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As our Parsha begins, Yaakov sent melachim (angels), some render a translation of messengers, “… ahead of him to Eisev to the land of Seir, to the field of Edom… Thus shall you say … to Eisev, so said your servant Yaakov: ‘Im-Lavan garti’ (I have sojourned with Lavan) …” (Sefer Breish’t, Perek 32, posukim 4 & 5)
When the melachim, the messengers return, they inform Yaakov that Eisev “is also coming to meet you; and there a four hundred men with him.” (Sefer Breish’t, Perek 32, posuk 7)
Upon hearing the news, “Yaakov was very frightened and distressed. He divided the people who were with him, along with the sheep, cattle and camels into two camps. He said, if Eisev comes to one camp and attacks it, the remaining camp will survive.” (Sefer Breish’t, Perek 32, posukim 8-10) Rashi learns, regarding what the melachim told Yaakov, “[The one] that you said ‘he is my brother’, …nevertheless, acts towards you as the wicked Eisev,; he is still harboring his hate.” (Rashi, Sefer Breish’t, Perek 32, posuk 7)
Our parsha then explains that Yaakov prayed to Hashem that he would merit to survive and then commence to designate gifts for Eisev.
There is much to say in the parsha and in Rashis regarding Yaakov’s emunah, why he was concerned about his and his family’s welfare and thus prayed to Hashem, prepared for battle and designated gifts for his brother.
This author holds that the overriding lesson here for our generation in Eretz Yisrael is that Yaakov established a precept for B’nai Yisrael for all time when confronted by possible war and adversity.
But in our generation, the government of Israel, in it’s cravings to be loved by the nations and to be like them, to have “the normal life” has long excluded Hashem from the loop.
And, when the regime cancels military actions because of human shields protecting terrorists, it is clear that they negate the pillar of national defense and national security because “ other considerations [distorted western “morality (sic)”] transcend preventing Israelis from being murdered by Kassam rockets” which rain-in on Israel’s southern cities.
Harkening back to the reference to a ruling of Rabbinical Council of Judea, Samaria and Gaza cited in last weeks Parsha HaShevua;
Jewish law allows for siege measures that would harm the population of the enemy entity in Gaza, “because, according to the definition used in Jewish law, the daily Kassam rocket barrages on the precious residents of the south constitute war in every respect.”
This is the state of affairs described above, what Israel’s morally corrupt and graft-ridden leaders, Ehud Olmert chief among them, hope to spread to Yehuda and Shomron, endangering us all in order to be shielded from prosecution by Etrogization and in order to subvert the Jew from the Israeli at all costs.
In first negating tefillah (prayer) and then abrogating national defense and security, the secular, defeatist, leftist protexia government of israel is left with but one aspect of Yaakov’s precept; the gifts, or to be more clear — the appeasement of moral weakness and corruption, pure and simple. And in this neighborhood, one does not survive by projecting weakness.
May we be zocha in this coming year that our brethren — the refugee families from Gush Katif be permanently settled and be made totally whole, that our dear brother Jonathan Pollard and the 3 captive Chayalim and the other MIAs be liberated and returned to us and that we fulfill Hashem’s blueprint of B’nai Yisrael as a Unique people — an Am Segula, not to be reckoned with as with “the nations” and may we be zocha the Moshiach, the Ge’ula Shlaima, as Dov Shurin sings; “Yom Hashem V’Kol HaGoyim”, the Ultimate Redemption, bim hay v’yameinu — speedily, in our time”, — Achshav, Chik Chuk, Miyad, Etmol!!!
Good Shabbos!
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Moshe Burt, an Oleh, is a commentator on news and events in Israel and Founder and Director of the Sefer Torah Recycling Network. He lives in Ramat Beit Shemesh.
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