Rabbi Shlomo Avineris Head of Yeshivat Ateret Yerushalaim in the Old City of Jerusalem.
Introduction: The wars which we have fought in Israel for more than a year, and which we are still fighting, have profoundly affected all aspects of Israeli society, especially our young people. Using Rabbi Kook’s famous book “Orot” as a reference source (Orot, “The War,” Chapter One), Rabbi Shlomo Aviner has fashioned a conversation between a student and teacher which explores the perplexities of war on a young person’s level of understanding. Needless to say, parents can benefit from the learning as well.
While Rabbi Kook wrote his essays about war during World War One, his insights can be applied to Israel’s war today. He begins his deep examination of war as follows:
When there is a great war in the world, the power of Mashiach awakens. "The time of the songbird has come (Song of Songs)" - the weeding away of tyrants. The evil ones are obliterated from the world, the world becomes more perfected, and "the voice of the turtledove is heard in our Land (ibid)."
The death of individuals who are gathered up without trial within the upheaval and rampages of the war contain a measure of atonement, as in the death of Tzaddikim. They ascend upward to the root of life, and the essence of their lives brings an encompassing value of goodness and blessing to the overall structure of the world in all of its nuances and values.
And after the war has climaxed, the world is revitalized with a new spirit, and the footsteps of Mashiach are exceedingly revealed; the greater the war’s measure, the greater the expectations for the footsteps of Mashiach… which point to the revealed End (of Exile) with the settlement of Eretz Yisrael…. (Orot, The War - Chapter One.)
Meeting One
Student: Shalom to you, my teacher. I’m happy that we learned about the Land of Israel in the first section of “Orot.” But one thing bothers me.
Teacher: What is that?
Student: The painful fact that dwelling in Israel is connected to wars.
Teacher: True, you are right. And what bothers you about war?
Student: What do you mean “what bothers me?” War is a terrible thing.
Teacher: Do you think that Hashem just makes wars for no reason? Do you think war is just something happenstance?
Student: Of course not. Everything that happens in the world is according to Hashem’s will. And if Hashem arranged for there to be wars in the world, He has reasons. Apparently, He wants to bring something new about, and He does it through war.
Teacher: Do you think that He couldn’t bring about new world developments in another way, without war?
Student: It’s clear that Hashem could bring everything about in any way He wants. But apparently there are things He wanted to bring specifically through war.
Teacher: What could be a reason?
Student: I don’t know.
Teacher: One reason is because there are things in the world that develop slowly, step by step, over decades; and there are things that require a big change all at once - with great forces at work for a relatively short amount of time.
Student: Why is such great force needed?
Teacher: Because our world is a very difficult and complicated place. Certainly without Hashem’s guiding hand, “behind the curtains” so to speak, mankind would plummet into total chaos. But Hashem has not abandoned us, God forbid. He is always pushing us and the world upward, in order to make the world and mankind the best they can be, meaning a world ruled by goodness, not by evil. There is a force - a Divine Force - that pushes things forward. And sometimes it has to push very, very strongly.
Student: What is this pushing force called?
Teacher: Rabbi Kook calls it the power of Mashiach. The power of Mashiach is the power which Hashem employs to lift the world upward, higher and higher all the time toward the most perfect existence, like it was in the Garden of Eden before man sinned.
Student. OK. That sounds OK. So that means that every war is from the power of Mashiach?
Teacher: No, not every war. Only a great war. When there is a great war in the world, the power of Mashiach is awakened.
Student: But how does war help bring us closer to a world that is all good? After all, we all agree that war is a bad thing.
Teacher: You’re right. I have to think about that and take another look at what Rabbi Kook has to say.
Meeting Two
Teacher: Shalom, Student. Have you thought about the things we spoke about and how war propels mankind forward? Tell me - how, in war, is the power of Mashiach revealed?
Student: In war, wicked rulers are killed. Hashem erases many evil forces from the world, and the world becomes a purer, better place.
Teacher: That’s true, without doubt. But how is that connected to the Jewish People? After all, we learned that the power of Mashiach is awakened. And Mashiach is supposed to redeem the people of Israel. What does he have to do with the world?
