Rabbi Yitzchak Breitowitz: The War of GoG and MaGoG

[Music] okay hi everybody yeah thank you thank you for coming uh we're not in our usual place uh we're in my day job and I want to thank Rabbi Poston and everyone else to uh slep out and make a special trip uh tonight's share is dedicated for um sorry to all is and of course all of those who are suffering as a result of the war that we're going through and of Sarah finlin um again I've mentioned before that rabbi finlin was a very formative influence in my own life growing up in Hartford and I'm certainly very very honored to give a el in addition to David MOS and AR Fishel and the brother yonathan Israel bavid mosha bya fold and schula bat Miriam and Mrs Judy Greenwald dedicates the Shar in memory of Elo do Ben Abraham harav do AR Ben AB Yehuda Sim Brina basan and mishel Ben harav do AR again may all of the learning be of all of these people and from and gratitude and in memory of elzra Ben shmuel uh is guidance to us and to the attending physicians through elzra Ben's final days was invaluable and Unforgettable uh once again it should beish uh as all of you know we're going through a very very difficult time right now and uh I know that some people here happen to be visiting ER Israel uh for the for sukat and you happen to be here when a war broke out and although I recognize how frightening this would be and all of us are frightened and all of us are Disturbed but nevertheless on some level you do have to understand it actually is a privilege to be with the Jewish people in their land in this time of distress in this time of sorah in which you can join us in going through the struggles that we are going through and uh your prayers will be added to our prayers to open the gates of heaven and bring down the mercy of aades that we desperately need and of course I also want to say that we're all extremely grateful to the people even who aren't in Israel who I know feel our pain feel our suffering in many many ways our pain our suffering is their pain and their suffering and I know firsthand uh how many they're offering how much ster that they're giving and may the collective of the people here and the people there uh throughout the world Y come together may it be a great great Merit for am Israel to bring a Yeshua and a uh from the tremendous struggle that we are presently facing you know there's a well-known vort which uh had the events not unfolded as they would have unfolded I was going to say and I'm going to say it but just to indicate ahead of time that it's actually not that relevant uh for the situation we're facing and that is people point out that we're approaching roses we are approaching rodes the second month of the year andan is said is often called Mar the bitter month ofin and the common reason that's given is it's the one month of the year that does not have any special holidays Tish is full of holidays and K has kanah and T has Kana andat has two bishvat although we're stretching the definition of holidays a little bit Adar has porm and Nissan has p and has again we again stretching it but still there's some festive day and then uh tamos well tamos has the 17th of but say when mashia comes that's going to be a day of rejoicing a has the ninth of a which although it's a sad day is the day that mashia is born and that will also be a yam and of course the 15th of which is a great holiday uh El has no holidays per se but it's preliminary to all of the holidays of Tish but El I'm sorry not Elan is bereft kesan is ordinary kesan is not not special and as a result after all of theim there's a certain sense of a downer of no longer having anything to be excited about but a thought that I often communicated was that kesan is the litmus test of what we gained from the high holidays meaning we had the holidays of reflection and repentance and prayer we have the holidays of Joy but the real test of a yam is not so much how you experience it at the time but whether it carries over into an inspiration that will lift you up through the year so right after three or four weeks of very very intense Holiness and sanctity Hashem puts us into a normal environment to see if we have truly grown from the Y to the Kish used to give a mush that if you have a pot and the pot overflows because it's boiling well as long as the pot is on the fire you don't really know how full it is even a half empty pot will boil over when it's on the fire so how do you know how much the pot really has when it's off the fire and there's no fire and it's not hot if it still overflows then you know it's full if it doesn't overflow you know it's not uh it's it's partially empty so too the fact that I'm excited and inspired in the of a does not indicate at all that I've been transformed it's precisely in the ordinariness of that we have the real test of the so it's a theme that I've talked about quite a lot and that is we go from the sacred and special to the ordinary and boring to indicate to God that that we truly have absorbed the lessons of Holiness and we bring them into ordinary life that is a thought that I indeed I think is very relevant in most years this year however things have taken a different turn as we leave the month of Tish and we enter the month of kesan it's no longer leaving the special and going into the ordinary and mundane but rather we've been immediately plunged into extraordinary circumstances circumstances that call upon us to bring out strengths and courage that we otherwise didn't know that we were capable of the existential struggle that the Jewish people