Outreach to bring Jews close to Torah and mitzvot. (Called, simply, “kiruv”) In truth, this is the most important of all the eight points. This is not only the essence of being Jewish, it is also a strategic imperative. “Strategic”, literally.

On the strategic level, Karl von Clausewitz wrote that victory in war required:

1) the complete or partial destruction of the enemy's armed forces;

2) the occupation of his country; and 3) the breaking of his will to fight.

On the tactical level, victory involves:

1) the enemy's greater loss of material strength;

2) his loss of morale; and 3) his admission of the same by abandoning his intentions.

Can there be a better thumbnail sketch of what has been done to Israel by the psychological warfare waged against us? It has produced the virulent self-hatred called “Post-Zionism” and the material and spiritual depredations of the Oslo process? What is left of Zionist intentions? The most dedicated Jewish nationalists have been vilified and marginalized as “extremists” and “fanatics”. So far, the victory of the enemy is only tactical, not strategic. Not yet. There is still time to reverse our fortunes.

When he first sent out his "mitzvah mobiles", the Lubavitcher Rebbe (may the merit of the righteous protect us called them “tanks” and he called the campaign to get children excited about doing mitzvot the “Army of God” and it seemed an extravagant image. The Rebbe also pointed out that the initials of the Hebrew for “Lights of the Holy Shabbat” (Nerot Shabbat Kodesh) spell “Nesheq”, which means “munitions” and it seemed similarly extravagant. Those who know more about the Rebbe know that he never engaged in hyperbole or flights of fancy or “nice imagery” or even inspiring rhetoric for its own sake. The Rebbe spoke in the manner of a commander in the heat of combat. Everything he said was characterized by the utmost precision. If he said it’s “nesheq” he meant literally that it has the power to destroy the forces of evil and to defeat the enemies of God. This is a strategic imperative. 

The validity of our claim to the Land of Israel is not based on Israel's being democratic, not because we are here already and to uproot us would entail human cost too terrible to contemplate. Our claim to this land is based on the fact that we are bnei Yisrael, the people of Israel, to whom God gave this land and there should be no doubt that the Word of God is still true today. "The Eternal One of Israel never lies, nor is He like a man that he should change His mind." 

Like a long history of other movements, we submit that secular Zionism has dead-ended. Over the long haul, only Torah has the staying power to sustain a Jewish people against the concerted hatred of a world, which is hostile to our very existence. Self-hatred is part of what it means to be a victim of bigotry. To the extent that we get our self-image from the people around us, we internalize the warped image of the bigots who hate us. Without a source of a true picture of who and what we are, it’s like growing up in a hall full of distorted mirrors. We have found no source of truth about ourselves, except Torah, which can counteract the world’s bigotry over the long haul.

Learning of Torah is not limited to the beit medrash -- study hall. Again, the Lubavitcher Rebbe explained, in a commentary on Parashat Bo, that there are Torah matters that cannot be learned from books, but rather, one has to confront "Pharaoh" in order to learn them. Many of the mitzvot (commandments) concern activities in the mundane world: how to plant and harvest, weights and measures and so on. They are there, not because we are forced to work at planting and harvesting and commerce and industry, but rather because we are supposed to do so. "Six days, do all your works and the Seventh is a Shabbat of your Judge,” states two imperatives, not one. There are truths that we cannot understand from the Book. One has to go out into the world and confront it from the perspective of Torah and return to the beit medrash to assimilate the experience through the Torah. Make no mistake: when you confront the world in that way, you are leaning Torah. There are many ways to connect to Torah and tradition and many levels.

The door has to be kept open to all Jews at every level.

"HASHKEM YISRAEL-WAKE UP ISRAEL"

AND TAKE CONTROL OF OUR DESTINY

Copyright © HASHKEM, A California Corporation 2007

Page last updated 28 Sivan 5767 - 12 June 2007