BS”D

Mattos Massei – Come on Over to the Other Side - The Borders of Infinity

Dr M Bank

A Guten Erev Shabbos. The parsha is Matos Massei. An Amazing parsha. It speaks about a mitzvah which today has not been accomplished, maybe one of the most important mitzvos in all the Torah. Because in it is contained all the Torah. It is strange to think that in such a long time this mitzvah has not been accomplished. It gives us what to strive for.

I would like to call this parsha come on over to the other side. It is all about Ever HaYarden. The other side of the Jordan. Who is on the right side? It is a frightening concept. Until today, it appears people are quite happy and very settled in their lifestyles on the other side of the holy land, Eretz HaKodesh, on the other side of the borders of the Torah of am Yisrael. As it says, 3 things come with struggle, Torah, Eretz Yisrael and Olam Haba. There can’t be a country of Israel without Torah, the land would vomit us out, Has Veshalom, it cannot tolerate those who desecrate the will of the King. On the other hand, a person who does come to this land, for the first time, he is able to accomplish all of Torah. He is able to accomplish 100% of what is written in the Torah. When the Beis Hamikdah is built we will be able to fulfil all the laws of the Beis Hamikdash and of the korbanos. It will really be a time of living Torah. The zchus of living the Torah bishlemus, in completeness, will be something beyond anything you can imagine in this world, the happiness and the joy goes beyond any comparison anywhere else at any time, in world history. Accomplishing all of the Torah mitzvos in the borders of the Holy Land, keeping the borders of Torah and beyond that, it will be Olam Haba in Olam Hazeh. As we say at the end of the second perek of Shema Yisrael.

There really is a lot to explore here. An incredible insight – I would like to share with you at the outset what a very awesome Rabbi wrote when running away from the Nazis while they were annihilating the last remnants of 2000 years of Jewish establishment. The name of the rabbi was Rabbi Yitzhak Shlomo Teichtel zt”l, H’ nikmam damav, who was on a train to Aushwitz when someone murdered him for the water he was carrying. We can understand certain things, like the turmoil and tragedy of being in Galus, we can understand the agony of a person on the run, and the craving to come back to Israel, but what we can’t understand is why one person would murder another for a little glass of water. A shocking statement of borders that are devastated, and in the process, so much tragedy has come to the world over the last 2000 years and we have been living outside the borders of our land, living outside the borders of our Torah, and insteasd of experiencing Olam Haba beOlam Haze, we have been going through 2000 years of Hell. Really, we’ve had that eternal faith that one day, in the future some time, somewhere – we do know where, we do know when – not one a time basis but on a faith basis; yiyhe tov, tov meod. It will be very good. It will be the best in world history. It will be the most tumultuous time in world history, when people who know good from evil and people that know Torah well, will be thrown into such confusion, the whole world will tremble. Every fish in the ocean, every ant on the land, every bird in the sky and every human being on the earth will not know whether they will live or die. One thing we can be absolutely sure about, is that H, the Creator of life, will protect those who have shown him emuna.