face in their land is perhaps unparalleled uh for the entire existence of the state of Israel I mean since 1948 this perhaps has been the biggest struggle that we faced and although I have to say that in most of the country including yam and may it continue to be so there seems to be relative stability walk outside life is going on but we cannot be oblivious to the cost and the suffering that is happening down south and to a lesser degree even up north in which soldiers thousands of soldiers have already given their lives they've been injured hostages have been captured under brutal conditions and if as seems probable there will have to be a ground invasion of that hellhole of evil called Gaza then unfortunately the Sak both to our and to our hostages brothers and sisters is greatly greatly greatly increased so the fact that God in his Mercy allows most of Israel to function in a relatively normal way should not obscure the fact that there is tremendous pain and suffering and it's our sacred responsibility to feel that pain to pray to turn toes so if in most years the transition from the was a transition from special time to ordinary time which is also ultimately special this is a different type of transition and in some ways God is giving us another test have we absorbed the lessons of theim as we Face the tremendous tremendous challenges that have put that have been put into our way precisely at the crescendo of the happiest day of the year the day of the day where we were dancing with the Torah we were rejoicing with the Torah and that very day this happened so there there was a lot to think about you know people call me up everybody wants from me and really from every every Rabbi words of words of encouragement words of strength and the truth of the matter is I find it very difficult myself to come up with words on one level the messages are kind of straightforward after all for the past s weeks the month of el and that the Rashana and Chua and yer and Su and we've been talking about the need of CHA the need of aat Isel the need to grow the need to become better in so many ways so what's the message now the message now is the same message it's a message that we've been hearing over and over and over again from one Rabbi from other rabbis really everyone is giving the same message and now uh you know it reminds me a little bit of an old kabad story where um uh aid went to one of the rebes not not the last rebi but I think the rebi rashab and said you know we've been through rash and made Chua and Yumer and suus what do we do now what is RA now so the re rashab said ah now the aod is to do Chua not just talk about it but to actually do it now is not the time for talking now is the time for Action so in many many ways I find a little difficult to talk about the same things that we've been talking about it's time to do it and not just talk about it so there are really two points that I want to talk about a little bit and the two points are not necessarily connected but they're two different aspects of the struggle that we're facing the first of which I am actually less qualified to talk about but I think it needs to be mentioned a little bit are some of the very frightening Messianic aspects of this particular struggle particularly during this time of year if you remember the ha Tor from the first day of sukot it is taken from chapter 14 of the na'vi zakari and zakari was one of the very last prophets at the beginning of the second temple period and a lot of zakaria's prophecies pertain to mashiach the apocalyptic struggles before the mssiah comes the wars of go and MOG Etc and in chapter 14 he describes the wars of go and MOG and he describes attacks against Jerusalem and certainly against the land of Israel uh in very very graphic and and striking uh detail and there is a tradition that this is connected to the holiday of sukos that sukos is the time of the wars of go and MOG now go and MOG although they are identified as Nations we don't really know who they are there's all sorts of identifications ranging from Russia Ukraine to Arab Nations to many nations in between of course we have Russia Ukraine and the Arab Nations and and the like and maral adds to the mix a very intriguing idea that the final Exile will be a combination of Ismael which are the Arab Nations and Persia which is modern day Iran and there will be a collaboration between Paras and yishmael that will put the Jewish people at very very very great Peril until the mhia will finally come and that is connected to sukus so although the rambam warns us that we really do not know the details of go and MOG we don't know the details of mashia the birth Pains of mashia we will only understand these things in retrospect in hindsight you know when everything happens when mashia comes will then be able to identify the different stages but to try to identify those stages as they're happening is really beyond our comprehension but certainly we have intimations that this is part of the go and MoGo struggle especially without getting into details of politics too much when you consider that this Hamas terrorism was probably sponsored by Iran based on $6 billion uh that the United States made available to Iran again that's a contested argument but there's some basis for it and once again is that not what the myal told us hundreds and hundreds of years ago that the final Prem Messianic confrontation will be a collaboration an unhealthy collaboration between Paras Iran and yishmael the Arab remember Iranians are Muslims but they're not Arabs they're considered