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PARSHAT PINCHAS - NOT LIKE THE NATIONS

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TorahZionist:
BS"D

YESHIVAT HARA'AYON HAYEHUDI
Jerusalem, Israel
HaRav Yehuda Kroizer SHLIT"A, Rosh Yeshiva

PARSHAT PINCHAS
21 Tammuz 5767/6-7 July 2007


NOT LIKE THE NATIONS

"This is the fire offering that you are to offer to Hashem: Male lambs
in the first year, unblemished, two a day as a continual burnt offering. The
one lamb shall you offer in the morning and the second lamb shall you offer
in the afternoon".

These laws of offering the daily sacrifices on the altar in the Temple
have already been taught to the Jewish people back in the Book of Exodus.
Why, then, are they repeated now once again, and right before the Jewish
people are poised to enter the Land of Israel?

The holy Or-Hachaim whose "yahrzeit" was this week, comments that the
Jewish people in that generation were saying; When we were traveling in the
desert, going from station to station, we had to bring the daily sacrifices,
but now that we have stopped traveling and are about to enter the Land of
Israel we can also stop bringing the daily sacrifices. For this reason, the
Torah repeats the laws of the daily sacrifices - to teach us that the Jewish
people must continue to do them when they come into the Land.

This thought - that now that the Jewish people are entering the Land of
Israel, they could stop doing the sacrifices and be freed from fulfilling
the commandments - is one that has been chasing the Jewish people from the
very beginning. It was for that reason that upon entering the Land of Israel
under the leadership of Joshua, one of the first acts was to travel to Mount
Ebal and Mount Gerizim in Shechem and to reinforce the acceptance of the
Torah upon the Jewish people.

The prophet Ezekiel tells us: "That which you imagine will never take
place, that which you say: Let us be like the nations, like the families of
the lands, to serve wood and stone". In spite of the fact, or maybe because
of the fact, that the Jewish people were now entering the Land of Israel,
there was a great concern that they would throw off the yoke and follow the
ways of the nations around them, as unfortunately our history has shown
happening time and time again.

It is discouraging to think that in the only Land in which G-d's
commandments really count, the Land of Israel (as our Rabbis taught us, that
one who lives in the Land of Israel is as if he has a G-d, and one who lives
outside the Land is as if he worships idols. Or in the words of Nachmanides,
the reward for the commandments are only in the Land of Israel, for outside
the Land one keeps them only that they not be new, and lest he forget them
upon his return to the Land), we find during the First and Second Temple
periods, the Jewish people ran after the nations that lived here, following
every "shtut" (nonsense) that they did.

Unfortunately, in our day, with the return of the Jewish people to their
Land, we continue to run after the nations, trying every which way and every
which plan of the nations, from Jimmy Carter's Camp David to Oslo, from
France in the 1950s to Washington. From Peace Now to Peace Yesterday. From
Communism to semi-democracy. All has been tried, but still the answers have
not been found. The time has come to learn the lesson from this week’s
parsha, and that is that upon entering the Land of Israel, it is the place
for Hashem's commandments, the only place! It is time for us to finally try
the "real deal", to connect to our Supreme Source - the Holy One, Blessed be
He. And then we'll realize that what we have been looking for and running
after all of these years, is right here at home, in our very own backyard!

With love of Israel,
Levi Chazen


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