So what I would like to focus on is Rabbi Teichtel’s book, Eim Habanim Semeicha, and a most awesome insight he describes as to why the book was called Eim Habanim Semeicha. This comes from the Tehillim of David Hamelech, from Hallel. As Rabbi Teichtel in the Holocaust was running away from Amalek , Yemach Shemo, he documented his regret at not having come to Israel sooner. Of course, coming to Israel doesn’t have a financial price tag. It has a faith price tag. A person has to come with a desire to complete all of Torah. As he described about Moshe Rabbeinu, he cried out so desperately, to come and settle the land. Not because he was interested in the real estate, he was interested in the unreal estate, the miracle of being able to live all of Torah, which can only be lived in the land. So we will explore at this stage why Rabbi Teichtel zt”l called his book Eim Habanim Semeicha, which is a critical book to appreciate the zchus of Eretz HaKodesh. The translation of Eim Habanim Semeicha is a joyous mother of children. It is based on the Yerushalmi Gemoro which refers to Yerushalayim as the mother of Am Yisrael. The lands of the exile are, so to speak , our step-mothers. If you have ever been to somebody’s home where you can feel the resentment. You feel that you are using up their time and resources and they resent it, that is the kind of feeling Yisrael haqs had of the 1000s of years of living in Golus. The anger, hatred and resentment, of the gentiles who bedieveed have beeb forced to host us. Their suspicion that maybe little people are growing too rich and powerful, thye have to be dealt with before they are unstoppable, maybe there is a world conspiracy to conquer. So we see, starting with Bilam, last weeks parsha, until today, how the world seems ironically united in its hatred of Am Yisrael. Am Yisrael’s return to Eretz Yisrael and ultimately, their hatred of our Torah, which is synonymous with their hatred for our G-d. The seventy nations of the world have been fighting throughout the exile with an overt enemy, or covert enemy, because H has in store redemption for his faithful believers whether they are righteous gentiles or Jews. So Rav Teichtel described hutz la’aretz as the step mother, angry, resentful, hating those people that usurp their land, so to speak. Brochos 2, 8 and Yerushalmi 18b, our mother cries out in memory of the beis hamikdash, which means we have to contemplate the tragedy of the destruction of bayis rishon and sheini. That we feel that agony, that we feel the power of prayer, that we can be metaken, we can repair, what has happened, resolve that it won’t happen again and our aliya in Torah Eretz Yisrael and therefore Olan Haba in Olam Hazeh. Our mother cries out and weeps for us while we are in exile, she waits for us to return to her heart and soul (Pirkei Rabbasi 38, 72). From my flesh I see H (Iyov 19, 26). In the year 5702, 1942 during the Holocaust, before Pesach, the cursed oppressors of Am Yisrael issued his terrible decree to abduct young Jewish women from Slovakia aged 16 and older to deport them to an uninhabited unknown land. To this day, the fate of countless Jewish souls, and as it turned out, millions, who were transported there is unknown. May H speedily take revenge on the oppressors of Israel on our behalf. The camp of Israel was in a terrible state of panic. The Teichtels knew of an incident where a person tried to smuggle his young daughters over the border to save them from the terrible trap. It was chol hamoed Pesach. He promised his wife he would send a telegraph from across the border. She waited longing to hear the good news. However, long before they were able to cross the border, the father and daughter were trapped and deported to a nearby village where they were incarcerated in a prison not knowing second by second what would be their fate. There they remained for the duration of Pesach. They were in terrible danger of being sent of immediately to an unknown place of even worse proportions that everyone else. For that was the punishment for somebody who was caught attempting to escape. He would be deported to an unknown place in a much harsher manner than anyone else. In the meantime his wife, mother of the daughters, was informed of the tragic situation. You can imagine the bitter emotions which swept over her. The joyous prospect of yeshua, deliverance, were immediately transformed into sorrow. The holiday had become a time of mourning for her husband and daughter. The entire holiday she cried endlessly, her entire world became dark. It was impossible to describe the tragic state to which she fell when she became aware of her husband and daughter’s fate. She knew they were on their way to death. However, the true pious holy self sacrificing Rabbi, Rav Shmuel Dovid Unger, Av Beis Din of Nyitra, with all his might, courageously and dangerously risked his own life and managed with a huge sum of money to retrieve the 3 captives. Let he be remembered for good always. He received a call saying that the father and daughters would be returned without harm the following day. You can the effect it had on this poor woman. Form that point on, she waited with baited breath for the father and daughters to return home. The following morning she could not restrain herself and stay inside the house, Instead she set at the edge of the courtyard in great anticipation and waited every second for their return. When they eventually arrived she burst into tears and overwhelmingly poured out all the emotions of her heart. On account of the heuge outpouting of emotions, they failed to realize, she was unable to offer words of thanks and praise to Hakadosh B”H, for the great miracles he had performed on their behalf. He who did not see the mother reconciled with her daughters , the tears of the mother when she saw her daughters return to their border, the joy of the joyous mother of children. He had never seen such simcha. That was what Rav Teichtel said of the incident that transpired during the holocaust. He imagined Eretz Yisrael would be our mother when we return from our exile to her borders after 2000 years. This is how he depicted the wondrous joy that the mother will share with her children, Eretz Yisrael will share with Am Yisrael, and Am Yisrael inherits Israel. He called the book Eim Habanim Semeicha. May H grant the merit that the sefer bring faith in H and in its merit may we see a return to the land and the fulfillment of tehillim 113, 9 may the barren become a joyous mother of children, speedily in our times. May we go up to zion joyfully, speedily in our days. Thank you H’. This is how he wrote about events in the holocaust just before he was murdered. Ki mizion tetze Tora, udvar H miyerushalayim. Here we are, in Yeshiva Dvar Yerushalayim. Just 64 years ago it was an utter impossibility. The land had been devastated severely for 2000 years. There seemed to be no possibility of any hope of coming back.

