Battle of Jericho & Joshua's Prophesy Reveal Israel’s Secret to Survival | Iran, Islam & Messiah

How could God let this happen? How  could this happen to us, God’s people,   on the holy day of rejoicing in God’s  Torah (Divine teaching), on the holy   day of the Sabbath, Shabbat (Sabbath)?  How could we get hit in such a way? We have to understand: nothing happens  in this world without God. And so,   as hard as it is to understand, we believe in  God. We’ve been hit before, and ultimately,   it doesn’t affect our devotion and trust in  Hashem (God). And we have to address it now. So, it’s no secret that we have  enemies that want to kill us. But   I want to come from a little bit of a  reverse angle here and say like this: There are so many people—we see it now  coming to the forefront—that hate Jews,   hate Israel, anti-Semitism, anti-God when  it’s all said and done, because we’re,   after all, God’s people. We’re  just pawns on the board here.   It’s God’s board. If you hate us,  you’re hating God, the Creator. When you look at the Bible, when you read  the Bible, you see something interesting   that you walk away with. Whether there are  happy stories or sad stories in the Bible,   it’s clear when reading the words  of a prophet who spoke for God:   the perspective we walk away with is that  everything that happened was from God. Now, don’t be naive to think that when  these stories actually took place,   everybody walking around had this  God-consciousness that it’s all God,   it’s all God, everything’s for the good, ein  od milvado (there is nothing besides Him). That’s not how the average  person walks around today,   and it’s not how the average  person walked around then either. And so, what’s the difference between reading   the Bible and living through the  history that the Bible tells us? It’s the perspective. The Bible’s perspective—it’s impossible to  get that wrong. When you read the Bible,   you understand: God was not only  watching, but God was manifest and doing. And therefore, when you read the Bible,  it strengthens your faith in God. And of course, we’re far away from the  tragedies. So we say, why did the Jews   suffer? Why did God let a nation come  and kill the Jews throughout history,   when we were exiled? And even before that, even  in Israel, when sometimes we lost a battle,   even though the battle was a mitzvah  (commandment), a commandment to go   and take over that nation, we still  lost sometimes and had casualties. Why? When you read the Bible, you see that it’s because  God decided that He was not going to be with   us at that time. God withdrew His protection and  His miraculous supervision and providence from us. And when He did, we were subject to the whims of   nature. And when we were outnumbered or  physically weaker, then it was manifest. When we were successful was when God  said, “I’m with you.” And if I’m with you,   then everything’s with you,  and nothing could stop us. Very interestingly, the very first battle that   took place when the Jews were coming  into Israel was the battle of Jericho. We see clearly: God said to  Joshua, Yehoshua (Joshua),   “Go into Jericho and wage war with Jericho.” This was the first battle coming in for  the conquest of Israel in the Torah,   and at the end of the Torah, in the beginning  of the Sefer Yehoshua (Book of Joshua). And we see God said, “Go into that city. Go  around and circle the city one time a day,   and on the seventh day, circle it seven times, and  the city is going to be placed into your hands.” We did nothing. We circled, we blew the shofar  (ram’s horn), and trumpets,   and all of a sudden, the walls collapsed. Everybody was afraid, and we conquered  that city without almost any real effort   and certainly no risk to even Jewish lives.  No, there were no casualties on our side. This is when God is manifest with you,  for you, helping you miraculously. So this was the first war experience. The very next experience of battle was to  continue on our, at that point in time,   mission—commanded to repossess the land that  was promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And so we went to the next battle, and all of  a sudden, this unstoppable army was stopped. We started a simple battle, and before you knew  it, we were being killed. We had to retreat,   and we ran away, with, as the expression  goes, our tails between our legs. And the spirit of the entire  people was in downfall. How could that be? The people that are supposed to  come in and repossess this land   that’s supposed to be our land—and  we can’t even win the second battle? We would have given up and run  away. You know, what is this? So God makes it very clear. And  when you read the Bible, you see it. God says, “Because I was not  with you today in battle,   because you turned against Me,  and I turned away from you.” And in this particular context,   it’s insane when you read the reason  why. It’s all there in the Bible. It’s because one person took from the consecrated  objects—gold, whatever—and took it for himself. In the first battle of Jericho, everything  was meant to be consecrated to God. And   so one person was greedy for  money, for gold, and took it. And because one person sinned, God removed His  providence and protection from the entire nation. And people that were not even  guilty of the theft—people   that were not even guilty of betraying  God—because we were part of one nation,   were then subject to this attack and murdered  in that battle, or killed in that battle. And when you look at the story,  you’re like, “How could this be?” The wicked man sins, and the righteous  man pays the price and is killed. How is that fair? One person sinned, and the other person is  punished. That doesn’t seem to make any sense. And so, from here, it’s explained  that because the Jewish people are   like one spiritual entity, when  we’re connected, the good we do,   everyone benefits from—and unfortunately,  the bad we do, we’re all subject to. So what happened is, because one person failed,   Hashem (God) removed Himself from  protecting the entire people. Now, it’s very important to get this clear. There are two ways to understand what happened.  