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The Akeida and the War with Hamas: Chizuk for Iron Sword by Rabbi David Walk
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Auto-generated transcript. Not time-synced to the video.
hi good morning everyone thank you all
very much for for coming and joining um
before I uh before I get into the uh the
DOR and words of that I want to share I
just want to make one one
observation I don't know if any other
people feel the way I'm feeling uh
somehow I almost feel uh guilty here in
yusim
umem it's wonderful that even though we
had an aaka yesterday we did have you
know that one siren uh we were living
really in a very quiet environment uh I
have uh I have m in ashalon who have had
to move away and it's really to bro and
I have my son on the northern
border um and we went uh my wife and I
went up to visit him um a little while
ago a few days back he was out from the
border because he had pulled the
hamstring he's fine he's back back with
his uh unit in Golani
on the border now um but we visit him
and once you get north of the
kerit uh when you get near Roos Pina
just below s it's a different country um
a majority of the vehicles were uh were
military um almost I would say half the
people we saw once you get to that point
are are in uniform uh there are tanks
parked along the side of the road and
much of us here in yush uh
living a life which is very calm and
very close very close to normal but we
can't you know lose sight of all the
thing other things going on in the
country and um thank God we have
our our calm but uh we can't lose our
perspective on the difficulties and
sacrifices going on uh all over the
country and we are responding with you
know with filo with star and with all
sorts of volunteering and but uh I just
said you know the wars in turmoil and
where're a lot of it is bypassing us
here in
Yus Kesh um this week our thoughts are
definitely
on Aza the Gaza Strip and the war but
it's hard to separate that from the par
because the para of course has uh a k
and
is just a difficult story that when we
think about it just dominates our
Consciousness and I want to share a
couple of quick thoughts about the AA
and apply them to what's going on here
in 's Ro right now I want to start with
uh with
Ric uh R
salic was very
emotionally as well as philosophically
and intellectually involved
with with the AA
um and he
wrote when man meets God God demands
sacrifice which is a struggle with his
primitive passions and accepting a
transcendental
burden in occasional withdrawal from the
Pleasant in dedication to the strongly
bitter in clash with secular Rule and in
his yearning for a paradoxical world
that is incomprehensible to
others you mean try to talk to
friends who uh live in America about why
we're here and why this is important a
lot of a lot of them don't get it and
especially if you get a chance to talk
to non-jewish uh former colleagues or or
uh or friends in the states they don't
understand what we're going through or
why we're going through it and and then
he gets the r gets focused on the actual
event God says to a Ru take now your son
your only son whom you love y that is to
say I demand of you the greatest
sacrifice I want your son who is your
only son and also the only one whom you
love do not fool yourself to think after
you obey me and offer up your son I will
give you another son in place of y when
Yak will be slaughtered on the altar you
will remain alone and childless
neither should you think that you will
succeed to forget yak and remove him
from your mind all your life you will
think about him I am interested in your
son whom you love and whom you will love
forever you will spend your nights awake
picking at your emotional wounds out of
your sleep you will call for yak and
when you wake up you will find your tent
desolate and forsaken your life will
turn into a long chain of emotional
suffering uh I want to stop at this
point before he changes the mood and the
tone um to to say two things number one
the r really experience this there's um
a beautiful pce piece in in one of his
writings about um the pesak after his
wife died in
1967 and she died oner I I sadly
remember it well
um and a month a little over a month
later it was to p and there was a
thunderstorm in Boston and he and his
wife's bedroom was on the second floor
of their house in Brooklyn but she had
been the last months of her life living
on the first floor in in um in like a
um like a a patio type enclosed room and
so he heard the thunderstorm and he ran
downstairs to close the windows in the
room where his his ill wife had been
sleeping and he turned around after
closing the windows to see she wasn't
there he had trouble dealing with his
life going forward without his beloved
AER cono without his beloved wife the RV
is writing that same type of emotional
material about how Abraham's life will
be after the AA it's interesting uh one
of the the Giants of the 20th century R
cook wrote on the same idea uh when he
says when the P says Aram rose up early
in the morning the Peace of Mind of the
Holy Soul of the Holy Father the mighty
neor native did not cease his sleep was
not gone from him because of the clear
knowledge which came to him through the
word of God and no feeling of Darkness
