as he improvises a live commentary:
"... Shortly we're going to go into the Old City of Jerusalem that all generations have dreamed about. ... Ahead we go, through the Lion's Gate! ... I'm with the first unit to break through into the Old City. ... The Temple Mount is in our hands! I repeat, the Temple Mount is in our hands! ... All forces, stop firing... I'm walking right now down the steps towards the Western Wall. I'm not a religious man, I never have been, but this is the Western Wall and I'm touching the stones of the Western Wall. ... [The soldiers spontaneously recite together:] 'Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu melech haolam, she-hechianu ve-kiemanu ve-hegianu la-zman ha-zeh'" (Blessed are You, Lord G-d, King of the Universe, Who has sustained us, kept us and brought us to this day).
Rabbi Shlomo Goren, the chief rabbi of the IDF, his voice choking and excited, recites a unique blessing: “Blessed is God, who comforts Zion and builds Jerusalem.” The soldiers with him respond with a resounding “Amen!” You can hear many of them weeping. The shofar is sounded, and the weeping continues.
You can still hear gunfire in the background as Rabbi Goren shouts: “Le-shana HAZOT be-Yerushalayim!” — altering the perennial Jewish prayer of hope, ‘Next year in Jerusalem,’ into a declaration that translates: “This year in Jerusalem!”
The following day, Israel’s secular newspapers gushed with the story of Jerusalem’s recapture. Ma’ariv’s headline read, “The place for which we have waited for 2,000 years,” while Yedioth Ahronoth included a verse from Isaiah 52 on its masthead: “G-d has comforted His People, He has redeemed Jerusalem!”
Wiesel’s Letter to Obama
In April 2010, Nobel Prize-winning author and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, who died last summer, today took out a full-page ad in the Wall Street Journal, in the form an open letter to President Obama, with whom Wiesel visited the Buchenwald death camp a year earlier.
“It was inevitable,” Wiesel began the letter. “Jerusalem once again is at the center of political debates and international storms. New and old tensions surface at a disturbing pace. Seventeen times destroyed and seventeen times rebuilt, it is still in the middle of diplomatic confrontations that could lead to armed conflict. Neither Athens nor Rome has aroused that many passions.
For me, the Jew that I am, Jerusalem is above politics. It is mentioned more than six hundred times in Scripture-and not a single time in the Koran. Its presence in Jewish history is overwhelming. There is no more moving prayer in Jewish history than the one expressing our yearning to return to Jerusalem. To many theologians, it IS Jewish history, to many poets, a source of inspiration. It belongs to the Jewish people and is much more than a city, it is what binds one Jew to another in a way that remains hard to explain. When a Jew visits Jerusalem for the first time, it is not the first time; it is a homecoming.The first song I heard was my mother’s lullaby about and for Jerusalem. Its sadness and its joy are part of our collective memory.
When a Jew visits Jerusalem for the first time, it is a homecoming.
Since King David took Jerusalem as his capital, Jews have dwelled inside its walls with only two interruptions; when Roman invaders forbade them access to the city and again, when under Jordanian occupation. Jews, regardless of nationality, were refused entry into the old Jewish quarter to meditate and pray at the Wall, the last vestige of Solomon’s temple. It is important to remember: had Jordan not joined Egypt and Syria in the 1967 war against Israel, the old city of Jerusalem would still be Arab. Clearly, while Jews were ready to die for Jerusalem they would not kill for Jerusalem….
Jerusalem must remain the world’s Jewish spiritual capital, not a symbol of anguish and bitterness, but a symbol of trust and hope. As the Hasidic master Rebbe Nahman of Bratslav said, “Everything in this world has a heart; the heart itself has its own heart.”
“Jerusalem is the heart of our heart, the soul of our soul.”
Shavuos, 1967: The Great Ascent
Back to 1967. A euphoric and relieved Israeli population now awaited the day when they would once again be allowed to visit the Western Wall, the Kotel, in the Old City of Jerusalem. On the holiday of Shavuot, June 14, the holy site was opened for civilians. More than 200,000 came; they cried, prayed, and thanked G-d for His incredible miracles and salvation.
On the very next day, the Chabad-Lubavitch tefillin booth was established in the plaza facing the Wall. In its first year alone, one and a half million people donned tefillin at the Wall. The booth, now a permanent fixture of the Western Wall, is manned daily from shortly after dawn until dusk.
The Statistics
The statistics from the war are amazing. For every Israeli who perished in the conflict, 25 of the enemy died. For every Israeli prisoner of war, there were over 394 Arab POWs. For every Israeli plane that was downed, more than 11 Arab planes were lost. Some thought 100,000 Jews would die. At the end, 777 fighters lost their lives. May G-d avenge their sacred blood. The Arabs called the conflict an-Naksah, or “The Setback.” The Israelis called it the “Six-Day War”—not only to identify the miraculously short length of the war, but also to evoke the six days of creation, followed by the 7th day of Shabat rest.
History books speak of the “Hundred Years’ War,” the “Thirty Years’ War,” and many other long-fought battles. Here, in a matter of six short days, a nation managed to utterly rout not one, but four powerful enemies! And tripled its original size! It was in this war that Israel liberated and united the City of Jerusalem and returned to the heartland of her ancient homeland – Judea and Samaria, all prophesized in the Torah.
Ezer Weizman, who had built the Israeli Air Force and was Head of Operations during the war, was asked to explain the astounding success of the air force on the first day of the war. All he could think of was a verse from the Bible, in which Pharaoh’s greatest sorcerers and advisor submitted to a met-physical explanation of the plagues: “It is the Finger of G-d.”
