Ep 6- When Your Nation is at War (Wrapup)

In this episode we're going to wrap up our talk about the many dimensions of this war against Hamas. It's a short summary and we'll come back to revisit the war as things develop. In the meantime, we're developing new episodes on other topics of interest. Trying to glean a Jewish-values view at what else in going on in our world.

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Transcript

Episode 6- When Your Nation is at War (Wrapup)

[00:00:00] Okay, so I'm sorry about the delay in getting this podcast out a little late. I just came back from a two week trip to North America. I was a scholar in residence for Shabbat in Las Vegas with young Israel Eich of Las Vegas, and also with the Sephardic Magen David community in Mexico. I also visited Denver to give some talks, and I was in LA.

So, it was interesting to just see many Jews from many different backgrounds, and I wanted to use this episode to just do a bit of a recap of things I'm thinking about, things that have been going on with Israel, and this ongoing war, and the ongoing anti Semitism. It's interesting to see that Jews from all kinds of different backgrounds and different places.

I met some very, secular Israelis and Jews in North America that are kind of waking up for the first time to re examining their Judaism. Much more, observant Jews, left wing, right wing, people from all kinds of different backgrounds and all kinds of different places. And I believe there's one struggle [00:01:00] that we're all going through that I want to try and explore.

And it's very appropriate to try and explore this struggle during the time of Chanukah. Many of you, I'm sure, have seen the pictures of, the soldiers, the Israeli soldiers in Gaza, lighting Menorah's lighting a Chanukiyah and singing the song Ma'oz Tzur, and there's just something so amazing about seeing this continuation of the Jewish people shedding light, spreading light, continuing the light that goes all the way back to the battles of Chanukah.

When we sing Ma'oz Tzur at Chanukah, we sing Ma'oz Tzur Yeshu'ati l'chana'e l'shabe'yach So it's a song that, if you look at the words, really goes through many of the empires that we faced. We beat the Egyptians, we beat the Babylonians, we beat the Persians, the story of Haman and Purim. We beat the Greeks and Hellenists and the story of Hanukkah, and it's like, [00:02:00] wow, the Jewish people are still going.

Here we are. We're still talking about our enemies. We all know the joke about the shortest way to describe every Jewish holiday. The enemy came, they tried to conquer us, we beat them. Let's eat. So Hanukkah we eat donuts, and we spin dreidels, and we eat latkes, and every holiday has its food associated with it, and we have this feeling of the eternity of the Jewish people.

So as much as right now we're feeling a fear, What's going to be with this war, and how long is it going to take, and what's the cost going to be, and what's going to be with anti semitism in North America? I don't think anybody who knows anything about Jewish history has any doubt that we, the Jewish people, are going to win this battle.

Hamas is not going to wipe us out, despite their stated objective of wiping us out. Jews around the world. We beat out every other nation that has tried to wipe us out. Most of them are in the dustbins of history, and here we still are, talking about them and eating over the [00:03:00] fact that we survived them.

But there's another dimension, of course, and that is that it's painful. There are soldiers dying every day. There are still people in captivity that have been kidnapped by Hamas. We don't know if we're gonna ever see them again, and we hope to. There are thousands of injured soldiers. So we've got this dilemma of, on the one hand, being absolutely sure that we're gonna win this battle on the whole, as a nation, but still the question of how do we deal with it as individuals.

So there are really two sides to this. We know on the one hand, on a national scale, we're gonna win this one. We've won every battle for thousands of years. Every year at the Passover Seder, we say, Bechol dor vador, omdim aleinu l'chalotenu, and every generation that rise up against us to try and destroy us, we know we're gonna win this one.

We know it might even take miracles to win this one, but that's what happened in Chanukah, and that's what happened in Purim, and that's what happened in so many episodes of Jewish history, is we won, even under [00:04:00] miraculous conditions. Israel's first prime minister, Ben Gurion, is famous for saying, in Israel, if you don't believe in miracles, you're not being a realist.

We rely on miracles. That's how we won the battle of 1948 against five invading armies that far outnumbered us in soldiers and military power. That's how we won the miraculous victory of 1967. It's a reality of our existence that we rely on miracles and that miracles happen to us and we expect to win every battle that we're going to be in.

In the prayers of Hanukkah, we constantly talk about how it's the, the few against the many, the weak against the strong, and we know that that's just how Jewish history works. So what I'd like to do, in line with understanding Chanukah, and understanding this place in Jewish history more deeply, is really try and explore a little bit this idea of nationhood. What does it mean that we're part of a nation? So, when we look at ourselves as citizens of the countries that we live [00:05:00] in, Whether we live in Canada, or the U.

S., or Mexico, or South Africa, or France, or Germany, wherever we live, there's the idea of citizenship. And citizenship is that I live here because on some level, living here is convenient for me. I like the weather, I like the political environment, I like my job opportunities, I like the level of safety, I like the geography, I like the people, I like the culture.

