Tzipiyah.com

Rav Mordechai Elon Shli”ta told us many times in yeshiva an interesting observation which I think holds a very deep message. In 1967, when the IDF reconquered the Temple Mount, Motta Gur, one of the previous chiefs of Staff of the IDF expressed enthusiastically “Har Habayit Beyadenu!” “The Temple Mount is in Our Hands!”.
Now, we have a principle in Jewish thought that when a leader of Am Israel is leading Am Israel, it is not his personal decisions which matter anymore because God is really the one leading Am Israel. His words take a whole new dimension! However, when we see the reality today, we see that the Temple Mount is hardly in our hands! Jews can hardly visit! The beit hamikdash is still destroyed!

Rav Elon explained what Motta Gur meant. Motta Gur thought to himself: God, we live in a special generation. You brought us here to the land of Israel after 2000 years of exile. You even brought us to Jerusalem. Today, we even got to the kotel! We are 200 meters away from the “finish line”. 200 meters away from the beit hamikdash! God! Why don’t you just build the beit hamikdash and get it over with? Why make us wait here 200 meters away?

Then Motta Gur told himself: Ah, I understand God. You brought us to Israel through amazing miracles! You brought us to Jerusalem in a war which we were supposed to loose but won in 6 days, through amazing miracles. We can now pray at the kotel thanks to your amazing miracles.

Now Har Habayit, the Temple mount, that… It is in our hands!

“If the Beit hamikdash was destroyed through sinat chinam, it will only be rebuilt with ahavat chinam. ”
Through the expression of baseless love for every member of the Jewish Nation, we will merit to have the temple rebuilt speedily in our days. It’s really up to us: “The temple mount is in our hands”

In the Torah, God tells Avraham: “Koum, Hithalekh Baaretz”. Most people will translate that as “Stand up, walk around the Land (of Israel)”. However, in Hebrew, this is not what it means. If we wanted to say Walk, we would say “Koum, Lekh Baaretz”. The word Hithalekh means to “make yourself walk”. Why did God need to tell Avraham to make himself walk instead of just to walk?

Rav Mordechai Elon Shli”ta gives a great answer:
When we go from New York to Montreal, then really, our goal is to go to Montreal, and the way, the flight there, is just because we need to get there. If we could, we would tele-port ourselves. If we could, we would skip the flight. In Israel, walking is a goal unto itself. Every 4 amot is a mitsvah! Therefore, we tell ourselves to “make ourselves walk” because the walking is already a goal!

If we look a bit deeper, we can see that in Chutz Laaretz, the emphasis is on the past and the future. We were in New York, we want to get to Montreal. In the eyes of Torat Chuts Laaretz, its very hard to give value to the derech, we want the goal right away. Torat Erets Israel comes and tells us there is value in the present also, there is value in the derech, there is value in the process itself as a process even if it didn’t lead to the desired goal!
Rav Kook illustrates this profoundly in one of his most powerful quotes:

“It is only the anticipation of redemption that preserves Judaism in Exile, while Judaism in the Land of Israel is the redemption itself.” R. AI Hacohen Kook

“It is only the anticipation of redemption that preserves Judaism in Exie” - It is only the past and the future which kept us alive in galut. Thinking about the great times we had and how it will one day be that way again. That is what insured our survival during 2000 years of exile.

“while Judaism in the Land of Israel is the redemption itself.” - In Israel, the present is the unfolding of the redemption. This is where Jewish History is taking place. This is where our past, present and future come together. This is where we live our redemption.

I was at a shiur recently in which the Rabbi exclaimed: the generation which is currently bringing about the third redemption is much great than the generations of the first and second redemptions.
All the people in the shiur were shocked. Are we really better than all these great rabbis?

The Rav explained that what he said was describing the people as a whole and not the leaders. The Rabbis back then might have been much greater then the Rabbis today, but the people today, klal Israel, is much greater. He then went on to explain: Back then, we had just gone out of Egypt. Or in the case of the second temple, we still had the memory of prophecy. When we went to Eretz Israel, it was great, but it was not fully our merit. God had to help a lot.

In our generation, we are engaging in a slow and tedious process in which each step is taken by Klal Israel. This is incredibly productive for our growth as our nation. So even if externally we look at such a low level, this is just because God is not pushing us in any way. Internally, we are at a much higher level than we ever were! We are returning to our land on our own, rebuilding Jerusalem on our own, sacrificing our lives in the army on our own.

