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PARSHAT SHOFTIM - TORAH - ITS TRUE COLORS

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TorahZionist:
BS"D

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

PARSHAT SHOFTIM
4 Elul 5767/17-18 August 2007


TORAH - ITS TRUE COLORS


“When you draw near to a city to wage war against it, you shall call out
to it for peace. It shall be that if it responds to you in peace and opens
for you. . . “

Now isn’t that nice, how the Torah commands us to call out for peace to
the enemies of the Jewish people before waging war with them. Maybe give up
some land, make a covenant with them - all for the sake of peace; as the
legendary Borat says: “That’s nice”.

But wait, what’s this? Rashi quotes the Sifrei and this is brought down
by the Rambam (Maimonides) as law, which states that this is talking only
about cities that are very distant from the land of Israel - for example, if
the IDF today would go out and attack, say, Turkey. But the wars against the
seven nations and Amalek are non-optional wars. In those wars the Torah
commands us that all of the inhabitants should be killed, including women
and children.

Truth be told, the call to peace took place even with the seven nations
living in the Land of Israel in the times of Joshua, as recorded by our
sages. Joshua sent letters to all the nations of the Land of Israel,
offering them three choices: To make peace with the Jewish people, meaning
to accept upon themselves to pay tribute and to serve us; to pick themselves
up and leave the country; or to wage war. Once the nations decided, there
was no turning back for them. Only one of the seven nations, the
Girgashite, picked themselves up and left, the Gibeonites made peace with
Israel and the rest of the nations waged war against us and lost.

Unfortunately, many learned and unlearned use this verse to pervert the
Torah, and for this the Torah wears a sackcloth. It was in this sprit that
the first king of Israel, Shaul questioned G-d Himself when he was commanded
to wipe out Amalek. “If the men sinned, what about the women, and if the
women sinned, what about the children? I’m sure that the liberal Shaul saw
the cute Amalekite children, those little toddlers, running around and could
not understand why. Why did they, too, have to be killed? Still, a Heavenly
voice rang out: Do not be overly righteous, do not be more righteous then
your Creator.

In this light, we can understand what the Torah tells us in this parsha
when it states: “When you shall go out to war against your enemies”. Rashi
writes: And do you go to war against friends, that the Torah had to state
your enemies? Rather, the Torah is commanding you to act to them as enemies,
for if you fall into their hands, they will not have any mercy on you. An
elementary rule that everyone knows. Still, for the liberal-leaning Jew, it
must be stated clearly in the Torah: “Against your enemy”

The Israel newspaper "Ha'aretz", in today’s editorial, wrote about the
victory of Netanyahu over the Jewish Leadership leader Moshe Feiglin in the
Likud's primary this week. They stated that Netanyahu must remove Feiglin
from the party, saying that Feiglin does not represent Judaism because of
his extreme views. Without getting into whether it is good that Feiglin is
in the Likud or not, one thing is clear: "Ha'aretz" for sure would not know
a Jewish concept even if they fell over it. It is for people like Ha'aretz
and those who read it and cling to its words - the “borot of this world” -
that the Torah had to teach us what an enemy is and what a friend is.
Hopefully we will learn this lesson before the next war breaks out...

With love of Israel,
Levi Chazen


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