Never Be Ashamed to Be a Proud JEW! - Rabbi Yitzchak Botton

here is what Sir Thomas Newton Bishop of Bristol said about the Jews in the 18th century the preservation of the Jews is really one of the most single and illustrious acts of Divine Providence I will make you into a great nation and I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you if history and the story of the Jews has proven anything it is that God has kept his Covenant he promise to the Jewish people here is a quote by Leon Tolstoy the Russian writer written in 1908 what is the Jew what kind of unique creature is this whom all the rulers of all the nations of the world have disgraced crushed expelled destroyed persecuted burned and drowned and who despite the anger and fury of their oppressors continues to live and to flourish the Jew is the symbol of Eternity he is the one who following the faithfulness of his ancestors has for so long had guarded the prophetic message and transmitted it to all mankind if people such as this can never disappear writing about the Jews in 1899 Mark Twain observed that the Egyptian the Babylonian and the Persian Rose filled the planet with sound and Splendor then faded to dream stuff and passed away the Greek and the Roman followed and made a vast noise and they are gone other people have sprung up and held their torch high for a time but it burned out and they sit in Twilight now or have vanished the Jews saw them all beat them all and is now what he always was exhibiting no decadence no infirmities of age no weakening of his Parts no slowing of his energies no dulling of his alert and aggressive mind all things are mortal but the Jew all other forces pass but he remains what is the secret of his immortality none of the ancient civilizations that destroyed us exist they're absolute ancient history the only ancient history that is current news is the Jewish people is this it defies all logic and all of Nature and not only are we physically alive carrying a name with no connection to us we behave we act we put on the same tiine that were put on from from Mahar SII we have the same tiine that Moshe had we have the same Customs the same language the same values the same Torah when the world was running around in darkness barbarians killing each other and of course we have of course remnants of those barbarians today killing each other we were sitting down in court discussing what you have to do for if he find a lost object I have to return it how do I return it you know can I build a fence this High block that guy some imagine 3,000 years ago we were discussing if I'm allowed to block someone's sunlight if I want to build a wall or not talk about sensitivity talk about you know the idea of the the the essence of what a human being can become Godlike one example from mosh think about this in the time of redeeming the Jews from Egypt the first plague that was sent upon the Egyptians was to turn theer into blood and so what happened when it came time to do that that plague that Miracle so who was supposed to do it who would you think Moshe the the he's in charge over here but Moshe did not could not strike the water and turn into blood you know why because because the water helped him look at the level of sensitivity we're talking about a crisis situation the Jews have to get out of slavery Moshe came to take them out but what's more important is not to contradict these essential reality is that when you're so close to God and so close to truth you become one with the world you become one with with the essence of of all of creation you cannot physically pick up your hand and strike a water that helped you imagine how we treated human beings imagine this is this is Moshe 3,000 some years ago this is what is still alive today the sensitivity of a of a of a Godly Man a sage that walks in our times in Our Generations I'll take one story which is so crazy that people listening to this will think it's a lie but it's not Moshe Feinstein again Moshe from Moshe to Moshe another Moshe Moshe Feinstein was the gador was the one of the greatest sages of about 50 years ago he was leaving from whatever event he was at and one man was just so he wanted to be helpful so much to to guttle ad door that he said let me help you I want to help you and he ran to open the door for him to get in the car and in haste he closed the door and it turns out that he closed the door on the hand of a mosha Feinstein so imagine you have a 70 80 year old man with a a car door slammed on his hand he sat there quietly without making a sound and told the driver to politely pull away and when they got out of sight of of that man he said please stop the car for a second and he opened the door took out his hand that was bleeding and the driver was beside himself what are you doing what happened how could how could you why don't you say something he said I couldn't bear the pain to know that I would have caused that man the harm that that that I would cause him mentally emotionally if he knew that he did this to me and so he endured the pain until he was out of sight in order not to hurt that person so let let's bring all this back to Moshe and again his original Behavior was that he was so sensitive and so appreciative that the water of the Nile River protected him that he couldn't bring himself to and again he wasn't supposed to strike it that is not that's not the right way to show and treat something that you benefited from even if it's an inanimate object like water yet at the same time we know that Mosher raenu the kindest man that we can imagine but a strong man when it came time to protecting an innocent victim of Egyptian cruelty you know there's a famous story where one of the Egyptian tasm task Masters you know decided he wants to take advantage of a particular man's wife she was a little bit overly friendly she said hi too often to people and that brought her attention to be noticed and so all of a sudden this Egyptian that noticed this woman and decided that he has to have her so he made up some excuse to make the the the Jewish man leave his home in the middle of the night then he slips in and it's dark in those days it's hard to see what's going on and he actually rapes this man's wife when the man comes home later and realizes that that my wife was with somebody