The Deed to the Land of Israel

Finally, finally, Israel has followed Torah's exhortation to proclaim before the gentile nations who accuse Israel of having robbed their land exactly as Ambassador Danny Dannon did in the U.N.'s security council on April 30, 2019.

The very first verse in Torah, and there, in the very first Rashi, Rashi dictates exactly the words that need be said to counter this false accusation. And indeed, Mr. Danon raised the Chumash in the air and said words to the same effect, if not exactly the right words.

God gave the Land of Israel to the Jewish people when he made a covenant with Abraham, said Danon, quoting from Genesis.

He could have elaborated just as Rashi elaborates, that God, creator of the world, had first given the land to the Canaanites and then took back the land from them -- to give it to the Jews.

Only this argument, which carries Torah's sanction, is the one that will be respected by the Goyim. Indeed, until now, no matter what else Israel had been arguing, it all fell on deaf ears. Now things are going to change.

Now, very close to the Era of Ultimate Redemption, it's due time that the right argument be put forth. Only this argument will be the one that the Gentiles nations will understand and respect, and eventually accept (whether they like it or not).

This big step is yet another clear sign we're heading down the path of Geulah.

(It pays to realize, too, that Rashi, who lived in France some 1,000 years ago, in the time of the Crusades, when Jews were deep in exile, scattered the world over, under persecution almost wherever they lived, in an era when the Land of Israel was merely a figment of imagination or a dream at best, wrote this Torah commentary derived from prophecy. For who then would have believed that there would ever again be a Land of Israel that will belong to the Jewish people, a people then dispersed across all the continents, without a common language, without an army, with no political clout, with no security and without any power whatsoever?)

____________ Rashi on Genesis 1:1 ____________

אמר רבי יצחק: לא היה צריך להתחיל את התורה אלא (שמות יב ב) מהחודש הזה לכם, שהיא מצווה ראשונה שנצטוו בה ישראל, ומה טעם פתח בבראשית, משום (תהילים קיא ו) כוח מעשיו הגיד לעמו לתת להם נחלת גויים, שאם יאמרו אומות העולם לישראל לסטים אתם, שכבשתם ארצות שבעה גויים, הם אומרים להם כל הארץ של הקב"ה היא, הוא בראה ונתנה לאשר ישר בעיניו, ברצונו נתנה להם וברצונו נטלה מהם ונתנה לנו

Rabbi Yitzchak said: "Torah ought to have began its narrative from (Shemot 12: 2) where God delivers His 1st commandment to the entire Jewish People, from the verse "This month (of Nissan) shall be for you the 1st month of the year ... ."  Why then did Torah open with the story of creation, etc. ? King David explains it (Psalms 111:6). It was "in order the people should know of God's omnipotence, which He projected for the sake of the Jewish People." That is, they should know that He, the Creator, gave them the inheritance to this land. For when the gentile nations will accuse the Jews of robbing them of it, and that Israel conquered a land that belonged to 7 other nations, Jews should respond, saying, that all of earth belongs to God, He created it and gave The Land to whom He saw fit for it; He first wanted the Canaanites to have it, but then wanted it back, because now He wanted to give it to us."

A Great Miracle Happened There

I copied this from the journal “Hakriyah Vehakedushah”, Dec. 1941, published by the Previous Rebbe of Chabad. As you read bear in mind the year this was printed: during the Holocaust, before the state of Israel was reborn! If you bear that in mind, you can count the miracles since these words were written.

A Great Miracle Happened There

The Jewish nation was born by a miracle; We live by miracles and by a miracle we hope to be able to exist henceforth.

At the age of 90 Sarah, Abraham’s wife, gave birth to her son Isaac. After her womanhood was entirely gone she was rejuvenated, became young again and brought a child into the world. This was the Almighty’s proclamation to the future Jewish generations that they, too, will suddenly come to life again many times, become young and astound the world through a great miracle.