to be Paras uh Persia and yishmael are considered to be the Arab Nations so the notion of go and MOG is something that is both very frightening and very comforting at the same time it's very frightening because that does indicate that there may be a long and difficult struggle ahead of us and it may be filled with dangers and risks Sak and fear comforting however because it is the birth Pains of MH note the analogy of birth pains right it's very very very evocative phrase a woman goes into labor there's excruciating suffering before there was anesthesia certainly that was the case but out of that suffering comes life comes growth comes something new and beautiful so too the Messianic process is like a birth process there is pain there is suffering but out of that suffering will come light and Redemption and goodness moral points out that there's another metaphor that we use when we describe the Messianic era and that is the sprouting of a seed we say in the amida s is a growth the the seed of David will generate so if the metaphor of birth connotes the pain that precedes birth and that connects to the Masia the birth Pains of mashiach the notion of seed has a slightly different connotation although it's related maral says the connotation of a seed is that a seed totally disintegrates into the ground before a plant arises I plant a seed if you could watch the seed uh through x-ray or whatever it would be you would actually see a seed disintegrating into the soil and then something coming together so maral says mashia cannot come as long as we are consumed with our egotism our sense of control our sense that we are in charge of Our Fate man or the Jewish people has to reach a state in which they feel helpless in which they feel their situation is beyond their control that only God can help them of course we have to do our part we need an army and we're so proud and grateful to all that the Army is doing in this difficult time 100% but we also have to know that without a Kadesh we can't do it it it's the obliteration of our egotism that ultimately is our disintegration that allows the Messianic Redemption to come so the two metaphors are very important theia is described as a birthing process and it's described as the germination of a seed process one is the pain and the struggle and the other is the obliteration of ego again I I I I don't want to get too political about about this I just want to point out that one of the things that is surprising everybody including the Israeli government is how could there have been such a massive intelligent failure and one of the great strengths of our system is that our guys know what's going on in Gaza and every part of the land uh the intelligence all over the world that Israel is almost never caught by surprise in fact it's been said that for every successful terrorist event uh the police or the army or the shinb they managed to frustrate 20s like a ratio of 20 to1 quite amazing you know we hear about a terrorist event we get very upset there were 20 others that they managed to nip in the butt this was a total surprise and it's very very strange I mean that I'm even hearing Amer Americans I think it's unconscionable critical of Israel like somehow I mean it's kind of perverse it's somehow Israel's fault that they didn't catch on to this I mean talk about blaming a victim but still it's very very surprising but part of what's going on is that we have to learn sometimes that we're not in charge and when we get too filled with our own sense of control of The World God shows us we're not in control in some ways that was the lesson of Corona which thank God were more or less past and that's also the lesson of Gaza and Hamas Sim Tor 5784 but as the morale says once we get our egos out of the way then we're ready for gah then we're ready for mashiach so as I say as I contemplate the Messianic picture and again this is not anything that I can say I have any firm grasp on really none of us have except maybe the greatest cabalists I'm filled with both fear and trepidation but also with opportunity and hope because these are the signs of B mashia these are the signs of mashia these are the signs of go um Magog and indeed even the time of year fits the description in the na'vi SAR so there is hope there is a reason to be hopeful and be we should see the yeshuat hasem very very soon let me go back a little bit I I I didn't have a chance actually before sukot to talk about sukot uh but since so much of sukot is connected to Goen m I'm going to go back a little bit and draw some connections and you'll see how all of this ties in to the great struggle that we are facing you know sukot is a very unusual holiday in the time of the temple uh there is a musaf offering an additional offering that was brought we bring it on chabas we bring it on roses we bring it on every holiday including but sukot has a very unusual musaf configuration uh number one the number of animals you bring is by far much larger than any other holiday and number two they are brought in a descending order meaning on the first day of sukaj we brought 13 Bulls as burnt offerings and then we went down 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 that's shaba in other words say is a different holiday but for the seven days of sukot we brought the the Bulls of sukat in descending order and added up the digits and if you add up all of the Pim you come up with the number of 70 so we brought a total of 70 blls on sukat going down in descending order kazal teach us that the 70 Bulls represent 70 Nation nations of