Touched to the Core

The Jewish world is on fire.

The bloodbath orchestrated by Hamas and Iran on Saturday, Simchat Torah (October 7, 2023) in Southern Israel has woken up a part in every single Jew that was dormant. Our people have been touched to the core; Jews are more aware of their own Jewishness than they have been in a very long time.

The glee of the enemy in slaughtering Jewish babies reminded us that this has nothing to do with occupation, colonization, apartheid, or any other myth. This was a manifestation of visceral evil which craves to destroy every single Jew. Had Hamas had its way, it would joyfully perform this mini-Holocaust daily, until all 6.6 million Jews in Israel lay lifeless.

Every Jew living today feels the need to respond. Of course, we must defend ourselves in every possible way; we must support Israel and our soldiers with every fiber of our being—encouraging them to fulfill their moral historic duty of eliminating every vestige of bloodthirsty evil. Of course, we must lift the morale of our brothers and sisters in Israel and the world over through an unprecedented outpouring of support, love and oneness, like never before.

But there is one more critical weapon that every single Jew living today, all 16 million of us, can embrace—and it will change everything.

The Weapon of Eternity

Is there a scientific explanation for our survival and success, 4000 years later?

Death for the Jews has been plotted by tyrants of every age. The greatest Empires of the ancient world—Egypt, Assyria, Babylonia, Greece, and Rome, all the way down to Stalin and Hitler—attempted to annihilate us; yet they have all vanished, and we survived. Jews have been expelled from nearly every country in which they resided, yet we are here to tell the tale. What did we have that they did not have? How did a hunted-down nation constituting less than one-quarter-of-one percent of humanity survive and thrive?

All these nations and tyrants had large territories of land, mighty military prowess, culture, language, and affluence. What is the secret of our immortality?

There is only one rational way to answer this—to search for the one unique and exclusive weapon that the Jewish people possessed from the day they became a people, and it accompanied them through all their history. Can we identify such a weapon?

In science, we search for the permanent trait in an organism to explain its longevity in difficult circumstances. With the Jewish people, the search is not difficult. There is only one single weapon that has been with us forever, in every milieu, in every location, under all circumstances: The Torah and the Mitzvos that our people studied, observed, and celebrated with unwavering commitment on a daily basis, and bequeathed to their children and grandchildren.

I may logically understand the power of the Torah and the Mitzvos, or not; but I can’t argue with the plain facts: This is the only “weapon” that the Jewish people had from the day they became a people till this very day, which no other army or empire possessed. It is our mightiest weapon—it has outlived every single one of our enemies for over four millennia, and we remain the energetic people we are today, filled with passion, love, and creativity.

This, then, is the historic calling of this time—to encourage and inspire every single Jew living today, to acquire, or finetune, this indestructible Jewish weapon.&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;

What Hamas and its supporters targeted was not just a piece of land, but an entire people. We have once again been confronted by the force of evil and diabolical hatred that craves to destroy G-d’s eternal people. At such a time, our response must be:&nbsp;Let’s be Jewish like never before in history, and let's be united like never before!

My beloved brothers and sisters! Let us become the greatest Jews ever, by studying what it means to be a Jew and living it.

<ul>
	<li>Put a Mezuzah on your door.</li>
	<li>Wrap Tefillin each morning.</li>
	<li>Study Torah on a daily or weekly basis.</li>
	<li>Engage in prayer and spiritual meditation.</li>
	<li>Eat kosher and make your home kosher.</li>
	<li>Light Shabbos candles and celebrate our day of peace and rest, the holy Sabbath.</li>
	<li>Give charity every day.</li>
	<li>Give your children an education filled with Jewish love and wisdom.</li>
	<li>Become a passionate ambassador of love and unity among our people.</li>
	<li>Imbue your marriage with purity, love, and holiness, or choose any other mitzvah.</li>
	<li>Come to synagogue and get involved with a community.</li>
</ul>

Judaism is about cultivating an ongoing relationship with your deepest soul-essence, filling your heart with the love and peace beating in your soul, and aligning yourself every moment with the universal Divine consciousness of oneness. Every mitzvah, every prayer, and all of Torah, is about becoming channels for the source of all love, peace, light, and truth—and drawing it down into our world. These are the spiritual weapons of victory and eternity.

We do not have time now to live in fear and paralysis; we are the chosen people, we are a singular spiritual organism, and we have a mission: to draw down each day, each moment, infinite love into our hearts, our homes, our communities, our people, our homeland, and the entire world. We need Hashem (G-d, the Creator and source of all love and peace) in our lives. That’s how we can grant the most profound power and courage to our people, our homeland, and all good people in the world.

