Safe in the Shadow
The Oct 7 massacre clearly pointed out our vulnerabilities. But it also showed that those who live in the shadow of Hashem enjoy His protection. Why take the risk?
The truth needs to be told: In Israel, those who choose to live their lives under the shadow of Hashem’s protection celebrated Simchat Torah. Those that didn’t endured the October 7 massacre.
There is a popular image circulating on social media. It’s a map of Israel. For every Hamas missile, a dot is placed at the location of where it landed. The missiles are hitting mostly non-observant areas. From Ashdod to Netanya, they are falling on our west coast.
For the most part, they are not falling in Jerusalem. They are not falling in our Biblical heartland of Judea and Shomron. They don’t fall in Bnei Brak, between Ramat Gan and Petach Tikva. We never hear stories about yeshivot being hit or synagogues getting targeted.
This is a miracle. It’s also a hint from Hashem on how to win this war.
Where We Are Vulnerable
From Oct 4-7, there was a music festival in the Gaza Belt (area of Israel next to the Gazan border). It featured open acts of sodomy. There was a huge statue of an idol. It was attended by people who had been protesting and profaning everything Jewish for the past 12 months.
It was a tragedy, a catastrophe, a spiritual Holocaust. It’s also a crucial lesson for our survival.
As we speak, IDF soldiers are studying the military tactics of Nazi Field Marshall Erwin Rommel. He was the pro-Hitler general who conquered France and Western Europe for Germany. Why do we study such a monster? We do it to make sure the atrocities he and his people committed will never, ever happen again.
We know with total certainty that, Hashem forbid, every inch Hezbollah, Hamas, or Iran capture from Israel, and every Israeli they take hostage – they will replay Oct 7 again, and again, and again.
It’s our duty to make sure that never happens. Like the IDF soldier studying Nazi military tactics to prevent Israeli weakness, we need to study our spiritual tactics, both good and bad, to make sure our enemies cannot touch us.
Spiritual Tactics
Not a single Haredi Jew was touched on Simchat Torah. The religious kibbutzim and villages inside the Gaza Belt were spared any assault from Hamas even as these monsters terrorized people all around them.
The lion’s share of the economic damage is happening to farms on secular kibbutzim and the high-tech sector of Tel Aviv. Bombs are dropped on areas of the country most hostile to Torah.
Let’s be clear: Nobody deserves this to happen to them. Randomly dropping bombs on civilian populations is unjust and repugnant.
There are secular people in Israel who leap to heights of greatness because, consciously or not, they hold one mitzvah that many of us don’t. It might be the mitzvah of honesty. It might be guarding one’s tongue against slander or gossip. It might be abiding by the laws of sexual morality. It might be as simple as smiling at everyone and greeting them in a pleasant manner.
But like the IDF commander who learns something from the Nazi General to keep six million Jews safe for another day, we can learn the lessons from the Oct 7 massacre and keep each other safe in the process.
What lessons?
If you serve Hashem through Torah and mitzvot, the chances of surviving our enemies rise exponentially. Those who live in the shadow of Hashem live. Those who choose not to are taking a huge risk.
Whether taking on the mitzvah of Shabbat, guarding our tongue, guarding our body, kindness, prayer, charity, or Torah learning, these are the most time-tested tactics for our personal, family, and national survival.
***
David Ben Horin lives in Afula with his family, millions of sunflowers, and Matilda, our local camel. David‘s Israeli startup, 300 Marketing Solutions, is a lean marketing agency for startups and small businesses that creates and promotes SEO-optimized ROI-driven to the right audience on LinkedIn to make your business the star of the show.
1/14/2024
@Ari – Wow, great point!!
It’s too easy to feel innocent about what happens to other Jews. It’s too easy to think “I’m OK. I’m not the problem”.
No, we’re not OK. In addition to Torah learning and mitzvot as protective shields for all Jews, Harav Arush’s directive for every one of us to pray every day for every Jew to do teshuva is also a shield. He made a very sharp comment that the first ones to do teshuva are “all of you who call yourselves ‘religious'”.
If it doesn’t bother us that Jews are far from Hashem and His Torah, then there’s something sorely lacking in our ahavat Yisrael and ahavat Hashem.
To take your comments a step further, if such a massacre occurred to those who are ignorant of Torah Judaism, we should see it as a warning of what might happen to those of us who call ourselves “religious”.
There is zero room for complacency here!
1/14/2024
There are two spiritual responses observant Jews can make from the evidence that many more secular Jews suffered than religious Jews in Hamas’s attack over Shemini Atzeret 5784 and its repercussions. One is the approach you and others have taken which is to see it as a lesson of behavior and actions to avoid peril. However, I have yet to read someone approach the massacre as a message of gross neglect on the part of observant Jews. How can observant Jews be at peace with the fact they have failed in spreading the light of Torah and mitzvot to such an extent that hundreds feel more uplifted at a concert held on Yom Tov than dancing with a sefer Torah? Their capture, torture, and murder is an indictment on every observant Jew. I heard that courageous rabbis of the former generation would tell their talmidim, “If you slack off on learning today, a married Jewish woman in France uncovers her hair tomorrow.” This was the path of Avraham with regards to praying for Sodom as well as the mitzvah of Eigel Arufa given years later. I think it is incumbent upon us to adopt this approach as well.
1/11/2024
[In response to MB]
or the Merkaz HaRav massacre?
Very good question!
My article says that if you don’t put on the spiritual shields of Torah and Mitzvot, which petition Hashem’s protection, you are taking a huge risk.
When you combine those martyred on Oct 7 with those martyred on November 18 and March 6, you will find that for every one Jew who was martyred in a Shul or a Yeshiva, 50 were martyred doing other things.
There is no direct correlation — only a very strong conclusion based on historical facts that performing mitzvot is a very powerful and effective way to escape terror. If those places in Israel that are Torah observant see far fewer terror attacks, it would be a great idea for the nation to make as many places Torah observant!