the world now those Nations uh are descended from the three sons of Noah and they are enumerated in par now obviously there are more than 70 countries in the world and the United Nations has whatever number it has over 100 members but those are breakaways but but according to our tradition there are 70 basic National groups and each of them has their own destiny their own personality that itself is a very fascinating issue we believe in collectivist National personality I mean we we tend to think in modern times that every individual is their own person and to some degree that is true you know not every German is a Nazi you know for example but nevertheless there is a certain natur national identity that exists and these 70 Nations by and large try to destroy us in various ways and the notion of the is we bring corot to diminish their power as we approach the Messianic era so these are corote to weaken their evil influences and since sukat is in a sense a reenactment of Goen Magog so we actually ritualize that through the bringing of the corbane of the 70 Nations now it's interesting there is another take on it in the gamorra where the gamorra actually says that the corote of sukot are corote for the blessing of the 70 Nations we're asking God to bless the Nations now uh in fact the Tet even makes the amazing statement that if the nations of the world would be aware of how much blessing we brought to them they never would have destroyed the beta mkes so we have two different aspects here are we bringing corbon notes to be protected did from them against them are we bringing corbon notes for them and of course if it's for them you're going to have the problem why are they diminishing in time I mean that that that doesn't explain that aspect of it but in truth I would suggest that these are not contradictory perspectives we want their evil to be diminished diminished diminished but we don't necessarily want them to be physically destroyed we want them too to do shuva to turn to God to embrace goodness and morality and then they too will be worthy of God's blessing and the beta mikdash will be as the said and we said this many times in the my house God says my house shall be a house of prayer for all all the nations of the world so yes we bring corbano to diminish their evil and then when they forsake their evil ways may God bless them now it's a little strange because in some ways we've had starts and setbacks the abrahamic Accords some might view this as a step in the direction of chuva although maybe it was economically motivated in the sense of uh opening up the ability of Jews to you know have a have a relationship with some of these countries to live there to have synagogues kosher restaurants and the like and then we have this then we have this which is the opposite it just shows you that when there's movement for good there will often be counter movements for bad right the world exists with this eternal struggle of Good and Evil and the does represent the idea that eventually this evil will be conquered and not just physically destroyed but the other way around will be transformed into things that might be positive positive forces for good we don't pray for the death of the evildoers we pray for the death of the evil that they do now if that means an individual has to be killed individual then so be it as sad and as tragic as that is someone who is coming to kill you or kill your people has we kill we don't turn the other cheek we don't believe in pacifism as an absolute value we do what we have to do I want to make it very very clear that we can't accept appeasement but I also want to make it clear that what might become necessary as a short-term objective is not in essence the long-term goal go and purpose and desire that we have God says I do not want the death of the evildoer we said this on yumil many many times I want him to do Chua and all the prayers of rashash Yumer talk about God putting his reverence in all of his Creations everyone that you created will know God that you created them so this is connected to the the diminution of evil as we approach the Messianic era and if you raise the question how can I talk about the evil getting diminished when it seems to rise up so the maor all tell us that it's like a candle right before a candle goes out there's a final burst of energy like sometimes even a human being who dies is that way a final convulsion we are seeing the death throws of this Rish that is going to have its final destruction and the fact that it intensifies is not a sign of vibrancy it is not a sign of strength it is a sign of this is the last gasp we don't know how long that last gas can be and that's part of our Challenge and part of our struggle and part of our difficulty but it is the last gasp although it may be much longer than we would be fully comfortable with so that's one idea but let me point out that the vagon has an extraordinary observation about the 70 Nations he says 35 of those 70 Nations come from Ismael and 35 of those 70 Nations come from ASA so everything that's against us is either yesel or ASF let's flesh that flesh that out a little bit what does the vagon mean when he says 35 are from asov and 35 are Ishmael he certainly does not mean 35 are descended from ASF and 35 are descended from Ishmael in point of fact none of the 70 nations are descended from ASA or isma remember ASA and isma are descendants of Abraham the 70 nations are those besides the children of Abram so really there are 72 nation7 right so what does he mean the 70 nations are from and from