The support for Hamas in institutions of higher education, and the silence of people so many of us respected, has sickened us. This is the time for courage, resolve, and fortitude. Let’s not shrink, and let’s not shirk our calling. Some of us were drafted into the front lines of battle with Hamas; the rest of us can’t afford to remain spectators. We were all drafted into battle, on a physical or spiritual level.

You can’t argue with the facts: 4000 years later, we are here, and it’s because of that immortal weapon called Torah and Mitzvos.

16 million Jews are waiting for their marching orders. Will we heed their call?

(<a href="https://onemitzvah.org/israel/rabbiyyjacobson">Here is a link to share with friends and family to accept a mitzvah today</a>).

&nbsp;

&nbsp;

16 Million Jews Waiting for Marching Orders:&nbsp;Let&rsquo;s Not Forfeit a Historic Opportunity

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jewish survival

Let’s Not Forfeit a Historic Opportunity

Essay on Hamas-Israel War

16 Million Jews Waiting for Marching Orders

A Simple Guide to Understand the Hamas-Israel War

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gaza

hamas

What Do I Tell My Friends Who Are Confused About the Hamas-Israeli War?

Essay on Simchas Torah Massacre & Gaza War

What Should Israel Do? 

We Are All Soldiers on the Front Lines United to Uplift the Morale of Our People. What is our Mission today? How can this happen? Why? Where do we go from here?

Let&#39;s Get Real show with Coach Menachem featuring Rabbi YY Jacobson with Eli Beer, the head of United Hatzolah Live from Israel, will provide insights directly from the front lines.&nbsp;Additionally, Dr. Akiva Perlman will join to discuss pertinent issues.

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21_coach_menachem_oct_15_edited.e38c.mp4

21_coach_menachem_oct_15_edited.e38c.mp3

israel

coach menachem

We Are All Soldiers on the Front Lines United to Uplift the Morale of Our People

Let's Get Real: Rabbi YY Jacobson, Eli Beer, & Dr. Akiva Perlman

 The Hamas War: Clarity, Courage, Faith and Unity

This class was&nbsp;presented on Tuesday, Parshas Noach, 2&nbsp;Cheshvan, 5784, October 17, 2023, at Bais Medrash Ohr Chaim in Monsey, NY.

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22_5784__women_source_sheets_noach.b41a.pdf

21_women_class_noach_5784_edited.1079.mp4

21_women_class_noach_5784_edited.1079.mp3

noach

yair ansbacher

jewish unity

Jewish Unity Is Our Highest and Most Natural Frequency

Women’a Noach Class/Hamas War

War in Israel: The Power of Every Single One of Us

This class was&nbsp;presented on Tuesday, Parshas Vayera, 16&nbsp;Cheshvan, 5784, October 31, 2023, at Bais Medrash Ohr Chaim in Monsey, NY.

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22__________________________.5423.pdf

21_9124_women_class_vayera_5784.bb2e.mp4

21_9124_women_class_vayera_5784.bb2e.mp3

shalsheles

yishmael

avraham and sarah

What Our Mother Sarah Understood About Yishmael; The Timeless Advice of Avraham and Sarah: “You Are My Brother”