Student: The Mashiach redeems both the people of Israel and the whole world.
Teacher: Okay, both the people of Israel and the whole world. I see you have been doing your home reading assignments. Excellent. But how does erasing bad people from the world help the people of Israel?
Student: Because we are part of the world. We are even the heart and soul of the world, as we learned in another class. Therefore, when the world becomes pure and rises higher, it also purifies and lifts us up as well.
Teacher: And vice versa. When Israel is lifted up, the world is lifted up with it. Student: That makes sense.
Teacher: In wars, many wicked people were erased from the world. After all, Rabbi Kook was writing during the First World War, which was cruel and terrible indeed. After that came the Second World War, which was even more terrible. And what was written about the First World War is certainly true also regarding the Second World War.
Student: In the light of history, what moved forward for our sake, for the sake of the Jewish People, because of the First World War?
Teacher: The Balfour Declaration was formulated. There was so much blood spilled during the First World War that the nations felt a need to do something good. From this emerged the Balfour Declaration which recognized the right of the Jewish People to have a Jewish Homeland of their own in the Land of Israel.
Student: And what about the Second World War?
Teacher: After the war ended, when the nightmare of the Holocaust was fully disclosed, and it was revealed how millions upon millions of Jews were slaughtered in such a systematic and monstrous manner, the nations of the world decided to establish the State of Israel, with Hashem’s “behind the scenes” orchestration of course.
Student: What about Israel’s war with Hamas and the Hezbollah and Iran today - can that be called a great war too?
Teacher: I would say yes. Many countries have been involved. Even the United States.
Student: It seems like a huge war to me. That’s what news headlines all over the world and on the Internet seem to talk about the most - the war in Israel. It certainly has had a huge effect on me and my friends, not to mention my family and our entire country.
Meeting Three
Student: We discussed the fact that in war, many wicked people are killed. But many righteous people are killed as well. Teacher: You’re right. We mentioned that wicked tyrants and their followers are killed in war, and that the weeding out of evil brings the world forward to a more elevated level. But righteous people also are killed, and that’s terribly sad.
Student: It really is sad. They don’t deserve such fate.
Teacher: What do you think - that Hashem deals with them unfairly?
Student: I think that if they stood in a court of judgment, the innocent righteous victims wouldn’t deserve death. But certainly, the Master of the World doesn’t do injustice. If someone dies, it’s a sign that that’s how it was supposed to be. But I don’t understand why it has to be that way.
Teacher: Indeed, there are some things that are very hard to explain. The ways of Hashem are not out ways. Compared to the Creator of Heaven and Earth our human understanding is very limited. Maybe we can say that the innocent died in the random chaos of the war? After all, in war, death strikes without distinction.
Student: That’s how it seems. But there must be a deeper reason than that.
Teacher: In truth, everything belongs to the order of Divine Providence. Nothing is happenstance. Our Sages teach us that the death of the righteous brings atonement.
Student: How does it bring atonement? Atonement for who? The righteous don’t need atonement.
Teacher: The righteous rise up to Heaven where they connect to the highest Divine Goodness for having sacrificed their lives in order to defend Hashem’s Chosen People and to the improve the world by erasing the forces of evil. From there, because of their sacrifice, Divine blessing is brought down to us on earth. This phenomena comes about not only when our soldiers sacrifice their lives in battle, but also when innocent Jews are killed in the rampage of the war. The righteous in the World of Souls are not disconnected from us. They are still connected to the world on the deepest spiritual levels. Their souls bring great blessing to mankind.
Meeting Four
Teacher: Shalom to you, my wise student. I say “Shalom,” which is the opposite of war. Because war is indeed a terrible thing.
Student: It’s worse than terrible. But we have learned that Hashem created this world with a thing called war, and not for naught. Because in the end, after every great war, the world is renewed with a new and more elevated spirit. Every war brings closer the coming of the Mashiach because the spirit of Mashiach and the forces of goodness which he embodies appear through the upheaval of war.