And with this, we’re going to come to October 7th. The mistake would be to say that God, who is  the Judge of all the world and does justice,   would actively punish person  B for a sin that person A did. That’s impossible. That would never happen. It’s just like the Torah says: a child  doesn’t pay for the sins of the father,   nor does a father pay for the sins of the  child. Each person pays for his own sin. So how do we explain what happened? That one person sinned, and another person, and  other people, were killed in battle because of it. So the real simple answer is this: There’s the idea of God showing  His countenance toward us,   revealing His presence, that  He’s with us, protecting us,   and being involved in the providence of  what happens to us in a particular way. And that’s what happened in the first battle. So all God really does in the second  battle—He doesn’t decree that anyone   should die. He doesn’t say, “I’m  going to punish all of you and kill   all of you because person A got Me upset, and  therefore the judgment is that I’m going to…” No. We have a simple reaction, so to speak, from God: “I’m going to step back. I was invested. I was involved.  I was one of—I was with you in   the fight. I was in front of you in the battle. All I’m going to do right now, after this—where  you didn’t follow properly My ways—is step back. And you’re on your own.” And so, when we understand that there’s a certain  type of providence that’s built off of inactivity   on God’s part—inactivity and strict judgment—we  understand that there are two modes of judgment. One is a more loving and  forgiving mode of judgment. One is a more strict, demanding judgment. And so He’s now being more strict  with us and saying like this: “You don’t deserve My protection. You don’t  deserve My extra involvement. You’re going   to go fight a war tomorrow. You’re going  to fight a battle. You’re on your own.” And when that happened, the army  that went out to attack the next   city on their own wasn’t strong enough. They  weren’t strong enough to defeat their enemy. In fact, they were weak, and they were killed. And we had—they had to run away, and  many of the Jewish soldiers were killed. But that wasn’t God killing them. That was God stepping back and saying,  “I’m not protecting you today.” Okay. So now let’s look at October 7th. And it comes back to the first thing I said. People ask, “How could that happen?  How could such a thing happen to us?” So I’ll ask the other question: How come it didn’t happen before? How come it hasn’t happened ten times,   fifty times, from our enemies that  would love to do this on a daily basis? Sick, you know, animals full of hate. The answer is because all those  other times God was protecting us. God said no. There are verses in Tehillim (Psalms):  the nations make plans of how they’re   going to destroy us, how they’re going to  attack us, how they’re going to kill us. And God comes and disrupts all of those  plans and doesn’t let them happen. But that’s God stopping it from happening. But then we can, unfortunately, be in a position  in our relationship between us and God where God   says, “Okay, I’m not protecting you  today. And let’s see what happens.” And that’s one way to understand  what happened on the 7th of October. God said, because of this decision by God as  this stricter judgment—maybe because of our   behavior—we all have to figure out what we were  doing wrong that we were vulnerable on that day. It’s called, in more traditional  terminology, hester panim (the   hiding of God’s countenance)—God is going to  hide His countenance, hide His protection,   hide His providence from us, and we’re  going to be, so to speak, on our own. And then that could be a very simple  answer as to what happened, right? What happened is that those evil people  were allowed to then bring their schemes   to fruition and actualize them because  God said, “Today I’m not stopping them.” And that’s tragic. And again, it’s hard. And I’m not saying that I’ve solved  our problem. I’m not saying, “Okay,   great. Now let’s go home and be happy.” No. Why did God do that? Why? How could God decide not to protect us from those  ruthless, evil enemies of God and of God’s people? How could He let that happen? And so we have to go one step  further and understand that   there’s a right and a left hand  to the way God runs this world. There’s a punishing hand,  and there’s a loving hand. There’s a providence that loves, and there’s  a providence that punishes, that is strict. And somehow, our actions  below cause a response above. There’s a very, very well-known  saying: the way we act here in this   world will cause the Divine judgment  above to mimic that on some level. That means if we’re going to be benevolent, if  we’re going to be loving and kind and create   unity and brotherly love, and build and  help each other—if we’re going to behave,   if we’re going to get along—then God  above, the spiritual manifestation   of God’s involvement in our world,  and our judgment, is with a smile. It’s with love. That’s how you’re behaving below.  