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Let’s Not Forfeit a Historic Opportunity
By: Yosef Y. Jacobson
Touched to the Core
The Jewish world is on fire.
The bloodbath orchestrated by Hamas in Southern Israel and Iran on Saturday, Simchat Torah, October 7, 2023, has awoken a part in every single Jew that was dormant. Jews are more aware of their own Jewishness than they have been in a very long time.
Our enemy’s glee in slaughtering Jewish babies reminded us that this has nothing to do with occupation, colonization, apartheid, or any other myth. This was a manifestation of visceral evil which craves to destroy every single Jew. Had Hamas had its way, it would joyfully perform this mini-Holocaust daily, until all 6.6 million Jews in Israel lay lifeless.
Every Jew living today feels the need to respond.
Of course, we must defend ourselves in every way possible; we must support Israel and our soldiers with every fiber of our beings—encouraging them to fulfill their moral historic duty of eliminating every vestige of bloodthirsty evil. Of course, we must lift the morale of our brothers and sisters in Israel and throughout the world with an unprecedented outpouring of support, love and unity.
But there is one more critical weapon that every single Jew living today, all 16 million of us, can embrace—and it will change everything.
The Weapon of Eternity
Is there a scientific explanation for our survival and success, 4000 years later?
Death for the Jews has been plotted by tyrants of every age. The greatest Empires of the ancient world—Egypt, Assyria, Babylonia, Greece, and Rome, all the way down to Stalin and Hitler—attempted to annihilate us; yet they have all vanished, and we have survived. Jews have been expelled from nearly every country in which they resided, yet we are here to tell the tale. What did we have that they did not have? How did a hunted-down nation constituting less than one-quarter-of-one percent of humanity survive and thrive?
All these nations and tyrants had large territories of land, mighty military prowess, culture, language, and affluence. What is the secret of our immortality?
There is only one rational way to answer this—to search for the one unique and exclusive weapon that the Jewish People have possessed from the day we became a nation, something that has accompanied us all through our history.
In science, we search for the permanent trait in an organism to explain its longevity under difficult circumstances. With the Jewish people, the search is not difficult. There is only one single weapon that has been with us forever, in every milieu, in every location, under all circumstances: the Torah and the mitzvot that our people have studied, observed, and celebrated with unwavering commitment on a daily basis, and bequeathed to our children and grandchildren.
I may or may not logically understand the power of the Torah and the mitzvot, but I can’t argue with the plain facts: this is the only “weapon” that the Jewish people have had from the day we became a people till this very day, which no other army or empire possessed. It is our mightiest weapon—it has outlived every single one of our enemies for over four millennia, and we remain the energetic people we are today, filled with passion, love, and creativity.
This, then, is the historic calling of our time—to encourage and inspire every single Jew living today to acquire, or finetune, this indestructible Jewish weapon.
What Hamas and its supporters targeted was not just a piece of land, but an entire people. We have once again been confronted by the force of evil and diabolical hatred that craves the destruction of G‑d’s eternal people. At such a time, our response must be: Let’s be Jewish like never before in history, and let’s be united like never before!
My beloved brothers and sisters, let us become the greatest Jews ever, by studying and living what it means to be a Jew.
Put a mezuzah on your door.
Wrap tefillin each morning.
Study Torah on a daily or weekly basis.
Engage in prayer and spiritual meditation.
Eat kosher and make your home kosher.
Light Shabbat candles and celebrate our day of peace and rest, the holy Sabbath.
Give charity every day.
Give your children an education filled with Jewish love and wisdom.
Become a passionate ambassador of love and unity among our people.
Imbue your marriage with purity, love, and holiness, or choose any other mitzvah.
Come to synagogue and get involved with a community.
Judaism is about cultivating an ongoing relationship with your deepest essence, filling your heart with the love and peace beating in your soul, and aligning yourself every moment with the universal Divine consciousness of oneness. Every mitzvah, every prayer, and all of Torah, is about becoming channels for the Source of all love, peace, light, and truth—and drawing it down into our world. These are the spiritual weapons of victory and eternity.
We do not have time now to live in fear and paralysis; we are the chosen people, we are a singular spiritual organism, and we have a mission: to draw down each day, each moment, infinite love into our hearts, our homes, our communities, our people, our homeland, and the entire world. We need G‑d, the Creator and source of all love and peace, in our lives. That’s how we can grant the most profound power and courage to our people, our homeland, and all good people in the world.
The support for Hamas in institutions of higher education, and the silence of people so many of us respected, has sickened us. This is the time for courage, resolve, and fortitude. Let’s not shrink, and let’s not shirk our calling. Some of us were physically drafted into the front lines of battle with Hamas; the rest of us can’t afford to remain spectators. We were all drafted into battle, on a physical or spiritual level.
You can’t argue with the facts: 4000 years later, we are here, and it’s because of that immortal weapon called Torah and mitzvot.
16 million Jews are waiting for their marching orders. Will we heed their call?
One of America’s premier Jewish scholars in Torah and Jewish mysticism, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak (YY) Jacobson is one of the most sought after speakers in the Jewish world today, lecturing to Jewish and non-Jewish audiences on six continents, and serving as teacher and mentor to thousands across the globe. Rabbi Jacobson founded and serves as dean of www.TheYeshiva.net, teaching, via the web, one of the largest Torah classes in the world today, with thousands of students globally. Over the last 20 years, Rabbi Jacobson traveled to hundreds of communities, schools, and universities across the globe, educating and inspiring people of all backgrounds with the relevance and depth of Torah and Judaism. You can email him at: [email protected].