And the minute we don't like it, we can pick up and go somewhere else. Most of us live in democracies, most of us have passports, and most of us, thank God, have the ability to pick up and go somewhere else. We can move to a country that offers us more. But when you look at yourself purely as a citizen of a country, It really is just looking at it in terms of what's good for me.

What's most convenient for me? And the minute it becomes not convenient, I'll just pick up and move to a country that's more convenient. But the idea of nationhood, the idea that I am intrinsically part of a people, and that people [00:06:00] has a purpose, and that people needs to survive to live out that purpose, It's something that very few of us have ever been tested on.

In the story of Chanukah, when we talk about the Jews fighting off the Greeks, the Greeks tried to destroy us spiritually. It wasn't a genocide. It's not the story of Purim where Haman said he's going to wipe out every man, woman, and child that's Jewish. The story of Chanukah is a story of an empire that hated the values that we stood for and made it illegal for us to pass on those values and to teach Torah and to practice Judaism and pass it on to our children.

There were Jews in that society that made the choice to give up and just join Greek society. They were the Hellenists, they assimilated and became part of Greek culture as a way of avoiding the attacks and avoiding the anti Semitism and , just becoming part of Greek society.

And then there was the family of Matityahu and the Maccabees. Who said no? We're going to fight this, because it's not a question of our physical survival, it's a question of our [00:07:00] spiritual survival. If we assimilate and lose our Judaism, we've lost our purpose as a people. So they took on this crazy battle, and we're talking about an unarmed, small population fighting against the greatest superpower of its time, And we won.

But part of what allowed us to win was we were fighting for our very survival. It's like people say in Israel, the reason we win every war is because we can't afford to lose one. If we lose a war, we're gone. So we have to win every war. Every war, our backs are up against the wall. That was the feeling of the Jews.

In the time of Chanukah, we have to spiritually survive, or we've lost our purpose as a people. That idea of nationhood, that there's something greater than me that I'm a part of, is something that very few of us have ever had to take a stand on.

I was learning recently about D Day, when the American and the Allied forces stormed the beaches of Normandy, France, to liberate France from the Nazis. So, you [00:08:00] had tens of thousands of troops storming a beach where they knew that the Germans were waiting for them. There were paratroopers that had to land in Nazi occupied France, knowing there was a good chance they were going to be killed.

According to the US military at the time, there were 2, 000 paratroopers parachuting down over a 9 mile expanse of land facing 300, 000 bullets of enemy Nazi gunfire. There was a 1 in 4 chance of surviving. So imagine being that paratrooper saying, I'm going to try and land, there's a 75 percent chance I'm going to get killed.

So why am I doing this? I'm probably going to die. I'm doing it because even if I'm one of the ones that die and the bullet hits me, it's not going to hit one of my other three friends, so that one of us is going to get down to the ground and make it and survive. Thousands of U. S. troops died just on the first day, and many of them went in knowing they were going to die.

 [00:09:00] I'm saying I'm willing to give my life for something that's much more valuable than life itself. I'm defending my country. I'm defending the world against the evil of Nazism.

And to give a very poignant example, just yesterday there was a soldier from Jerusalem that was killed, an Israeli soldier. 

His name is Sergeant Benny Sussman. May his name be blessed. And he wrote a letter before he was sent down to Gaza. He says, If God forbid I fall captive, alive or dead, I am not willing for a soldier or civilian to be harmed because of any deal for my release. I do not allow you to conduct a campaign, or protest, or anything like that. I am not willing for terrorists to be released in exchange for me, in no way, shape, or form. Please do not twist my words. I'll say it again. I left home without even being called up to reserve duty. I am filled with pride and a sense of duty, and I [00:10:00] always said that if I have to die, I hope it will be in defense of others and the country.

So if you think about a young Israeli soldier who's got this clarity of saying, this isn't about me, this isn't about my life, this isn't about my future, this is about Am Yisrael. This is about the survival and future of the Jewish people. This is fighting evil for the sake of the world. There's a famous 19th century rabbi from Austria named Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch.

And he described the Jewish people, by saying that when the Jewish people stood at Mount Sinai, and they made a covenant with God, it wasn't just that generation. It was a covenant that was meant to last for all time. And why would that be? Why would we, today, be obligated in the covenant that was made by our great great great great grandparents thousands of years ago?

He said it's like somebody making a business deal and shaking hands to [00:11:00] confirm the deal. If I shake somebody's hand and I promise them something, and I don't follow through on my promise, and imagine years and years later, this person brings me to court and says I never followed through on my commitment.

Can I turn to the judge and say, I'm the judge. I'm not responsible for that anymore, and you know why? Because my hand that shook that other person's hand to make that deal, that was years and years ago. Do you realize that every cell of my hand has a lifespan of only a few years?

Cells in my hand are constantly dying and being replaced by new cells. So here, ten years later, this isn't the same hand. These aren't the same cells. of hand that shook that other person's hand years ago. I'm not obligated. The judge would say a hand is a hand. The individual selves don't matter. And we know that that's true.