I would like to reflect at this stage on the very beginning of parshas Matos where H commanded Am Yisrael. If a man takes a vow to H, or swears an oath and establishes a prohibition on himself, he shall not desecrate his word. This is a very difficult thing. How can one just say this is like standing in a breeze. I said a few words in the heat of the moment, I didn’t mean it, I was just letting off steam, whatever it was, I had 0 kavana. What do you expect of him. H says, awesomely, whatever comes from his mouth, he shall do. The Torah then talks about a woman who is married, divorced, etc , in her father’s home, what the father has to do to annul her vows. It can only be done this way, through the proper halacha which is very powerful an very real. During the Yamim Noraim, on Erev Yom Kippur, the first thing you do before anything else is Kol Nidre – the annulment of vows, a most mind-boggling prayer. All our vows, promises and nedarim. May H cancel the, because we didn’t have kavana. Even before we appear in judgement before H we appeal to Him to overlook the things we said, in the heat of the moment, that might or might not have had kavana, but those things that weren’t mitzvos, that had good intentions and bad intentions. Somehow we forgot or just didn’t live up to them. Whatever it was, we appeal to H to please forgive us. This is the power of the word. This is what discerns man from beast. This is what discerns prayer from words without meaning. The power of the spoken word and of the word. The power of a word on which the world was created, Emuna.

So we explore this and ask, how was it possible for the spies to make such a tragic mistake? That they could have come into the land, knowing the good land, and come out with such an evil report, knowing H is with us. H imcha, H is with you. How adare you say something in contradiction of H. How many times a day do we causally talk about the news, or a person and we don’t really mean it. We just fail to think through what is going to happen. We contemplate dan lechaf zchus, beayin tova, we judge favourably. The privilege of being in the Torah, learning and living Torah. How many people out there are angry? How many are not sameach behelko, happy with their lot. They have to be happy with other things, they dream about other lands, other situations. We have to say thank you H, it is not easy but it is great. There is an infinite opportunity to grow. From good to good. Lo ichal devaro – he shall not desecrate his word. A Jew’s word is sacred. For him to violate it is a desecration. Again, walking through this world is like a walk through the snow – I would like to apply that to what we say as well, tread gently for every step will show. Just like a walk through the snow, ever word you say in this world makes an indelible eternal imprint on the heavenly recording. We can do teshuva on certain things. We can regret and resolve to improve ourselves, which we absolutely have to. We can learn the hilchos loshon hora, which is a critical factor. It is not true that after you have learnt hilchos shemiras halashon, there is no way you can talk anymore. Lehefech – the opposite. For the first time in your life you can talk. You’ve learnt the broders of halacha. Don’t go over the edge and fall into the abyss. Don’t say an evil word about a person. There is a world of difference between mussar, halocho and loshon hora. So really, a person needs to know urgently, the laws of loshon hora nd the power of speech.