After our forefathers had slaved in Egypt for over 200 years and there wasn’t the slightest possibility of their ever emerging as a nation again, the great miracle occurred. Not only were they freed from their bondage and emerged as a separate nation but they became the chosen people from among all the nations. We, more than any other nation, have given the world spiritual treasures and we have existed longer than any nation of ancient times, thank God. We have outlived the greatest nations as well as our enslavers and oppressors.

We were set free from Egypt with many reoccurrences of the great miracle.

We lived in the desert for 40 years; We acquired a land of milk and honey; After we had lost our great land by being sinful we returned from exile by a miracle and again rebuilt our country. And with a great miracle our champions the Chashmonoim defeated the mighty enemy, the Greeks, the world conquerors of that time which holiday we have been celebrating unintermittently until this very day, a period of 2080 years.

We are existing as a separate nation while in exile by a miracle, without a land, without an army, without a navy and without a single nation whom we can call our friend and protector, and in spite of the fact that most every nation has wanted and still wants to exterminate us.

By a great miracle we have outlived the historical “Haman the wicked” and his tens of thousands of children in every land since then. It seems as if the children of the “ancient giants” haven't got one-thousandth of the life-strength in them that the offspring of Isaac have, the children of a man who was born to aged parents, a father of 100 years of age and a mother 90 years old. According to the rules of nature such a person should have been weaker than ordinary normal children and not be able to bring forth into the world a race that is stronger than any other one upon the face of the earth.

In the normal course of events such a wonder would not be possible but it did happen because of the great miracle. Nations, as hard and strong as iron like the Assyrians, Babylonians, Greeks, Romans and their like were not able to overcome their first national defeat and have disappeared without even so much as a goodbye. Only the Jewish nation had the Godly miracle occur to them to be able to exist while drowning in a sea of national calamities.

If the world had any sense, any justice and respect for God it would look at us in awe and wonder and would think 10 times before it would attempt a new attack upon us. It would realize that we are under the special protection of God and that to oppress and torture us is a deed which can bring no good. But the world doesn't want to see the truth; It persecutes us wholesale and retail; The entire Jewish nation as a whole, each part of it separately, and every Jew individually. Its punishment is that it doesn't see any other truth as well, not even the simplest truth that war is the greatest insanity and international suicide.

From the day of our birth until today and as long as we Jews will exist it was and will be by miracles. This is a fact that the world refuses to listen to and unfortunately many of our Jews don't understand this as well. The truth of the matter is that we are the “Chosen people” and that in spite our many and great troubles it still is an honor to be a Jew. It certainly must be a very great privilege to be a member of a nation over whom God watches specially so that they should exist by His miracles. This is positively a very big thing even if one doesn't understand all the particulars of this type of providence.

When a nation lives through thousands of years of persecution by the entire world and is saved each time by a miracle, then the miracle by which this nation exists is a triple one; It is a past, present and future miracle.

Because the Chashmonoim defended the honor of the Torah and sacrificed their lives without the slightest chance for victory, praying for a miracle to happen and to save them, they deserved to win and did because of the great miracle that was happening, so much so that all later Jewish generations can rejoice with the great miracle that “did happen”.

This teaches us that in all times, our own included, we Jews must do everything possible and even impossible to raise the honor of the Torah in the hope that a great miracle “will happen”. We must not lose hope and give up, heaven forbid, just because we don't see the miracle “happening” right now. It is surely here and it will become in the future a “great miracle which did happen” if we will fulfill our obligations believing as the Chashmonoim believed in the great miracle “that will occur”. The Almighty will crown our suffering with victory.

Therefore, we must not despair because of all of the persecutions and tortures which are horrible and threaten us with destruction, heaven forbid. We must hope for the great miracle that “will occur” in spite of the fact that we don't see it “occurring”. It is here and is shielding us. We will, with God’s help, live through the persecution and torture; And our children and grandchildren, as well as we ourselves, will positively see and understand later the great miracle that “did occur”. Because God's watch is upon us always, every day, every hour and if we are suffering then it surely our own fault. Unfortunately we know that we are deficient in many ways and we are paying for these deficiencies. But in general and as a nation, as a whole, we are always better than the other nations. And for this very reason we are assured against annihilation, heaven forbid. The fact is that once before, about 2000 years ago in Asia we were almost completely destroyed and we, as well as the other nations believed that that was our end and that there would never again be a Jewish nation. Later we awoke from our bitter dream of several hundred years and discovered that all the other great nations of Asia have disappeared forever and that the Jewish nation remained in existence.