And we know that that's true not just with selves of a hand. It's just as true when it comes to the Jewish people. We as individuals might not have stood at Mount Sinai. It was thousands of years ago. But [00:12:00] we, the Jewish people, were in Egypt. And we, the Jewish people, left Egypt. And we, the Jewish people, experienced G d at Mount Sinai.

And we, the Jewish people, have been through all of these events of history. It's the same people. The individuals change, but the people are the same. Sergeant Benny Sussman was saying that in his words. It's not about me. It's about the bigger picture of what Am Yisrael is, and who we are. And my individuality is part of a greater cause.

I've always felt that Torah represents the perfect balance of how to achieve greatness. And that's on an individual level. All the work that we have to do to become the best people we can be. I believe Torah has all the principles and all the tools to bring out the best in us and help us reach our potential.

I believe Torah also does that for us as a nation and for us as a society. That on a social level, Torah gives us all the rules and all the values of economically, [00:13:00] how to create a world that's good and harmonious for everybody. And I believe that those that believe in left wing values, have taken certain elements of Judaism and made a religion out of them on the left.

And I believe that those on the right have certain right wing values of Judaism and made a religion out of them. But I believe that Judaism is the ultimate perfect synthesis of both. So, I'm not sure about this, and I'm still curious, but it is interesting that the left really believes in the value of society over the individual, and believes in higher taxation, and believes in putting more safeguards in place for what's good for society, even at the expense of the individual.

The right, in general, believes more in a free market economy, and are stronger advocates of capitalism. So I think Judaism says there is a way of perfectly balancing the rights and needs of the individual and the harmony of the individual, and the rights and needs of the society [00:14:00] and what's overall good for society.

So for example, there are times where Judaism places primary value on the individual. There's a law in the Torah that if the Jewish army has to go to war, there are people that are exempt. It's called Shana Rishona, if you're in your first year. If a person just got married, if they're in their first year of marriage, they've just getting to know their wife, if a person just planted a vineyard, if a person just built a house, it's their new house, they finally got it together.

So the idea of making them leave their newfound joy in life and go out to the war is something we don't expect from them. They're exempt from going to the war. At the same time, There's a law, when it comes to the laws of mourning, that if a person lost a close family relative, they have seven days where they sit in mourning, followed by a further thirty days of mourning.

And the law actually is that during those seven days where a person's not supposed to be happy, and supposed to sit on a low stool, and supposed to not have any celebration, any happiness, If any one of the [00:15:00] major Jewish holidays fall during those days, Passover, the holiday of Shavuot, the holiday of Sukkot, they're expected to stop their personal mourning and join in the celebration of the Jewish people coming together and celebrating.

Coming out of Egypt, going through the desert with the Sukkot, receiving the Torah. We're supposed to celebrate the holidays together. And I believe the message is that your personal sorrow is overridden. by the greater good of what the nation is experiencing by remembering the holidays. So Judaism says the answer is both.

Sometimes the needs of the individual take priority over the society, and sometimes it's vice versa. I believe Torah is the perfect balance.

Something that I find curious, that I don't have a clear answer to, is that socialism, which really comes from the left, the idea of the overall value of society over the individual, the left tends to be much more anti war than the right. And you would think when you're [00:16:00] talking about war, you're talking about what's good for the overall nation.

That should be an area where people on the left, for the sake of the nation, would be pro war, if it's a war that's just, if a war that's going to ensure the survival and the sustenance of the people. And the right, which is much more about what's good for the individual, should care less about the war.

Why do I need to fight a war? Let somebody else fight the war. It's not my problem. So it's unclear to me why socialism tends to be more pacifist. I think it's an interesting question that's worth thinking about. So to summarize, I'll end with a point I heard from my Rebbe, Rav Noah Weinberg. He said, imagine you're on an airplane, and the plane, God forbid, gets hijacked. The hijacker holds you hostage, and the hijacker says, If you don't kill all 300 passengers on this plane, I'm going to kill you. So what would you do in that situation?

I've asked this question to hundreds of audiences, and the answer is unanimous. 99 percent of people will say I would rather die than kill [00:17:00] 300 innocent people. Not because I would go to jail, but just because I couldn't live with myself knowing that I had to kill hundreds of innocent people just for my own life.

Meaning intuitively, we all recognize there's something more valuable than life itself. Being good, doing the right thing, matters more to me than life itself, and I think most of us feel that way. So if that's true on an individual level, I think it's also a question we can ask on a national level. How important is it for me that Israel survive?

If I had to fight this war, if I had to go into Gaza, if I believe that being good is more precious than life itself, then fighting for good, fighting against evil, should be something a person is willing to die for. So I'll end on this point, that if you're willing to die to be good, You should live for being good.

You recognize that goodness, being good, is more precious than life itself. If you're willing to die to [00:18:00] fight evil, then it's worth making sacrifices in your life now to fight evil. Because fighting evil is more precious, more needed in the world, and more valuable than life itself.