B"H
THOUGHTS ON WAR
Dear Friends:
We are at war.
We are all at war, not just our brothers and sisters in Gaza and southern Israel, and northern Israel.
We are surrounded.
The Children of Israel are surrounded, both inside and outside the Land of Israel.
BUT WITH WHAT ARE WE SURROUNDED?
WE ARE SURROUNDED BY THE CLOUDS OF GLORY!
IF WE BUT LOOK, WE WILL SEE THAT G-D IS OUR SHIELD AND PROTECTOR!
This week we completed the Book of Genesis/Beraishis. We bid farewell to our Father Jacob. There is a famous and astounding passage as he begins to bless his children, the Twelve Tribes of Israel.
"Then Jacob called for his sons and said, ‘Assemble yourselves and I will tell you what will befall you in the End of Days. Gather yourselves and listen, O sons of Jacob, and listen to Israel your father."' [1]
Rashi tells us that at that moment "the Shechina (the Divine Presence) departed from [Jacob]" and he was unable to describe the End of Days to his children. [2] But perhaps one could also look at this passage another way. Perhaps Jacob tells us exactly what we need to know to navigate the End of Days.
"If you ASSEMBLE YOURSELVES, then you will know what to do in the End of Days.
"You will GATHER YOURSELVES! You will LISTEN TO ISRAEL YOUR FATHER!"
What does this mean?
If you ASSEMBLE YOURSELVES as one Nation you will understand what to do in the End of Days! Stop bickering, stop competing, and realize that your only salvation is come back together as one family living by the eternal laws Our Father in Heaven gave us at Mount Sinai!
I heard yesterday that a rabbi in Beersheva said he has never in his life seen so many people in shul, praying, putting on tefillin, starting to keep Shabbos and keep kosher and any other mitzvos they can adopt. Hundreds of people he has never seen before! This is happening all over the world!
Soldiers who never prayed before are saying Tehillim/Psalms.
Our Father Jacob is telling us, "Wake up, my children. Stop fighting among yourselves! Assemble yourselves as one! Come back home now! Return to Torah! Return to unity! Return to Israel. This is the time to assemble as One Nation because G-d is preparing the imminent Final Redemption for you, to take you out of the subservience to the values of other nations, and for this you must assemble as one and rededicate yourselves to the service of G-d."
GATHER YOURSELVES!
Prepare to receive the Torah again, the way we did at Mount Sinai, as "one man with one heart." [3] When we marched through the Desert we were surrounded by Clouds of Glory, which protected us from enemy arrows and missiles, snakes and scorpions, the burning sand and the freezing night. We ate manna and we drank water from the traveling well of Miriam.
Today, if we but look, we will see the same thing happening. Every day, we hear of miracles. G-d is saving His children!
Our friend was sitting shiva recently for her father, who grew up in Europe. As a young boy, he saw with his own eyes his father, a chazzan who was leading Kol Nidreh services, shot by the Nazis (may their name be ground to dust!) on Yom Kippur night! They took the boy to a concentration camp. He stood at the edge of a grave he had dug, waiting on line to be shot. But he felt a hand pushing him into the grave! He said that he felt an angel push him in before he was shot. He survived, only to go to Israel at the age of seventeen, vowing to give up all allegiance to G-d. He wound up at a completely irreligious kibbutz. One night he had a dream. His holy father was pacing up and down in the dream, saying "Mendele, if you don't put on tefillin, I cannot daven for you!" Over and over his father spoke to him. Mendele woke up the next morning and put on tefillin. He left the kibbutz, married, came to America and, at the end of his life, was the Patriarch of a magnificent Torah family!
My dear friends, let us open our eyes to reality. Let us LISTEN TO ISRAEL OUR FATHER. Let's live the way he lived! Let's follow him to life. He battled the angel of Esau and we are battling the angel of Esau. He lived in a world in which Ishmael and Esau teamed up against him and so do we! He emerged victorious by hanging on to the Torah with all his strength and so will we!
LET US LISTEN TO OUR FATHER ISRAEL!
Let's act as if we are all one family, children of our Father Israel! Let's live as if our lives depended on being kind and close to our brothers and sisters.
They do!
Kindness and chessed to each other will literally save our lives now.
This is not a drill. This is life and death!
Let us learn Torah as if our lives depended on it.
They do!
Let us pray with all our hearts! Let us concentrate on every word! We are praying that we and the entire family of the Children of Israel, the descendants of Our Father Jacob, will continue to live! Let us cry when we pray! The Gates of Tears are never closed.
We are desperately seeking life!
Let us pray for our dear brothers on the front lines! We are all on the front lines. They are fighting for us and we are fighting for them.
Some Jews may seem irreligious, but they are just confused by two thousand years of Exile. We are One People with One G-d!
REMEMBER: WE ARE SURROUNDED!
WE ARE SURROUNDED BY THE CLOUDS OF GLORY!
MAY G-D SEND MOSHIACH BEN DOVID AND THE FINAL REDEMPTION TODAY!
- Roy S. Neuberger
