Soldiers receive the Sabbath at the Gaza border, December 8, 2023/Reuters
Hello to the important rabbis on the Walla website!
Judaism.
It really bothers me that the politicians hang the success of the war on the strength of their arms, and again and again they say that we are strong and brave and thanks to our glorious army we will win, instead of hanging the success on the Creator of the world.
Am I correct in my approach or am I exaggerating?
Many times in our daily lives halachic questions arise and topical doubts arise.
Rabbi Shai Tahan, head of the Sha'ari Ezra community and head of Beit Erzi HaLebanon, makes the laws accessible to us and answers questions asked in the Beit Midrash and outside of it.
And this week: Is it permissible to blame the success of the war on the IDF?
Question
:
Hello to the important rabbis on the website Walla! Judaism. It really bothers me that the politicians blame the success of the war on the strength of their arms, and again and again they say that we are strong and brave and thanks to our glorious army we will win, instead of blaming the Success is in the Creator of the universe. Am I right in my approach or am I exaggerating? Thank you in advance.
Answer
:
Peace and blessings.
I completely agree that we should not depend on ourselves for success, and as the Torah has already warned in several places: "And you said in your heart as I live and with my own hand make me this mighty " (Deuteronomy 8:17). And the Ramban was able to explain this: "It is known that Israel is brave and valiant for war, for they are compared to lions and wolves to prey, and the kings of Canaan - in war they defeated them. Therefore he said: If you think, 'My strength and the strength of my hand, do for me the This army, remember the Lord who brought you out of Egypt, and you had no strength and strength of hand there at all, and remember also that in the desert, where your God did not have a hand to live there, He provided for you all your needs, so also this army that you made with your own strength - it is the Lord who gave you the strength When you did it. And if you forget the name, your strength and your rest will be lost, and you will perish when they are lost, because all those who forsake God could."
And so it is in the Sha'ari Tshuva to Rabbi Jonah (Sha'ar 3:19): "Do not say in your heart that the Lord your God has driven them away from before you, saying, "In my righteousness, O Lord, has brought me to inherit this land [etc.], not in your righteousness and in the honesty of your heart, etc. (Ibid. 9). We were warned about this. Let us not imagine in our souls that our success was due to our righteousness and the honesty of our hearts. But let us believe and know with our hearts that our success is due to the grace of the Most High and His great goodness, and as our father Jacob, peace be upon him, said (in the Genesis of Lev) I have fallen short of all the graces and of all the truth: "
Therefore, even our brave warriors have the upper hand and we have to thank To them for the Philanthropic sacrifice and heroism, but we must not forget where this success comes from.
As the Rabbi warned (in the Rabbinical Sermons at the beginning of Drosh 10): "Now Israel, what does the Lord your God ask of you, but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways and to love Him, and to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, to keep the commandments of the Law And his statutes which I am enjoining today for good to you (Deuteronomy 10:12-13). This verse is attached and related to the one above it, because at the beginning he warned Israel about 2 Deuteronomy 1:1 that their success should not depend on their strength and the strength of their hand. And the Lord that the conquerors of the land should not be hanged by their right, because on top of that he said, "You shall not eat, and you shall eat, etc., and your cattle and your flock shall be multiplied, etc., and you shall say in your heart, as I live, and the bones of my hands, etc., and you shall remember your God, for he is the one who gives you strength to do valor." It is special to speak of things like some people are ready to receive wisdom, and others are ready to put advice in their souls to collect and collect, and according to this there will be truth aside from what the rich man can say as alive and strong as my hand, make me this courage, with all this even though that strength is planted in you remember remember that strength who We gave you and where did it come from, and he said and you remembered the Lord your God because he is the one who gives you strength, etc... and then he said, ``Listen, Israel, you are crossing the Jordan today to come to the net, etc.'' And here he did not say, and you said, ``I live, and my hands are strong,'' but he said, "Do not say" In your heart, with God's repulsion, I will make them go before you to say, "In my righteousness, bring me, O God."
According to him, "And I am not satisfied with you saying that you are stronger than them because they are bigger and more massive than you, and you knew and heard in the name of the people who destroyed the earth that there is no man whose heart is brave enough to stand before the sons of giants, and you knew today that God, blessed be He, is Yachniam, and their submission did not concern you because God has no your hand, but I'm afraid you won't say in your heart that since the name of God is blessed and not by your strength, that you were a factor on the part of your righteousness and the honesty of your heart, because by the nature of man's pride and the loftiness of his heart that distorts his counsels, he relates his successes to himself to one side from the other, and when these things depend on the truth and the wisdom and the goodness of the counsel, I think that his wisdom It stood up to him, and when they were in the matter he saw that they were exalted from his strength and his counsel attributed it to his merit, and therefore he said in the conquest of these vast nations who are in distress from him from your time and yours, I fear lest the matter be attributed to your righteousness, you will not do so with a hard people of Araf you", so far his language.
David Berger, in collaboration with Shuba Israel
More on the same topic:
Judaism