All right, everyone. Hope everyone’s doing well. It’s time for some Grill and Torah, Friday afternoon here in beautiful Judea, Israel.
We’re going to talk about something that might be a little bit sensitive to some people in terms of what their belief systems are. Everyone’s talking these days about unity. I’m going to explain to you why unity is so important in these days, and then I’m going to talk a little bit about misconceptions when it comes to unity.
I’m guessing the title here probably shocked some of you, that I could possibly say that unity can actually be destructive. But I’m going to give you a couple of examples from the Torah where unity was the worst thing that could possibly happen, and the result, or the punishment, or the solution, was actually God—HaKadosh Baruch Hu—splitting up that unity.
At the same time, we know that unity is one of the most important things for the nation of Israel. So how do we fit both sides together? When is unity destructive? When is it good? When should we use it? When should we not use it?
And is strength a prerequisite for faith?
That would seem a little bit of an oxymoron, because if you have faith, you don’t need strength, right? Muscle and strength—what does that have to do with faith? If you have faith, you don’t need the strength, right?
We say on Chanukah that the small amount of people beat the large amount of people. What does strength have to do with faith?
When Unity Is Destructive
For those of you who thought that unity was always good, I’m going to give you a couple of examples of unity that was actually destructive.
For example, in Bereishit—in Genesis, for those of you using the English—we know that the Tower of Bavel, the Migdal Bavel, was done in complete unity. The people got together, and they were going to build a tower. It was complete unity.
And we know that that unity brought destruction. We know that God split them up, broke their unity, and made them speak different languages so they couldn’t have unity.
Why did He do that?
Because they were using the unity for bad things. They said, “Let’s get together. Let’s come together, and let’s build a tower and challenge God.”
So obviously, when unity is challenging God, that’s not good unity. It’s destructive unity. The fact that everyone’s together fighting morality—that’s never good.
That was in Bereishit. But we have an example right here in this week’s parsha.
וַתִּקְרְבוּן אֵלַי כֻּלְּכֶם
Moshe Rabbeinu is going through rebuke, giving rebuke to the nation of Israel.
They’re about to go into the Land of Israel, and before they do that, and before he dies—Moshe Rabbeinu is about to die—he’s giving rebuke to the nation of Israel.
One of the things he’s talking about is the sin of the Meraglim, the spies.
He says:
וַתִּקְרְבוּן אֵלַי כֻּלְּכֶם
“You all came close to me together.”
You all came to me together, in unity, as one nation, and you said to me, “Let us send twelve spies, one from each tribe, to the Land of Israel to spy out the land, and let’s see if we can do this.”
The words in the Torah are:
וַתִּקְרְבוּן אֵלַי כֻּלְּכֶם
“You all came to me together.”
And the question has to be asked: If this is a sin—and by the way, the sin of the Meraglim is the only sin in the Torah that Bnei Yisrael did not get repentance for—why does the Torah emphasize that they came together?
Yom Kippur came along, and God says, “I give repentance to Bnei Yisrael.” All the other sins, we got repentance for.
Only the sin of the spies did we not get repentance for. We haven’t gotten repentance for it until today.
It’s really strange that with this sin—the worst of our sins, really, because we haven’t gotten repentance until today—the Torah uses those words:
וַתִּקְרְבוּן אֵלַי כֻּלְּכֶם
“You all came in front of me.”
Moshe Rabbeinu is giving the rebuke. He says, “You all came together.”
Why put this unity into this rebuke?
If unity is a sign of strength together, and what we should be aiming for, why does Moshe Rabbeinu include that idea of unity when talking about the spies?
Together, but Not Respecting One Another
Rashi, right there, says:
בְּעִרְבּוּבְיָא
Rashi explains that they came to Moshe Rabbeinu and were not respecting each other. The young were pushing ahead of the old, and the old were pushing ahead of the leaders.
So Rashi tries to explain that they were together, but they weren’t together. They weren’t respecting each other.
But I want to take a little bit of a different approach. I want to take the approach that this was a warning.
Unity is good. Of course unity is good.
But it’s not good if we’re unifying in order to do evil. That is exactly what is not wanted.
Yes, you’re unified—but unified for the wrong goals, for the wrong thing. And that unity caused destruction. Literally destruction.
After that unifying decision of bringing spies to the Land of Israel, HaKadosh Baruch Hu made a solemn oath, according to the Torah, that the people of that generation would not enter the land.
In fact, HaKadosh Baruch Hu said to Moshe Rabbeinu, “Destroy all of Am Yisrael,” and Moshe Rabbeinu said, “No, don’t destroy everyone.”