yees and other even from shame other semetic people but not in the abrahamic line so what does that mean what do you mean 35 are from ASA and 35 are from Ishmael so the Von must obviously mean it is not that the nations are physically descended from ASA and isma but it means 35 Nations have a spiritual essence that emanates from ASA a spiritual Essence and 35 Nations have a spiritual Essence that emanates from isma what is the nature of that spiritual Essence I would suggest in explaining to vagon that this refers to the two different challenges that Jewish people face in their confrontation with the nations of the world ASV Adam ASA represents what you might call hedonistic materialism the notion that there is no need for a God God is irrelevant the only thing that matters is power money Mastery ego control remember that when ASV was willing to sell the privilege of the birthright which was a spiritual task to Yakov for for a bowl of lentil soup ASV said the infamous words he behold I'm going to die L why do I need a Birthright now the simple translation the way most people say it is he's just saying I'm so hungry I'm going to die but the deeper meaning is this he's actually saying there is nothing Beyond this life after death there is oblivion behold I'm going to die what do I need the service of God for my goal is to enjoy life my goal is to eat drink and be merry for tomorrow we shall die so ASV in whatever Incarnation it has represent presents a celebration of material decadence Hedonism money power ego in which God is banished from the picture now that itself can take many forms sometimes it can be the ego and the power lust that results in a Holocaust in which we physically get destroyed and sometimes it could be the challenges of Western civilization of decadence and M ISM in other words it can take different forms but the common denominator is it is a power lust and a hedonistic lust a Lust For materialism for pleasure for power for control which can either get me in terms of threatening my physical survival or I could fall prey to that very nission in which I live a life of materialism even if I'm from right I live a life in which I'm looking at you know money and power and acquisition as the main thing of my life some people say sometimes the problem of the modern Orthodox Jew I don't I don't mean modern Orthodox as specialized now I just mean the 21st century Jew even if they're religious is they sometimes look at the mitv as 613 problems they got to get around meaning instead of saying this is my life my life is what I want to do but I got these Mitzvah I got to work around in various ways so asov is the challenge of living a life devoted to the material and not to the spiritual when we look at the challenge of Ismael we see a very very different type of idea first of all Ismael has been pointed out is the only one of our adversaries that has the name of God in their name Israel Is Us yesma and it is said that Ismael in some ways has a dark spiritual energy just like physicists say there is matter and antimatter there is something called Dark spiritual energy yesel that is said has a certain power of prayer that God responds to in some ways it's been pointed out that they pray five times a day and we only do that on yum Kipper although they're prayer service is short they have circumcision they have certain in a perverse way so unlike the ASA that creates a life that is from godliness in which God is simply ignored or disregarded yesel is a besmirching of godliness in which God is claimed and then co-opted for immoral and evil impulses in fact it's no accident that technically the excuse of this Kamas terrorism it thing is called alaka meaning they're connecting it somehow to some imaginary desecration of the Temple mount in other words they come up with some religious granted it's totally fraudulent but some but that's how they mobilize people by calling upon God that's why suicide bombers you know are Martyrs that go to heaven what whatever it would be so the difference would be that the challenge of the asvs of the world is to create the ethic of hedonistic materialism the challenge of the ish's of the world is Rel religious fanaticism that uses God for corrupt and immoral ways and when the Von says 35 are from ASA 35 from Ishmael he's actually teaching us that we're going to face those two challenges and those are the two challenges we are facing we're facing the Hedonism of Western civilization and we're facing the religious fanaticism of Islamic fundamentalism right the Ishmael and the Asa are hitting Us in both directions now what's interesting is R says that this notion of yes and ASA kind of being the spiritual sources of our enmities can be seen in another ritual of sukot besides the Bulls and that is the now you'll remember that during the year when the morning sacrifice was brought every day they would pour wine on the altar on sukat we also pour wine on the altar but we augment the pouring of the wine with the pouring of the water there's water and wine separately that are poured on the m and in fact they would draw the water from the shil the crack of dawn and the preceding evening would be the great great parties in anticipation of that event that were called and are called to this day as a commemoration baa the joy of the drawing of the water andal say he who did not experience the joy of the drawing of the water did not experience joy in his lifetime so today we don't have the bet mikdash we don't have the actual drawing of the water but we have sukus get together that are still