Chukat: The Torah's Blueprint for Today’s Battles - Tehila Gimpel: The Land of Israel Fellowship

This coming week's Torah portion is the portion of hukat. And you know, I think it is the most concentrated amount of wars in any portion. It's just war after war and each one blends into the next. And so, of course, at a time like this, dealing with what we're dealing with here in Israel, that's what caught my eye uh and kind of got my attention. I don't think that in Israel there's ever been such a concentration of wars. You know, in the Independence Day War and the Six-Day War and the Yom Kipur war, we fought against a lot of countries in the same war. But the last almost two years, it's like while one war is going on, another one starts, another one finishes. We haven't finished one and another one has already gone somewhere else. And wait, we're still in the old war. the Houthis Iran and then wait there's still Gaza and so you know in this recent round with Iran we were all kind of holed up in our houses for 12 days and then suddenly you go out again and you see people in the supermarket and it's like hey how was your war mine was okay how about war for you and then we finish that war and it's like okay well I guess we're back to the old war because you know my son is going back to Gaza my nephew's going back to Gaza so it's like you don't know when one war is finished which war are you referring to like how's that going for you? So, of course, this portion with this kind of concentration of battles interested me more this year. And I noticed something. I noticed something that was new to me. Up until now, all of the stories that we've read in the Torah from the Exodus all took place in the first two years. There's Mount Si and the calf and the tabernacle and the laws. And then they're supposed to go into the land, but whoopsy daisy, the spies. And now they're stuck dying in the desert. And then we have Korak. this past Shabbat uh sometime in the desert. We don't know exactly when. And then fast forward, here we are in this coming Shabbat's portion of Kukat and we're posed to enter the land in the 40th year. We've just glossed over 38 years. Fast forwarded and all of our great leaders suddenly die and we're in the 40th year and we're ready to go into the land. So these are really a totally This is our first time in the Torah meeting the new generation. The old generation has died out. And this generation never saw war. The old generation, their parents, they saw the Egyptians at the sea. They saw the Amalachites. Some of them went out uh you know uh to even try to fight to get into the land after the sin of the spies and they were decimated. This generation had never seen war. And then suddenly in the last year they lose two out of their three great leaders, Miriam and Aaron. And now they have to face for the first time in their adult lives conflicts with other nations. Hashem has kind of been carrying them through the desert on the clouds of glory. And you know their fathers, they weren't ready to go into the land. This is the generation that we know is poised to to to win. They're the generation of redemption. But they need to become that. They need to become that. Their parents weren't able to teach them that. Their parents weren't that. So now in previous years when I would read this portion to me it kind of read like you guys know like that when you read the book of Judges how it just feels kind of like and then they sinned and then they said sorry and then Hashem saved them and then they sinned and then they said sorry right so I kind of read Lucat in that same I've always read it in that same kind of melody like uh you know they asked to cross over somewhere and then the someone said no and then we fought great job next we tried to go through and I never kind of got into the nuances but this time around I noticed that when you look at the development of these wars in the portion you can actually see a development within Israel between from confrontation to confrontation we're actually growing. I want to suggest that maybe and I'm just throwing it out as an idea maybe it's prophetically showing a way that we would also have to develop once again in the future. Um, you know, up until this recent round of wars, people would say, "Oh, you know, the generation of 1948, the generation of 1967, those guys were courageous." This generation, the teenagers now, they just watch Tik Tok and play on their iPhones. But in this last period of time, we've discovered something incredible that this generation has nothing to be ashamed of in comparison with the early Zionist pioneers. Maybe even in comparison to the Mcabes and the warriors of King David. I mean, we've seen courage and self-sacrifice parallel to the best of any generation. Even deeper than the courage and the self-sacrifice. I think that anyone in Israel would say that there is also a different spirit now among the young generation of Israel, among the young warriors of Israel, that's different than the spirit of the parents and the grandparents. And when you think about it, the first generation, the parents of the grandparents, the generation that sinned, the the the the parents of the generation that we're reading about in kukat, the generation that sinned in the sin of the spies just two portions ago, it's only two portions ago, but it's actually 38 years ago. We always remember the ones that were of these uncorrageous hearts, these fearful hearts, and they were crying and they were scared. That was only one spirit in the nation. We sometimes forget that right after that there was another sin, the sin of the maim, the ones who rose up to try to conquer the land of Cananan even without permission. And they seemingly had good intentions. If Hashem is mad when people are cowardly, then surely he's going to appreciate if we courageously go and try to, you know, grab the land. But Moshe said, "No, don't go. Hashem is not with you." And they were, of course, we know, beaten really badly. When I look at it, it kind of reminds me of our previous generation in the land. You had Jews in the exile saying, "No, it can't be done. The nations won't let us. The land is too treacherous." And most of them, unfortunately, perished in the in the desert in the exile. And at the same time, you had those who were like, "Yeah, let's go conquer Israel. Let's be Zionists. Let's be pioneers." They weren't entirely, but at least mostly coming with a secular and very uh anti-religious, anti- good kind of spirit. And I don't think it's a coincidence that they actually called those boats of the first Jews that were trying to sneak into the land against the British mandate. They called those people Maim, the same name as the ones who went in against Moses's advisement and tried to conquer the land. So unlike the original sinners in the desert, they actually successfully and courageously returned to the land and were able to create the state of Israel. But at the same time, they did have a spirit that was lacking in faith in Hashem. They said, "We can do this on our own. We don't need old-fashioned, you