Shalom Friends;
This year’s Parshiyot Pekudei vort is being sponsored by Benyamin and Tracy Skriloff of Ramat Beit Shemeash dedicated for the safety of the Chayalim and the liberation of all hostages and their return home whole physically, mentally and spiritually as well as for the good health and security of kol Am Yisrael. To the Skriloff family, many thanks for your sponsorship and for your continued kindnesses.
You can celebrate a Simcha — a birth, a Bar/Bat Mitzvah, a Chassuna or other Simcha event in your life, or commemorate a Yahrtzeit of a loved one, or for whatever other reason by sponsoring a Parshat HaShevua.
Please forward to your relatives and friends and encourage them to sponsor a Parshat HaShevua. And please be in contact with me with any questions, or for further details.
Best Regards,
Moshe Burt
olehchadash@yahoo.com
skype: mark.burt3
Subscribe to the Israel and the Sin of Expulsion blog, to ask questions or to sponsor a Parsha Vort at: olehchadash@yahoo.com
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A little more than half way through our Parshat Pekudei, Moshe Rebbeinu, after inspecting the work done on the Mishkan, it’s accoutrements (noun: clothing, equipment, etc.; trappings), including the vestments of the Kohen Godol, Torah relates:
“Like everything that Hashem commanded Moshe, so did the B’nei Yisrael perform all the labor. Moshe saw the work, and behold — they had done it as Hashem had commanded, so had they done! And Moshe blessed them.” (Sefer Shemos, Perek 39, posukim 42 – 43 as rendered to English in the Artscroll Stone Edition Chumash)
This author finds it incredible, indeed supernatural, the many posukim throughout Torah are pertinent, and profound, relating to current events, to 7 October, the War of Simchat Torah.
Rabbi Zelig Pliskin, in his sefer, “Growth Through Torah” notes on posuk 43 and provides commentary:
Be grateful to people who enable you to make worthwhile contributions.
Rabbi Zalman Sorotskin related…. [that] “after the complete report of everything that was donated for the Mishkan, Moshe blessed all those who participated in the donations and contributions. They should have blessed Moshe for the opportunity he gave them.”
“The same is true when a wealthy person helps a poor person. The wealthy person gains more from the poor person, since he gains spiritual merit. But what do we see in the world? The receiver expresses more thanks to the giver than the giver does to the receiver. (Rabbi Pliskin citing Oznayim LeTorah)
This citing may sound convoluted (adjective: complicated; intricately involved) as it relates to certain actions of the IDF high command echelons regarding the female Gaza border guards, and particularly the five young guards held hostage by Hamas since 7 October and recently released after 15 months in captivity.
In this case, not only are the givers, the border guards who were
shunned (adjective: avoided by people out of dislike, mistrust, disapproval, etc.) not able to thank the military for the privilege of being stationed as observers to protect the country on the border with Gaza, but the receivers, the IDF command echelons not only expressed no appreciation at all for the information provided by the border guards that unusual activities were going on in Gaza, i.e. preparations for an invasion, the command echelons actually intimidated the guards and, in one or more cases, threatened them with court martial proceedings if the reports continued.
The receivers, the IDF command echelons, rather than thanking the border guards for their work and the reports, IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi has now apologized to four of the five border guards now free from captivity and, belatedly praised them as “’amazing and commendable’ soldiers” according to a Times of Israel report:
In a meeting on Friday morning, Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi apologized to four recently released hostage soldiers for their warnings not being treated seriously before the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack, as well as for their long captivity.
“It was wrong to have not taken you seriously, you were amazing soldiers, I apologize for what you experienced in captivity,” Halevi said to the soldiers, according to leaked remarks.
For months before Hamas’s onslaught, female surveillance soldiers reported signs of suspicious activity along the Gaza border, situated less than a mile from them. No action was taken by the more senior officers who received the reports, and the information was disregarded as unimportant by intelligence officials.
