Rise with Faith Like a Lion - Shelach 5785

The faith and resilience of the Jewish people is remarkable. Once again another Haman has vowed to wipe us out. His threats continue as he is being routed. But his threats come with missiles that target men, women and children, and have unfortunately caused a lot of destruction. Every life lost is an entire world.  Every person injured and every building destroyed is a tragedy. And the suffering extends to the entire nation. 

I have many friends and relatives in Israel and they are all very tired. Woken up by sirens every night; running to shelters where they can’t sleep; and the general stress of living under fire takes its toll. Like so much of our humor that comes from oppression, a new pithy post said: Am Yisrael Chai, but I’m dying to get some sleep.

Yet in my conversations and correspondence I hear people talking about the great miracles that we are seeing all the time. There is a powerful feeling of faith and gratitude to Hashem. We know that we will survive. We know that Hashem will not allow Haman to succeed. 

We see the incredible success of the IDF in the first few days of the war. We see the hundreds of missiles designed to flatten cities, and we hear stories of miraculous salvation. Yes, as I said, every life and limb is too much, but compared to what the monsters planned and the capabilities of those angels of death, it is a visible miracle. 

Our faith comes from Hashem’s covenant of the eternal survival of the Jewish people, as well as the special Providence over the Holy Land.  The Six Day War was fought this way. Israel faced armies from all sides bent on wiping the Jewish people off the map. They didn’t wait, they attacked preemptively and Hashem’s miraculous salvation was apparent to anyone with open eyes. We saw this again this time. Israel followed the Torah’s directive: “When someone comes to kill you, rise up to defend yourself.” As the Rebbe said many times, when we follow the Torah without fear Hashem makes miracles happen. 

It is this partnership between people taking the necessary action and Hashem providing miraculous success that the Spies of this week’s Parsha forgot. They saw that Canaan was a land full of mighty warriors and fortified cities, and they decided it would be impossible to capture. They forgot that they just had to start the war and Hashem would do the rest. 

In a mystical explanation of the story of the spies, Chassidus explains that the spies felt that Jews should stay away from the physical and material world. Going into Israel would mean needing to do all the natural things it takes to keep a society going. In the desert they had Manna from heaven and were involved I purely spiritual pursuits. The spies, who were great scholars and leaders, felt that this was the ideal state for our people and wanted it to stay that way. 

They were wrong because Hashem created us as physical beings precisely so that we would engage the world and transform it, fusing the spiritual with the physical. 

Unfortunately that includes going to war when necessary and facing the terrible, painful consequences that we are seeing. But when we do our part, Hashem is our partner and the results of our efforts are beyond nature. The combination of nature and beyond nature is the fulfillment of our purpose and brings closer the ultimate redemption. 

What is the message on a practical level for me and you, who are not the heroes putting our lives on the line or in the line of fire from the evil forces, may their memories be blotted out?  The Mitzvot are the will of Hashem, originating from beyond nature, above time and space. A single Mitzvah affects the entire world, because its source, and therefore its reach, is infinite. 

You and I can contribute to the war by strengthening the spiritual component that will help bolster the troops and bring protection to our people. It is our heritage and the way we respond as Jews. Your Mitzvah counts. Your Tefillin, your Shabbat candle, your choice of the kosher item over the non-kosher, your Tzedakah and your Torah study, and your conscious decision to show love for a fellow and move away from strife, even when you may have good excuses to do otherwise, all of these and more make a difference. 

Your Mitzvah saves lives. This is a time for each of us to rise to the occasion, set aside our differences and skepticism. Perform a physical Mitzvah, and bring miraculous blessings. 

We all pray for our people, for our land, for our soldiers and our hostages. Our prayers are enhanced by our actions. And without question we are a step closer the the time of true peace. Moshiach will bring real peace to the entire world, and then the physical and spiritual will be truly joined, because we will see Hashem’s Presence revealed in this physical world. You and I can make it happen, one Mitzvah at a time.