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I want to ask a couple of questions and then share with you an idea that I think is particularly relevant not only to the parsha but to the time that we're living in. There's an epilogue to the story of the meraglim that often goes totally Unless you're doing shnai mikra, and even if you're doing shnai mikra, you probably move through it pretty fast. But there's an epilogue to the story of the meraglim, which is the story of the apilim. For those of you that are not familiar, the story of the Aphilim is a very simple story. They got up early in the morning. They went to Moshe Rabbeinu and they said, "We're ready to go to Eretz Yisrael." And they acknowledged that they sinned. It says, "Va'Alino alamakam Asher Amar Hashem kichatnu." So they acknowledged that the chet amiraglam occurred, and one would expect that this was some sort of tshuva. Now they're ready to go up to Eretz Yisrael, and Moshe Rabbeinu says, "Lamazatem oivrim espi Hashem hulo tetzlach." Don't do this. This is not going to be matsliach. This is a terrible idea. Don't go into Eretz Israel. Hakadosh Baruch Hu is not giving you rishus to go into Eretz Israel.
And you're going to be wiped out. That's exactly what happened. That's the epilogue to the story that they attempted to go into Eretz Israel after they were told by Hakadosh Baruch Hu that you're not going to go into Eretz Israel. And they were wiped out. There's a bunch of shailas here that are relevant to us, especially in these times. Number one, what exactly did they do wrong? I imagine that if I was there at that time It's like you make a mistake and then you're like, let me do it now. Your parents tell you to do something, and then they go, "No, it's too late." And you go, "No, let me do it now." It seems like a decent argument. Okay, we made a mistake. They acknowledge that they made a mistake. The balei chasidus ask the question, "Why is this not? Why is this not a meaningful tshuva?" There's certainly a recognition that they made a mistake. So what exactly did they do wrong? Why is Hashem Baruch Hu so strict with them? They can't go into Eretz Yisrael, and not only that, but they die attempting to go into Eretz Yisrael. We would at first glance look at it and think that perhaps there's something even noble about what they attempted to do to go into Eretz Yisrael. So that's our first question.
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The second question is moving back a little bit towards the Chet of Meraglim. What exactly did the Meraglim do wrong? They sentenced spies. It's not the only time that we've sentenced spies to Eretz Yisrael. It happens again later. We all know the stories of Nacha. They sent spies into Eretz Yisrael. That's the whole story with Rachav Azaynah. What exactly did they do wrong by sending in Miraglim? If eventually we were going to do it anyway, that's a famous classic question. But more importantly, why did Klal Yisrael believe them? Why did Klal Yisrael believe the Miraglim that it would be impossible for them to take the land? To put it in historical context. This is a generation that witnessed the Makos. They witnessed Kriyas Yamsof. They witnessed already a victorious defeat of Amalek. And it was a victorious victory, miraculous victory over Amalek. It's not a generation that hadn't seen miracles. The Mon, the Slav, the Be'er Miriam. There's certainly ample evidence that the Rebbeinu Shlom is going to be behind them. There's a certain sense.
I certainly have this. There's a certain sense. That even over the last since October 7th, the miraculous nature of what's happening here in this country, there's a certain sense of calm that exists right now in the country because we it's almost clear to us as day that things are going in our direction. If somebody would have come to us on October 6th and they would have told us in just a short amount of time, again very long for the hostages who should be brought back home as soon as possible, blessed Hashem. But the notion that if you would have told us on October sixth that Hamas would basically be wiped out, Hezbollah would basically be wiped out, there'd be a new person in Syria removing Assad who's dangerous, that Saudi Arabia would basically be quietly fighting on our side, that Jordan would be knocking rockets out of the skies, that we would now basically have taken out a tremendous amount of the Iranian military infrastructure, one would certainly have said that we're living in miraculous times. And as a result, though there is a certain pachad that's in the air over here, there's also a certain expectation.
Not because in any sense it's kochi vaotsem yadi, not chas v'shalom, because we're taking credit for it. We understand that everything is coming from the Rebbeinu Shalom, but there is a certain feeling like things are moving in our direction in a very serious way. So it's a very natural emuna that we have in this time that this is all part of Hakadosh Baruch Hu's plan. Clearly, something is happening. We don't play God. We don't foretell what's going to happen in the future. But clearly, something is happening in ways that are beyond what we naturally would have expected to happen. Anyone who doesn't believe that doesn't have their eyes open. It's also miraculous what's happening. Tshuva movements in this country of people. I'm sure you all saw that viral video of the left wing news reporter who put a yarmulke on and was davening. The things that are happening in this country are absolutely miraculous, stunning, unbelievable.