Individuals, single isolated cases, yea, thousands of these if you wish, departed this world before their time and in a horrible manner because they were deficient in some of their spiritual requirements, but, as a nation in general, we remained in existence thank heaven. Today, once more, many nations have begun to persecute us and because of their cruelty Jewish blood is flowing like water. They think that it's only a matter of short while and we will disappear too. Many Jews who don't have the right faith also fear for our nation's future. But the “great miracle which occurs” is doing its work and it will in the future become with God’s help a “great miracle which occurred”. The coming generations will discover that both the big and small nations who tried to annihilate us were themselves exterminated and have disappeared forever but that the persecuted and tortured Jewish nation has remained.

Therefore let the current holiday of Chanukah serve as a comfort and encouragement for us in the present time of the new “Antiochuses” that we will with God’s help outlive them as well. Their terrible cruelty will boomerang and be spent on themselves. Although we find ourselves in such a bad predicament that there is no natural possibility for our rebirth as a nation in view; Although we are old and dried-up like an old woman of 90, nevertheless we have already gone through such a time before and like our mother, Sarah, became young again and there is no doubt that it can and will occur again, with God’s help.

“And with His mighty arm He has delivered the chosen ones, the might of Pharaoh and all his children sank to the bottom of the ocean like a heavy rock”.

In these words which we say every Chanukah lies the secret of the “great miracle”. God's “mighty arm” brings on the “great miracle” and God has sufficient pits into which to hurl all the Pharaohs and Antiochuses past and present.

As “Chasidei Chabad” and because we are now going to celebrate the holiday of deliverance of the 19th day of “Kislev” we should like to take this opportunity to remember also the “great miracle which occurred” through which the old rabbi, the author of the “Tanya” and compiler of the “Shulchan Aruch” Rabbi Schneer Zalman of Liady and afterward the second rabbi were freed from prison and the second “great miracle which occurred” before our very eyes through which our rabbi of Lubavitch was freed from the hands of present-day Russia.

The time of deliverance hadn't come yet in old Czarist Russia for the millions of other Jews who still had to suffer in exile. The time of deliverance still didn’t come for the few million remaining Jews, in present day Russia, who are being cleansed, may God help them, in the Red melting pot just like in old Egypt, because there were not and still are not as many pious Jews as there were in the time of the Chashmonoim, holy and pure men in whose merit the millions of Jews should be delivered, but there were a few such people and God did His part for them only. Between the few remaining holy and pious Jews the flowers of the Jewish nation were not neglected. The author of the “Tanya” and his second rabbi, as well as our own Rabbi of Lubavitch have witnessed the great miracle which occurred even in the darkest hours of our exile and the modern “Antiochuses” held no power over them.

Witnessing with our own eyes what a good God we have and how He protects the true “believers in Him” by opening all iron doors to free them, the great holiday of the 19th of “Kislev” becomes a bit beclouded by the thought of how easy it might be for the entire Jewish nation to be delivered if it only had just a little more than the few pious men; If all or even the majority only realized that they can bring on the great miracle whenever they want to! But we must suppose it was so desired that before the appropriate time Jews shouldn't discover their possibility. Let us hope however, that now is the proper time and that the great miracle will come of itself because of God’s benevolence and because we have already paid for our old and new sins more than enough!

Free Will in Jew & Gentile - A Philosophical Stab at Quantification

Free will, or Free Choice, is the ability to act free of instinctual constraints. Before he commits himself to action, man can exercise this mental asset. In contrast, the dog lacks this intellectual component that can mediate for several behavioral options. If the dog's instinct is aroused to "go for it", it will. Man can restrain himself and hold himself in check.