Women's Class Parshas Vayeira

The Cognitive Dissonance of Jews with Allegiance to the Left

There are no words which can describe the evil perpetrated by Mohammed Merah in Toulouse, on Monday morning, March 19th 2012. <o:p></o:p>
Merah is the Islamic Jihadist who murdered three French soldiers, a Rabbi and three Jewish children, ages 8, 6, 3 in cold blood. <o:p></o:p>
What is equally sickening&mdash;and in many ways more frightening&mdash;is when progressive and peace-loving politicians, professors and journalists simply don&rsquo;t grasp the gruesome reality: There are hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of Jihadists, whose hate to every single Jew knows no bounds. These are people who find it moral and noble to lift an 8 year old angelic girl by her hair and shoot her in her temple, only because she was born to Jewish parents.<o:p></o:p>
Here are three examples of this delusional ignorance, pontificated by a politician, a historian and a journalist.<o:p></o:p>
In Brussels this week, at a conference on Palestinian refugees, Catherine Ashton, the foreign policy chief of the European Union, cast her eyes beyond the killings of three Jewish children in Toulouse. Ashton linked this atrocity to the tragic killings of children in recent times elsewhere in the world&mdash;in Belgium, in Norway, in Syria, &quot;and when we see what is happening in Gaza.&quot;<o:p></o:p>
The Toulouse-equals-Gaza remark naturally drew a torrent of protests in Israel, with officials denouncing Ashton for equating the deliberate murder of Jewish children in Toulouse with the loss of Gaza children in Israeli defensive operations against terrorist groups using children as human shields.<o:p></o:p>
Ashton said her comments had been misinterpreted, but the&nbsp;damage, of course, has been done.<o:p></o:p>
Then in a March 21 article in the English Forward, &ldquo;Toulouse Tragedy Shows Rhetoric's Danger,&rdquo; Houston history professor Robert Zaretsky shifts the focus of the murder in France to the intolerant rhetoric by French leaders about Muslims: &ldquo;It is a matter of public record that Sarkozy&rsquo;s minister of the interior, Claude Gu&eacute;ant, has made a series of provocative&nbsp;claims concerning French Muslims. Whether it was his assertion that &ldquo;all civilizations are not equal&rdquo; or his prediction that if foreigners legally residing in France were given the vote, the French would find themselves eating halal meat in school and office cafeterias, such remarks fall well outside the purview of a man responsible for the nation&rsquo;s security.<o:p></o:p>
&ldquo;This is no less the case for a president who, over the years, has made a political target of the French Muslims, a discourse most recently marked by Sarkozy&rsquo;s declarations that &lsquo;we have too many foreigners in France&hellip;&rsquo;&rdquo; <o:p></o:p>
Instead of identifying and bemoaning the monstrous, barbaric and grotesque belief system of Islamists as the cause of all this verbiage, she comes close to blaming the murders in Toulouse on this anti-Islamic rhetoric. <o:p></o:p>
Finally, in a recent news article, the New York Times finds a way to use the killing of the three children in France as a peg to blame Israel for Palestinian children casualties in its response to Gaza rocket barrages. <o:p></o:p>
Jerusalem correspondent&nbsp;<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/21/world/middleeast/israel-criticizes-eu-official-for-comments-on-french-school-attack.html?_r=1&amp;scp=1&amp;sq=KERSHNER%20FURY%20IN%20ISRAEL&amp;st=cse">Isabel Kershner</a>&nbsp;penned an article in the March 21 edition of the Times (&quot;Fury in Israel at Remarks Linking Gaza to Toulouse&quot; page A5). She ends her piece with a telling paragraph: <o:p></o:p>
&quot;In the latest cross-border violence between Israel and militant groups in Gaza, 26 Palestinians were killed over four days, according to the Israeli military.&nbsp;Most were militants, but four were civilians.&nbsp;A 12-year-old boy was among those killed in Israeli airstrikes; another boy, 14, was killed by explosives in disputed circumstances.&nbsp;In the same period, Palestinians fired over 150 rockets into southern Israel, none of which claimed a life.&quot;<o:p></o:p>
Never mind that the four-day cross-border violence was started by Gaza terrorists and Israel was responding under its internationally recognized right of self-defense&mdash;a point neatly hidden from Kershner's copy.&nbsp;If Islamic Jihad and the Popular Resistance Committee had desisted from launching volleys of rockets, there would have been no violence, and Gaza kids would have been spared.<o:p></o:p>
Never mind also that the 14-year-old Gaza boy wasn't killed &quot;in disputed circumstances,&quot; as Kershner puts it.&nbsp; A reporter of the French&nbsp;<a title="Powered by Text-Enhance" href="http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2012/03/ny_times_sanitizes_gaza_rocket_attacks_on_israel_in_report_on_toulouse_massacre.html">news</a>&nbsp;service, Agence France Presse, investigated the scene of the boy's death and reported there was no evidence whatsoever that he was killed by an airstrike.&nbsp;Everything instead pointed to youngsters playing with live ammunition.&nbsp;Kershner, however, obfuscates the circumstances so as not to exonerate the Israeli military.<o:p></o:p>
Never mind that when 150 rockets rain down on civilian communities in southern Israel, tens of thousands of Israeli children are traumatized by sirens that alert them to take cover within a matter of seconds.&nbsp;Many of these children develop lasting psychological pain and suffering.&nbsp;But widespread cases of post-traumatic stress don't enter into Kershner's equation.<o:p></o:p>
The only link between the Toulouse massacre and the four-day Gaza cross-border violence is that innocents have been targeted by Jew-hating terrorists.&nbsp;But don't expect to read that in the New York Times.<o:p></o:p>
These three examples are telling. They inform us of the real danger confronting us, not only from the Jihadist blood-thirsty murderers but from the scores of Western leaders and thinkers who will forever excuse their behavior and put the blame on the weeping victims.<o:p></o:p>