If we have it now, it's obvious that generation had whatever we had in space. We haven't walked through the Yam Suf, we haven't received the Torah. What exactly were they lacking? What was the amuna that they were lacking that they couldn't believe that it would be possible for them to take an Eretz Yisrael? It seems unfathomable that's what they actually believed. That's another question to ask. Another question to ask: The Gemara in Sota tells us that we know that Kalev had a special shmirah because he went to Maras and Machpelah. And he davened by the kivrei tzadikim, he davened by the avos and imos, and he had a special shmirah that he wouldn't fall for the atzis amiraglim. First of all, again, aside from the fact that we need to understand what the atzis amiraglim was, that it could ensnare such great tzadikim And that Kalev needed to go daven to make sure that he wouldn't fall for the trap. I can understand, without getting into too much analysis, I think it's readily understandable that suchos avos is something that works. That a person goes to kivrit tzaddikim, he's deeply connected to the mesora, he's deeply rooted in the ideology of his ancestors. I can understand why that has an impact. It's much more difficult, I think, to understand why adding a yud to Yehoshua's name has an impact.
That seems to me already to be something that requires a lot more unpacking. The notion that somebody goes and daven for something, especially if you believe in tefilla as a form of an inner transformative experience of adopting an ideology, right? That lashon of lehitpalel being inner reflective. It's something that we like to daven inwards and cultivate a certain ideology. It's readily understandable that Kalev had a schus. Much more difficult to understand why adding the letter yud to Yehoshua's name, Toshia's name, making him into Yehoshua. It's much more difficult to understand why that actually has an impact. It seems that by adding a yud into the beginning of his name, now the beginning of his name has a yud and a hay, and so now in some way he embodies Hakadosh Baruch Hu's name. The lashon of Yehoshua now becomes that he's going to be saved from the Atzitz Amiraglim. Still, very difficult to understand why in any way that helps. So those are the questions that we're going to try to answer tonight. Just to review very quickly, what exactly was the mistake of the mapilim? Why was their tshuva not accepted? What exactly was the chait of the meraglim? How could it be that Klal Yisrael couldn't fathom that they would somehow be saved By Hakadosh Baruch Hu when they entered into the land? And what does adding the yud to Yehoshua's name mean? Those are all the questions we're going to ask tonight.
I want to share with you a very special Torah. There are two approaches to this land. A hashkafa that I believe is again, I don't like to use the term right and wrong when it comes to hashkafa. None of us have a monopoly on hashkafa, but hashkafa I think that certainly is aligned with the Torah hashkafa and a hashkafa that I think is certainly not aligned with the Torah hashkafa. One way of looking at this land is That it's Hakadosh Baruch Hu's land, and we are permanent guests. That's a hashkafa that I think is aligned with the Torah. This land that does not belong to us—it's Hakadosh Baruch Hu's land. We're permanent guests in His home. There's another hashkafa that I don't think is a Torah hashkafa, and that's namely that it's our land. Our land, albeit a holy one, is our land. The difference in these hashkafas at first glance might seem to be.
Not so distinct from one another. Does it really make a difference what our approaches to living in this country? And I think the answer is it makes an enormous difference. If you go with the approach that this is fundamentally Hakadosh Baruch Hu's land And we are guests in His home, permanent guests, but guests nonetheless. Then the attitude that a Jew has to have. Is one of total bittul to Hashem Baruch Hu, totally nullified, surrendered to something greater than ourselves. There's something very beautiful about being a guest in somebody's home. We'll talk about the negative of being a guest in someone's home in a moment, but there's something very beautiful. You live at the pleasure of the host. I'll share with you the negative side of this, just because it'll inform the positive side. Whenever we the rebbeim go to America, which is far too often, but whenever we the rebbeim go to America, well-intentioned people always say, "If you ever need a place to stay" Have you ever seen people react to that? People go, "Thank you very much." I want to tell you why we don't take people up on that. It's not because we don't love them.