negligence or depression became
intermixed in the longings of his
purified heart it's a beautiful idea but
I don't think it's what happened to aam
the midis talks about the Satan SEL
coming and and making his life miserable
and and trying to you know trying to
disuade him from doing the the the
Mitzvah the Commandment of God the mid
makes it sound like aam was suffering
and feeling this like the like the r
explained but R cook says no the real
sadic
just continues with equinity with these
difficult things
okay and nevertheless I'm back to Robert
salich and nevertheless I demand the
sacrifice clearly the experience which
was rooted in dread and suffering much
like what's going on in the Medina right
now ended in ceaseless Joy when Aram
removed his son from The Altar at the
Angel's command his suffering turned
into Everlasting gladness his dread into
Perpetual happiness the religious act
begins with the sacrifice of ones self
and ends with the finding of that self
and it's that kind of thinking that
should be permeating us during this time
period yes we are in the midst of a
tremendous test history and God have
said to us that we must give up our
child our unique child our Irreplaceable
child and put them on the front line in
this war but we have to have the faith
as difficult as all of this is that the
outcome will be worth it and we will see
the fruits of this labor in even greater
uh Medina I I want to share a thought
from not a Rabin Source uh a uh a uh a
scholarly Source his name is uh
Professor Leon Aras and he's the the
dean of Shalom College here in yusim and
and he wrote about the a in in in a more
sociological frame of mind and he says
abam is the model father of family and
Nation because he sets the example for
paternal rule in which the love of one's
children is put in the service of the
right and
holy and then he goes on and concludes
but a true I'm going to say parent says
father I'm going to keep it gender
neutral but a true parent will devote
his child to and will self-consciously
initiate him into only the righteous and
godly ways on the contrary the true
founder like the true parent shows his
love for his followers when he teaches
them Often by example that one's life is
not worth living if there is not nothing
worth dying and sacrificing
for the meaningful life is one which is
prepared to sacrifice it for a cause
which we know is worth the sacrifice and
that's the way we feel about Medina
Israel without question um it's it's a
terrible yoke and burden that we are um
bearing right now but it's one that we
know is necessary both for the nation
and for us as
individuals a life worth living is one
that has things ideas principles that
are worth dying for that is the
uniquely uniquely worthwhile existence
uh as I'm moving toward what really is
going to be be the end I I I want a
quote from another one who knew about
suffering and sacrifice uh Ellie weizel
Al
Shalom uh noticed something interesting
when he analyzed again more in his
literary way than a rinic way but when
he analyzed this whole
situation he looked at it and
said why was the most tragic of our
ancestors named yak
which signifies
laughter as the first
Survivor he had to teach
us us the future survivors of Jewish
history that's who we are he survived
the Holocaust he's that kind of Survivor
but
everybody everybody is is isra she
play every one of us is a survivor of
Jewish history we are the ptim we are
the few who have made it through and he
went on to
say so he had to teest the Future
survivors of Jewish history that it is
possible to suffer and despair an entire
lifetime and still not give up the art
of laughter Yak of course never freed
himself from the traumatizing scenes
that violated his youth the
Holocaust that had marked him and
continued to haunt him forever yet he
remained capable of laughter and in
spite of everything he did laugh and
that's what we have to remember in these
difficult times we have to focus on the
fact that what we're doing number one is
worthwhile number two we must believe
will be successful and number three
we have to know that tomorrow we will
find again reasons causes
opportunities to laugh and to smile and
to Rejoice together my only prayer is
that the sacrifices the core bote on our
borders remain small in number number
one number two that this take place
speedily quickly and doesn't take a long
period of suffering and number three
that uh We join together when it's all
over with a sense not just of relief not
just of the dissipating of the clowns of
Despair but the ability to laugh rejoice
and turn to Hashem in Thanksgiving for
the Yeshua which we know is on the way
and we pray comes to us speedily
so thank you all very very much uh I uh
I think it's wonderful that so many
people are joining and uh and and and
sharing together it's uh it's a terrible
thing to feel alone during these
difficult times and uh thank you to of
course KH is the one representing the
Israel Center thank you to the Israel
Center for giving these opportunities to
share our thoughts but just to be
together and look at other faces going
through the same
situation but with the confidence and
faith that this is a temporary setback
in the success of our beautiful
Medina call to and thank you so much for
joining