The Real Danger - Politicians and Professors Are Still Delusional 

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22_mikeitz_5771.pdf

jew hatred

anti semitism

tolouse

massacre

Politicians and Professors Are Still Delusional 

The Real Danger

President Obama and the 1967 Borders - What Israel Should Do Now

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22_ac_chayeis_to_5771-0.pdf

terror

palestinians

territories

What Israel Should Do Now; President Obama and the 1967 Borders

Essay on Israel's Wars

A Guide To Understand the Israeli-Arab Conflict

Children's Wisdom
A new teacher was trying to make use of her psychology courses. She&nbsp;started her class by saying, "Everyone who thinks he's stupid, please stand up!" After a few seconds, little Johnny stood up. The teacher was&nbsp;surprised, but realized this was an opportune moment to help&nbsp;the poor child. "Do you think you're stupid, Johnny?" she asked.&nbsp;"Why do you feel so my dear child"? "No, ma'am," Johnny replied, "but I hated to see you standing there&nbsp;all by yourself!"
&nbsp;
A Visit to the North
&nbsp;
Some time ago, during a visit to Israel, I traveled to the twin mountains of Gerizim and Ebal, to stand on the soil my ancestors treaded 3,280 years ago, during a historic moment when they had just entered the Promised Land.&nbsp; &nbsp; Located in the north of Israel, in the area known today as Samaria (Shomron), towering over the city of Shechem (Nablus) and the gravesite of Joseph, the two majestic mountains dominate the horizon for the many Jewish settlements located in that area<a href="javascript: void(0);" id="_edn1" onclick="ty.scrollTo('_ednref1')">[1]</a>. &nbsp; As I entered into the wellspring flowing on Mt. Gerizim for a spiritual pre-Sabbath cleansing, I closed my eyes, and allowed my imagination to take me back more than three millennia, to the time when the Jewish people, according to Moses’ instructions in this week’s Torah portion, Ki Savo, gathered atop these mountains shortly after their entry into the Land in order to rededicate themselves to the ethical values of Torah.
&nbsp;
Moses’ Directive
&nbsp;
These were Moses’ instructions to the people in the book of Deuteronomy<a href="javascript: void(0);" id="_edn2" onclick="ty.scrollTo('_ednref2')">[2]</a>: “When Your G-d brings you to the land, to possess it, you shall deliver the blessing on Mount Gerizim and the curse on Mount Ebal.” &nbsp; Later in the Bible<a href="javascript: void(0);" id="_edn3" onclick="ty.scrollTo('_ednref3')">[3]</a>, Moses is more specific. Six tribes were to ascend Mt. Gerizim, while another six tribes were to ascend Mt. Ebal. The elders of the Levites were to stand in the valley between the two mountains. They would loudly pronounce 12 basic moral commandments of the Torah. &nbsp; As the Talmud explains<a href="javascript: void(0);" id="_edn4" onclick="ty.scrollTo('_ednref4')">[4]</a>, turning their faces to Mt. Gerizim, the Levites declared that fulfilling these commandments would bring blessings, to which all of Israel responded Amen. Then, turning their faces to Mt. Ebal, they declared that violating these commandments would cause detriment, to which all of the tribes again responded with an Amen. &nbsp; In Moses’ words (3): “The Levites shall speak up and say to every man of Israel in a loud voice… ‘Accursed is the man who will make a graven or molten image, an abomination of G-d… and the entire people shall speak up and say ‘Amen’… Accursed is the man who degrades his father or mother… Accursed is the one who steals the property of his fellow… Accursed is one who causes a blind person to go astray on the road… Accursed is the one who perverts a judgment of a proselyte, orphan or widow… Accursed is the one who has intimate relations with the wife of his father… Accursed is the one who has intimate relations with any animal… Accursed is the one who has intimate relations with his sister… Accursed is the one who has intimate relations with his mother-in-law… Accursed is the one who strikes his fellow stealthily… Accursed is the one who takes a bribe to kill a person of innocent blood…’”
&nbsp;
The Implementation
&nbsp;
Indeed, Moses’ instructions to the people of Israel were fulfilled meticulously. Here is the report in the eighth chapter of the book of Joshua<a href="javascript: void(0);" id="_edn5" onclick="ty.scrollTo('_ednref5')">[5]</a>: &nbsp; “Then Joshua built an altar to G-d, G-d of Israel, on Mount Ebal, as Moses, the servant of G-d, has commanded the children of Israel<a href="javascript: void(0);" id="_edn6" onclick="ty.scrollTo('_ednref6')">[6]</a>… All of Israel and its elders and officers and its judges stood… half of them on the slope of Mt. Gerizim and half of them on the slope of Mt. Ebal, to first bless the people of Israel.”&nbsp; This was a profoundly dramatic moment in our early history. Entering for the first time into their homeland, the Jewish people, atop these two mountains, defined their mission statement as a people, rededicating themselves to the novel and revolutionary system of biblical ethics still unheard of in that milieu of cannibalism and pagan feasts of child slaughtering. According to the Talmud, it was at that moment that the Jewish people accepted shared duty for each other as a single spiritual organism (6*). &nbsp; Incidentally, it is worth noting that at the northern corner of Mt. Ebal a great archeological find was excavated a number of years ago. After searching the entire area for signs of an early Israelite settlement, a solid stone structure was uncovered on the northern summit of Ebal surrounded by large amounts of animal bones. After the bones were submitted for testing the results showed that 93 percent to 97 percent of the bones came from kosher animals, and specifically animals that were permitted for use on a Jewish altar. The nonreligious archeologist who discovered the sight concluded that he had excavated the altar described above in Joshua chapter eight. (Because of safety concerns, the sight today is mostly off limits.) &nbsp; Another fascinating fact I observed is that although the two mountains are closely situated to each other, and subject to the same rains and climates, Mt. Gerizim is green and fertile, while its neighboring Mt. Ebal is tark white rock and barren. This is easily observable, perhaps a result of Ebal being designated as the mountain of curse<a href="javascript: void(0);" id="_edn7" onclick="ty.scrollTo('_ednref7')">[7]</a>.