But this unity—
וַתִּקְרְבוּן אֵלַי כֻּלְּכֶם
“You all came together”—
is what literally brought about destruction, because it was unity for the wrong things.
Unity Does Not Mean Agreeing With Evil
I’ve heard a lot of times this week, “It’s the Nine Days. Let’s pray for Tisha B’Av. We need unity.”
Yes. We need unity. That is true.
But we do not need unity for evil.
I don’t have to say, “I love you,” and agree with someone who wants to say, “You know what? We don’t want the Beit HaMikdash. We don’t want the Temple anymore. We don’t want Israel anymore. We don’t want Jews to be religious.”
I don’t have to say, “Let’s be together in not being religious.”
That’s not unity. That’s destruction.
The idea of unity in Judaism is that if the whole nation is together—even if we’re not all on the same level, even if not everyone is religious—that will save us. That is true.
But there’s no value in becoming unified around a false idea.
In other words, if someone says, “We can eat pig today,” and we all come together and say, “Oh, yes, we’ll all agree,” no. That’s not good. That can actually bring destruction.
So when we talk about unity, especially these days right before Tisha B’Av, when we commemorate the destruction of the Temple, unity does not mean, “Let’s be together for everything.”
It means, “Let’s be together in order to lift HaKadosh Baruch Hu’s name—God’s name—in the world, to do what’s right, and to make the nation stronger and better.”
It doesn’t mean, “Let’s all get together and give Israel away to our enemies.”
No. That’s not unity.
Loving the Person Does Not Mean Accepting the Idea
According to my beliefs—and I think probably backed up also by halacha—when somebody talks about giving parts of the Land of Israel over to those who want to destroy us, there’s probably not only no commandment to be united with them; there’s probably a commandment to argue and say, “No. This is wrong to do.”
Which I do a lot.
But in any case, that doesn’t mean that I cannot love the person. It doesn’t mean that I want the person to be injured or hurt.
No. One has nothing to do with the other.
Again, if the whole world is deciding certain morals are okay now, whether it’s abortion or all kinds of other things, I don’t have to agree with that in the name of unity.
I don’t hate the person, but I don’t have to say, “I agree with you because I want unity in the world.”
No.
The idea of unity in the world is to bring truth and peace, not to bring immorality. There’s no value in immorality.
Moshe Rabbeinu’s Difficult Life
Now, what’s interesting is that Moshe Rabbeinu had a pretty bad life.
From the time that he was born, he had a speech impediment. He didn’t have a golden tongue.
Then he had to grow up in Pharaoh’s house. He didn’t even grow up in a Jewish home.
Then he saw his brothers and his people getting hit and living in slavery.
Then he comes out to help, and they don’t believe him.
Then he tries to get out of the mission from God, and God says, “You’re going to do this.” HaKadosh Baruch Hu gets angry and says, “This is your job.”
Then Bnei Yisrael don’t listen to him. At a certain point, Bnei Yisrael tried to stone him and kill him, time after time.
I cannot imagine what his family life was like, if it existed at all. And then his son was almost killed.
Time after time after time.
And the punchline—the crazy punchline—is that at the end of his life, he doesn’t get the one dream that he wants: to come to the Land of Israel.
That dream is taken away from him.
And why?
Because he hit a rock. He hit a rock instead of talking to the rock.
I’m not going to go into that right now.
But what I want to discuss is that, at the end of this week’s parsha, Moshe’s student is taking over.
Yehoshua—Joshua—is taking over the leadership of the nation of Israel.
God’s Guarantee to Yehoshua
I want to read you a couple of pesukim here, which are really, really interesting.
It says:
וְאֶת־יְהוֹשׁוּעַ צִוֵּיתִי בָּעֵת הַהִוא לֵאמֹר עֵינֶיךָ הָרֹאֹת אֵת כָּל־אֲשֶׁר עָשָׂה ה׳ אֱלֹהֵיכֶם לִשְׁנֵי הַמְּלָכִים הָאֵלֶּה כֵּן־יַעֲשֶׂה ה׳ לְכָל־הַמַּמְלָכוֹת אֲשֶׁר אַתָּה עֹבֵר שָׁמָּה׃
“And I commanded Yehoshua at that time, saying: Your eyes have seen everything that Hashem your God did to these two kings. So will Hashem do to all the kingdoms through which you will pass.”
He says to Yehoshua, “You’ve seen everything that we’ve done to the other two kings, who were much stronger than Bnei Yisrael, but Bnei Yisrael won the war.”
