How can you sit at peace when your brothers are out at battle’
– Moses, Numbers 32, 6.
It was during one of the Israeli wars that students of the Gateshead yeshiva were abandoning their Torah studies to listen to the news. When the head Rabbi discovered this he simply said ‘it’s all very well listening to the news, however you can do far better. Don’t just listen to the news, go back to your Gemorah and make the news!’
What did the Rabbi mean?
Besides front line soldiers, an army has many other aspects. There are chefs, doctors and technicians who all play a part. Clearly one does not have to be at the battle zone to assist. Now every Jewish person is responsible to help their brethren in some way. The Rabbi was thus telling these boys that for them as yeshiva students, who certainly understand the protective power of Torah study, a more appropriate activity would be to increase their study. If they really want to help their country, they should exert themselves and advance their religious practice.
I think there is a message here for us all. We too must ensure that we are not just watching the news, rather helping to make it. There are many things that can be done to help Israel. Magen David Adom and Zaka are desperate for donations; soldiers are warmed and encouraged when they receive children’s pictures and letters. But most importantly is our age old weapon of prayer.
That is exactly what Pinchas did in our Sedra. A prominent community figure, (as well as many others), was openly committing a serious crime. Most people just ‘watched the news’ in shock and horror but didn’t do too much about it. Pinchas however didn’t just watch; he did, he acted. It was his activities that ended the plague in last week’s Sedra. Similarly we too must do something to help our brethren. Caring must extend beyond emotion into the realm of practice.
However, the physical activity need not be drastic… A story is told of a great sage during the Gulf War. Scud missiles were being launched straight into Israel and there was a sense of dread lest one of them fell in a populated area. A group of students asked the great Rabbi what extra Mitzvot or special things he did to bring about divine protection. The sage simply responded, ‘when I bentch or say a blessing, I now ensure to look in a bentcher to aid my concentration.’
Any small thing that we do extra is beautiful in the eyes of Hashem. There is nothing more ‘exciting’ for Him than to see his children making an extra effort to discover him. For example someone who until now did not make Kiddush on Shabbat. If they begin now, this will be a tremendous merit and protection for the Jews in Israel. Hashem wants to see that we are making an effort, simply caring and not doing is surely not sufficient.
A sceptic might say, well look, we prayed for the three boys, and look, tragically they did not return the way we wanted. True; however Judaism teaches that no prayers are wasted. Hashem ‘stores the tears in a vessel’ and uses them for another occasion. We are not G-d, so won’t know what for, however we can guess that the over 90% success rate of the iron dome, or the amazing fact that despite there being hundreds of missiles launched into Israel, only a few injuries have been incurred, are perhaps the result of our intense prayers of the last few weeks.
So let’s go and make the news, reach out to do whatever we can.
Shabbat Shalom