PARASHAT VAYIKRA

From the World of Rabbi Avraham Kook
“The eternal saying, ‘Go, assemble the Jew,’ has to give us new life once more, and to exalt us from our lowliness”
(Ma’amarei HaReiyah 155)

Rabbi Dov Begon – Rosh Yeshiva of Machon Meir

Message for Today:
And I Will Gather Them into Their Land”— and Not from Their Land

The current situation reminds us of the state of the People Israel in the desert—at the time of the sin of the spies. The spies—thinking of themselves as advocates of Realpolitik—argued that Eretz Yisrael “consumes its inhabitants” (G-d forbid) and that the nation is unable to take possession of it. By arguing this way, they expressed a despair and faithlessness that led the People Israel to a spiritual crisis of faith so severe that they wished to return to Egypt. “Why has Hashem delivered us to this land to fall by the sword?” they asked. “Our wives and children will become booty…Let us return to Egypt!” (Bamidbar 14:3).

Countering the spies—the sowers of weakness and despair—were Yehoshua Bin-Nun and Kalev Ben-Yefuneh, two men steeped in faith in G-d and His ability to help the People Israel; steeped in faith in the People Israel’s entitlement to Eretz Yisrael; steeped in faith in the specialness of Eretz Yisrael and the People Israel. They told “the entire Israelite community [that] the land that we have traversed and explored is a very, very good land. If Hashem is pleased with us and is bringing us to this land and will give it to us, a land flowing with milk and honey, you must not rebel against Hashem. Have no fear the people of the land because they are our bread; their protection has fled them and Hashem is with us; do not fear them” (Bamidbar 14:7–9).

As we know, the spies and the desert generation, who let their faith weaken and despaired of taking possession of Eretz Yisrael, died in the desert. Whereas Yehoshua Bin-Nun and Kalev Ben-Yefuneh, along with the desert generation’s offspring, who repented in their attitude toward Eretz Yisrael, ascended to our land, took possession of it—and were privileged to witness the deliverance of the People Israel.

Today, too, the attitude toward Eretz Yisrael is being tested on the Israeli public stage. Some regard themselves as advocates of Realpolitik. In fact, however, they lack faith and vision; they are gripped with fatigue and despair. They treat the settlement and control of all of Eretz Yisrael as a “mission impossible,” arguing that the country “consumes its inhabitants”. They say the nation is tired, lacking the spirit and the strength to fight the violent despoilers of our land. Therefore, they advise, let us set up a terrorist state for them. They turn out schemes for withdrawal from our living land—and in their spurious imaginings they think this will solve the Jewish people’s problems. They have various names for these schemes: “separation,” “disengagement,” and “convergence.” In their weakness, however, they do not grasp what every child realizes: surrendering to the Arabs isn’t good for the Jews and that transferring parts of Eretz Yisrael to them, Heaven forbid, is worse than the sin of the spies!!

Others, however, are confronting them: a multitude of Jews loyal to their people, their land, and their Torah—steeped in faith and vision as were Yehoshua Bin-Nun and Kalev Ben-Yefuneh, who do not fear the violent, plundering enemy, and who realize that our victory in the war for the State of Israel within its biblical boundaries will deliver goodness and light to all humankind. One cannot possibly doubt that in a war between light and darkness—between the People Israel, clinging by a thread to Eretz Yisrael, and the eternal villains who seek to exterminate us, may it never some to pass—the Eternal People will be eternally victorious, as the prophet said: “I will reclaim Jacob and console the entire House of Israel in lovingkindness…I will assemble them from the lands of their enemies…and will gather them into their land…and will no longer hide My face from them” (Yehezkel 39).



Shabbat Shalom!


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Rabbi Shlomo Aviner– Chief Rabbi of Bet El

True Story about a Boy and Girl who “Didn’t Fit In”

A: My name is A. By fourth grade I didn’t get along with my classmates or with my school. I was turning wild. People who calls themselves educators, instead of trying to satisfy my needs, which were a little different, were afraid of my being different and distanced me from every framework: from mainstream classrooms, from my friends in my town, and from Bnei Akiva. In a word, they pushed me to the margins. I wanted to jibe with my classmates and my learning framework, but they didn’t let me – all those people who are not embarrassed to call themselves educators! What child wants to grow up wild?!

S. My name is S. My parents divorced when I was three years old. I grew up without a father. My mother was ill when I was a girl, such that I had to be the mother, and my childhood was snatched away from me.

A. The teachers at my school and the people of my town, instead of understanding that I’m a boy with emotional problems, instead of trying to pull me closer, pushed me into a corner, to the margins. So I became attached to the fringes, to Zion Square, to types like myself that I could hang around with, and I quickly fell into drug use.

S. In Eighth Grade, I began coming apart at the seams. I started getting wild. I was always restless, and I couldn’t sit in class like a robot and write in my notebook. I hungered for the freedom that had been stolen from me as a child. I went down hill. I would quarrel with my mother and run away from home. I’d steal money from my mother to buy nonsense. I dropped out of school and roamed around. When I was thirteen I was summoned to court for a hearing. I was sent to a closed institution for juvenile delinquents and kept behind bars. That was a terrible place, full of drug pushers and addicts, girls who had sold their bodies almost daily. Other girls had tried to kill themselves. It was a hard population (and included an empire of gigantic fist-sized cockroaches who would climb all over us at night). Exposure to all of these terrible things, together with the feeling that I had been robbed of my childhood freedom, brought me into contact with the world of alcohol, drugs and absolute lack of limits.