The dog also can hold itself in check if such learned behavior brought pain, but avoidance behavior really is an instinct to recede from pain, not a cognitive foresight to weigh possible outcomes.

My question is: Does man's free behavioral choice factor differently in degree for Jew and Gentile? Given that both Jew and Gentile have both an animalistic inclination as well as a spiritual inclination to perform righteously, how then does the Gentile and Jew differ with regard to the "intellectual element" that mediates between these two inclinations?

Note my question bears NOT on the TYPES of behavior chosen, because it's well known a Jew's characteristic nature differs from the Gentile's in 4 ways: 1) He shows more mercy; 2) He feels ashamed if his sin is exposed (modesty); 3) He engages in more kindness to fellow men; and 4th, he has the capacity to behave selflessly, whereas even charitable behavior of a Gentile derives from a selfish motive (Tanya, chpt.1).

My question refers to the "space" allocated for granting free choice. That is, just how much mediation can be made available for the deliberation of free choice? Is there a quantitative difference between Jew and Gentile? Or, to put it more bluntly, who is closer to the dog's one-way mindset?

The question is, "How much SPACE is allocated for Free Choice activity?" How much "space" - irrespective of what actually was chosen or whether any deliberation even took place? Whether the person engages the intellectual element for decision-making, or not, are more POTENTIAL opportunities available to take advantage of, were it measurable, for the Jew or the Gentile?

I think this question touches on the essence of what the Jewish sages mean by the word "freedom", when they claim, "Torah makes you free!" (Pirkei Avot 6:2)

Chassidus often speaks about where "The Gentile has no free choice". I could be wrong but my impression is, it really means to say that RELATIVELY, relative to Jews, the Gentile has practically no free choice.

I think this issue must take into account the concept of commandments. God gave man commandments to follow. The minimum set of 7 commandments, known as the 7 Universal Laws, or 7 Noahide Laws, belongs to all people of the world. Upkeep of this minimum set of laws assuredly functions to make the world an ideal place to live in.

A commandment of God - by definition - means the person is given free choice to do it (and be rewarded) or not do it (and suffer the consequences). In other words, a commandment by God actually bestows upon the person the freedom to behave contrary to the commandment's direction as well. In effect, the commandment itself is PROVIDES the SPACE for freedom of choice to be executed.

Animals, like the dog, never received commandments to follow. For this reason animals lack the intellectual apparatus Free Choice depends on, the mechanism to behave contrary to a commandment. In this sense they are uni-directional. They possess no intellectual space for deliberating one way or the other.

The greater the contingent of commandments, therefore, the greater the SPACE that is created to accommodate these obligations. And vice versa, the less the load of divine duty, the less apparatus and room for deliberation that's provided.

(Note that for the small number of 7, however small it appears next to 613, which is the "Jewish load" of obligations, each law has innumerable ramifications. For example, although hitting someone is not prohibited expressly, for there is no Noahide law "Do not commit injury" as such, it does fall under the rubric of "Do not steal", for injuring someone, or even a minor infringement with no physical consequences, is similar to stealing from someone either in doctor's bills, or simply in lost time.)

The major thrust of this theory is this: Given that Jews have 613 ways to interact with nature to satisfy their commandments, or, more precisely, being that the Davidic dynasty hasn't yet been re-established, which means that approximately only 270 apply (Sefer Hachinuch, Preface), then 270 is the "space factor" of the Jew (today). Similarly, the Gentile's "space factor" is 7.

I contend that Gentiles have very little free choice compared to Jews because the degree of free choice is directly proportional to the number of divine commandments meant for the person to observe.

How does this difference manifest itself in day-to-day behavior? I'm not sure. I just know the Jew has more space in his repertoire, i.e., more freedom offered, because of his much greater load of commandments to keep.

My difficulty to express this advantage, of being subsumed under the canopy of 270 as opposed to one comprised of 7, suggests to me my theory may be faulty, and my thoughts on this issue remain unclear. Just where, however, I stand to be corrected, or taught more - hopefully by YOU.