I would like to reflect on this regarding when Am Yisrael crossed over the Jordan. How was it possible that 2 ½ tribes decided to stay on the other side of the Jordan? After having experienced the curses that came to the nation forty years before when they sent in 12 spies to check out the land – is it true what H says, it’s a good land. That was not the question. The question was how to come into the land. For that they were given permission. Not to judge the word of H’. That was a terrible tragic devastation which until today we are still tragically paying the price. Before we come into the land first of all we need to come into the borders of Torah, otherwise we can’t come into the land. Once we come into the land with the Torah, we can acquire our yerusha, our inheritance. When we are keeping the Torah shalem, H will keep our yerusha shalem. Then we will have Yerushalayim shalem. There will be no debate about East Jerusalem, West Jerusalem. The division of the eternal, undivided capital of the Jewish people, will not be in the hands of the goyim, but once again, will be tahas retzon H, with Yisrael, a Tora shlema, beEretz shlema, which, byh the way we have never acquired. The borders which the Torah describes in parshas Maseh (Perek 34, 1-12) “H spoke to Moshe saying, Command the Children of Israel and say to them, , when you come to the Land of Canaan this is the land that I swore to you as an inheritance, the land of Canaan according to its borders, your southern side from the wilderness of Zin, by the borders of Edom, the Southern border shall be from the edge of the Salt Sea the Yam Hamelekh. The border shall go around south of Male Akravim, towards Zin. Its outskirts shall be south of Kadesh Barnea, that was where Moshe actually passed through when he went into Israel. Then it shall go out to Hazar Adar and pass to Azmon. The border shall go around from the Azmon to the stream of Egypt, and its outskirts shall be toward the Sea. The western border shall be the Great Sea, the Yam Hagadol, the Mediterranean, all the way up. This shall be for you the Western border. This shall be the north border. The Great Sea, the Yam Hagadol, Mediterranean, shall turn to Har Hor. Form Har Hor you shall turn to Hamat. The outskirts of the broder shall be towards Zedad. The border shall go forth from Zifron and its outskirts shall be Hazar Enan. It shall be for you the northern border. You shall draw for yourselves the eastern border from Hazar Enan to Shefam. The border shall descend form Shefam to Riblah, east of Ain. The border shall descend and extend to the bank of the Kinereth to the eastern side of the Kinereth. The border shall descend to the Jordan, and it outskirts shall be the Yam Hamelakh. This shall be the land for you according to its borders all around”.

It does include Har Hermon. It goes past Damascus, it goes all the way up past Lebanon. It appears to reach the borders of Turkey. This is Eretz Hakodesh to you. If you look at the map in the Living Torah by Aryeh Kaplan it sets out what is described but we will only know the Torah borders of the land when Eliyahu hanavi comes to show us exactly where each of these places are. One thing we can be sure of. Eilat is not part of Eretz Hakodesh. It was conquered by the modern army but it is not part of the holy land. How do we know? Because Moshe Rabbeinu was definitely in the Negev Desert and Eilat is South of the Negev. We know that Moshe was in Egypt but Eretz HaKodesh in definitely not Egypt or the Sinai desert. We know that Moshe Rabbenu was in Midian, which is probably Jordan, Kuwait and Iraq – all of which are definitely not Eretz Hakodesh. As long as we cling to borders that are not the Torah boundaries, we are removing the Torah boundaries. When the 2 ½ tribes decided to settle in Ever Hayarden, they were not zoche to live on the second side where the living Torah comes to life. What we see is a tremendous irony in the generation of Moshe Rabbeinu, what we understand is the spoken word.

