Israel at War: Living With Faith - Rabbi Shlomo Wiener

and Torah look at this situation. How are we supposed to view it? How are we supposed to deal with it when we have difficult situations like this? We go through a war or any difficult situation in life. How does Aben Torah react to that? And how does he deal with it? So, I'm going to start in a lighter way. The way even simple people, even not a Ben Torah, even people that are not keeping mitzvot, this is a way that you can look at things in a way that makes it deeper, makes it more meaningful, makes it more more more valuable. And that is to see far away, to see down the road, to see that really what we're doing here is we're sacrificing for our people. We're sacrificing for the Jewish people. everyone is in this together and we need to do this for the future of of AmIrael. Um the fact is the you know the the the Iranians these lunatics to have a nuclear bomb was an existential danger for us for the Jewish people and an existential danger for the whole world. I mean the truth is what we're doing now we are helping ourselves. We're helping the Jewish people but we're also helping the whole world. I mean the whole world is in danger. You have total complete lunatic people sitting on the estimate was they were going to have nine nuclear bombs. This is this is an existential threat to the entire world, right? And certainly to the Jewish people because we're the ones that they hate the most. And so therefore, this was a necessary thing that had to be done. And you know it's very interesting even a simple soldier you know you'll you'll see a a soldier he's not wearing yamaka he's not observant and you'll ask him how do you have the strength to go into Gaza and fight and and go hand-to-hand combat with these terrorists and he says I'm fighting for the Jewish people and I'm fighting for your future. I'm fighting that you should be safe. So if they have that understanding that we have a national obligation over here as Clal Israel to sacrifice so that we should all have a better future. If these fellows can have that awareness certainly we should as Ben Torah certainly as Ben Torah we should have that awareness that we're protecting the Jewish people. This is for the for the for the needs of the Jewish people for the survival of the Jewish people and for the survival of the whole free world. So basically that's seeing farther down the road. That's seeing the bigger picture of what's going on here. It's very interesting. The um the Gdolean the greatest leaders of Clal Israel always see further down the road. I guess one could say besides all the Torah that they have that's what separates them from us is they see things much farther down. They see things with a wider lens than we do. And and that's what makes them so great. And I could give you lots of examples, but I want to move into more the spiritual component over here. But the the this time when you go through something like this, we have a chance to be like the gdole. We also have a chance to see a bigger a bigger picture, a wider lens of of where this is in the context of history. people are going to be talking about this for years afterwards that the Jews had the the either audacity or the elacrity to take care of this problem that was really the whole world was having to deal with. So um a sense of national identity cla needs this and even the whole world needs this. Yeah. Okay. So adhan that is really something that even a nonbentora could relate to and he could understand. We see that even in in of our soldiers. I mean there are a lot of from soldiers but even in the non-farm soldiers they look at it in this light. But now as Ben Torah we have to go deeper as Ben Torah we have to have a different perspective on these kind of situations and we have to have the ability to look deeper into what what is happening over here. So we have two issues here. two issues in Jewish thought. One is amuna, belief in God. Yeah. And the other is trust in God. Now, it's very interesting. You see the average Jew something happens to him. Yeah. You know, or he he he he you ask him, you'll say, "Blessed be God. Everything's good." Right? If he needs help, he'll say, "Well, is it going to work out? If God wants Yeah. Everyone, if you see an observant Jew, these phrases flow off of his lips all the time, right? With God's help. So, I would liken that to talking the talk, right? Everyone speaks about God. Everybody speaks about that God helps and everybody speaks to thank God. But when you get to these kind of situations now, it's a chance to walk the walk to see really where are we holding and that's really what is living with your amuna, right? Are you sleeping well at night? You know, it's interesting last night. I mean, I'm not sleeping because of my jet lag, but but I'm saying is but you know, if it was very interesting staying in the in the in the in the in the shelter. So, one of my married children is with me and she has a little baby. I don't know, 17, 18 months old. And you know, the siren would wake her up and then she go back to sleep with no problem. She was relaxed. Do we go back to sleep? Are we relaxed? This is a real opportunity to take a gut check. Where are we holding? Where is our not just our but where's our ines? Do we really are we really living with what we profess with