Friday, July 28, 2006

Weapons of Mass Construction

It can get a little frustrating watching and hearing the goings on in Israel (Lebanon) and feeling so far and unable to assist.

The Baal Shem Tov taught that everything that a Jew hears or sees should teach them a life lesson.

For the last 10 years, Israelis have lived under threat of suicide bombers. In the last year, the focus of terrorism has shifted to Kassam and Katyusha rockets. Suicide bombers have to actually infiltrate an area to cause damage, while rockets can be fired from many kilometers away.

And that just might be the lesson for us. To fight fire with "fire".

Perhaps Hashem wants us to realise we don't have to be physically present in Israel to help Israel. We may live thousands of kilometers away, but we can still "fire" spiritual rockets to Israel.

Every physical occurrence reflects a spiritual reality. Safety and peace in Israel can be achieved through our spiritual intervention.

In 1967, just days before the Six Day War, the Rebbe encouraged men everywhere to put on tefillin. The Talmud says that when we wear tefillin, our enemies detect that Hashem is with us and they become afraid of us.

During other Israel- Arab conflicts, the Rebbe urged people to have kosher mezuzos on all their doors and to get as many people as possible to do the same. Mezuzos bring protection to all Jews- even those who haven't yet put them up.

And he stressed the value of charity. It doesn't matter how much you give, as long as you give. As you give your Tzedokah have in mind that Hashem should protect the Israeli soldiers and citizens and guide the Israeli leadership to make the appropriate decisions.

Send your "rocket" off ASAP and, please G-d, we will see miracles in Israel very soon!

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Rabbi,

Great idea to start a blog. The more Jewish South Africa bloggers, the stronger our impact.

Anonymous said...

The Cape Argus ran a cartoon this week of a Menorah with missiles in place of candles. You can see the image on our blog here. http://supernatural.blogs.com/weblog/2006/08/editorial_carto.html#comments

I think they took your sending spiritual rockets message to literally?

Anonymous said...

good thing we are not planning to burn down the Cape Argus offices over this cartton

Unknown said...

Hi Thanks for the support ; ) My theory is, either we do what we're supposed to do (spiritually, that is), or the world will get the message to us that we're not doing it...

Anonymous said...

Hi Rabbi

You mentioned something at your shiur the other night about the significance of the month of Av and the nations of that have been arch-enemies of the Jewish people.

Can you please clarify what that was?

Anonymous said...

Hi Rabbi!

I think your blog is really intersting and really makes you think more deeply into our situationin conjunction to israels!

Keep it up!

D!

Unknown said...

The commentaries point out that the Hebrew month of Av is spelled in Hebrew "Alef, Bet".

The two nations that destroyed the Temple were Edom (Rome, 2nd Temple) and Bavel (Babylon, 1st Temple). Edom is spelled with an Alef and Bavel with a Bet.

So, the month when this destruction took place is named to represent these two nations.

Why it's interesting at the moment is because modern day Iran is geographically ancient "Bavel". Iran's involvement in backing Hizbullah's attack on Israel, which coincided with the beginning of the period of mourning for the Temple is quite interesting...

Rabbi S