Lets explore for a moment, (Bamidbar 32) “the children of Reuven and the children of Gad had abundant livestock – very great. They saw the land of Gilead (Jordan) and behold it was a place of livestock. The children of Gad and the children of Reuven came and said to Moshe Rabbeinu, and to Eleazar the priest, and unto the princes of the congregation, saying: 'Ataroth, and Dibon, and Jazer, and Nimrah, and Heshbon, and Elealeh, and Sebam, and Nebo, and Beon, the land which the LORD smote before the congregation of Israel, is a land for cattle, and thy servants have cattle.' the land which the LORD smote before the congregation of Israel, is a land for cattle, and thy servants have cattle.' And they said: 'If we have found favour in thy sight, let this land be given unto thy servants for a possession; bring us not over the Jordan.' How powerful is the spoken word. H said Ever HaYarden is a good land. They interpreted that the other side of the Jordan, the other Ever HaYarden is a good land. They had seen green grass, lush vegetation, a proverbial garden of Eden today. They would have traded in the Torah – Shmita which cannot be performed on the other side of the Yarden. All of Torah mitzvos can only be performed in Israel. The tragedy of clinging to Galus, instead of craving to come back from the step mother, who brutalizes, murders, devastates, and takes the treasures of the children – what a price to pay, for lusting after the step-mother’s curses, rather than a mother’s blessings. This land is a good land, zavat, halav udvash. It erupts with halav, with milk and honey. It is so sweet and loving, that everything about it is the taste of milk and honey. That is not a physical taste, but a spiritual taste of Torah. How could it be milk and honey, of all the substances. Maybe it could be M&Ms and candy bars. It seems the Torah describes it as milk and honey. It is so sweet, there is nothing else like it, symbolically, milk is that thing that mother gives to a child when he is first born. It is perfect for him, not just nutritionally, but also immunologically. It gives him resistance, strength to grow and develop so that when he reaches a point, he is able to fend for himself. He goes out and takes food for himself. For the first time in his life he can put his finger in a honeypot and taste the sweetness of honey. How is that compared to anything he ever tasted before? When a person is growing up in his mother’s home, the first taste he has is of his mother’s milk. Sybloic of Eretz HaKodesh. When he is old enough to go out, the first Alef Beis he learns in cheder is covered in honey, so that already when the little child tastes the first alef, and the first letter that he ever learnt to pronounce, he tastes it and it is as sweet as honey. This is symbolic. When a child is still at home before leaving his mother’s protection, the Torah that he learns from his mother is like his mother’s milk. When he is strong enough and old enough, to leave the reshus of his home, to learn Torah with his father or his Rebbe, the Torah must taste as sweer as honey. This land is figuratively and literally the land of Torah which must be as sweet as milk and honey. This is the reality. There has never been a time when so much Torah is being learnt by so many of Am Yisrael. We are living in a unique time. But the Sitra Achra is obsessed to try to destroy Torah wherever it can. Amalek is working through the week ones. He is obsessed by his inner venom for H but H will destroy him for eternity. Instead of choosing to help H’s nation, he is choosing to destroy himself like Bilam from this week’s parsha who got his just dessert as the heads rolled.

These 2 ½ tribes, it says at this stage, the tribes of Reuven and Gad, appealed in a most shocking way. 'If we have found favour in thy sight, let this land be given to your servants for a heritage…’. This should be their inheritance, Golus, the curses of the step mother. ‘…Do not bring us across the Jordan’. Now they had no possibility of coming to Israel. So what was the response from Moshe? “Moses said to the children of Gad and to the children of Reuben: 'Shall your brethren go to the war, and shall you sit here?” As if to say, you are scared to fight for your nation. You are retreating – deserters! Traitors! “Why do you dissuade and destroy the hearts of the children of Israel from crossing to the land that H has given them? This is what your fathers did, when I sent them from Kadesh-barnea to see the land. They went up unto the valley of Eshcol, and saw the land, and destroyed the heart of the children of Israel, not to go into the land which the LORD has given them. And the LORD'S anger burnt on that day, vayihar af, and He swore, saying: Surely none of the men that came up out of Egypt, from twenty years old and upward, will see the land which I swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob; because they have not followed Me completely; except for Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite, and Joshua the son of Nun; because they followed the LORD”. They spoke very strongly for am Yisrael to do Teshuva, to come back to the good land, to take up the challenge that H has blessed us with, rather than living a life of curse, devastation and degradation. Moshe explained to Reuvan and Gad, “And the LORD'S anger was kindled against Israel, and He made them wander to and fro in the wilderness forty years, until all the generation, that had done evil in the sight of the LORD, was consumed. And, behold, you have risen up in place of them, a society of sinful men, to add more to the fierce anger of the LORD toward Israel”. From what they did you have not learnt. They destroyed that generation. Do you want to destroy everything that is left? Do you want to destroy their children and their children’s children for eternity? “ For if you turn away from after Him, He will yet again leave them in the wilderness; and so you will destroy all this people”.

