Transcript
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God promises,
“You can sleep peacefully,”
“no one will frighten you,”
because “the Great Shepherd
guards the sheep
from the seventy wolves.”
This promise refers to this
period, during the exile.
So too does, “I shall set
peace upon the Land,
and you shall lie
down without fear,
and a sword shall not
pass through your Land.”
Rashi explains:
Even “a sword of<i> </i>peace” –
Even the peacekeeping troops
from the UN only to
guard and protect –
they have no connection
to the Holy Land.
For even “a sword of peace
shall not pass through,”
because it is “your Land”
– our Land,
until the end of time.
But the way to achieve this is,
“Follow My statutes, keep My
commandments, and fulfill them.”
This includes doing
everything practical:
Request arms with self-respect,
without compromising
anything of the Jewish religion
and <i>certainly</i> without
compromise, God forbid,
of anything related to life or death.
It is one of the most important
commandments of Torah
to remove a threat
to the life of one Jew,
how much more so,
a large number – many Jews.
Whether they live
in the Holy Land
during the times of the Holy Temple,
or in the Holy Land
during these times of exile,
while Israel is in exile,
confined by its fear
of non-Jewishness and non-Jews.
This law applies even outside of Israel.
As its example,
the Talmud uses Neharda’a,
a city in Babylon where Jews lived.
So too throughout the generations,
wherever Jews reside
and live their lives as Jews.
Israel must request arms,
and God promises,
“No one will frighten you,”
and no one will pressure you;
if only you hold strong to “My
statutes and My commandments.”
Including the clear ruling
in the Code of Jewish Law
in Section One, “The Path of Life,”
which instructs us how to
live our day-to-day lives
Laws of Shabbat, Chapter 329:
We must stand
resolutely and with arms,
and declare: “This Land
belongs to the Jewish People,
and nobody can come
and take it away.”
We’re not looking to be provocative,
nor are we being difficult,
but because God gave it to us.
And if it is taken by Gentiles,
the same Torah portion
fortells the result:
It becomes a misfortune
for the non-Jews
who take territory that
belongs to the Jews.
Israel will certainly receive
all the arms that
were already promised,
and no doubt, even
more than was promised,
when we make it clear that matters
of security are not up for discussion,
as they say in English,
“not negotiable.”
There is nothing to vote on,
nothing to solicit opinions about;
it is not on the bargaining
table, in the first place.
And when we state this clearly,
together with the explanation
that it is not our own
idea, theory, or desire,
But “He is the One
Who gives you might,”
this is what God commanded
in His Holy Torah,
in the Bible, which is
accepted by all the nations.