Teacher: True indeed. The Talmud in the tractate Megilla (17A) teaches us that war is also the beginning of Redemption. The Midrash states that if your see the empires of the world waging war against each other, you should expect the footsteps of Mashiach (Bereshit Rabbah, 42:4). The Rambam informs us that one of the Mashiach’s primary tasks is to fight the wars of Hashem (Laws of Kings and Their Wars, 11:4). In our daily prayers we proclaim that “Hashem is the Master of Wars” (Morning Blessing before the Shema). So in review, what was an immediate outcome of World War One which affected the Jewish People?
Student: The Balfour Proclamation which recognized the right of the Jewish People to establish a Jewish Homeland in the Land of Israel.
Teacher: We can see this as an expression of a moral awakening of humanity after base and evil passions came to the surface and exploded into a cataclysmic world war. Pangs of conscience over global misbehavior caused man to search for ways to rectify its long history of wrongdoings - one of which was stealing Eretz Yisrael away from the Jews.
Also, from the darkness of our long Exile, segments of the Jewish People began to see a new dawning light- the light of Redemption. A bold spirit of Zionism awakened. Not only did mankind and the Jews begin to emerge from the cobwebs of the past but the Land of Israel itself experienced an awakening. From out of a barren wasteland, which had lain desolate for nearly two-thousand years, gardens and fruit-filled orchards began to sprout.
As it says in the Gemara in Sanhedrin (98a): “Rabbi Abba said: You have no more revealed end (of the Exile) than this, as it is said: (Ezekiel 36:8): ‘But you, mountains of Israel, shall shoot forth your branches, and yield your fruit to My people Israel; for they are soon to come.’” And Rashi explains: “At the time that the Land of Israel gives its fruits generously, then the end (of the Exile) is near. And there is no clearer revealed end than this.”
Student: So there were two major outcomes from that war: one - the nations of the world recognized our right to Eretz Yisrael, which in turn prepared the way for the later establishment the State of Israel; and two - the rebirth of the barren Land which led to the building up of the Land and the return to Zion.
Meeting Five:
Teacher: We’ve learned that even though war is a bad thing, in the end, it brings good. Doesn’t that seem like an inner contradiction to you?
Student: Yes, I admit that it’s not easy to understand. War is darkness, and it’s hard to understand how from darkness comes light.
Teacher: So what do you say?
Student: Understanding such things is for Torah Scholars who have studied for years. I’m a beginner. To understand such matters, you need very great wisdom, deep comprehension, vision, and great clarity of thought. But we rely and trust that Hashem knows what He is doing. Rabbi Kook assures us that out of great wars, the spirit of Mashiach is awakened and the Jewish People receive a burst of salvation on the way toward complete Redemption. This can clearly be seen regarding the Second World War. Out from the unspeakable atrocity of the Holocaust, the State of Israel was born. But it is a long process and we have to be patient. It’s like planting. A lot of time passes between planting and the sprouting.
Teacher: That’s a very nice parable. This isn’t a class in history but if we look at some other wars we see the same pattern. After the War of Independence in Israel, the new Israelite nation became much more established in the Land and created their own government. And after the miraculous Six-Day War, we found ourselves back at the Kotel with all of Jerusalem under Jewish sovereignty and our army in control of Judea and Samaria. And after the painful Yom Kippur War, although the casualties were enormous, Jewish settlement began to spread all over the country.
Student: What will develop after the current war with Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran, the Houtim, and other Arabs finally ends? Teacher: I am not a prophet. We will have to wait and see. But certainly another substantial stride forward will crystalize in front of our eyes on our way to complete Redemption.
Student: Don’t we say this every morning in the prayer: “Master of wars, sower of righteousness, cause of salvation to sprout, awesome in praises, Lord of wonders.” Hashem is renewing the world all the time, making it better and better. And Israel is leading the way. “He who renews in His goodness each day, continuously, the work of Creation… A new light will shine upon Zion, and may we all speedily merit to share in its light.”
Teacher: Excellent! You are on your way to becoming a teacher yourself. Your understanding, my young friend, is much greater than you think!
]Translated and adapted by Tzvi Fishman]