Tzipiyah.com

After hearing and reading about Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s speech I was thinking about how should Jews living outside of Israel need react to it and should it affect us? I think we need to first thank G-d that Netanyahu was strong in declaring that Jerusalem will always remain the Jewish capital and that he realizes that as he stated “The settlers are not enemies of peace. They are our brothers and sisters.”

I think it is interesting that the week that he gave his speech coincides with this week’s parsha, Parshat Shelach, which discusses the episode of the spies that were sent to spy out the land of Israel. Though as we know the spies were righteous men, they missed the point of what the land of Israel should mean to us as Jews. When they brought back their report of the land, even though they began by saying that it was “a land flowing with milk and honey” they still gave a negative report about the land. As we know they were severely punished for what the said. One can ask what did they do wrong? Weren’t they sent to spy out the land and give both the negative and positive about the land? Their mistake was that they didn’t fully appreciate how special and important this land was and that G-d promised to take them into the land and protect them so they shouldn’t worry and lose hope. Instead the dwelled on the negative aspects of the land which as Rashi explains were really false impressions of what was really occurring.

So, is it a coincidence that Netanyahu’s speech happens to be the same week as this week’s parsha? Definitely not, because how often do we hear the same rhetoric today? “Don’t go to Israel because…”, The problem with Israel is….” I think that this parsha comes as a reminder to all of us Jews, especially those out of Israel, to remind us that even though we are in exile all over the world, we must not forget our true home that was promised to Avraham Avinu. We should not make the same mistake as the spies who scorned the land and tried to prevent others from seeing its holiness and beauty. In addition, I think that Netanyahu’s speech is an added reminder for us not to forget where we belong and that even though we are not living in Israel we need to still support our brothers and sisters that live there. Whether it may be those who were thrown out of their homes from Gush Katif, those that are constantly threatened by rocket attacks on a daily basis and the “settlers” who’s ferverent love for the land is everlasting. We must also be grateful to the Israeli soldiers that constantly put their lives on the line to maintain security in Israel. We need to be thankful to all of them for their constant sacrifice for the survival of the Jewish People in and out of the Israel. We need to realize that without their courage and persistence, Jews all over the world would be negatively affected and would be in jeopardy. As Jews living outside of Israel we need to constantly pray for our brothers and sisters in Israel and take an interest in the state of Israel, because it has an affect on us too. In addition, all of us in Chutz La’Aretz need to be united in our support for Israel and not turn a blind eye to their suffering. Until we are all able to reunite altogether in our land with the coming of Moshiach, we need to remember an important point that Netanyahu made in his speech, “Judea and Samaria are not a foreign country for us. This is the land of our forefathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The sovereignty of the Jewish people in our Land does not come from the suffering we have been through. Some say if it weren’t for the Holocaust there would be no State if Israel. But I say that if Israel had been established in time there would have been no Holocaust,” and “Our right to establish our country here stems from one fact: IsraeI is the homeland of the Jewish people and it is here that our identity was forged.”