and of course putting two and two together realizing it was this Egyptian Taskmaster so the Taskmaster knowing that he that this man knows what he was was done to him now decides I have to kill him also because that type of behavior was wasn't even appropriate for the Egyptian people of the time it was it was also inappropriate and he was he was concerned so he said I'll get rid of this man by killing him killing a Jew of course in those days was simple just kill another Jew like we know all through history in in all of the different countries that unfortunately have taken their anger and frustration out on Jews just kill another Jew nobody will care we'll say anything about it and and it'll be case closed so he tried to kill him and in the act of his trying to kill him murder this innocent Jew Moshe actually raised in the palace the Egyptian Palace a person of of stature in in Egypt a ruler in Egypt he sees what's going on he understands the Injustice he had a special Divine perception of what's going on so he understood what had happened to this man and his wife he saw that this Egyptian now was trying to murder him and he could not stand still in the face of this Injustice and and he rose up and killed him now we think that in the movies he rose up and he killed him by being strong and stabbing him killing him with a rock whatever no he used one of God's holy names to kill him and this is a very important message God is the ultimate of kindness you can't do anything with God's permission especially if God's helping you do it by using one of his holy names if it wasn't absolutely an act of kindness and Justice and truth and so we see moshe's act to kill this Egyptian was not only with God's agreement letting it happen but helping and facilitating it happened through one of the Divine holy names of God because why by letting that Egyptian live you're actually being cruel you're actually facilitating and strengthening evil and Terror by letting that man live the the the honest and kind and loving true thing to do even though it must come in the package of murder is to kill him because he's evil and by killing him you've made the world less evil you've got one evil person out of this world and that's a positive thing and that's what we have to remember now now let's look at Abraham again the kindest man that ever lived he was the father of Nations he loved everyone he loved ishma he loved he loved everyone and his love was unlimited he fed people he his whole life was devoted to doing one thing and one thing only kindness loving kindness he taught the whole world that kindness is the cure to the cancer of selfish behavior he was the antithesis of the nation of s that wanted to only take care of themselves and they they outlawed kind acts of Charity and things like that and a teach teaches us that the actual EMS the truth of the creation of the world is all about love and kindness the cure to all of the world's problems are love and kindness we can put those two things together and make them a part of our Lives then all of what we're seeing today in a destructive world full of evil full of hate full of Murder full of full of a lot of Darkness will all dissipate will all disappear so let's take a look at AF for a moment the kindest person that we can ever bring as an example of kindness let's see how he behaved when it was necessary to be tough and strong so first of all we know the famous story of ab when he did the actual he was told to sacrifice his son and that took a very much an inner strength to do that's one thing that's one test yet we find the more important test in our context is when there was a war going on between the four and five Kings look it up in Genesis the book of barit there were four Kings fighting against five Kings and his nephew lot was taken captive and abam did not stand still and say oh well what are we going to do oh well he got up with a few of his his his his partners and and and a few people and went to fight a battle a war against these nations many nations and many people why to free lot who didn't deserve to be captive and there were many captives involved there that didn't deserve to be captive they took many many civilians captive in this war the Four Kings against the five and it says that Aram was tremendously successful he had miraculous Divine assistance the man of kindness that used his hands both his hands only to feed and to care for and to take care of only for of loving kindness was Now using his hands to fight and kill because if you don't defend Justice and truth and people that need help when they need help with that type of strength then you're not being overly kind you're being overly cruel and that's why we see even Abraham Abraham the father of kindness going to war fighting with with with with a strength is unparalleled and being Victorious and saving everybody and so here we come full circle the Jews we've been around we're the only ancient people still around we know that the ultimate truth and Foundation of this world is kindness and we try to emulate God and his wonderful beautiful attributes patience kindness love giving that's it that's the essence of what it's all about but since there are evil people out there and are evil things that can happen to us we must also balance that with strength courage Fearless acting when necessary in the face of evil and destroying Evil killing an evil person it's an act of love and kindness to all of his future victims that are saved and so kindness in the wrong place is cruelty and that's what we also learn and now we have to know not to be ashamed a Jew the people of Abraham and the the people of Hashem God's chosen people cannot be afraid to be strong and defend ourselves especially in this desperate times dangerous times right now we must stand strong love on one side and strength on the other and that will bring us the proper respect and that will preserve and save our own lives and many other lives to come but we can't end with negativity meaning the point of of of of creation and of of us being here and what we have to go through isn't so that this ends with an atomic bomb that destroys the world we're not here to destroy the world we're here to fix the world and so the question is really what is the solution so I will I will tell