The Akeida and the War with Hamas: Chizuk for Iron Sword by Rabbi David Walk

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