It's because when you're a guest in somebody's house, you have to be on. If I come back to somebody's house at 11:30 at night, even people I like a lot, and they're up. So now there's a 45 minute period before I get to bed. There's 45 minutes of me having to be a good guest. You guys, most of the time I've had that this year when you went to people's houses for Shabbos. You ever not want to go to people's houses for Shabbos? They're wonderful. Your aunt is a wonderful person. And that's why you always have to go with your friend to your aunt's house. Your aunt is a wonderful person. But it's like you need a teammate when you go for Shabbos. You need somebody to pass. I need somebody to help carry the conversation because I don't always want to be on. That's why over the course of the year, you might find that you stay in yeshiva more than you leave. It's like yeshiva is so great, but at least here I don't have to be on. In a certain sense, I'm home.
When you go to a guest in somebody's house, even if you're a permanent guest, there's something that doesn't feel 100% comfortable because you have to be a good guest. You have to be surrendered to the hosts. So the host's needs are primary. So if you're in your own house, you can do whatever you want. But if you're in a guest house and you're a guest in somebody's house, and you go and Lomoshel, you're playing your music too loud. There's that awkward moment where the host knocks on your door and says, "I'm so sorry, we're trying to get these kids to sleep. Could you take it down?" As opposed to your parents yelling at you and going, 'Take it down in there.' There's actually something much more comfortable about your parents yelling at you. There's something more comfortable about it because it's yours. The negative and the positive are actually flip sides of the same coin. If we're guests in the Rebbeinu Shalom's home, it means we're surrendered to him. We always have to be on, in a certain sense, and there's something uncomfortable about always having to be on.
The Miraglim had the hashkafa, and I'll try to be masbir in a moment where it came from. The Miraglim had hashkafa. We want this to be our home. Now there was something noble about their intent. If you could have a chilek anywhere in the world, and you're a tzaddik, where would you want your chilek to be? You would want to have a chilek in the most kadosh place in the entire world. I would want to come and say the most kadosh place in the entire world belongs to me. But the problem with that is that by definition, if it's the most kadosh place in the world, it can't belong to you. By definition, in order to align yourself with the kudushah saharetz, it requires a bittul. It requires being able to say it's not mine; it's the rabbanim shalem's. The moment that a person steps into a place of kedusha and asserts his ego, asserts his control, asserts his dominance, it fails to be the makom Hakadosh that you wanted it to be.
There's something again. Some have the minig. I think it's a very beautiful minig. Some have the minig that when they're walking away from the kotel, they won't walk backwards. They're facing the kotel the entire time. I'm not sure halachically that a person is mechuyav to do it. But I like the notion of it. I like the sensitivity of it. I don't turn my back on it. There's a level of surrender. There's a level of awe. I stand in awe of this. It doesn't belong to me. It belongs to the Rebbeinu Shlalom. The feeling that a yid had when he came to the Beis Hamikdash was I'm stepping into the Rebbeinu Shlalom's house. L'avak er beichalo. I'm a guest in this person. I'm a guest in the Rebbeinu Shlalom's house. There's something exceptionally. And again, our generation is not great at this. But there's something exceptionally beautiful about saying I'm a visitor here.
I'm surrendered here. Again, I'm harping on the point with you a little bit because it's not the way we speak in this generation. And there's a lot of reasons for that. But we're very far from John F. Kennedy saying, "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country." There was a level of surrender that used to exist in the world in a very natural way that we lost. There's probably a lot of reasons why we lost that I'm not going to get into them now. But it used to be, and I want you to know, even though I'm going to say this in a muqdam way, I do believe this. It used to be that it was appropriate for a parent to say,"Because I told you to And that's actually a really good chinuch shkafa. If you'd like, I can explain to you all the reasons. There's a level of bittul that we ought to teach our children because it actually ennobles them.
A child who grows up with a parent that says to the child, "This is the right thing to do," and I expect that there's a level of trust, faith in this relationship that when I tell you this is the right thing to do, your natural stance should be nasa venishma. Is it illogical in a certain sense? To follow something that I don't yet know what it is, or I don't know why I'm doing it. Perhaps you could argue that nobody's saying that we shouldn't have a logic afterwards. But the expectation of a nasa v'nishma relationship is, I'm not lying to you. There's a level of bitul, there's a level of surrender that we as parents ought to have naturally earned with our children. Our children, their existence is tali in us. So we would hope and expect that children should be raised in a way where their first approach is: My parents told me to do something.