“They approached Moshe and said: 'We will build sheepfolds here for our cattle, and cities for our little ones”. Look. Even in the order here they describe what they want to protect. First our animals, then our children. Is that a shocking statement? Incriminating? That their animals are more sacred to them. Their golden calves. “but we ourselves will be ready armed to go before the children of Israel, until we have brought them to their place; and our little ones shall dwell in the fortified cities because of the inhabitants of the land. We will not return to our houses, until the children of Israel have inherited every man his inheritance”. Except who? Reuven and Gad. Even after they have conquered the Holy Land, lo meanyen, it is not interesting to them. Isn’t this a shocking, devastating incrimination? They are willing to do everything, except live in the land. How is that possible when they have seen yetzias mitzrayim, Matan Torah, they had seen the miracles in the dessert on a daily basis, they had seen H’s word come to life in their flesh, they had seen it through everything that had happened to their flesh. From not needing to go to the bathroom for 40 years, from the clothing not perishing for 40 years, having the wellsprings follow them through the dessert, the clouds protecting them. The man in the morning. How much more could they see in their lives to prove that H’s word is infinitely good? Yet they chose death and evil. A shocking, devastating, eternal damning incrimination. “For we shall not inherit with them across the Jordan and beyond. Our inheritance is fallen to us on this side of the Jordan eastward”. Says who? Says Reuven and Gad. Even after they have brought everything and everyone from Am Yisrael back to the good land, they insist on treasonously deserting, not to be part of the shlemus of Am Yisrael coming back to the holy land, as one heart and one soul. Guf ehad be lev ehad. 2 ½ tribes treasonously and treacherously decided this side of the Yarden is best in their eyes. They were trading real estate for unreal estate. For that, Am Yisrael has paid dearly for 1000s of years.

“And Moses said to them: 'If you will do this thing: if you will arm yourselves to go before the LORD to the war, and every armed man of you will pass over the Jordan before the LORD, until He has driven out His enemies from before Him, and the land be subdued before the LORD, and you return afterward; then you shall be clear before the LORD, and before Israel, and this land shall be a heritage for you before the LORD. But if ye will not do so, behold, you will have sinned against the LORD; and know your sin which will find you. Build for yourselves cities for your little ones…” firstly your children “, and folds for your sheep; and do that which hath proceeded out of your mouth.” It is not clear of this is a brocho or a curse of infinite proportion.

For 3,300 years the Torah boundaries have not been accomplished, until today. Instead of the northern borders, we cling to desert wasteland in the south. A source of Tsoras to the nation. Instead of clinging to the Tora, we follow in the way of the goyim in the world. That has brought enduring tragedy to the nation, until we are ready to rise up to keep every word and every letter of the Torah – that is our faith and that is our fate. So we see, as it warned at the beginning of Mase, according to whatever comes from your mouth so shall you do (Bamidbar 30, 3). Moshe warns, “what has come from your mouth, so shall you do” (bamidbar 32, 24). They cannot retract and become zoche to the good land that H promised and the infinite blessings.

