'And you shall guard My statutes and My judgments, which if a man do them, he shall live by them' . 'Live by them' - and not die by them [Yoma 85a].
The Rambam writes in Hilchot Yesodei HaTorah that all of Israel are commanded regarding the great sanctification of God's Name, as it says: 'You shall not desecrate My holy Name, and I will sanctify you among the children of Israel, I am the Lord who sanctifies you' . And they are warned not to desecrate it, as it says: 'You shall not desecrate My holy Name.' How? When an idol-worshiper stands and coerces Israel to violate one of the commandments of the Torah or kills them, the person should transgress but not die, as it says: 'Who shall do them and live by them' - and live by them, not die by them. And if he dies and did not transgress, he is responsible for his own death. In Hilchot Shabbat it is written that one must not delay desecrating Shabbat for a patient in danger, as it says: 'Who shall do them and live by them', and not die by them [Chapter 2, 3].
The continuing wisdom clarifies that we might think keeping Shabbat postpones mortal danger, since it is the source of the strength and right of the People of Israel to exist; therefore, when life and Shabbat clash, Shabbat prevails. The Torah teaches us that all that gives Shabbat its power is the holiness of the People of Israel arising from God's choice of Israel, for 'You have chosen us from among all peoples, You have loved us and chosen us, and exalted us from all tongues, and sanctified us with Your commandments, and brought us near to serve You, and Your great and holy Name You called upon us'.
It follows, therefore, that only because of Israel does Shabbat exist. Therefore mortal danger overrides it. The preservation of life of Israel weighs the scales, for it is what gives Shabbat its power. And not only Shabbat; Israel also crowns the Creator of the world, and thus the New Year on Rosh Hashanah enthrones Israel’s God before Yom Kippur. This principle of 'and live by them' applies to the individual but no less to the sanctity of the life of the entire Jewish nation, the foundation of God's throne in the world.
A elder asked Elijah the Prophet: There are two things in my heart, and I love them with complete love: Torah and Israel, and I do not know which comes first, Torah or Israel? He said to him: My son, the way of men is to say: Torah comes first, as it is written: 'The Lord created me as the beginning of His way' , but I the Lord say: Israel comes first, as it is written: 'Holy is Israel to the Lord, the first of His harvest' . [Bereishit Rabba, Vayeira] The Torah is the written word, and Israel and God are like bride and groom.
We observe mourning customs during the counting of the Omer for twelve thousand pairs of Rabbi Akiva's students who died in a plague, and on Lag BaOmer the people will rejoice for the five students whom Rabbi Akiva later added who did not die and went out to teach Torah, thereby saving the Torah from loss. We rejoice because if Heaven had even a strict measure for those five students, what would have become of Torah when the enduring dynasty of Moses received the Torah and transmitted it to Joshua, and Joshua to the elders, throughout the generations, would have been severed.
If this is the joy over the saving of Torah, the saving of the 'written' one, how much more so should we rejoice over the remnant of the survivors after the monstrous Holocaust as the State of Israel arose to absorb them. A Holocaust in which the gentiles not only sought to kill, destroy and erase all Jews, but also actually attempted to do so and murdered six million of them. A Holocaust in which darkness fell upon the world like never before, and in it Israel became scapegoats. Like the scapegoat mentioned in this week's Torah portion, sent to a wasteland, cast off from the mountain and torn to pieces, as described in Yoma. Thus Israel became the 'scapegoat' of the nations of the world, sent to the extermination camps while the world stood by and was silent. Even those who acted did so belatedly and missed the trains in which Jews were transported to the death camps.
Nor were they required to convert; anyone believed to be Jewish would die, even if his grandfather or grandmother had already assimilated among the nations. Murder for the sake of annihilating a people. Here there was no question of 'and live by them' at all; there was no option to convert, nor was this a time to decree to abolish their religion or to abolish a commandment of 'to be killed and not to transgress' - this was genocide. A sample of this unimaginable evil was seen in the middle of Sukkot two years and a half ago.
