Parsha Beha’aloscha 5768 — Real Leadership and HaKaras HaTov

Preceding these posukim are the posukim which speak about the journey of the Aron and of B’nai Yisrael from Har Sinai to their next resting place, …a three day distance…” (Sefer Bamidbar, Perek 10, posukim 33 & 34).

Many commentators speak of the section delineated by the inverted “nuns” as a separation between the aveirot of B’nai Yisrael so as to not bring about a Chazaka (recording of three Jewish sins in succession).

We learn subsequently about the people’s complaints about lack of quail and in next week’s parsha Shelach, about the sin of the Miraglim (the spies). But what was the first aveirah which brought about the separation, by inverted “nuns”, of “VaYehi B’nso’a HaAron V’yOmer Moshe…”? (Sefer Bamidbar, Perek 10, posukim 35-36)

Rabbi Artscroll mentions a Ramban on posuk 35 which cites a Midrash which indicates that the B’nai Yisrael “… fled from the mountain of G’d like a child running away from school.” The Midrash indicates that they were “happy to leave that holy place because they afraid that Hashem might give them more and more commandments. Thus, although they traveled in compliance with Hashem’s will, their attitude made a sin of a journey that should have been the fulfillment of Hashem’s oath to the Avos.” (Artscroll Stone Chumash, page 787, commentary on Perek 10, posukim 33 & 34)

In addition, the Rashi on posuk 33 indicates that although the posuk says that the journey “… was a distance that normally would have required three days of travel, … they (the B’nai Yisrael) covered it in one day.” (Artscroll Stone Chumash, page 787, commentary on Perek 10, posuk 33)

It seems that the attitude of B’nai Yisrael in departing from Har Sinai is totally at odds with Moshe Rabbeinu’s paradigm derech of showing HaKaras HaTov such as by the Maka of Dom (the plague of blood) where he showed his thankfullness for the water which protected him as a new-born.

As we watch today’s history unfold, we find that the functionaries of Israel’s contemporary governance, and indeed significant segments of the B’nai Yisrael have lost sight of our history and take lightly the significance of our traditions, our commemorations, our Yomim Tovim — our Shalosh Regalim.

What do we see today? We observe how the current Memshelet Yisrael, once the vehicle to build and ingather a scattered nation and make the land bloom as it hadn’t in nearly 2,000 years, has become obsolete due to the cancerous growth of it’s disdain for Torah and for its anti-Torah ways. We see how they have apparntly abandoned MIA soldiers to their captors with little care to find conclusive proof as to whether they have remained alive or have died in captivity. We have noted their abject failure to even attempt to rescue the three soldiers now held in captivity for the past two years.

We see how they have benignly neglected Jonathan Pollard, who saved countless Jewish lives by his actions, and left him to rot in an American prison while feigning efforts on his behalf. We see how they have lied to, misled and neglected the members of the former South Lebanon Army who previously fought alongside and supported Israel for decades.

And finally, having displayed utter disrespect to those who aligned themselves with and fought for them whether in Northern Israel, South Lebanon or in the United States; Memshelet Yisrael now totally disrepects it’s land, a land which has bloomed and represents a significant part of it’s economy.

It disrespects the Jewish people with it’s lies, falsehoods and corruption. It ditches on Eretz Kedusha, on their solemn obligation of national security and on the Jewish people in order that its leaders avoid prosecution and possible prison for their multitudes of wrongdoing.

Just as Hashem provided Moshe Rabbeinu with 70 elders — the Jewish overseers who, rather than report to Pharoh rating on their Brethren, took the lashes of Pharoh’s whippings themselves for the failure to satisfy quotas, so too, must real Jewish leadership today be morally and ethically pure, honest and beyond reproach and thus capable of and placing the security and welfare of the Jewish people who they would govern above and beyond personal self-aggrandizement. Real Jewish leadership, by its very nature, recognizes the necessity of national unity and that the building and ingathering of the Jews to modern-day Israel and success in conflicts with enemies bent on our destruction are in the Hands of Hashem, not merely in the plans and hands of moral man.

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!!!