our lips? This is a golden opportunity to step it up. Step it up a notch and to have more trust in God living with our muna. There's a beautiful safer if anyone is fluent in Hebrew called was a repos and wrote it. It's a recent modern book. It's like 450 pages about it's a phenomenal book. we have a chance. It strengthens you. It strengthens your relationship with Hashem and uh many many passages from our sages, many passages from the and many stories about belief in God, about trust in God. So, I'd like to share one story. I saw a story last night of a uh of a woman and ironically she escaped from Iran right of all places in 1979 when these mishugoy took over the country and uh the Jews until 1979 the Jews in Iran were very comfortable they were very prosperous they were very successful um the sha of Iran was pro-western and he was very sympathetic to the Jewish community and Jews did very well they were very comfortable able there. They did well there and all of a sudden these crazies took over the country. You know, they always seem to have amenia at the end, you know, it's all the same thing, right? And so this guy who took over, so all of his minions were running around terrorizing the country. And this family, the husband of this family, he had a rug business. They were very well-off people. They were very successful people. They had a rug business and they had a fancy house and they had servants and they had a very very comfortable life. And all of a sudden these guys burst into this the the business of her husband and they shot him. They shot the the husband. They called him a traitor because he's, you know, a capitalist or he supports the sha or whatever. And they shot him in cold blood. This woman now was left in a tremendous predicament. What do I do? My husband's gone. Her business is gone. What do I do? So, there were people that helped people smuggle out of Iran during this whole revolution or whatever you want to call it that the that these people made. So they uh they had various people that were in charge of smuggling, but you could never rely on them because they had spies that were always reporting them to the authorities. So you could never rely on the on these people to smuggle you out. But this woman said, "I'm determined. I'm going to try to get out." And they used to escape through to Turkey. They used to go through the mountains and go to Turkey to I wouldn't advise that anymore, but back then it was a place that the Jews could go. And so they uh so they find this one fellow that they said is reliable and he even helps Jews. And so she contacts she says, "I'm determined. We're going to get out. I'm going to save my family even though they killed my husband. I'm going to get out." And she she uh contacts this fellow. And he says, "Fine, I'll take you out. It's going to be a very hard journey. And all you can take, no suitcases, nothing. Because if they see a suitcase, they're going to report you to the authorities. That's the end of it. So, she just grabs her kids. She has her just her purse. She puts a couple of diamonds in there. She puts some jewelry in there. And off she goes into the night. And so, they're they're going through horrible, horrible conditions. They have to ride on camels. They're not used to this kind of thing. Then they're riding on donkeys. Finally, they get to a river and the donkeys won't go in. Freezing freezing cold water. The donkeys aren't stupid. They wouldn't go in the water. And so now her and her small children. They had to go into the water. Freezing cold water. And it was a long river. They had to cross the whole river. The the the children were very young. They had to hold the children. They get to the other side and their shoes sunk into the river. They didn't have shoes anymore. They're walking on stones, cutting their feet. Now, the guide is being very tough with them. He's being very hard with them. Says, "You got to keep going. You got to keep going." He wouldn't smile. He wouldn't look to the left or right. He says, "We got to make it. We got to keep going." He seemed like a very tough, hard-nosed Persian guy. Finally, they keep going and going and going, and they get to the worst part. There's this canyon, very deep canyon. And there's this bridge, very shaky bridge. Hardly looks like it can hold a human being. And the guard says, "You got to go across the bridge. That's it." And the mother starts screaming, "I had enough. We've been through days and days of this. I We can't handle it. We have little kids. We can't do this anymore." And as they're about to go across the bridge, she says, "I can't I can't do it anymore." The guy pulls out a gun. He says, "Listen, either you go across that bridge or I have to kill all you right now." And and the woman was completely in shock. She went she went out. She crossed the bridge. She got to the other side. They got into Turkey. They were reunited with all of these people that had escaped from Iran, all the Jews. They were welcomed with open arms. So the guide comes to the woman and he says, "I have to apologize for everything I did, for pushing you, for being tough, for being hard. I have to apologize for everything, especially pulling out the gun cuz I'm a Jew also." And I knew if I didn't push you to the extreme, you wouldn't have done this. You wouldn't have made it. I