Of course, I'm going to do it. I want to know why, so that I could better serve my parents. I want to know why, so that I could participate in this relationship in a more meaningful way. But my approach, my attitude towards it, of course, there's a level of bittul here. Coming to Eretz Yisrael means, and again, I think this is relevant very much in our times, very much specifically in the last week. Coming to Eretz Yisrael means I'm coming into the Rebbeinu Shalom's house. The vulnerability of that is you have to let go of control. When you're in your own house, you have the illusion of control. When you're in your own house, you're the man of the house. You have a dominant nature in the house. When you're in somebody else's house, you're not in control of what happens. That's a terrifying thing.
I think. I think in the last five years Our generation had to confront In ways I think we never had to confront before. Our generation had to confront the loss of the illusion of control. You guys were in eighth grade when COVID hit. So I'm guessing it was something along the lines of you were about to graduate when the world shut down. It was like Purim time, and then it was like. I know, for kids in high school who didn't get to have their championship games for hockey and basketball. It's not really hockey. The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing yeshiva league kids that floor hockey was a sport. But the sorry to the TABC guys that I just offended. Who'd I offend? I just want to make sure I know so I can say it again. The notion that the world can change from one moment to the next isn't a fascinating thing that your life could be in this direction.
And then all of a sudden it's in a completely different direction. There's something absolutely terrifying about that. There's something absolutely terrifying, like, okay, so now we just don't leave our houses for the next two years. How exactly does this work? Like, we're all gonna wear masks and rubber gloves and lice all our lettuce when it comes through the door from the, you know, like, what exactly are we talking about here? And then COVID ended. If you were following the timeline, so COVID ended, and then Mayron And that was, for those who were in the country at that time, an astronomical tragedy. And then there was October seventh, and I remember that summer I was working on a TJJ program for Shabbos, and it took me an hour and forty five minutes to get from my house to an area that's right across from Beit Meir. That's a twenty five minute drive. The reason we couldn't make it, and we were nervous about making Shabbos Was because there were protests in the highway that basically had shut down Kvitshad
Because we really were on the verge of civil war over judicial reform. Which, if you look back on it now, seems sort of comical. That the country was like, left wingers in this country were like, we're not serving in the army anymore. It was the first time that the left wing and the Charedim were like in the same boat. It was exactly like that. It was amazing. Okay, so we don't serve in the army when we have ideological differences. We found our place in the Venn diagram. Nobody expected that to be the place where we met. Looking back on it, it's comical. We were ready to go to civil war over judicial reform. And the tragedy of October seventh shook this country in a way that's like For those people that are in Miluim, and certainly for the wives and children of the people that are in Miluim, and not knowing what's going to be, and not knowing when you're going to get that phone call that somebody that you love has been injured or chas v'shalom worse.
The notion of the illusion of control being lost to us. I think your children will grow up with parents who know deeply that no matter what we try to do to control our lives, that's all it ever is, the illusion of control. I'm going to say something, and I don't mean this in a not nice way. I actually mean I think it's a beautiful thing, but we have to be careful with it. The hamster wheel of our community. Is a lot about control, The hamster wheel of where you get raised in a certain community or a certain five towns, and you're on the hamster wheel. So now I'm going to be, I know I'm going to be trained to be an accountant. You know what I'm talking about, from the time you're in ninth grade. There's a program that you're on. You go to NCSY Kol all summer after tenth grade, and if you're a shetark, then you go back summer after that. Some madrichim are working on you to get you to go to an upper level shir, so that eventually you could go to an upper level yeshiva, so that eventually you could go to YU and you go to certain shirim in YU.
And then you go to Sim, so that you could become an accountant and raise your kids in a certain community or maybe five towns, where summer after tenth grade they're going to go to NCSY Cole, and after that they're going to go to NCSY Cole, and then they're going to join an upper shir, so they can go to an upper level yeshiva. Eventually they're going to go to Sim, so they could become an accountant. You understand the hamster wheel here? It's not a bad hamster wheel. It happens to be a very beautiful community. Or Cleveland. It's a very beautiful. Sorry, I want to keep you. We love the. By the way, how ridiculous is it that we call it out of town? The narcissism. We decided what town was and then called everybody else out of town. There is a story that was told about a BJE conference many years ago in Atlanta.