We go further to contemplate the irony, the tragedy, that it was said to us, something so awesome. At Kadesh Barnea, (Bamidbar 34, 4) Moshe passionately wanted to enter the land and was not satisfied by the brief penetration into the land of the spies. Moshelonged to perform the commandments that depend on the land (Sotah 14a), not merely to step foot inside it. To come here and check this land out as a real estate investment, a person has made a tragic mistake. It has to be an unreal interest, a helek in olam haba. An investment in eternity. An investment in H’s torah. Instead of building the pyramids of Galus, a person can come home to Torah, Eretz Yisrael and build the Beis Hamikdash in yeshiva which is the eternal home of H’, only if he comes home with bnei shalom, with the experience of brochos leshalom. So we see Moshe Rabbeinu is craving, a hundred times he pleads to H – please let me come into the holy land. H says don’t ask one more time to come back into this land, it shall not be for you. What we learn from that is that his generation were not zoche to a leader like Moshe Rabbeinu back then, and it was not going to be for that generation that Moshe Rabbeinu was going to lead them, it was a mission that failed of the generation that spent forty years coming to Israel. Four hundred years later, as we are mourning today in these three weeks, the destruction of the First Beis Hamikdash. Then about 450 years later, the destruction of the Second Beis Hamikdash. Over 1000s of years, we have never given up faith, as Napolean saw when he passed a group of Jews who were crying and wearing sack-cloth. He aked the Rabbi, why are these people crying? They said, for a home that was destroyed. He said who destroyed it – when was it destroyed? They explained, well, it was the home they had in Jerusalem, 2000 years ago, roughly. Napolean said that a people who cry about a home they lost 2000 years ago, for sure they will be zoche to come back to a home that will be rebuilt in Jerusalem.

The critical warning that H gives us, and we can reflect on this until today, (bamidbar 33, 50). “And the LORD spoke unto Moses in the plains of Moav by the Jordan at Jericho, saying 'Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them: When ye pass over the Jordan into the land of Canaan, then you shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you, and destroy all their figured stones, and destroy all their molten images, and demolish all their high places. And you shall drive out the inhabitants of the land, and dwell in it; for to you have I given the land to possess it. And you shall inherit the land by lot according to your families--to the more you shall give the more inheritance, and to the fewer you shall give the less inheritance; whereever the lot falls to any man, that shall be his; according to the tribes of your fathers shall you inherit. But if you will not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you, then shall those that you let remain of them be as thorns in your eyes, and as pricks in your sides, and they shall harass you in the land wherein you dwell. And it shall come to pass, that as I thought to do to them, so will I do to you”. Lets look at world history and contemplate how the Torah that warned Am Yisrael 3000 years ago is alive and current until today. ‘Those that you do not drive out’ from the 7 nations that were here before you, they shall be thorns in your eyes – how many suicide bombings have there been and how many murders by terrorists have there been until today, because of appeasement and the policy of not listening to Torah. H warns us, frighteningly enough- and it shall be, that what I am meant to do to them, ie to drive them out, they shall do to you. We saw what happened to the First Beis HaMikdash and mourn it to today. We saw what happened to the second Beis haMikdash and we are mourning that until today. You see what it takes to rise up to the level that h wants for us before we inherit. The ultimate inheritance of all times is the Beis Hamikdash Hashlishi. So, we contemplate our world history, we contemplate what it takes for us as a nation to rise up to the challenge H has told us. Go ahead and smash all the idolatrous idols and all the idolatrous worshiping places. Are we at a level where we can do that. What would be the world response today? It would have to be that we, as a nation, to teshuva gamur, with faith that is impeccable, unchallenged, clear emuna that h is with us, before we can rise up and slay the god of the land of Egypt as our forefathers did, tying the lamb to their bedposts. For a few days those lambs were crying out to the Egyptians, what the Jews were going to do to their gods, and the Egyptians were helpless to rescue their gods form H’s hand. H protected am Yisrael, took us out of Egypt and brought us to the good land, but we haven’t accomplished the ultimate boundaries – neither the halachic boundaries nor the physical boundaries of the Holy Land that H has promised to us. The word of H went forth but it has not yet been completed. We can be absolutely sure that soon, this nation will live up to all its Torah, and in so doing will inherit all of the Torah’s territories, the Holy Land.