you what I think the only solution is and I will quote or attempt to quote Dr Martin Luther King Jr right he he said Darkness cannot conquer Darkness only light can do that the that very profound statement now he's a great person he was a great person and he deserves his holiday it's not quite kanaka but he deserves his holiday Martin Luther King day um but he's he's really echoing what the sages have said Generations before I mean King Solomon says that that there's an advantage that of the light that comes from Darkness beautiful idea and another idea is that a little bit of light disperses a lot of darkness and so he's giving his twist on that and saying that you can't fight Darkness with Darkness you can only fight Darkness with light the truth is that ultimately he's not 100% correct with his statement because in the end of the day you have to and this is cabalistic the ultimate way to fight the darkness is from the darkness and so he's not you know he wasn't a sage he wasn't a cabalist but he was a great man it's a beautiful saying but in truth it's not true that you can't fight Darkness with Darkness you have to fight Darkness from the darkness and bring out a light that's greater because of it that's that's the real approach cabala but again I love the quote so what do we where do we go from here what do we do now and so nothing has changed with October 7th with the Holocaust with the Greeks nothing the Romans with nothing has ever changed why not because it's the same job that we have from day one God made a world with light and darkness and the job of life and creation and of every human being out there whether you are from whatever nationality whe whatever religion is long as you believe in God it is to add light and decrease the darkness and when we're done that we will have our beautiful perfect world that we've been dreaming and waiting for it's to add light our job is to add light and I'll show you a visual visual way to appreciate this we experience night every night it's a we look at the sky and it's dark black a black sky and something begins to happen approaching Dawn approaching Dawn is like the darkest before the dawn this expression is when there's the least light in the sky right before Dawn and suddenly there's a a ray of light a ray of hope that Pierces The Horizon a ray of light that ray of light we can't even see it why can't we see it that ray of light knows it's shining but we can't see it keep in mind of these details and then another ray of light comes and another and slowly but surely they gather together these rays of light the break of dawn and they break the darkness they conquer the darkness and we start to see light build and slowly slowly it gets stronger and stronger and it dissipates and vanquishes that darkness and there's no more Darkness because when the Sun rises there is no room for darkness that first ray of light is the first action you take to spread your light you know you did it or at least tried which in God's world is like doing it on some level you know you've tried to add light you know you've tried to add goodness and if you've succeeded you know it but the ripple effect of that one good deed has yet to shine for the mass to see and appreciate and so the beginning stages of rebuilding is hard difficult and sometimes dirty when you go to a construction site they have a picture of this wonderful beautiful palace that's going to be there at the end but when you go there too early all you see is a big mess because the building of Something Beautiful has its messy stage and so this shining of light the beginning it doesn't it doesn't shine we don't see the light yet but when more and more actions come together and the ripple effect if one good action continues and they all gather together then the light starts to make an impact on the darkness and we can see between the darkness in the light but it's still vague because these are still beginning stages what we're essentially trying to do is tear out the good from within a dark evil world and that is that is not easy somewhere out there in these places where we we think that they're they're there's no hope there is never no hope hope is never lost there is hope and I'll tell you how I know I'm not a prophet yet I'll tell you how I know the end result of this entire process of creation and life is going to reach a point where there will be World Peace the prophet zap T he says it in the end of all this we will all come together as one United people each nation in their own place with their own fashion don't I don't want to put on the jby I like my suit each one will have his own place and there'll be univers diversity within Unity with diversity there'll be Unity within diversity we will each respect and Unite with each other and each will have his own place and identity and we will live in peace forever and accept that we are all sharing space in God's world we are all visitors and we respect the other visitors and we will certainly respect and and give proper honor and and and obedience to the the the balab the owner of this house Hashem that's the end result so if that's the end result so we have we know where we have to go so if I know where I am and I know where I go draw straight line in between you add your light you add your goodness you be different don't be afraid to to be different don't follow the crowd that are walking off a cliff to destruction you choose a path of building and of construction and it's hard it's the harder path it's harder in the beginning but in the end it pays off tremendous rewards and dividends that's the path of the Jewish Nation that's why we're here we're still building we still have hope and we will never go away we are the only ancient people that are making the current 2023 headlines because we live by those things that I just mentioned we are we we live we survive we Thrive and we are all about ultimately trying to do the right thing no one's perfect but we are we defend ourselves we don't attack okay so may we be successful each one in his own way to to to banish this darkness of the current war and of of all war forever with the idea of real peace in the world when we rise to that occas and make the peace make the peace first of all with your neighbor and second of all with the entire world