Last week we said the Yizkor prayer for the souls of Holocaust victims, a Holocaust seen before the eyes of Rabbi Jonathan Eybeschutz together with the revival, in the verse 'For a brief moment I have forsaken you, and with great mercy I will gather you' . And on Tuesday last we commemorated and said the same prayer for the souls of our brave soldiers. It was a heavy price. A tremendous self-sacrifice of the life of the individual, of many soldiers, for saving the eternity of the life of the nation, so that 'and live by them' would come to pass and that they should not die in them. These soldierssoldiers fulfilled in their bodies what the Sifra states in the verse 'and I will sanctify' - dedicate yourself and sanctify My Name.
Can one do this alone? The Talmud says 'within the midst of the children of Israel' is the multitude. It was the same alien fire that burned among Aaron’s sons, the same fire that burned among our people seventy years ago. But this time the fire that burned among our soldiers was a different fire. That immense blaze that burned, which rose to the heavens from the engines of the killers, that fire that burned our people, was not the fire of revival; it was the fire for the leaders of the world. A blazing flame, like the dawn breaking from terrible darkness. A dawn that calls the remnant of the exile to return to the land and to fight for it. A dawn that calls the Land of Israel to receive the remnant of the nation 'arise from the dust, my people, the prisoners of Jerusalem' , to dress in your glorious garments - for they are My people! For two thousand years of exile have ended!
And since we have found ourselves surrounded by ravening wolves, time and again the words of the Prophet are fulfilled in us: 'All vessels contrived against you shall not prosper' , and even when those wolves launched a surprise attack, the Lord’s glory was revealed. In every generation up to today, 'the glory of the Lord has been revealed, and all flesh shall see together that the mouth of the Lord has spoken' . See the ingathering of exiles around you, and see that all flesh have gathered to you. See and see the Kingdom of Torah established in us 'O all who thirst, go to the waters', says Rashi, 'There is no water but Torah.' Never were there so many Torah scholars and people making time for Torah. See the repopulation of the land in cities, towns, and farms - 'Right and left shall you burst forth, your offspring shall inherit nations, and ruined cities shall you rebuild'... .
See also that 'Your people all righteous shall inherit the land, the work of My hands to glorify' - they shall inherit the land forever and shall not wander from it [Mezuzot Zion]. See the unprecedented growth of population in our land - 'The smallest shall be a thousand, and the least for a mighty nation' - growth in number, strength, quality, and power [Malbim]. 'I the Lord, in its time I will hasten it' [Malbim]. Malbim notes that even though I delay now, and the people are weak and few, at the appointed time I will do the thing swiftly and fulfill My promise, and it seems the time has come. See all flesh together: 'What they long for on the mountains are the feet of a herald proclaiming peace, a herald who proclaims good news, a herald who proclaims salvation'... .
Yet against the backdrop of all these wonderful visions, we continue the tradition of disagreement, which began with Beit Hillel and Beit Shamai, and indeed long before that, for Abraham our patriarch and Moses our teacher argued with the Creator of the World. Even when Israel stood at the edge of the Sea, Rabbi Meir said the tribes fought with one another - one said I will go down to the sea first, and the other said I will go down to the sea first. Rabbi Judah told Rabbi Meir: that was not how the act occurred... Instead, this one says 'I will not go down to the sea first', and that one says 'I will not go down to the sea first'. Until Nachshon ben Aminadav jumped in and went down first to the sea... [Sotah]. And yet, according to all, every wise person who considers the mercy of the Lord sees the vast gap where the People of Israel stood in the days of the Exodus to Europe 1947, that immigrant ship Exodus, on which my father, of blessed memory, brought survivors of the Holocaust, while the British stood against and sent the ship of survivors back, to Germany; in contrast to our days, when our land is open to every Jew to come to Israel, and Israel has become a regional power, a beacon of Torah, of military and economic strength.