He saw what HaKadosh Baruch Hu did to those great kings and how He destroyed them for the nation of Israel. So too will God do with all the kingdoms that you, Yehoshua, will go through.
Now, that statement is a guarantee.
If my father says to me, “I guarantee you that I will pay you ten thousand dollars every day,” I’d say, “I don’t really have to work so hard, do I?”
If it’s coming to me, I don’t have to work so hard.
HaKadosh Baruch Hu guarantees Yehoshua bin Nun, “Wherever you go, I will destroy the nations the way I destroyed the other two before.”
But what’s interesting is that Moshe gives a bracha, or a warning, to Yehoshua:
וְחַזְּקֵהוּ וְאַמְּצֵהוּ
“Strengthen him and give him courage.”
And the question is: Why?
What’s the test here?
God just gave you a guarantee that you’re going to win.
“Do Not Fear Them”
At the end of the parsha, Moshe says to Yehoshua:
לֹא תִּירָאוּם כִּי ה׳ אֱלֹהֵיכֶם הוּא הַנִּלְחָם לָכֶם
“Do not fear them, because Hashem your God—He is the One Who fights for you.”
Moshe says to Yehoshua, “You have to be strong. You have to be vigilant.”
And the question is: Why does he have to be strong and vigilant if God just said He’s going to fight for him?
Because strength does not contradict faith at all.
Strength and Faith Fulfill One Another
We have to make our efforts. We have to do whatever we can.
And we also have to be appreciative of those who are doing what they can.
Again, IDF soldiers are heroes. They’re putting their own lives on the line, and they’re fighting with a lot of courage and a lot of vigilance.
We have to say thank you to them.
However, at the same time, we have to know that, at the end of the day:
ה׳ אֱלֹהֵיכֶם הוּא הַנִּלְחָם לָכֶם
God is going to fight your battles.
And that’s why we win.
You have to bridge those two gaps.
We don’t walk around looking like victims.
According to Judaism, one who is a leader is not even allowed to have a stain on his shirt. Because you’re representing God, you can’t look dirty. You can’t look like a victim.
It’s completely not allowed.
So the two things that Moshe Rabbeinu says to Yehoshua are:
Number one, God will fight your wars, and you will win.
Number two, be strong and be vigilant.
Being strong and vigilant is not a contradiction to faith. It’s actually fulfilling it.
The Test After the Victory
The idea is that when you’re vigilant, and you fight, and you win, you must not fall into the trap of thinking that you actually won the war—or that your vigilance won the war.
That’s the test.
No matter how much I study for a test, or how much you work for an interview, when you get the job, you have to turn upward and say thank You.
Our vigilance and our strength are things we have to do. They’re the efforts that we have to take in life.
But at the end of the day, never lose focus that whatever we have in life—from the good and the bad, by the way—is up to God.
Two Different Blessings
According to Judaism, there are two different brachot—two different blessings—that we have.
One is a blessing on good:
הַטּוֹב וְהַמֵּטִיב
That God is good and does good.
And there’s another bracha we say when tragedy hits:
דַּיַּן הָאֱמֶת
That God is the ultimate Judge.
It says that in the World to Come, there will only be one bracha:
הַטּוֹב וְהַמֵּטִיב
That God is good.
Why?
Because when we’re able to see the truth, even the bad things that happen to us—and I wish that no bad things ever happen to anyone—we’ll realize the reasons for them.
We won’t see the negativity in them anymore, and we’ll be able to bless that God is good no matter what happens.
So again, there are two things that seem contradictory, but they’re not really contradictory. They fulfill each other.
Never Lose Focus
Yehoshua, as a leader, has to be strong, and has to be courageous and vigilant. Those are the traits of a leader.
At the same time, he should never forget that God will fight the war for him.
When it says that God will fight a war for you, it’s not saying that you don’t have to worry about anything.
It says: No. Even though you’re vigilant and strong, never forget that God is fighting the wars for you.
The two ideas fulfill each other.
Never lose focus.
No matter how strong we are, how vigilant we are, or how good we are, never lose focus that, at the end of the day:
ה׳ אֱלֹהֵיכֶם הוּא הַנִּלְחָם לָכֶם
Hashem is fighting our wars for us.
And we always have to say thank You.
All right, that’s it, people.
I’m wishing everyone a wonderful, wonderful weekend from the beautiful rolling hills of Judea, Israel.
Have an awesome weekend, and Shabbat Shalom to everyone.