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A letter of the Rebbe Melech HaMoshiach outlining the causes — and solutions — for faulty representation of Jewish interests in the halls of power, especially regarding Eretz Yisrael

By the Grace of G‑d
Rosh Chodesh Teves, 5734
[December 26, 1973]
Brooklyn, N.Y.

Greeting and Blessing:

This is to acknowledge receipt of your letter of December 24th.

It surprises me that, apparently, you are misinformed about the present state of affairs in the matter about which you write.

In the natural order of things, it is now well-nigh impossible to do anything to reverse the tide, inasmuch at those who determine the policy have brought it to a situation where it is impossible to retract all that has been promised in regard to the returning of territories, etc.

This is not the place to dwell at length on such a painful and appalling matter.

Perhaps you know that there is a judicial formula, which originates in the Torah (Talmud), to the effect: תחילתו ברצון וסופו באונס (“He began voluntarily and ended up under compulsion”). The present situation has reached the stage of “compulsion.” The time to have averted it was when I began to storm (naturally not through the press) immediately after the Six-Day War, when those policy-makers hastily dispatched emissaries to Washington with assurances that they were prepared to return such and such territories, and that most of them were negotiable, etc. This was the “voluntary beginning” which has resulted in the present situation.

What will happen in the future—no one can say. But we are a people who depend on miracles, and indeed, our whole existence as a small nation in a hostile world is also nothing short of a miracle. And so when the offer of territorial concessions was made immediately after and since the Six-Day War, there was the miracle that the other party, the Arabs, rejected that offer. And during the Yom Kippur War there was even a greater miracle when the Egyptians, after crossing the Suez Canal with a huge army, known to be at least 100,000 strong and most likely much stronger, yet for no reason stopped in their tracks only a number of kilometers east of the Canal, facing no military resistance, and with the road ahead of them wide open. Unfortunately, extraordinary opportunities on both fronts which the miracles had provided were missed, and again, I do not wish to dwell on matters which do not reflect favorably on our fellow Jews.

As for the practical thing which Jews everywhere can do to help the present situation—something which is most regrettably ignored, in line with playing down the obvious Divine intervention in the most critical days of the war—is that every Jew must strengthen his bonds with the Torah from Sinai, when G‑d made us the “chosen people.” This is also something of which we need not be ashamed, for contrary to those who misunderstand or misrepresent this in terms of privilege which smacks of chauvinism, this chosenness is primarily a matter of duty and obligation to be a model people for the whole world to emulate, a people where form takes precedence over matter, the spiritual over the material, and the soul over the body, a people which was destined to be “a light unto the nations” (Isaiah 42:6, etc.). It is this kind of life and conduct which the Torah describes that also stimulates right thinking and the proper outlook on life. It is this kind of life that also strengthens the self-confidence of every Jew wherever he may be, and enables him to shed any inferiority complex and the readiness to be impressed by a non-Jew, or by an idea which comes from a non-Jew, or actually non-Jewish ideology. It is sad indeed when, instead of being a model and a living example for non-Jews to emulate, some Jews fall over themselves to emulate non-Jews, rejecting the “spring of living waters,” the Jewish Torah and Jewish tradition, etc.

To be continued…

*

Beis Moshiach magazine can be obtained in stores around Crown Heights. To purchase a subscription, please go to: bmoshiach.org

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