The return of the People of Israel to their land, the Kingdom of Israel, and all the wonders of revival are the fulfillment of the prophets before our eyes. First we must internalize this among us and acknowledge, to praise and to bless the Lord of all, in a hymn of praise with or without a blessing. To thank Him for giving our ancestors and us 'a desirable land, good and broad.' And as the Gemara in Berakhot says, anyone who did not say 'a desirable land, good and broad' has not fulfilled the blessing! For gratitude is not complete unless one acknowledges the great good, nor is it limited to the blessings after meals.
Moreover, the Gemara in Tractate Pesachim states that even if we do not say the Great Hallel - several chapters of the Book of Psalms - for all our salvations and redemption of our souls, we still say a shorter Hallel on holidays. In it there is not only the historical past of our people, but also the future. It includes the Exodus, the parting of the Sea, the giving of the Torah; but also the coming of the Messiah and the resurrection of the dead. Rabbi Yochanan says 'Not to us, Lord, not to us, but to Your name give glory for Your mercy and for Your truth' - meaning to stop the subjugation of kingdoms, and some say this is the apocalyptic war of Gog and Magog from Ezekiel. There is within this Hallel a song for the future, of a world that is all good, a time when 'I will walk before the Lord in the land of the living.'
We are now after Chol HaMoed of Passover, during which an offering of the Omer was brought, symbolizing our release from physical bondage to freedom, toward a spiritual process of the nation as a whole, rising in the levels of counting the Omer until the individual and the nation reach the culmination at Shavuot, the Festival of the Giving of the Torah, wherein the day’s service includes the 'leavened loaves' made from wheat, fit for human consumption, a spiritual freedom. Similarly, since the founding of the state we have been in a similar process, in which the nation rises in its levels both materially and spiritually, despite all the wrongs before us and in the midst of the week of the Beauty (Tiferet), on Independence Day, we give thanks for being in this process, the process of our redemption and salvation, for the glory of the State of Israel. The day before, on Memorial Day, a siren sounds; this is a real-time siren reminding us that we are in a process of truth that is gradually revealed to all living beings. It happens over time, in a manner similar to the prohibition of eating from a fruit tree in the Kedoshim portion.
But not only for ourselves should we internalize the reality Heaven has brought us to; we must also extend this to all nations of the world, Christians and Muslims, whose theory for thousands of years has collapsed in Israel’s seventy-eight years of independence, and the time has come for them to acknowledge it. Some regarded our people as fossils, like Arnold J. Toynbee (1889-1975), a British historian who wrote twelve volumes analyzing the rise and fall of civilizations. In discussing the history of the Jews, he faced a 'serious problem' - their history does not meet the criteria he set for other civilizations.
Toynbee attempted to formulate a unique theory about the Jews by claiming that Judaism is nothing but an 'embalmed' form like other cultures. He argued that Judaism reached its peak around 1,100 BCE with its main discoveries being monotheism, the alphabet, and more, and since then it had faded. This is a mistaken view, but with him are millions of Christians, including the Pope during the Holocaust, who thought that since the People of Israel sinned and were exiled from their land, the Christians were to be their replacement; thus Israel should suffer until it disappears from the map of history. As the misfortunes and persecutions of Jews multiplied, they rejoiced in their misfortune, because they saw their faith 'come true.' Muslims, too, share similar views about their prophets.
To all of these, the existence and flourishing of the State of Israel, rising like a phoenix from the ashes, constitutes a knockout blow to all these theses. With the difficulty of admitting and changing theses preached for thousands of years, we must demand from them in full force, in the name of the minimal integrity, to return in repentance at every stage. Acknowledgment of guilt, confession, and acceptance for the future - not to say more: 'Who is the Lord that I should hear His voice' - and not to harbor thoughts to harm Israel. Israel, which keeps forever and ever the command 'and live by them' - and not die by them, thanks to the sons who sacrificed their lives for sanctifying the Name, thereby preserving the eternity of Israel forever.
Rabbi Attorney Shalom Wasserteil is the CEO of Tzifha International Real Estate