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This week we begin the fifth book of the Torah. The word Torah means ‘teaching’ and the Chassidic masters showed us how every word and idea in the Torah teaches us to see the G-dly purpose in all things.

For instance, our reading begins as the Jews are about to enter Canaan and Moses first chastises them for the sins of the previous generation in the desert ends on a positive note; “Don’t fear your enemies (in Canaan) because G-d will fight for you.”

What can we learn from this? What was the purpose of Moses reminding them of the sins of their fathers? He should have encouraged them. After all G-d must be served from joy!

Here is a personal story that I hope will help to explain.

Some twenty years ago I was taking a taxi from Kfar Chabad to Kfar Saba. It was nighttime and I struck up a conversation with the driver. We began talking about the weather and how it affects the taxi business then moved to family; he had three children, two of them married, then to politics; he had no political affiliations, and finally to Judaism.

I asked him if he did any of the commandments like making Kiddush on Shabbat or putting on Tefillin on the weekdays and he shook his head and said no.

He said that after his Bar-Mitzvah over thirty years earlier, he put on Tefillin every day for a few months. But then his friends convinced him that there were better things to do and he dropped it and everything else Jewish.
Since then, he never did any of the commandments, didn’t believe in G-d and had no intention to change.

He told me that he had read books, heard lectures, asked Rabbis and religious people and came to the conclusion that everything just ‘happens’ and has absolutely no meaning except what we make it, it’s all luck. Hitler would have been right if he won etc. In other words; no G-d!

I had no idea what to say. I even remembered a class I once took in university (before I was religious) called ‘Philosophy of religion” where the ‘proofs’ of G-d’s existence didn’t appeal to me as much as the arguments for atheism. So, I realized I’d have to improvise.

Suddenly I got an inspiration!

I asked him his name he told me it was Moshe. Then I asked him how long he had been a taxi driver and he answered fifteen years.

“Nu, Moshe” I continued. “You have probably seen all sorts of taxi drivers in fifteen years, right? For instance, you must have seen fat drivers, thin drivers, calm and nervous drivers, angry and pleasant, fast and slow, old and young, right?”

He agreed.

“But Moshe, did you ever see a blind taxi driver?”

“Blind? That’s crazy!!” He answered shrugging his shoulders. He glanced at me to see if I was serious. “Blind driver? What? Totally blind?” He shuddered as he said it. “Can’t be such a thing!!”

The very question startled him, a blind driver was suicide, no one would do such a thing!!

“Well” I continued “what would you say if I showed you blind taxi drivers, several of them. Totally blind that have been driving nonstop for over fifty years with only had a few relatively minor accidents.”

His eyes were glued to the road and he didn’t answer; he just silently shrugged his shoulders and shook his head ‘no’ and muttered “That’s stupid. What are you talking about!? No such thing.”.

“Nu, Moshe. What do you say? Completely blind, full speed, for over fifty years with no tricks or outside help or gadgets. If I showed you such a thing, would you agree it’s a miracle?

e glanced at me again, was I joking? Was I nuts? “Alright” he answered “Yes, I’d say it’s a miracle, okay? Now, what street did you say you wanted in Kfar Saba?” He wanted to change the subject.

“Listen Moshe, I want to say something, are you listening?” (I discovered you have to say this in Israel for people to really take you seriously and not just wait till you stop talking so that they can talk.) Are you listening?”

“Yes, sure” he replied. When I was sure he was, I began.

“The blind taxi drivers are the Prime Ministers and Knesset members of Israel: They have no idea where they are going but they drive full speed. And they have been doing it for over fifty years nonstop! And they are still on the road today!! What do you say?”

He didn’t reply for about five minutes but then finally at a stop light he turned and looked at me again in a different way.

hen a few minutes later he said, “You have a point there” (Yesh MaShehu b’zeh)

He turned on the radio but he wasn’t listening, he was thinking. There was ten minutes left to the ride and at the next stoplight he tilted his head to the side, narrowed his eyes, raised his eyebrows and turned to me with a slight smile.

When we finally reached my destination he said, “You know, you have something there. It doesn’t make sense. I thought of it in the Gulf war when the scuds were falling; it’s a big miracle and we’re in the middle of it.”

He shook my hand and said, “I suppose tomorrow I could put on Tefillin again, maybe just tomorrow, wouldn’t hurt.”

This answers our question about Moses reprimanding the Jews for the mistakes of their fathers.

Moses chastised the Jews not to make them feel guilty but to make them see the great kindness of G-d; that despite their sins and follies (like the blind taxi-drivers and the Israeli government) they were still alive, succeeding and even demonstrating that G-d is protecting them.

And so it is today.

This coming week we will be confronted by the ninth of Av the most painful event in Jewish history. And it’s worse than we think:

The Temple is the essence of Judaism; it’s the place that we can make the physical world holy! And ‘every generation that it is not rebuilt it is as though it is destroyed anew’.

In other words; this year marks the almost two thousandth time that our precious Holy Temple has been destroyed!!

But back then the enemy was the Babylonians and Romans. Now the enemy is …. us. Remember that only 20 years ago the Israeli government drove thousands of Jews from their homes in Gush Katif (Gaza), gave it to terrorists, and even now refuse to admit their mistake.

But there is a simple solution.

When the Lubavitcher Rebbe was asked by one Knesset member (Rechavam Zeevi obm) what could be done to save Israel, he replied:

“I was astounded to discover that there are Jews in Israel that don’t know what ‘Bnei Yisrael’ means. Namely that they are all the sons and daughters of the Creator of the Universe. You have to do all you can to educate the Jews in Israel what it means to be Bnei Yisrael.”

And we are the ones that can do it!

The Midrash teaches that when Moses was on Mount Sinai G-d showed him all the future generations, and when he saw ours, he was amazed that we had the power to serve G-d under such impossible conditions!!

Ours is the generation of Moshiach.

When we consider for a moment (like the driver in the story) the amazing miracles G-d is doing for us; saving us from the tens of thousands of missiles the enemy sent in last ten months, from the constant condemnations of entire world and from our own selves we realize that the exile is coming to an end.

Today we are standing on the shoulders of thousands of years of Jewish suffering, prayers and self-sacrifice. Now it could be that just one more good deed, word or even thought can bring…

Moshiach NOW!!

Rabbi Tuvia Bolton
Yeshiva Ohr Tmimim
Kfar Chabad, Israel

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