had to save your life. Please forgive me. And he gave them brahas. He gave rockets to her entire family. You look at the Jewish people and no nation ever has suffered more than the Jewish people. Nobody's been more through more than the Jewish people. Exiled twice. We've have been through everything. We've been through every nation, the Greeks and the and the Romans and the Babylonians and and we've been through everything. But the element is wisdom is helping us to reach our potential. It's this is a very deep Jewish concept. But when we are pushed, when we are stretched, when we have challenges coming our way, that's when we rise to the occasion. The hashem discusses this is the idea of of being tested. You know, don't you you love it when somebody's, you know, in suffering, when someone's going through a a difficult time. So people come to them and say, "Oh, you're being tested. You're being tested." Isn't that nice? It's a very nice uh sort of um you know, consolation. What does it mean being tested? So the says that a person has tremendous potential within. He has huge potential inside of himself. And uh and we use very little of our potential. 5% 4%. We even in psychology they say we use very little of our potential. The concept of nisy is to draw out the potential and difficult times draw out the potential much greater of what a human being has inside. Not just in amuna for sure in our amuna but for sure in our connection to God if we withstand the test if we withstand the difficulties. But in all areas we grow in every area of life. If we are able to sustain ourselves during the test, we grow in every area of life. We become much bigger. And all you have to do is look at the history of our forefathers, right? Every one of our forefathers was tested again and again and again and again. Avau, our forefather Abraham, he had 10 tests. The Mishna says in Perkyos, right? Now, there's a whole discussion. What are the 10 tests? There's different opinions and they were shown him what the but everyone agrees that he had 10 tests and they were very difficult tests his life was on the line several times the life of his child he had many many tests then Yetsk Yitzk didn't have an easy life he had to deal with the Philistines the pishim and he had to deal and he had he had it was offered up on the altar as well Jacobu Jacobu's life was very very difficult everything he went through. Yakov, first he has to grub up with Asab. His twin is a murderer. Has to run away from him. And when he runs away from Asab, finally he says, "Oh, I'm going to have a little bit of rest here." And then he goes to love on a cheat. His father-in-law cheats him 10 times. And then finally, he figures, "Okay, now I've been through so much my whole life." And the whole story of Dina. And then finally finally at the end of all of this difficulty and Yakov wants to relax a little bit and then what happens the whole story of Ysef and there when Yakov appears in front of parro and parro asks him how old are you? How old are you Jacob? See, Yakob says, "I'm an old man." And he says, "How many years, how old he is." And he says, "My life was difficult. I had a hard life." So if you look at that, it looks as though Yakob's complaining. You look at that story there, it looks as though Yakov is complaining, saying he had a hard life. Complaining that life is difficult. So the Ramban on the spot says, "No, Jacob wasn't complaining." Parro saw in front of him a man who looked ancient. It looked like he was like 500 years old because of all the difficulties he had. And Yakobina was just explaining him. I'm not really 500 years old. They just had a hard life. He wasn't complaining. It was the reality. Yseph, look at Yseph. Look at everything Yoseph had to go through there with his brothers and being sold into sold into slavery and being involved with the Egyptians. David, his own son rebelss against him. his father-in-law wants to kill him. You go through the history of our people, they all had difficulty. So when Hashem didn't love them, he didn't love Araminu. He didn't love. He didn't love Jacobu. He didn't love Ysephic. Ysef, he's called the righteous one. He didn't love me. So the idea is he was helping them grow. He was helping them to grow. And that's how a Jew looks at difficulty. When we have difficulty, whatever area it's in, whether it's individual difficulty, whether it's difficulty on a national plane, it's an invitation to grow both in our amuna, both in our connection to aeshu and also as human beings. We grow. It helps us to grow more. It helps us to de develop more. I know of a a story when I was in South Africa. There was a very interesting uh there was a raffle of a Jewish organization and uh a woman had a raffle ticket and she was holding the ticket of another fellow. She had her own ticket and she was holding the ticket of another fellow and only she knew which ticket was which. And you have to picture the way the raffle worked. First they would call up 30 people and 30 people would go on the stage and the crowd is getting warmed up now. Got 30 people on the stage. One of those 30 is going to win the prize. And then they would call out 15 numbers and 15 had to go sit down. 15 is still up on the stage. So this woman is up in the stage. She has two tickets. Hers. Now the other fellow she's she was doesn't