Tzvi Fishmanwas awarded the Israel Ministry of Education Prize for Jewish Culture and Creativity. Before making Aliyah to Israel in 1984, he was a successful Hollywood screenwriter. He has co-authored 4 books with Rabbi David Samson, based on the teachings of Rabbis A. Y. Kook and T. Y. Kook. His other books include: "The Kuzari For Young Readers" and "Tuvia in the Promised Land". His books are available on Amazon. Recently, he directed the movie, "Stories of Rebbe Nachman."
Remember the old movies where the wagon train was under Indian attack and the battle seemed lost for the pioneers when all of a sudden a bugle blast was heard in the distance and here came the soldiers of the U.S. Cavalry charging on their horses to the rescue?
Where is the United States Jewish Cavalry today? When the State of Israel is hard-pressed to defend itself from savage enemies on two fronts, from the north and the south, where are the young Jews of America? Why don’t they come to the rescue. Is their blood less Jewish than ours?
Where are they in all of their hundreds of thousands? Are they hiding behind their father's sports cars in Boca and Palm Beach? Are they hiding behind their Rabbis in Monsey and Lakewood? Are they hiding in their yeshivas and pizza parlors in Brooklyn?
They are hiding from the battle for our Land and for our future, from the obligation of every Jew on this planet no matter where he lives. They are hiding behind American birth certificates and French and English passports as if they are shields.
Be honest. Is an American passport worth anything in the eyes of Hashem? Has Hashem granted these young Jews an exemption from their membership in Clal Yisrael? Does being born in America or France or England mean that you are a special brand of Jew with less of a commitment to the Land of Israel than a Jew who was born there? Of course not.
Let the truth be heard - they must not stand on the sidelines while Israel-born Jews get killed sacrificing their lives for American and Canadian and French and British Jews so they will have a refuge when the time eventually comes when the goyim remind them that they don't belong in America or France.
As we cry out in anguish in Israel over the deaths of our heroic youth, how can Jewish parents of the Diaspora look in the mirror knowing that the young Jews of Israel are sent out to battle lacking the manpower needed to triumph over the haters of Israel who surround us while their own precious children go about their business as usual pursuing pleasure and lucrative careers? (And yes, we know there are those in Israel who do the same, but that is for another article.)
There is no excuse for this evasion. Everyone is obliged to defend the nation and not stand idly by when Jewish blood is being spilled. Everyone. Just like the tribes of Reuven and Gad and the half-tribe of Menashe. Hashem doesn't play favorites. When they ask for an exemption from the battle to conquer the Land of Israel, Moshe chastises them angrily, saying: “Shall your brethren go to war and you sit here? Why do you weaken the Children of Israel from going over into the Land which Hashem has given them…? Behold you have risen up in the place of your fathers, a brood of sinful men (the generation of the Spies who refused to join the battle to conquer the Land) to increase the fierce anger of Hashem toward the Israelite people” (Numbers, 32:5-15).
It is told that Rabbi Avraham Yitzhak HaKohen Kook, the Chief Rabbi of Eretz Yisrael, hosted the sixth Admor of Lubavitch, Rebbe Yosef Yitzhak Schneersohn, in his home during the Admor’s visit to the Holy Land. Since it was Parshat Matot, Rabbi Kook said a Dvar Torah about the events in the Parsha, asking why Moshe Rabenu didn’t receive Divine punishment for speaking harshly to the tribes of Reuven and Gad for wanting to remain on the eastern bank of the Jordan River and not journey on to the Promised Land proper to join in conquering the Land. After all, when Moshe called the Jews rebels when he smote the rock to bring forth water, Hashem punished him by not allowing him to enter Eretz Yisrael. Here, Moshe calls them “a brood of sinful men,” yet he is not punished.
Rabbi Kook explained that because Moshe Rabenu rebuked them for weakening the Nation by not wanting to make Aliyah, as in the case of the Spies, it was correct to address them harshly, and Hashem agreed.
“Even more so today,” Rabbi Kook told his distinguished guest. “We see the way of Torah in this matter. When these Tribes balked in performing the mitzvah of making Aliyah and conquering the Land of Israel, even though they presented tangible excuses, in possessing much cattle, it is not appropriate to answer them politely – rather yelling at them is the proper response. And if this is the case with the Tribes of Israel, how truer today, in a generation so poor in deeds, even if we find the most justified excuses, if that were possible, in failing to perform the mitzvah of Aliyah to the Land – what are we, what Torah do we have, what is our righteousness, what is our strength when compared to the Tribes in the days of Moshe?”
Rabbi Kook added, “Our knowledge is limited, and the ways of Hashem are hidden, but there is absolutely nothing in the world which can absolve a person from making Aliyah to Eretz Yisrael. We must strengthen our faith and belief that only in the Aliyah to Israel and its settlement will the Torah be fulfilled, as it says: "Her king and her princes are among the nations – there is no Torah,” (Lamentations, 2:9).
Hashem peers beyond birth certificates and passports. You can keep away from Israel but you can't run away from Hashem.