Its similar to a parent forcing a child to give charity, or the child giving it from his own heart. This is why each step of the process is important, even if so many of these steps are so painful. Each step leads to this growth which will ultimately prepare us for this final and ultimate redemption.

This is why we need to me “Mithalekh”, make ourselves go and learn to appreciate the actual journey, rather than just go with the destination (the final redemption) being our ultimate goal without any appreciation of the growth we can get from the current process.

Once at a Tish, Rav Elon asked a great question with a very powerful answer.

He said: In Ashkenazi congregations, every time we read the torah, before putting away the torah we say a series of ‘Yehi Ratzons’, prayers which start with the words ‘May it be his will’. However, the last of these prayers is different. It starts directly with the words: ‘Ahenu Kol Beit Yisrael’ - Our brothers, all of the house of Israel - then proclaiming a blessing for all of the house of Israel. Rav Elon asked the question: Why is this blessing different then all the ‘Yehi Ratzons’? Why did we not say ‘Yehi Ratzion She-Ahenu Kol Beit Israel…’ - May It Be The Will that Our Brothers, All of the House of Israel?

Rav Elon’s Answer was very powerful. He answered that when we have Aheinu Kol Beit Yisrael, then we do not need any Yehi Ratzon. When we are united as brothers, we do not need to ASK the will of God for our success, God wills it already!

The Chassidic Rebbes interpret the words ‘Ve-Amech Koulam Tzadikim’ - Your Nation is all righteous. We know this is not true! Unfortunately, many Jews are not righteous! They explain that when ‘Ve-Amech’, your nation, is Koulam, acting as a whole, together, then we are all considered reichous even if we do not deserve it just yet.

May our nation’s unity constantly go unquest.ioned so that our merit will also stayed unquestioned

The first Halacha in the Shulchan Aruch, helek Orach Chaim, deals with waking up in the morning.

A man is supposed to wake up in a morning full of energy, like a lion, in order to “serve his creator”.

Rav Elon told us that maybe the psak (decision) of the shulchan aruch is different then what most people think. Maybe really, the psak isn’t that a person must wake up full of energy(although this is also important), but the special psak is that we must be slaves to G-d, serve our creator. What exactly is the pshat (explanation)? We have to serve our creator and nothing else!

For example, if you take one of those chabadniks who believes 100% that the Rebbe is the mashiach and wake him up at 3 am, he will automatically sing to you:”Yehi Adonenu, Moreinu Verabenu, Melekh Hamashiach, Leolam Vaed”

If you take a Beslover, and wake him up at 3 am, he will start singing for Rebbe Nachman. If he’s a ‘Na Nach’, he will sing: Na Nach Nachma Nachman Meuman, Na Nach Nachma Nachman Meuman….

If you take a “litvak”, and wake him up at 3 am, he will start telling you a whole gemara by heart. Rashi, Tosfot, all the rishonim acharonim… even the Kzo”s” (Ksot, for us sefardim)

If you take a Mizrachi (religious zionist) person and wake him up at 3 am, since he is much more”modern”, he will probably start hitting you for waking him up. Just Joking… But if he is one of those very passionate in their right wing views, he will probably tell you: lets go save hevron! If you take a Neturei Karta, and wake him up at 3 am, he will probably tell you that Israel is a state of kofrim, full of sinners, that we should destroy Israel.

They are all wrong…. They are all going against Judaism. Yes, even the religious zionist!

The psak of the shulchan arouch is that when we wake up at 3 am in at night, we have to automatically think of how to serve our creator. That should be our goal. And whether you are a chabadnik singing Yehi, a Breslover singing for Rabi Nachman, a Litvak learning only gemara, a religious zionist living in chevron or a neturei karta going against israel, the only way your ideology is credible is if it really is ONLY a tool in order to get closer to G-d, not a goal in itself.

There’s a famous story of a chassid that once did a very bad sin. Then, at night, he had a dream where G-d asked him: “Why did you do this horrible sin?” The chassid said: “Well, you know, I have a yetser hara, I am not perfect… I’m sorry, but please, G-d, do me one favor” G-d asked him what that favor should be and the chassid answered: “Please don’t tell the rebbe… lets keep it between us”.

May we all learn to stop practicing judaism solely to serve our own “rebbe”: whether this rebbe is a person, the land of Israel, a gemara or anything else. Lets try to all find out what G-d, himself, really wants out of us. As long as this will be our intention, our actions will stay justified and right. As soon as this becomes the basis of the actions of every Jew, then we can unite through this common basis even though our conclusions will still often be very different.