have a husband. She had no money. She really needed the top prize. The fellow that was holding she was holding his ticket was very very wealthy and not the nicest guy in the world. So she could have easily pretended if it was his ticket was the winning ticket, she could have pretended it was her ticket. No one would have known. Okay. 15 people are up there. Yeah. Now the ones whose whose ticket it was was not hers. It was the other fellow. Now there's only five people up there. The crowd is going crazy. Yeah. Now, some of the guys there said, "Let's make a deal. Let's split the prize." You know, she can't split the prize because it's not her ticket. It's the other guy's ticket. So, she keeps going. Now, there's two people up there. The crowd is going berserk. And finally, the winner is called out and it's not her. It's this fellow who is very, very wealthy, doesn't need the money, and he's not the nicest guy in the world. Think of the test. Again, for a Ben Torah, maybe that's not such a big test. But think about this woman, not observant, needs the money desperately, doesn't have a husband. At that moment, in her in her being straight, her being honest, she grew more in that moment than most people do in a lifetime cuz she was being tested because God was pushing her and he was seeing if that potential if that potential would come out. You know, very interesting thing. I remember when when I was a bach and yeshiva so we didn't have a basketball court which was quite a difficult thing for me you know there was no basketball court and so I had no alternative what am I going to do you know I couldn't play ball but they had a weight room they did have a weight room now I think these guys today lift weights these basketball players look pretty built up but back in the day we didn't lift weights because it would restrict your your flexibility ability and movability. But I figured, okay, my basketball career is done. So I started lifting weights. We had a guy in Yeshiva who was this massive, massive bodybuilder guy. He was like full of muscles and he decided that I was going to be his tal. He was going to teach me how to lift weights. I didn't really know how to do it. So So anyways, so his shittita, his philosophy was you do the repetition slowly. That was his whole philosophy that builds muscle mass. You do it slowly. So I remember being there on the bench press looking up at this guy. He's going slower and slower. Like I said, it's killing me. I said it's so painful. I said, "You're killing me. My muscles are killing me." I said, "Good. That means you're growing." Fascinating. So that's the physical world. In the physical world, when it hurts, we grow. And in the spiritual world, when we go through difficulties, that's when we're growing. That's where we're moving forward. That's we are God is offering a golden opportunity now for every single person in the Jewish nation and also for all of us to grow. He's reaching out to us and he's offering us the opportunity to grow in our in our connection with God and to grow in our trust in God and to grow as human beings. There's a famous kidic joke but in every kidic joke there's a lot of truth. There's a famous kidic joke about a fellow is got health his family is healthy and his children are doing great and his parnasa is good. Everything's going fantastic. He's got everything made. It's just like he's he's he's on the golden path. He looks up to Hashem and he says, "Hashem, what? You forgot about me." Because when we're being pushed in some area of life, we're growing. We're growing. That's when we have our growth spurts. When it's a little difficult, when it's a little hard and going through something like this is a golden opportunity to come close to Kureshu and to have a real relationship with a Kureshu. We say in the ding. We say in the ding, blessed is the person who trusts in Hashem and Hashem is the source of his trust. The more we trust in him, the more he takes care of us. The more we rely on him, then the more and and so please don't misunderstand what I'm saying. I'm not saying you don't make I'm not saying you don't make an effort. If there if a siren goes off, we go into the room. We go into the into the shelter, right? If you want to make a living, you have to work. If you want to, you know, you have a medical issue, you have to go to a doctor. It doesn't mean that you don't make. It means that you realize that the result comes from a cord, even if you're making it, which takes all the pressure off of you. When you feel you're running the world says okay you want to run the world go ahead it's your world run it right when we rely on him even if we're making ishadas then he takes care of things he takes care of things not only takes care of things but we're relaxed we're at ease I'll give you a interesting misa that I just heard over shabas it was a story related by rav kesler the safer and uh fascinating ma to show how we should rely on Hashem and how we have to trust in him and he takes care of us and he takes care of all of our needs. So this is a story of a fellow whose daughter daughter was a kala and he sat and learned he wasn't a he was sitting and learning all day. He had no money and the day of the wedding is coming closer and closer and closer and everybody's saying your daughter's getting married. What are you