&nbsp;
Why Two Mountains?
&nbsp;
Yet the obvious question is, why the need for two distinct mountains in order to proclaim the benefits of loyalty to the Torah ethic and the detriments resulting from abandoning the Torah? Why couldn’t the entire ceremony be performed on one mountain? &nbsp; Even if all of the Jews could not fit on a single mountain, why were blessings directed toward one mountain, while curses directed to another? &nbsp; The answer seems to be uniquely relevant to our age. &nbsp; With the vivid visualization of two distinct mountains, separated by a valley, one of blessing, the other of curse, the Torah is attempting to convey the message that life can and should be divided into two distinct pathways: one path as a source of blessing and growth; the other as a source of curse and devastation. A very real gulf separates the moral life from the immoral life and it ought not to be obfuscated<a href="javascript: void(0);" id="_edn8" onclick="ty.scrollTo('_ednref8')">[8]</a>. &nbsp; With this clear designation of a mountain of blessing vs. a mountain of curse the Bible is rejecting the notion that the true progressive personality is open to all kinds of people, all kinds of lifestyles, all ideologies, all choices. According to this modern-day ethos, the primary enemy is the person who cannot be tolerant to all forms of behavior, the individual who believes that some deeds are absolutely blessed, while others are absolutely cursed.
&nbsp;
The University Failure
&nbsp;
In the introduction to his book "The Closing of the American Mind," the late Chicago University professor Allan Bloom argued that higher education in the U.S. has failed democracy and impoverished the souls of today’s students. The great virtue of the day, he wrote, became the unshakable belief that all truth is relative, and that no one idea or moral value is truer than any other. Openness to every culture and tolerance of every idea has become the greatest insight of our time. The notion of absoluteness, naturally, became the great foe of our times. The true believer is the real danger. The study of history and culture taught the youth of today that the greatest evils of the past came from people who thought they were absolutely right. Our mission today was not to correct the mistakes and learn what is really right, but rather to abolish the very concept of right and wrong. Everything became right. What right, students continue to ask, do I or anyone else have to say that one way is better than the other? &nbsp; In Bloom’s own words: “If I pose the routine questions designed to confuse them and make them think, such as ‘If you had been a British administrator in India, would you have let the natives under your governance burn the widow at the funeral of a man who had died?’ they either remain silent or reply that the British should never have been there in the first place.” &nbsp; In the Dec. 17, 2001 issue of Newsweek, Yale University student Alison Hornstein wisely observed: &nbsp; “On the morning of Sept. 11, my entire college campus huddled around television sets, our eyes riveted in horror to the images of the burning, then falling, Twin Towers… But by Sept. 12, as our shock began to fade, so did our sense of being wronged. Students' reactions expressed in the daily newspaper and in class pointed to the differences between our life circumstances and those of the perpetrators, suggesting that these differences had caused the previous day’s events. &nbsp; “Noticeably absent,” she wrote, “was a general outcry of indignation. These reactions, and similar ones on other campuses, have made it apparent that my generation is uncomfortable assessing, or even asking, whether a moral wrong has taken place. My generation may be culturally sensitive, but we hesitate to make moral judgments.” &nbsp; This is a tragedy raging in American campuses across the country. The fact that so many otherwise intelligent university students cannot recognize some actions as objectively evil, despite differences in cultural standards and values, is not only philosophically problematic, it is practically dangerous and suicidal. If we cannot define anything as evil, we cannot stand up to it. We then ensure its victory. &nbsp; If hijacking planes and killing thousands of civilians is not objectively bad, what then can be deemed evil? If blowing up two buses filled with civilian men, women and children, blowing to pieces ten or twenty innocent human beings—as Hamas has done for years in Israel—is not absolutely evil, what is?&nbsp; &nbsp; Three thousand and two hundred years ago, the Torah taught us that some acts constitute blessings; others constitute curses. They ought never to be equated. They ought to be distinguished not only conceptually, but also physically. They could never be associated together in one domain. An absolute, though narrow, gulf separates the two. &nbsp; Distinguishing good from bad is not an act of arrogance, peasantry or a display of closed-mindedness. It is the only way to purge our beautiful world from militants who slaughter people who do not adhere to their beliefs.
&nbsp;
(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> See Sifre to to Reah; Soteh 33b; Yerushalmi Soteh 7:3 for the differing opinions on the exact location of the mountains.
<a href="javascript: void(0);" id="_ednref2" onclick="ty.scrollTo('_edn2')">[2]</a> 11:29.
<a href="javascript: void(0);" id="_ednref3" onclick="ty.scrollTo('_edn3')">[3]</a> Ibid. 27:11-25.
<a href="javascript: void(0);" id="_ednref4" onclick="ty.scrollTo('_edn4')">[4]</a> Soteh 32a. Quoted in Rashi to Deuteronomy ibid.
<a href="javascript: void(0);" id="_ednref5" onclick="ty.scrollTo('_edn5')">[5]</a> &nbsp;8:30.&nbsp;
<a href="javascript: void(0);" id="_ednref6" onclick="ty.scrollTo('_edn6')">[6]</a> This commandment is in Deuteronomy 27:5-7. 6*) See Talmud Shvous 37b.
<a href="javascript: void(0);" id="_ednref7" onclick="ty.scrollTo('_edn7')">[7]</a> See Shalah Parshas Reah and Or Hatorah Parshas Reah pp. 678-680 for an explanations of the names of these two mountains and their connection to blessing and curse.
<a href="javascript: void(0);" id="_ednref8" onclick="ty.scrollTo('_edn8')">[8]</a> This concept is conveyed, in Kabbalistic and spiritual terminology, in Or Hatorah ibid. and references noted there. My thanks to Shmuel Levin, a writer and editor in Pittsburgh, for his editorial assistance.