A. I sunk into smoking, drugs, hideaways in the Golan Heights. For months we would laugh and swim and play music.

S. I wrote a letter to a judge, stating that I was terrified of the cockroaches crawling around at night and of all the threatening types of girls there. And all in all, what had I really done? In the end, I started to think that maybe I really was guilty and had done something bad. I would talk with my mother once a week and meet her once every two weeks.

A. I started doing light drugs and I moved on to the hardest drugs. I took whatever I could get my hands on in Israel.

S. When I was discharged, with a diploma in crime, I sunk into alcoholism. I spent my time in pubs, and I lost my head. I would drink more and more, and fall apart… I wouldn’t know where I was. Then came drugs as well.

A. Nothing moved me, except my parents, who I didn’t want to hurt, so I ran away from home so as not to see their eyes full of pain.

S. Every night I would meet new people and have new adventures. Then I met A., who was a known figure, and he came into my life. We would go out a lot.

A. I met a lot of girls, but S. was special. She’s like me and she talks like me.

S. Suddenly A. disappeared, and nobody knew to where.

A. I was arrested on charges of: drug possession, drug sales, interfering with an investigation, attacking a police officer, inciting witnesses and concealing evidence. It was quite a charge sheet, and I had done it all. I was placed in a small cell in the juvenile ward. It was a disgusting cell with disgusting people. With me in the lockup was one fellow who had been arrested for much worse crimes. One good soul suggested that we recite Psalms together, and he added that through the merit of doing so we might be freed to go home. That sounded funny to me, because I didn’t think any of us had a chance. Also, I was suffering from heroin withdrawal, which is really hard on your mind and body. You feel really sick, with terrible pains, literally on the edge of insanity. Yet what did we have to lose in that little cell in our state? I made a deal with G-d, that I would turn over a new leaf and undertake some mitzvah (like Shabbat or tefillin), and He would get me out of this situation in one peace.
In court, I denied all the charges and claimed that the drugs found on me had been planted there. But I was suffering terrible withdrawal pains. The prosecutor all the time was raising more and more charges against me, which, as I said, were all true. The lawyer who was supposed to be defending me sat there chatting on his cell phone. In short, it looked like my situation was lost and I had several years of prison awaiting me. But G-d had mercy on me and despite the circus going on around me, the judge ruled that I should just have a short period of house arrest. I couldn’t believe it. It was really a miracle, supernatural, defying logic.
Let me just point out that a short time before I was arrested, I met S. She, too, was lost, smoking drugs every day, going around as though she had no place in the world. My meeting her was the start of getting back on course, the golden path from Hell to G-d and Torah.

S. We started meeting again. Almost every Shabbat I would visit him in his home. His parents weren’t used to a type like me, but they received me nicely.

A. There were more court sessions on all sorts of charges in my file. Before every session I would undertake another mitzvah, and another charge would disappear. Thus I slowly was freed of all the charges against me, until they were all gone. It was really unbelievable. My mother never scolded me and never gave me orders. She just told me: Let’s talk over what’s going to come out of all this.

S. We had gotten used to a life of emptiness, to doing foolish things, to using drugs and alcohol, to hanging around with anyone who came along and to doing whatever we felt like. But you can get out of it. By his own efforts, A. got off of heroin, “the drug of death” that kills 90% of its users and permanently damages the rest.

A. My whole previous lifestyle seems crude and childish to me. Obviously, I had ups and downs, but I said to myself, “I’ve got to keep moving forward.” I gave up my illusions, yes, illusions. That’s all they were. When the effect of the drugs stops, you return to the base reality. It’s like a small child who gets excited over every small thing and is always looking for something else.

S. Suddenly I noticed that actually I wasn’t Jewish. I knew it before, but it didn’t bother me, until I began to become religious. Then, already, it was a little silly to be living as a newly religious Jew, but to not be Jewish. The process of studying for conversion took about a year. On November 3, 2005, I was privileged to undergo conversion. That evening I had a bat mitzvah celebration. I was seventeen. We undertook to keep the barriers of physical modesty between us. We went from a place where there are no barriers to a place of Torah.

A. My mother would tell me every day, “You’re a saint! You’re so smart! You’ll get out of this!” It was very hard for me, but I didn’t let up on myself. I went to learn Torah in a pre-military yeshiva and I grew stronger there. My yeshiva teacher accepted me with love, accompanied me to court each time and got me out of several years of prison that were awaiting me. He explained everything to me in a pleasant manner and I became religious.
The army didn’t want to hear the first thing about me and they gave me a profile of 21 because of my police files. A struggle ensued. With the help of the pre-military academy and other fine people, they agreed, after two-and-a-half years of struggle, to draft me into the Armored Corps.

S. And then we got engaged and married.

A. Being able to change depends on your caring about yourself. Don’t idealize drugs, as though they make you smart and talented. The people who claim that don’t really believe it. They all know it’s bad, like murder and theft. You’ve got to learn not to believe the lies they tell.

S. And to serve G-d and not just be law-abiding.

A. And to get excited by Torah and mitzvoth and not by material achievements.

S. We’ve started a beautiful life. We’ve started to flower. With G-d’s help, everything will be great.


Translation: R. Blumberg


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