going to do about it? You got to pay for everything. You got to take care of her. Both the wedding itself and then after the wedding taking care of your daughter. He kept saying, "It's going to be okay. It's going to be okay. I'm just going to keep learning. Everything will be okay." So finally, you know, you get down to it's two weeks before and everybody's, you know, saying to the guy, "What are you doing? What's going to be with your daughter? What's going to be with the wedding here? Some effort. Come on." And uh he says, "It'll be okay." He keeps learning. So the day before the wedding, everybody's saying, "Have you enough already? Come on. I know we we know you have trust in God, but there's a limit." So he goes, he learned in the yeshiva here in a famous yeshiva and uh he went to the yeshiva and he says, "Listen, my daughter's getting married." I guess it wasn't the day before, maybe it's two, three days before and I have to do something to try to help pay for it. Are there any donors of the yeshiva that I could meet to speak to them about my problem? They said, "Sorry, we can't give you the names of the donors. you give me the names of the donor it's going to hurt the yeshiva we can't do that so the guy doesn't lose his cool he says give me maybe the names of the smallest donors of the yeshiva so therefore the yeshiva won't learn lose out by giving me the name so they give him the two donors the smallest donors of the yeshiva that they had nothing to lose so he takes the two names he goes to the first house of those two names. He knocks on the door. Guy opens the door. He explains the situation. He says, "You know what? I happen to have an apartment here in Jerusalem and it's yours. It's your apartment. You your daughter's going to go live there." So the guy's like, you know, maybe he had a lot of trust in God, but that's that's a little much already. So what was the story? The guy had received this apartment as a yusha, as an inheritance, and he didn't know what to do with it. He had need no need for it. So he made up in his mind, the next guy who comes to my door, I'm going to give him the apartment. So who walked through the door this year? And that's how he married off his daughter. Now again, I'm not saying that everyone in the room is holding on that kind of level. But the more we trust, the more we rely, the more Hashem yak takes care of us. And uh the gurus says a fascinating thing. You see byamsu by the splitting of the sea mosherenu is standing there ding. He's ding with all of his koak to save Clalia Israel. The sea is in front of them. The Egyptians are behind them and uh it looks pretty bad. And Mosher Benu is dominating as only Mosherenu can do. And Hashem says, "Why are you crying out to me travel go forward?" So what was this whole discussion here? Mosha is ding. Hashem says, "No, stop. Go into the yam." So the gross says a very interesting idea over here. You see from here that trusting God is greater than amuna. I mean I'm not knocking Davin. Davin is amuna. Davin is expressing your faith in God and crying out to God. Going into the sea is living with your amuna. I mean if you have an option of the Egyptians behind and the sea in front the sea looks better. So if you go into the sea that's expressing your and so the grow brings a proof from here that trust in God is greater than amuna. Having trust in God and relying on God is the greatest thing that one could have. But I'll tell you something else. Besides the fact that God is testing us, beside the fact that we can grow, besides the fact that we have a chance to walk the walk and not talk the talk, any rational person would realize that we are in this land of Israel completely totally from the fact that we're here. There are so many Muslims in the world. They have so much money. They have so much resources. And the fact that we're here and and according to most counts, we're doing pretty well in this war over here. That's a miracle. And anyone who doesn't believe that has his eyes closed. The fact that we're here, the fact that we're init and the fact that we're thriving over here is the yadashem. It's from aeshb and we have to connect to that. We have to plug into that and that takes all the pressure off. If we're sitting in the radio all the time and they're listening to this fellow and what his comment is and this fellow, we're going to go out of our minds. If we realize that we're here because of Kuresh who takes care of us and he's been taking care of us all through the history of the Jewish people, we're more relaxed. We're like a little baby. We can smile. We can enjoy life and we can carry on. I'll tell you two interesting ma about our existence here in Arit Israel just to give you a a feel of how Hashem looks after us and he takes care of us every single second in this land. Um I was when I was a bak yeshiva I had a shabas meal by a fellow who lived right opposite the kiso right opposite the wall. I remember it was very fascinating sitting in the sitting in the meal in his house. I don't know if he's still there or I don't know if he's still alive. I don't know. It's a few years ago. But anyways, sitting at this fell's house. You're overlooking the wall. You're overlooking the coastal. Anyways, the fellow tells us a story and it still had an impact on me. It was 40 plus years ago. And he said