September 11th and the University Crisis - A Tale of Two Mountains

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moral relativism

mt. grizim

mt. eibal

A Tale of Two Mountains

September 11th and the University Crisis

<div style="text-align: justify; line-height: 120%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt">Swept up by the momentum of the recent Facebook-powered revolutions in the Arab world, a newly formed, super-viral Palestinian group on Facebook openly advocates another Intifada (terror war) against the citizens of Israel.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify; line-height: 120%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"> 
The &quot;Third Palestinian Intifada,&quot; calls for a million supporters to join forces in a violent uprising against Israel on May 15, 2011, or Nakba Day, the date on which Arabs mourn the establishment of Israel. Previous intifadas (1987 and 2000) resulted in the murders of thousands of innocent victims through suicide bombings, rocket attacks, roadside shootings and numerous acts of terror.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify; line-height: 120%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"> 
The facebook page, entitled Third Palestinian Intifada, has more than 350,000 fans. Facebook has refused to remove the page. Will a Jewish young man, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, actually assist the bloodshed of his own people?</div>
<div style="text-align: justify; line-height: 120%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"> 
Supporters of Israel are deeply worried. On Friday night, March 12, a young Israeli family in Itamar was butchered to death. Last Wednesday, a bombing in Jerusalem killed a woman and wounded dozens. Rocket attacks from Gaza are increasing by the day. Are these barbaric acts heralding the launch of a third Intifada?</div>
<div style="text-align: justify; line-height: 120%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"> 
Over the last two years Israel has acquiesced to the incessant demands of the Palestinian Authority and the Obama administration that it freeze construction of Jewish neighborhoods in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, in order to promote peace. It also removed scores of roadblocks allowing Palestinians free entry into Israel cities and towns. The economy in the West Bank has been prospering. Why, then, the sudden fury against Israel? </div>
<div style="text-align: justify; line-height: 120%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt">The answer is painful. Without even a single exception, every time Israel ceded territory or made security compromises to its neighbors, that territory became an infrastructure of terror, from which Arabs were sent to murder innocent Israeli civilians. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify; line-height: 120%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"> 
In the summer of 2005, Israel withdrew completely from Gaza, which it obtained in the 1967 war. Not even on an inch of land remained under Israeli occupation. The then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon believed that with not a single Jew left in Gaza and with the Israeli occupation over, the Arabs living there would now be driven to create a functioning state, and security would increase for both sides.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify; line-height: 120%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt">&nbsp;</div>
<div style="text-align: justify; line-height: 120%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt">Alas, the exact opposite occurred. Hamas swept into Gaza and turned it into a terrorist infrastructure, with a clear objective: to destroy Israel. The result was increased rocket attacks from unoccupied Gaza targeting Israeli civilians on a daily basis. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify; line-height: 120%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt">&nbsp;</div>
<div style="text-align: justify; line-height: 120%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt">One decade earlier, the Oslo peace agreements between Israel and the Palestinian Authority persuaded Israel to cede territories in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank of Jordan), obtained from Jordan in the 1967 war, to the Palestinian Authority. What was the result? Those very territories have become bastions of terror from where young Arab men and women were sent to blow up and murder as many civilians as possible. Endless rivers of blood and tears began flowing in the buses, streets, caf&eacute;&rsquo;s, and schools of Israel.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify; line-height: 120%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt">&nbsp;</div>
<div style="text-align: justify; line-height: 120%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt">At Camp David, in 2000, Yasser Arafat was offered a Palestinian State with its capital in East Jerusalem, along with 100% of Gaza and 98% of the West Bank. Arafat's response was a terror campaign that claimed the lives of thousands of his own people, in addition to thousands of dead and maimed Jews.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify; line-height: 120%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt">&nbsp;</div>
<div style="text-align: justify; line-height: 120%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt">For years Israel said to its Arab neighbors, &quot;Let us live together.&quot; Their consistent reply was: &ldquo;Rather than live together, we will die together.&rdquo; In 1947, the UN in its famous partition plan, offered the Arabs a state alongside a Jewish one. Israel accepted the offer; the Arabs rejected it. 
 