And Atlanta, being a central place, all these mechanchim from all over America came to this conference, and they said, anybody who's from in town, please stay in ballroom A. Anybody who's from out of town, please go to ballroom B for the next session. A couple people trickled out to ballroom B, and then they announced it again. A couple more people trickled out, and then finally somebody realized what was going on. He got up on the mic and he said, if you are from New York or New Jersey, you are currently out of town. Please go to ballroom B. Because for somebody who grew up in New York, and especially I grew up in Lawrence, so I'm like the essence of the essence. So if no matter where I am, I'm in town. You're out of town because you live in Atlanta. It's a tremendous amount of gaiva. I just want to make you feel like you're a part of it. The hamster wheel is a very beautiful hamster wheel, but I do question how much of it is because it's a very safe path.
It's a very safe path to take. By the way, sometimes parents get nervous. You come to Yeshiva Hakotel for the year, and you come home, and you call mom and dad, and you say, 'So I'm thinking about whatever fill in the blank next.' About half of you just betrayed yourself. About half of you either touched the person next to you, or looked at the person next to you, or had the knowing smile on your face. I don't know what you're going through in your life. You've now been touched twice. So maybe we'll shmoos afterwards. It gets scary. It's like when you break the mold when you say something along the lines of "No, I think I'm gonna stay," and it's like, wait, what? You're getting off the wheel. There's something that's a little scary about that because you got off of the wheel that gives you that illusion of control.
Miraglim had a very idealized notion of wanting to have a chaylik in Eretz Yisrael, but it was also because they wanted to exert a certain amount of control. It's our house now. It's not the Rebbeinu Sholom's house that we're going to live in. It's going to become our house. What's the nafgamina? The nafgamina is how you conquer the land. And I think this is the test for the times that we're living in, for the ashtaf that we're developing. Of course, David Amelech had an army. What we strive to create in this country is an army that resembles David Amelech's army. It's an army that understands that I fight for the Rebbeinu Shalom. The Rebbeinu Shalom is the one who decides if I'm victorious or not. I am just the kli. There's a bittel that I have when I enter the army. There's a bittel that I have when I put on that uniform. There's a bittel that I live with. My halachic and hashkafic approach when I go to the army is that I am surrendered to the Rebbeinu Shalom. I'm serving in this army because I have the opportunity to serve Hashem with my entire gof.
That has to be our Ashkafa. If our Ashkafa is anything more than that, if it's conquering the land so that we could assert our dominance, that's a failure in our ability to take true ownership over this land. True ownership over this land means I'm a vatal myself. It's the Rabbanu Shlulam's land, so of course I'm a participant in the process. Of course wars were going to be fought. And even meraglim were going to be sent. There's nothing wrong with sending meraglim if the purpose of sending the meraglim is to report on the land that we're absolutely going to have. The meraglim ought to have come back. This is what Moshe Rabbeinu understood, that it was dangerous. But the atas ha meraglim was that they were going to come back and they were going to say it's beautiful, but for us to conquer it without the Rebbeinu Shlom is going to be impossible.
What they were meant to do was come and say, 'You're not going to believe the land as the Rebbeinu Sholom is going to conquer for us. You're not going to believe that we're going to have the opportunity to be a vessel in conquering this land.' But it's always going to be our Kadosh Baruch Hu's land. There wasn't a problem with sending in Miraglim. It was a problem with sending in Miraglim with that hashkafa. It wasn't a problem that they were going to fight for the land. The problem was that they didn't approach the land correctly. And once you remove the Rebbeinu Sholom from the picture, it's not the Rebbeinu Sholom against Amalek. It's you against Amalek. It's you against Canaan. And that is not a battle that we can necessarily win. I have a feeling here. I'm going to express the hergish. I'm not a military man. I'm not one of these rabbis who act as if he's tied in to the upper echelons of the Israeli military.
I don't. By the way, I'm not sure all those rabbis are lying. I think some of them are lying, but some of them really do know. You know what I'm talking about, like Israeli rebbeim who are like, yeah, my best friend growing up is now like the mankal of everything in the entire country. He's like, trust me, I know what I'm talking about. I think some of them actually do know what's going on. But I get the sense that there's levels here. I get the sense the Houthis are like the obnoxious four-year-old who's kicking you in the shin while you're in the middle of a fight. So it's like at some point Israel just said, well we're going to take away your airport, we're going to take away all your ports, and that's just going to be one night. It's like the kid that you go smack him and just go stop it. To say there's a level to Hamas, Hezbollah was much more serious. The soldiers that I know in the army told me that the way they approached the fight up north was very different than the way they approached the fight in Gaza. They're trained soldiers, they're real soldiers. I get the sense that Iran's military might al pidera chateva is very strong.