That’s how I’m going to behave above. When we’re the opposite, unfortunately—if we’re  hateful, spiteful, hurting each other, destroying   each other, when there’s fighting and when there’s  hate here—so then we awaken that reaction above. And so the wrath of God’s judgment,   which is one of the modes of how  He judges us, can become ignited. Now, again, I’m not trying to  blame anyone—certainly not any   one type of people, and not even us as a people. Because ultimately—and I’ll preface  this with whatever I’m going to say   that follows—we’re all trying, on  some level, to do the best we can. If I fall into anger and start  yelling and screaming at somebody,   it’s not that I hate that person from the bottom  of my heart. It’s not that I’m a cruel person. It’s that life is hard, and we’re  emotional, and we’re unstable. And so we don’t mean to do some of the harsh,  tragic things that we do to each other. But nonetheless, we’re doing it. And so let’s now look at  the other side of the coin. Israel and the Jewish people, civilians in Israel,   were reaching almost a point where it  seemed to all of us watching the news,   listening to the reports, even just living  here, almost to a point of no return. Think about where things reached. I was amazed—but thankful, but  amazed—that it hadn’t reached   violence so much and it hadn’t  reached the loss of Jewish lives. But I think we were not so many steps away from,  God forbid, beginning to almost kill each other. Okay? And that can never be. That can never be. I’m not blaming any one side because it takes  two sides to have a fight and two sides to hate. It might take one side to start a fight,  but it takes two sides to have a fight. So I’m not accusing any one side  and vindicating any other side. That perhaps can be explored  at another time, but not now. Right now, we’re saying like this: What was the problem, and  what could be the solution? We said, what could we do? We could strengthen our faith. We can pray for one another and  we can believe in one another. We can love one another. We can help one another. That’s what we can start to do now  to rectify what possibly—and again,   I’m only speaking, I’m not a prophet yet—I  can only speak about what we possibly can do,   almost logically, and certainly to help  our standing in the eyes of God improve. And if our standing in the eyes of God improves,   then we’ll see more of God’s manifestation  of loving-kindness and protection. And that’s exactly what we said with the Bible. That’s what the Bible shows us. Don’t look at the stories  like it’s random history. The stories are God’s stories. God is behind, in between the lines. He’s there, really doing everything. And sometimes doing everything means giving us our   space so that we can do our part and  become partners with Him in creation. Sometimes it means giving us space  because He’s punishing us and saying,   “You don’t deserve My protection.” And unfortunately, we see what can happen. October 7th. Hitler and Nazi Germany, the Romans, the Greeks,  the Russians—they’re not such saints either. You know, the people from Ukraine, generations  ago, murdered Jews like it was a golf activity. You know, “Go, let’s murder some Jews.” Pogroms (organized violent attacks  against Jews)—anytime they got upset   and angry because they weren’t happy with  their lives, so they take it out on who? Take it out on the Jew. So we’re not dealing with saints around the world. You know, it’s funny. The world is very conveniently trying  to define and label us as the devil. Does this look like the devil to you? We’re not the devil. It’s the same anti-Semitic hate  for something and someone that’s   different from you and that is maybe  sometimes more successful than you. That is why the entire world is  turning against a little dot. You know how many times you  have to blow up the screen,   have to zoom in, until you can even  see Israel beyond all that green? It’s sick, and it’s sad, that  these people call themselves   people that think that they’re using their head. But that’s a discussion again for another time. I told you, I told you—you can get  angry. You can start also to hate. That’s what they want. Hate breeds hate. But that’s not our way. We’ve always chosen life,  and that’s why we’re living. And that’s also another answer to what we can do. We have to do. The only thing we really can do is  pick ourselves up, if we’re able to,   when we’re able to, and continue living. Because everyone else out there that’s choosing  to kill and to hate—they’re not living anymore. They’re stealing away their own  life and their own blessing. And we see where that leads to. Every society and every people  that have ever come to try to   kill us or destroy us are not here anymore. So, what do you think is going to happen this  round, in this boxing match, round twelve? What do you think is going to happen? Who’s going to be standing at the end of this   final round of this boxing match of  hate and love, of goodness and evil? Who do you think is going  to be standing at the end? Iran? That’s who’s going to be standing at the end? Hamas? They’re going to get the gold medal? No. We’re going to be standing at the end, because  as we stood from the beginning—and again,   everything that’s happening  is between us and our God. It’s an internal thing. They think that they’re better  than us because God gave us a   slap in the face, gave us a wake-up call. They’re not any better than us. They’re guilty in every country of raping,  murdering, kidnapping, human trafficking. Just look at the news. They don’t make the papers like Israel does. But for simply defending ourselves  against annihilation, we’re the devil? And again, that’s not the  main point of our discussion. I made a point about it, but it’s hard to  escape the emotions and the unfairness. But that’s dropping to a lower level. Let’s read the Bible of today,  not the headlines of today.