After the Six Day War, Israel offered the return of the territories in exchange for peace and the Arab league issued its three famous No&rsquo;s: No to peace, no to negotiation, and no to recognition. Why did the Arabs not, for their own benefit, accept the path of&nbsp;coexistence? </div>
<div style="text-align: justify; line-height: 120%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt">&nbsp;</div>
<div style="text-align: justify; line-height: 120%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt">The painful answer is that the Arab objective is not to establish the twenty-second Arab state, but to destroy the only Jewish state. Arab leaders have always craved a Palestinian state that, in their oft-repeated phrase, would &quot;extend from the river to the sea,&quot; i.e., from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea&mdash;all of Israel. It is not about Arab desire for more land&nbsp;that drives the continuous strife; it is the feeling that if Israel exists, their existence is somehow worthless.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify; line-height: 120%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt">&nbsp;</div>
<div style="text-align: justify; line-height: 120%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt">The Arab war against Israel is no more a territorial conflict than was Al Qaeda's strike against America, and it can no more be resolved by giving away territory than anti-Americanism could be appeased by yielding New Jersey to Osama bin Laden. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify; line-height: 120%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt">&nbsp;</div>
<div style="text-align: justify; line-height: 120%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt">What has changed from 2005 to 2011 that should convince Israel that this time around it would be any different? Has the education curriculum in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza been altered to start teaching children about the importance of peace and co-existence? Have the Imams during their weekly sermons in the Mosques changed their jargon exclaiming that Israel is not the face of the devil? Have Arab communities stopped naming streets and quarters after suicide bombers who murdered Israeli civilians?</div>
<div style="text-align: justify; line-height: 120%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt">&nbsp;</div>
<div style="text-align: justify; line-height: 120%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt">Sadly, nothing of this has occurred. No one in the international community even demands it as a prerequisite for peace negotiations. While Israeli schools teach that peace is our greatest ideal, in every single Arab school without exception Israel is portrayed as the enemy of G-d which must be obliterated. With these realities unaltered, giving away more territories, removing roadblocks, ceasing construction of Jewish homes, would bring more war not peace.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify; line-height: 120%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt">&nbsp;</div>
<div style="text-align: justify; line-height: 120%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt">Two weeks ago, on March 13, the municipality in Ramallah, under the Palestinian Authority, named a new town square. It was named for the female leader of a 1978 bus hijacking in which 35 Israelis were murdered, including 13 children. Dalal al-Mughrabi, a member of the then-underground Fatah movement, led the hijacking of the bus on Israel's Haifa-Tel Aviv highway.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify; line-height: 120%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt">&nbsp;</div>
<div style="text-align: justify; line-height: 120%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt">&quot;We stand here in praise of our martyrs and in loyalty to all of the martyrs of the national movement,&quot; Fatah member Sabri Seidam said at the unveiling of a plaque showing Mughrabi cradling a rifle against a backdrop map of Israel, the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The square was festooned with Palestinian flags.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify; line-height: 120%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt">&nbsp;</div>
<div style="text-align: justify; line-height: 120%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt">The naming ceremony was conducted two days after five Israelis were stabbed to death in their home in Itamar, the victims including an infant and a four year old. What does this teach Palestinian youth about murdering Jewish babies?</div>
<div style="text-align: justify; line-height: 120%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"> 
For decades, the Palestinian Authority has demonized Israelis and Jews as enemies to be destroyed, vermin to be loathed, and infidels to be terrorized. Children who grow up under Palestinian rule are inundated on all sides &mdash; in school, in the mosques, on radio and TV, even in summer camps and popular music &mdash; with messages that glorify bloodshed, promote hatred, and lionize &ldquo;martyrdom.&rsquo;&rsquo;</div>
<div style="text-align: justify; line-height: 120%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"> 
The toxic incitement that pervades Palestinian culture has been massively documented. What children are taught in Palestinian classrooms, Hillary Clinton said in 2007, is &ldquo;to see martyrdom and armed struggle and the murder of innocent people as ideals to strive for&hellip;This propaganda is dangerous.&rsquo;&rsquo;</div>
<div style="text-align: justify; line-height: 120%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"> 
Last year Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat called the Netanyahu position at the time against freezing the construction &quot;very unfortunate&quot; and said he hoped the U.S. &quot;will be able to convince the Israeli government to give peace a chance by halting settlement construction in east Jerusalem and elsewhere.&quot;</div>
<div style="text-align: justify; line-height: 120%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt">&nbsp;</div>
<div style="text-align: justify; line-height: 120%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt">&ldquo;Give peace a chance?&rdquo; Israel has stretched out its neck time and time again in order to give peace a chance and it has received in return thousands of orphans.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify; line-height: 120%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt">&nbsp;</div>
<div style="text-align: justify; line-height: 120%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt">If some day the Arabs are serious about creating a democratic Palestinian State with its capital in East Jerusalem, co-existing peacefully with Israel, why are Jews not allowed to live and build homes there? What type of free democracy would it be if Jews would be banned from there? Arabs are allowed to live in all parts of Israel, but Jews are forbidden to live in parts of Palestine?</div>
<div style="text-align: justify; line-height: 120%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt">&nbsp;</div>
<div style="text-align: justify; line-height: 120%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt">How can leaders of free democracies advocate the creation of a new Palestinian State which does not allow a single Jew to live in its midst? Why can&rsquo;t Jews build homes in a free Palestinian State? Unless, of course, this Palestinian State has at its core agenda the extermination of Israel. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify; line-height: 120%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt">&nbsp;</div>
<div style="text-align: justify; line-height: 120%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt">At the end of World War II, Winston Churchill quipped, &ldquo;You can always rely on America to do the right thing, once it has exhausted the alternatives.&rdquo;&nbsp;Israel, which has far fewer alternatives than the U.S., has long ago exhausted them all. How much more innocent blood needs to be spilled before we abandon the failed maps of the past?&nbsp;How many more children have to be blown up by suicide bombers before we pursue the only real course for peace? How many more throats have to be slashed in order to sober us up? 
 