It could be that al pidera chateva we also have very strong fighters. It's a much larger country with much larger resources. I have the feeling that right now, in particular, is not the time to be moving away from the Rebbeinu Shalom. If anything, our bittul to the Rebbeinu Shalom needs to be even greater. The fight between the Rebbeinu Shalom and the Ayatollah is not a fight at all. It's not a fight all. The fight between the Rebbeinu Shalom and Iran is not a fight all. The fight between the infinite and the finite is not a fight all. But if we Chassid Shalom move out of that hashkafa, if we move into the hashkafa that I am the fighter, if it's us against Iran. I don't know who I would choose in that battle. It's not obvious to me that militarily we're significantly stronger than them without the miraculous nature of the rabbanim shalom at play. And even again, we do not know, and we'll find out. It'll be like on some sixty minutes report in like a couple of weeks from now. But we don't really understand the miraculous nature of what took place last Thursday.
Even just the initial report that we built a military base in Iran. I don't think that could happen in Eretz Yisrael. If somebody was building something here, I think some Israeli bureaucrat would be like, 'Wait a second. Do you have tavo for that? Who does that belong to?' How do you come into a country and just build a military? By the way, it wasn't even destroyed right away. You know that? It was multiple battles that we sent drones from that base to go destroy things in Iran. That's a miracle. That's a kriyas yamsof. I don't want to say level miracle, but it's a kriyas yamsof type of miracle. It's an unbelievable thing. There was a meme. I love these memes. I'm a big fan. The only reason WhatsApp status exists is for yidden to share memes around wars. That's what I'm convinced of. I like they said we hit the Mossad building but the Mossad said nobody was in it because all of our agents are in Iran. The idea was so they don't know which way to turn. They don't know who's who. I think Iran did have some spies in this country but it turned out they were 13 year old kids. We had people that were potentially high-level people in the government. How did they not get caught? They say this was going on for 20 years. They say the beeper operation was 10 years. This was 20.
That's unbelievable. That's miraculous. That's the Rebbeinu Shlollim intervening. Is this not the time to be moving away from the Rebbeinu Shlollim? It's the time to be moving towards the Rebbeinu Shlollim. What was the mistake of the Mapilim? They said we made a mistake. They didn't know which mistake they meant. They thought. The mistake was that they didn't want to go into Eretz Yisrael. They said, 'What do you mean? We're ready to go. We're going to go right now. We're ready to go. Sorry, we didn't mean it. We're going to go right now.' That's not what the mistake was. They didn't do tshuva for the actual mistake. The mistake was that they wanted it to be their land. They needed to assert control and dominance. And the raya was that even when the Rebbeinu Shlom comes and says, 'You can't go in anymore,' they say, 'Well, we're going.' It's all about their own ego. It's not about surrendering themselves to the Rebbeinu. Melel, we understand why they weren't matsliach because now that they're living in the world of teva, al pi teva, they weren't going to win that war.
I think this perhaps gives us an insight into why Hakadosh Baruch Hu changed Yehoshua's name to reflect Hakadosh Baruch Hu in his name. Our identity in this battle needs to be an identity where Shem Hashem is primary. Where when you encounter somebody's name, the first thing that they say about themselves is the rebanishol. That's the first thing we need to be able to say. The rebanishol is the first thing that comes out of our mouth. Memela, he was saved from the atzisamiraglim because the name or the renaming of Yehoshua gave Yehoshua his own psychology, his own approach to how am I going to withstand this test? Because every one of us naturally wants controlled. Every time, what's your name, Yosher? You come, you say, "My name is Yosher. I can't do anything other than that. I can't live outside of the world of the Rebbeinu Shalom. He's surrendered to the Rebbeinu Shalom. That's the humility of Yosher. He's the person that's surrendered.