I would like to reflect to you a question as follows in conclusion. Bnei Yisrael has fought a major war against midyan, as we saw in last week’s parsha. They have now, on the plains of Moav on the Yarden, Yericho, at the banks of the River Jordan at Jericho, about to enter the promised land, when Moshe Rabbeinu receives a momentous command. Until today, we haven’t accomplished this demand. When you cross the Jordan to the land of Canaan, you shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land before you. You shall occupy the land and settle in it for I have given it to you to possess it. The question is, if H is giving the land to Am Yisrael, why are other nations living there before? Surely H could have given us a clear patch of land without anybody there. Couldn’t H have given them an empty unpopulated country where they wouldn’t have to toil and fight to acquire it. Why did they have to destroy all the places of idolatory, if they were finally arriving at the Holy Land? Why wasn’t it holy, ready and waiting for them? It would have saved them so much trouble 40 years later. At the time of the Judges, the Shoftim, the land was still not free of gentiles, still not free of idolatrous worship. As H guaranteed, we were driven out of the first Temple, we were driven out of the second temple, but we will not be driven out of the third temple. But then, in the next chapter, H describes things differently. “When you come to the land of Canaan, this is the land which was 40 years its inheritance”. The land will fall to us, it fell into our hands without any effort. We were commanded to fight and drive out the inhabitants and to destroy all the idolatry. Imagine today how the nations of the world would be if we destroyed all the idolatrous temples and all the idolatry that is in the land. Would the nations of the world be outraged? Would they declare a world moratorium to immediately nuke Israel, every atom bomb in the world would be pointed at Israel. You should know that it is pointed at Israel. But by the grace of H we go forward. Shebechol dor vador omdim aleinu lechaloseinu, Vehakadosh Boruch Hu matzileinu miyadam. The word dor means that second by second there is a new generation little tzadikim enter this world and others leave. There is a second by second generation of the nation. Every second H is rescuing us from their hands. It is true that the walls of Yericho fell without a fight. But we fought everywhere else. Even that was a fight. We had to go round seven times, blowing the shofar, doing exactly what H commanded. Then the city was laid bare for destruction. The medrash explains that H cast down the angels of the 7 nations. He destroyed them so to speak. He arranged that the nations would be paralysed before Bnei Yisrael. The Jews still had to do their part. If they did nothing, nothing would happen. Firstly, they had to fight,m jst as Nachshon Ben Aminadav first had to jump into the Yam Suf before H would create Krias Yam Suf for the nations. If you drive out the inhabitants of the land, you will be able to dwell there. If not, you will not be able to dwell there. History recalls how great the fall has been through the 2 settlements of Eretz Yisroel, the Yishuv of Eretz Hekodesh. The first tempe and second temple, how they were devastated and destroyed because of a tiny kernel of a lack of faith, caused the other nations to come back with a vengeance, destroy the Beis HaMikdash, to destroy the people and to destroy the land.

For 2000 years nothing could settle here with H’s help. Without H’s help, nothing can be done. The gift of Eretz Yisroel depeds on H’. Not just settling the land with a Kibbutz but settling it with Emuna shleima in the Torah shleima, accepting all of Torah, the total yoke of Torah, knowing that this is a magen, as regards Avraham, magen Avaraham, magen Yitzhak uMagen Yaakov. When we are ready to conquer the land, H tells us, if we are ready to follow his word he will assist. Next time you want to ask for something, figure out what are you supposed to do first.

H’ bless kol am Yisrael with a Shabbos Shalom, may we be zoche to have Taryag Mitzvos, not in theory, but in life, and may we all come back to Toras Yisrael, Eretz Yisrael and Olam Haba be Olam Hazeh, bimheira veyameinu. Have a Good Shabbos.