I Went To SeaWorld And Lit It On Fire

This Torah class is brought to [music] you by torahanytime.com. A Torah anytime original series. Several years ago, I was in the city of Orlando and I brought my kids to SeaWorld. One of the highlights of SeaWorld >> [music] >> is of course the orcas, the massive powerful deep sea animals that can flip and dive in ways that >> [music] >> leave you breathless. And one of the highlights of SeaWorld and the is the orca show that they have several times throughout the day. So I'm sitting there in the stands and the crowd [music] is buzzing with excitement waiting for the show to begin. And then the announcer says something unexpected. [music] As a salute to our veterans, we would like to ask any veterans in the audience to please stand up. The crowd falls [music] silent. Nobody moves. People are looking around to see if there's any veterans in the crowd. And then I notice them. Two old men with Vietnam war caps on top of them, sitting directly in the seats in front of me. And they were hesitant, they were shuffling in their seats. They hear the silence of the crowd looking for any veterans and they glance at each other. They nod and they slowly rise to their feet, holding each other's hands high in the air. And the stadium erupts. Thunderous applause. The sound is deafening, shaking the air around us. People clapping for two men who served in Vietnam, who endured things that no one can imagine, who faced enemies that nobody can comprehend, who survived that swallowed men alive and yet here they are, standing triumphant. And they look at each other and then nod passes between them, a silent [music] acknowledgement of what they've endured that no other people other than a veteran can possibly [music] understand. And my wife, who had come in the middle of all this and slipped into the row [music] next to me, she looks around and she sees the whole crowd is standing and turns towards [music] my direction. And she looks at me and she whispers, "Why is everyone standing for you?" I look at her and I smile and I said, "No, they're not standing for me. They're standing for them, too." >> [music] >> But I remember thinking in that moment, everyone here is standing for those two men. But there will come a day. There will come a day when the entire world is called into a stadium. The end of times is about to begin. And before it does, the announcer will call out, "Ladies and gentlemen, may I have your attention, please. We would like to take this time to salute the entire Jewish people for fighting the world's fight and we ask the Jewish people to rise." And the stadium [music] falls silent. Absolute suffocating silence. Every eye is fixed, every breath is held and then it erupts. The most thunderous, earth-shattering applause in the history of mankind. The applause for the ones who defended truth when it seemed like truth would die. For the ones who remained honest and pure when honesty and purity were suffocating to death. For the ones the world never understood, who endured what no other people on earth could fathom. Clapping for the ones who stood in ghettos and DP camps carrying God's light through the darkness. For the ones who suffered through pogroms and exiles and tortures, the likes of which no people on earth ever endured, all to ensure that God's name would never go extinct. They are standing for the ones who were crushed and burnt and killed and spat on and laughed at and bullied and punched and stabbed. For the ones who gave up entire salaries for Shabbos, who gave up careers to learn Torah, who gave up comfort for morality. For the ones who lived with targets on their backs for the greater part of 4,000 years. It's an applause for the ones who stared down history's greatest villains and said, "I will not back down." For the ones who stared down empires and mobs and armies and screamed, "Mi Lashem Elai!" For the ones who did what was right because it was the right thing to do, no matter the cost. For the ones who held God's flag high, no matter what violence came their way. For the ones who single-handedly taught the world and nurtured the world and guided the world and cared for the world, even when the rest of humanity would have happily let the world burn down. All so that when the world finally comes to its end, there will still be a world left to see God's light. And the world will one day thank us for not following them, for not chasing them, for not copying them, for never giving up the fight. The world will one day realize the truth and when it does, it will stand tall and salute. Saluting the people who never gave in, who never gave [music] up, who refused to let the world stop spinning. That is who we are. That is what we do. [music] And that day, when the world finally sees, that day is coming. And on that day, we will go from being the hunted and to the cheered, from the targeted [music] to the cherished, from the whispered about to the thunderously celebrated, from the chased to the ones worth [music] chasing. And on that day, the world will stand, not just in awe, but in gratitude for the Jewish people who never bent, never never followed, never gave up. The ones who carried the light when the world almost forgot what light even was. That day is coming and when it does, the world will finally give us the thanks we rightfully deserve. That is our job. That is our calling. That is why Hashem commands, "Do not walk in their ways." Because we are not here to chase, we are here to lead. We are here to shine. We don't need the world's approval. We are the standard. We don't follow trends, we set trends. And one day greatness will be recognized, not because we begged for it, not because we chased for it, not because it's but it's because it's intrinsic to who we are. We are the Jewish people. We don't chase, we endure. We lead and the world will one day stand in awe. >> [music] >> You've just experienced [music] another Torah class brought to you by torahanytime.com.