called to this day fact the T says there's a bit of a pun herea means drawing you're drawing water but it also means you're drawing divine inspiration Divine prophecy the T says that yonah the Nai yonah the prophet didn't want to be a prophet that's why he didn't want the job that God gave him but he became a prophet because he was so happy in the he got zapped with divine inspiration so be careful you lose yourself in you never know what might happen so here's what Raya says he says that when David H in the book of to Hill him talks about the suffering of the Jewish people he sees with a prophetic eye all that we're going to go through he says we have gone through fire and water because of your name so says Raba fire refers to the persecutions of Asa and water refers to the persecutions of yishmael and once again it is a remise that it is asov and yishmael that are the ones that are the primary destructive forces in our lives in the ways that I explained it says very beautifully since ASV is described as Fire and Fire generally has a reddish color the pouring of the wine on the altar represents the eventual Chua of ASF that will come back to God and then sukat the pouring of the water on the altar represents the eventual return of yishmael fire and water water so whether you view it in terms of the parim the 70 BS 3535 whose power gets diminished or whether you view it in terms of the wine and the water which is a and Mayim which is asov and yishmael you see that the one takeaway from sukat among many many takeaways is the eventual defeat of the powers of as of is but not necessarily by their physical destruction but by their returning to God and being reunited in the okay so this is again going back a little bit talking about sukot but I think it is very very relevant in terms of what we're going through so now I I want to take this analysis a little further and that is when we talk about an enemy outside of us that's threatening us there's a well-known fundamental idea that that which is outside of me can have power over me only if there's something within me that resembles that negative Force meaning the amalik although we're not talking about amalik per se but amalik outside can get me only because there's an amalik inside of me when there's no amalik inside of me then the amalik outside is no power it's an illusion it vanishes so if as the vnon teaches we have 35 nations of ASV and 35 nations of Ismael that have power over us that's because there is something of the asov within us and there is something of the ish within us and we have to eradicate the ASV and the Ishmael within us in order to successfully eradicate the negativities of the asov and the ishma outside of us so what would this mean if we've identified ASF as Hedonism pleasure seeking materialism rendering God even if you formally believe in him kind of an irrelevance in your life then that would translate in a lack of passion in serving God so even if I do Mitzvah if I look at the Torah as a burden if I look at the Torah as something I'd rather not be involved in if I look at mitzvot as a bother if I'm complacent if I'm indifferent if the pleasure and materialism of the world is more significant to me than serving God then that's the ASA voice within me that's talking I'm going to die why do I need this burden so if our job is to eradicate the ASA I must strengthen my passion to serve God to learn Torah to do Mitzvah to have enthusiasm to look at yish as a privilege and not a burden that's how I fight the as of in me that's pulling me the other way but what is the ish in me the ishma in me is when I believe in God but I use my faith in God to disparage to denigrate to demonize to delit imate others now again I have to be very very very careful here and I I may not be able to escape uh the hate mail or whatever it is um I'm going to utter a criticism of of our religious world but and and say that there's an aspect of is in it but I I do want to make 1 million per clear that I'm not drawing God forbid a moral equivalence between what we are sometimes guilty of and the atrocities that are being perpetrated I I I am not suggesting equivalence and no one listening should make any Assumption of equivalence but I am suggesting that there's a little bit of the Ismael within us that makes us vulnerable to the Ishmael out there and that is when we have a lack of aat Isel not loving our fellow Jew delit legitimating demonizing saying anyone to the right of me is a fanatic anyone to the left of me is an appic chorus it's only where I am and I try to give myself a moral superiority that I am the right servant of God and you're not that's the voice of yesel that's speaking and that makes us vulnerable many many many many times over to those who make the same claim against us so if the challenge of Asa to fight ASA is to be Mantic remove ourselves from materialism and Hedonism the challenge of fighting ishma is to embrace our fellow Jew religious or not with love with care with concern with AEL you know the war has overshadowed everything else but if we just think back a few weeks ago we were going through a very long period of time in which there was constant constant fighting bickering attacks sometimes it came from the religious you know who are demonstrating and blocking traffic over a draft laws and the like and other times it came from the secular against the religious fighting the judicial reform proposals which I can tell you as a lawyer were perfectly reasonable reforms whatever it would be but it was and also the religious had nothing to do