that he told a story about the 1956 war, the Sinai campaign, which is one of the greatest vi military victories in the history of of of the modern state. And uh the hit the hero of the 56 campaign of the Sinai campaign was Higgal Yadin. There's a famous general here. And this fellow, this fellow that was eating shabas in his h shabas meal in his house, he was at a meeting of the uh the uh saknut. I didn't say the the uh Zionist Federation. What? Jewish. Jewish agency. Excuse my French. So this fellow this fellow was in a meeting of the Jewish agency following the war and the whole idea was to raise money for the state of Israel. When a war is over, everyone pulls out their checkbooks and write big checks. And so this fellow was well off. He was one of the select few that got to go to this meeting with Yigal Yadin and uh and he had his checkbook already like everybody else there to write a big check to the Jewish agency, the state of Israel. And Yigal Yadin is in front of the crowd. Not a big crowd. It was a well-healed crowd, let's call it like that. And Eigal Yadin has a pointer and he has a map behind him and he's showing how he won the Sinai campaign. And he takes his pointer. He goes, "We went here, we went there, we went this way, we went that way." He goes on and on explaining how they won the Sinai campaign. He goes on for about five minutes. At a certain point, Yadin puts down his pointer. He says, "Rabai, all of you, my friends, the only way we won the war was the hand of God." He a secular guy, no connection to anything. And he realized it. He had and he could have taken all the credit. He was the hero. He was the Mosha Dian of the 56 war hand of God. That's how we won. We had one of our Talidim in the who was in the center program many years back. And in university he did a course in in military history. He did a course in military history. And you have to realize at that time, you're talking probably mid90s, the Israeli army was the most respected and feared army in the world. And so, you know, he's going through the course and they're going through all the great armies in the history of the world, the the British army and the German army and the Russian army and American army. And they're going through all these things. and he's waiting. When are they going to talk about the Israeli army? Course he goes through the whole course. No mention of the Israeli army. So finally at the end of the course he decides he's going to confront his professor. Goes up to his professor. He says he left out the Israeli army. Now again since then we've had our ups and downs a little bit. I think October 7th was pretty big black eye on our record. But back then the Israeli army was it. That was number one. So he accused his professor of being an anti-semite. So his professor looks at him and he says listen he said I have to give a course in military history and military strategy and I have to give a course based on the best armies to to follow the military strategy in the best way. He said the Israelis do everything wrong. They always should lose. How can I give a course on them? They have something else fighting for them. That's what the professor, this goes professor said. Somebody else is fighting for them, right? They do everything wrong. They should always lose. So we have an opportunity now to trust in Hashem, to rely on Hashem, to walk the walk. We've been talking the talk. You ask us where how everything's going. We say everything's great. We need help. We say a guy's in he's having a tough time if God wants. Now we have an opportunity to walk the walk to live with our when we walk to that shelter. Are we walking relaxed? Are we walking calmly? Are we concentrating in our learning? Are we concentrating in our doning? Are we able to sleep at night? That shows really where we're holding. If we're really walking with aeshu, then of course we know he's looking after us. Furthermore, we have an opportunity to grow. As we mentioned before, we have a tremendous opportunity to grow in our as human beings. That when we're being pushed, when we have hardship, that's when a person grows. Just like the physical body grows, when we are under stress, our muscles grow. So to our spiritual body grows when we're under stress. And lastly, any rational person would never believe that the, you know, the infallibility of our army, the infallibility of our intelligence. I think that what happened on Simra on October 7th is a harsh reminder of how much we need a Keshu. And for whatever reasons, we had a very big setback over there. But since then, all we've had is miracles. The beepers, so many things have gone right for us since then is fighting for us. And that's what that's what Hashem said to moenu. Yeah. Hashem fights for you and you be quiet. And so is fighting for Kali Israel. And we have an opportunity now to grow. We have an opportunity to come closer. It's an invitation and it should be reflected in learning harder and dabbing harder and mitz when we go through these difficult things. It brings about chuva and chuva brings about msiach and hashem we should see a massive chuva in Israel from all the events that are going on. And this should be it. This should be the final. Thank you for listening to this awesome production. To find out more and to partner in our mission, please visit or.edu.