I have a friend who's here in this yeshiva. He's not here tonight. I wanted to speak with him. His tekes was pushed off because of the war. My friend Ephraim Herman learns in this yeshiva. You guys know Ephraim. Fran is my good friend. And you know I know that he came here to serve in the Israeli army, and I know that Baruch Hashem, this is a yeshiva. I heard of an enormous number of guys, over thirty guys. Is that true? Went to the twenty-two, still an enormous number. I want to say that that's something you guys should be very proud of. For those of you that are going, and for those of you that are not going, it's something you should be very proud of to be in a yeshiva. That says to a guy Go the Israeli army as a bentora. Go the Israeli army as a person who the first words out of their mouth are, "I'm going for the rabbanu shalom. I'm going to be a vessel for the rabbanu shalom."
That's a tremendous hashkafah to have. The Rambam speaks about a soldier in war should have no fear. I remember many years ago I was talking with a Talmud who was going to the Israeli army and he asked me, 'Rebbe, how can I possibly be mukayim this Rambam?' If bullets are whizzing over my head, what does that mean? I'm not supposed to be afraid. People are naturally afraid. How can I be mekayim this Rambam? Perhaps one of the explanations is it doesn't mean that a person in a particular moment is not allowed to have some natural fear that overcomes him because it's appropriate for that moment. I think what the Rambam perhaps meant was an approach to what a soldier is in this country. A soldier is somebody who I serve at the pleasure of the king. The Rebbeinu Shlom is going to do whatever the Rebbeinu Shlom is going to do.
Letov, or maybe Chassid Shlom, it won't be so good. I walk in with a sense of confidence that I've nullified myself before the Rebbeinu Shlom. It's it's I hope I'm I'm sure it's true. I don't have to hope this. I know it's true. But I hope that you guys have tremendous pride in what's happening here. That you're not just being told the value of going to Eretz Yisrael, but you're taking an approach to how you live in this country. An approach that is one of surrender, one of bittul, one of nullification before the Rebbeinu Shalom. There is a danger in these times to say kol chivot zem yadi. There's a danger because we celebrate the military might, and we should, in a certain sense, we should. I'm sure you all saw that video. I saw the video. I thought it was very powerful. They released the video on Thursday of the fighter jets taking off and then returning safely. There's something very, very profound about that. It's certainly true that if you told our grandparents 80, 90 years ago that video would exist, our grandparents for sure would have said Mashiach Zeitim.
We're living in the times of Mashiach, and we are. There's no doubt about that. But there is a certain danger. Check it out. There's something about having that military might that a person could naturally say, 'We're in control of this.' The danger of these times is to say we're in control of this. The opportunity is to use this to be mivatel ourselves to the Rebbe Nisholam. I want to say one last thing, and then I'll let you guys go for the night. When I came here, Oshana Raba, I was very moved. I was very moved. I don't know if it still exists. I hope it does. I was very moved when I sat down in the Beis Medrash to learn and saw that on the tables there were names of soldiers. Is it still here? Underneath there was like a plexiglass type of thing, and there were names of soldiers underneath. I was very moved by that. I was very moved to see that it's in your face, like the Torah that we learn, the soldier that's fighting. They're seamless. There's an absolute seamless unity between the Rebbeinu Sholom and that person that's fighting, between the beis medrash and outside of the beis medrash.
If we're living in a world where the Rebbeinu Sholom is echad yachad u'miyuchad, then we have to live in that way also. We have to understand the intrinsic connection that exists between the Rebbeinu Shalom, the Beis Medrash, and those that go out of the Beis Medrash to be vessels to serve the Rebbeinu Shalom through their fighting. VeEz Hashem, if we are And I think we are, if we do this right I think this is another step in moving towards this ultimate Geula that's literally right around the corner. When I was growing up in the eighties, my Rebbeim would always say we're living in Yikves of the Mashiach. And you'll forgive me for saying this, it was hard to see. It was a little hard to see in the eighties. Ikhvist the Meshicha, like there was not much going on. There was like it was the eighties, like there wasn't much going on in television. There wasn't much like there wasn't much going on in the eighties. Then you like you get a little older, and like the nineties, and there was the war with Iraq, and then you get a little bit older, and the developments of this country over the last twenty years. Are you paying attention, boys? Are you paying attention? Like, do you realize it? Like, we don't have to have debates about like. The nusach of a particular—we can all agree
Mashiach is on his way. It should be obvious. The fulfillment of the prophecies happening before our very eyes is absolutely wild. The only question is what our level of participation will be. And I think that Bez Hashem, this last tufa that we're living through right now Bez Hashem, we'll be zayecha to walk this next step properly, and it'll be the final step before Mashiach comes. Shleiches. Thank you so much for coming out tonight.
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