with it actually so it was a a very very strange situation but somehow the religious community was singled out as trying to destroy Israel as a democracy and then we had an Yom kipur where a religious group wanted to have you know was holding a service with the m side and there were people who attacked them in yum kipur again my point is not to cast blame because yes there's blame on both sides here not not in that case but but overall there are times that religious have attacked secular yeah and that's wrong and there are times that secular have attacked religious and that's wrong I will be an equal opportunity condemn her I will condemn both in fact if in Tel Aviv there had been a mixed service and some from people would want to have stopped that I would I would have condemned it to so I'm not simply condemning what happened to Yum kipor because it was non-religious people attacking a religious service I I would absolutely condemn it the other way the point is we fight and we fight and we fight and we argue well argument is okay because obviously there are different views different beliefs I'm not suggesting every view is equally true and we need to be able to debate we need be able to discuss but to demonize to hate to Simply denigrate we do it week after week month after month year after year decade after decade that I know what God wants and you don't I am keeping Judaism and you're not and now we can see I hope we can see kind of how stupid that was how insignificant that was how unimportant that was do you think Hamas cared if somebody was or Kon or whatever it is did it make a difference the hostages that were taken the soldiers that were killed one thing that a war like this makes us realize is how insignificant are the things that divide us that doesn't mean again that people shouldn't stand up and articulate their beliefs and discuss them and even argue argument per se I mean the word mlus is the common phrase we use for every discussion in the gamar is Aus rash and ra sure Judaism is about two Jews three opinions at least that's our tradition that's how we learn Torah that's how we grow I'm not critical of that obviously I'm not critical of that but the notion that everybody gets demonized and this reminds us how much more there is that unites us then separates us and when we demonize we're not really speaking as Jews we're speaking as yesel in which the mid of yes is within us like like a cancer that's leading us leading us astray so these are the things you know we have to learn uh obviously the basic approach I mean the basic approach once again are relatively simple there's a book a secular book and I don't mean to trivialize but it says everything I need to know I learned in kindergarten in many many way which you know there's a there's a lot of Truth to that actually in many many ways we don't need to be super sophisticated we don't need to be hyper subtle we don't need to come up with fancy High futin formulas or quick fixes everyone was a quick what what if I go to k and walk around it 110 times with a red thread these are not the things that really work the things that help us through life prayer turning to God charity loving our fellow Jew gratitude gratitude can you imagine what our are going through now and how much they're suffering and many have already made the ultimate sacrifice but how much their families are suffering religious non-religious look at what they're giving for the Jewish people for ER Israel we can debate should Yeshiva guys be drafted no this is a legitimate debate I'm not suggesting throwing in the towel on anything thing one can debate one can discuss one can disagree but how can we deny and you know there's a PK in Mish that I quote many many many times so forgive me may may have heard it 10 times already over the years maybe more than that but I think it's a motto that people should put on the refrigerators King Solon says as water reflects the face that you show the water so too the heart of man reflects that which is shown what does that mean I look at a reflecting pool of water the face that I show the water is the face I will see in the water I smile at the water I see a smiling face my face I frown at the water I see an angry face so too the respect that I show you will be mirrored back to me if a religious Jew can show for the good that people do then they too will see the good that religious people do now again religious people that's a very wide SWAT obviously there are many Many religious soldiers in the Army itself uh but even those who are not in the Army we believe if you're a believer that Torah mitzvos Fila bring down spiritual blessing but people who are not connected so much to Judaism don't always see that but if we would have aarat for their contribution they would also have a Kat for the other side the other contributions that are being made right so these are things we have to learn and unfortunately unfortunately it sometimes takes these great great great tragedies to make us pay attention to what we should have known all along that we have to be one we have to be together we have to love each other we have to care about each other and together we turn to God from asking him for Yeshua for salvation for Mercy for so the deaths will stop and the destruction will stop and even the nations of the world will come to shua and turn to Hashem and then his holy presence will be revealed red once again in and the bikash will become the B the House of Prayer for all of the nations of the world may we be to this very very very [Music] soon [Music] it