The surveillance soldiers are referred to by many as “the eyes of the army” as they provide real-time intelligence information to soldiers in the field, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
For weeks before Hamas’s October 7 onslaught — when thousands of terrorists streamed over the border, killed some 1,200 people, the majority of them civilians, and kidnapped some 251 more — surveillance soldiers reported signs of activity along the tumultuous Gaza border.
The soldiers’ reports included information on Hamas operatives conducting training sessions multiple times a day, digging holes and placing explosives along the border. Soldiers believe sexism played a part in the fact that their warnings were not heeded.
During the meeting on Friday, the four soldiers told Halevi what they went through in Hamas captivity, as well as what happened during the October 7 onslaught when they were kidnapped from the Nahal Oz army post.
Halevi told the four that they had excelled in their role as observers and correctly warned of what could happen. He told them they were “amazing and commendable” soldiers.
Not withstanding the current horrendous “ceasefire” and drips and drabs of hostages in exchange for thousands of bloody-handed terrorists, may it be that our Chayalim, regardless of the machinations of malfeasance and nonfeasance by their high command, emerge totally victorious — eradicating from the face of the earth Hamas, their terrorist buddies and the so-called “innocent civilians” of Gaza who joined with Hamas in their murderous deeds, that the Chayalim return home whole — physically, mentally and spiritually and that the Chayalim Liberate and bring home all remaining hostages. May we see a Final and Decisive victory by our Chayalim, mandated by a government secure in it’s foremost service of and emunah in HaKadosh Borchu, B’Ezrat Hashem! And may we see the restoration of true unity within Am Yisrael.
May we, the B’nei Yisrael be zocha that our brethren — the refugee families from Gush Katif be permanently re-settled in Gush Katif, once the IDF, by the Yad Hashem, destructs and eradicates the wild beasts of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, all other terror entities, and if necessary Iran, and that our brethren be made totally whole — be totally restituted for all that was stolen from them, that the thrice expelled families of Amona be restored to their rebuilt homes and the oft-destroyed Yeshiva buildings in Homesh be rebuilt, as well as the buildings of Yishuv Elchanan, all at total government expense. May our Chayalim return from battle unharmed — physically, mentally and spiritually and may all of the remaining hostages brutally taken by the wild beasts of Hamas be liberated and brought home to their families. Baruch Hashem that our dear brother Jonathan Pollard is now in his fifth year at home in Eretz Yisrael and continues in a new chapter in his life. May Esther Yocheved bat Yechiel Avraham have an aliyah in Shemayim and may her spirit and memory continue to lift Jonathan to at least 120 years. May the MIAs be liberated alive and returned to us in ways befitting Al Kiddush Hashem — as with the return in April, 2019, via Russia, of the remains of Zachariah Baumel, as should the remains of the two chayalim from the Gaza War of ten years ago. May we have the courage and strength to stand up and physically prevent the possibility of Chas V’Challila any future eviction of Jews from their homes and prevent Chas V’Challila the handing of Jewish land over to anyone, let alone to enemies sworn to Israel’s and Judaism’s destruction and eradication. May we see, in 5785, the REAL Jews from the Ukraine and Russia as well as the US and Canada, the real Jews via matrilineal descent, make Aliyah enmass — via thorough review by Misrad HaPanim. And may we soon and finally see the total end to the Communist Chinese Wuhan Lab corona virus pandemic and all like viruses and variants. May we fulfill Hashem’s blueprint of B’nei Yisrael as a Unique people — an Am Segula, not to be reckoned with as with “the nations” and may we be zocha to see the Moshiach, the Ge’ula Shlaima, as Dov Shurin sings; “Ki Karov Yom Hashem Al’Kol HaGoyim”, the Ultimate Redemption, bimhayrah b’yamainu — speedily, in our time”, — Achshav, Chik Chuk, Miyad, Etmol!!!
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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.
Moshe is available for editing of English language documents, articles, manuscripts and more. Please be in contact with him at olehchadash@yahoo.com for your English language needs.
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