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify; line-height: 120%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt">(Please make even a small and secure contribution to help us continue our work. <a href="https://secure.theyeshiva.net/Donate">Click here</a>.)</div>

Facebook and the Third Intifada - When a Gesture for Peace is an Invitation for War

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When a Gesture for Peace is an Invitation for War

Facebook and the Third Intifada

On Friday, Nov. 13, 2015, a father and son, Rabbi Yaakov and Netanel Litman, were gunned down by Arab terrorists near Hebron, just a few days before the father would marry off his daughter.&nbsp;On Friday&nbsp;night, a coordinated attack by ISIS in Paris cut down the lives of 129 people, and wounded another 350 innocents. This lecture, by Rabbi YY Jacobson, was presented the following day, at a national convention of Jewish women (the midwinter convention of Neshei Chabad) in Toronto, on Motzaei Shabbos Toldos, 2 Kislev 5776, Nov. 14, 2015.
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Confronting Terror with Unwavering Resolve 

Carnage in Paris and Israel

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

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.

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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.

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truth

search for truth

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

Essay Behaaloscha

Give Me Truth

An Instagram live conversation, on Wednesday, 15 Sivan, 5781, May 26, 2021, about how to stand up against the new-old&nbsp;wave of Antisemitism, following the Hamas-Israel war in May of 2021.&nbsp;Participants in the conversation are Rabbi YY Jacobson, Victoria Zirkiev&nbsp;(President of @chazaq_org Women&#39;s Division, @victoria_zirkiev), Gad Elbaz&nbsp;(Singer/Composer @gadelbaz), and Rudy Rochman (Jewish-Israel Rights Activist @rudy_israel).

Take a Stand Against Antisemitism!

What's the Secret Behind this Millenia-Long Hatred?

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