The then Chief of Staff, Yitzchak Rabin, summed up the war with a message in a telegram sent to the post-war celebrations in Tel-Aviv, with the following quote from the Hallel prayer we say on Shavuos as well: “This is the day that Hashem made; we shall exult and rejoice on it.”
A new reality had been created. Something of Biblical proportions. Something in the human order had irrevocable changed. The core of this shift was not only the miraculous nature of the war but the fact that the Jewish people had returned for the first time in 2000 years, to their eternal capital, and their holiest site.
The Shepherd
Moshe Keinan concludes his story in the above book:
“It seems this question [by Lee] was already dealt with almost 2,000 years ago when Hadrian, the Roman leader, continued the destruction wrought by Titus on the holy land. Despite the great destruction that was wrought, Hadrian was impressed by the survival of the Jews. He told Rabbi Joshua: “The sheep surrounded by 70 wolves is very great!” Rabbi Joshua answered: “Great is the shepherd that saves her protects her and breaks those wolves before her.[2]
This is the answer for the Singapore army officer: Our wars are led by G-d, not in a natural way.
“You Have Seen”
And so the Rebbe said, the words of G-d to His people, “you have seen what I did to Egypt,” is something that was re-experienced during the Six Day War in 1967. The miracles were simply astounding. Even the most secular individual at the time had no choice but to submit that this was something out of this world. Or as Yogi Berra put it: ““That’s too coincidental to be a coincidence.”
When Jews see such types of events, it ought to reinvigorate—as the Torah continues—them to renew their covenant with G-d with a new vigor, vitality, freshness, passion and commitment.
Why the Shame
Moshe Keinan concludes the above story with a painful observation.
“In one of my conversations with my friend Lee, the Singapore army officer, we were in the hallway between our classrooms at a break between classes. There were refreshments. Lee poured me a coffee and handed me a slice of cake and he immediately started eating. I held the cake in my right hand and made a blessing; “Blessed are you G-d … creator of various types of foods.” I was hoping that the blessing would peak Lee’s interest and perhaps he would ask about it, but lee kept on eating.
I asked him; “Aren’t you curious about the blessing I made?”“Blessing?” he asked, “it’s not the first time I saw you talking to your food!”
I smiled and responded “I’m not talking to my food I pray to G-d and thank G-d for my food!”
“G-d?” Lee asked astounded, “You Jews don’t believe in G-d! Muslims believe in G-d Catholics believe in G-d but you believe in yourselves?!”
I told Lee that it simply wasn’t’ true and asked him: “How did you ever get to that conclusion?”
Lee stood up and said: “Listen, besides visiting the Israeli army we visited the Egyptian army and the U.S. army. Over there I heard G-d all the time. Generals would mention G-d in every class. Any lecture or instruction you’d always hear G-d being mentioned.“I’m here visiting the IDF for 3 months and this is the first time I’m openly hearing that Israel has a G-d!”
He looked at me and asked; “Moshe from who are you all embarrassed?”
“I was quiet”, Moshe Keinan writes, I didn’t know what to answer him.”
Our Challenge
For me, this sad ending of the story represents one of our profoundest challenges. The people who gave the world G-d and moral monotheism, find it so hard to declare that conviction with pride and dignity.
And if you want to understand what happened to Israel over the last 50 years, how did such an astounding victory result in so many challenges and problems, on a political, social, and military level? I think it can be summed up in the above story. Our own inner shame and sense of discomfort with who we are as a people and our lack of pride in our own Torah and faith, is what allowed us to turn one of the greatest miracles of modern times into an international disaster. Israel allowed itself to become the punching bag of international opinion, because of the inner doubt that torments us internally. The lack of genuine Jewish pride and dignity, appreciating who we are as a people, what Israel represents, and what is our role in history, caused us to squander one of the greatest opportunities and Divine gifts in our long, painful and glorious story.
50 years later, it is time to change course.
You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and [how] I bore you on eagles' wings, and I brought you to Me.
And now, if you obey Me and keep My covenant, you shall be to Me a treasure out of all peoples, for Mine is the entire earth.
It is as simple as that, friends.
- Comment
Class Summary:
In the Torah reading of the first day of Shavuos, we recall the message G-d communicated to the Jews days before the giving of the Torah at Sinai. You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and [how] I bore you on eagles' wings, and I brought you to Me. And now, if you obey Me and keep My covenant, you shall be to Me a treasure out of all peoples, for Mine is the entire earth.
These words that have a special resonance on this present holiday of Shavuos, as we celebrate 50 years since the victory of the Six Day War. It was during that time when the Lubavitcher Rebbe spoke of these verses in Exodus and explained how the events during the Six Day War were a reenactment of these very biblical verses said to our ancestors 3300 years ago at the foot of Sinai, and ought to inspire similar results.
The sermon retells the story of the June 1967 War, but with one particular angle: the incredible miracles upon miracles that created an unprecedented victory. From a drinking party in Egypt to a code error in Jordan, from an unbelievable mistake in Nablus to a panic in the Golan.
How a Singapore commander explained to an Israeli officer why they do not study the Six Day War as a model of how to fight a war, and how Eli Wiesel explained to Barack Obama the meaning of Jerusalem.
The sermon explains what happened to Israel over the last 50 years and how it is time to change course, reclaiming those biblical words read on Shavuos and uttered by the Rebbe after the Six Day War, 50 years ago.
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