know, traditions and religion." And it worked for a while. But ultimately many of those groups their children lost faith in Zionism and tried to promote giving away the land and and and you know trying to appease our enemies because they weren't guided by Torah values. So ultimately that didn't sustain itself. Now just like we're seeing in Israel in hukat we have a new generation. And now let's watch the development that happens to this new generation. So the first conflict, the first kind of like meeting that they have with another nation is with Edom. Those are like our cousins, the children of Asov, they should have some common ground with us, like a little bit of like, you know, good old memories. And if we look in Numbers 20, it says in verse 14, Moses sent messengers from Kadesh to the king of Adom, saying, "So says Israel, your brother. You know all the hardship that's befallen us. Our fathers went to Egypt and we soured in Egypt and the Egyptians mistreated us. They mistreated our forefathers. We cried out to God and he heard our voice. He sent an emissary, took us out of Egypt. Now we're in Kadesh at the edge of your border. Would you let us go through your land? We will not pass through fields or vineyards. We're not going to drink your wellwater. We'll pass on the king's road. We'll neither turn right or left until we pass through your territory. Fair enough, right? Let's tell the nations about how hard it's been to be a Jew and all the bad things that have happened to us. Surely they'll have compassion on us, right? And Edom replied to them, "You're not going to pass through my country. I'm going to greet you with a sword." How familiar does that sound? It's like, "Listen, international community, we've been through such a hard time. We were mistreated by the Nazis and our fathers are mistreated in grumps. Would you mind if we just kindly go into our land? We're not going to ask anything from you. We won't bother anybody, but would you just give us permission and maybe vote for us to be able to have our land? would you mind if we just go and exist? Would it offend you if we existed? And they're like, "Yeah, no." And how do we respond? Do we like say, "Hey, that's not cool with us. God is with us. You better watch out." It just says that we went around, Edom, we don't. We just kind of retreated, found another way. Now, look what happens. Something crazy happens. No matter how hard Israel tries to avoid conflict, conflict comes after us. We try to speak and get mercy, beg mercy of the international community, but nothing actually helps. And no matter how hard we try to appease and avoid conflict, we're going to just defend ourselves, retreat. The war comes after us. Because look what happens right after that in chapter 21. It says, "The Canaanite king of Arad, who lived in the south, heard that Israel had come by the root of the scouts. He waged war against Israel and took captive from them." And it's not clear in the Hebrew if it's singular or or plural, but in he starts he takes hostages. So no m we're just sitting there quietly trying to appease everybody and then they take hostages and then what do we do? Imagine on the one hand we know that Hashem has taken us this far. Surely he's going to help us into the land. But on the other hand we seem to be losing. We're having this like pagrum that happened to us. Hostages are taken from us. We're not sure is Hashem with us or not with us. What do we say? Israel made a vow to God and said if you deliver this people into my hand I will dedicate the spoils of their cities to you. And God heards Israel's heard Israel's voice and gave them the Canaanites and the Israel's the Israelites destroyed all of them and dedicated the spoils of their cities to God and they called the place Horma. So the Canaanites are attacking us on their own initiative. What happened to us when we tried to avoid conflict? Did they have mercy on us? No, they took hostages. It's such an interesting turning point because look what happens now in the spirit of the nation. If you look at the words, they're so purposefully reminding us of this sin just two portion ago in the portion of Schlak when the maleim went to go fight for the land without God's permission. Look what it says also back there. It says they arose early in the morning. They ascended to the mountain top. They said, "We're ready to go to the place God said he would give us." And then Moses says, "Don't transgress the word of God. It will not succeed. Don't go up. God is not among you. Do not be beaten by your enemies. For the Amalachites and the Canaanites are there, Canaanites are there. And you will fall by the sword because you have turned away from God." and God will not be with you. They defiantly ascended, but they didn't have the ark of the covenant. And then the Amalachites and the Can Canaanites were dwelling in the mountain came down and smoked them and crushed them. Where did they crush them until you guys reading the verse? Hold on to your chairs. Until the exact same place. Is that unbelievable? You know, when we talk about chuva, repentance, we always say that you only really know that you've repented if you end up in the same situation, but act properly. They're fighting the same enemies. It's the Canaanites. It's not just any Canaanites. It's the Canaanites in the south of Israel, the same ones 38 years ago. But instead of being beaten until Hormma, they beat them until Hormma. What was the difference? The story is turned on its head. The fathers were going with a rebellious spirit. Moshe said, "Hashem isn't with you. We don't need Hashem. We got this. We could do it on our own. What would have happened if they won? It might have been very cool and nice militarily, but spiritually it would have been a disaster because what would that teach everyone else? Might is what matters. Not, you know, having Hashem with you. Now they say, "Well, you know what? They don't come with a hotty spirit at all." They say, "We don't know if Hashem is with us." But they've taken hostages, so we need to fight. We can't just leave our hostages, but we don't want to have a hotty spirit of our forefathers. We're going to declare that if we do win this, it's not our win. It's Hashem's win. We're going to dedicate this win completely to Hashem. We don't have a choice but to defend ourselves. But if we're successful, we know exactly who it came from. We know it comes from Hashem. And then they're successful. And then they do what they promised. Now, what happens after that? Look at the maturation process. The next war that they go into, the next conflict that they have is in verse 21. We go to Sikhon, the king of the Amorites, and we say, "Can we pass through your land? We won't venture into the fields or the vineyards or drink the water. We're not. We're just going to go on the king's road until we pass through your territory." No more. Hey guys, would you have mercy on us? Would you mind? We've had a really hard life. Just straightforward. This is what we need. This is what we want. Would you be okay with that? We have some common interests. We'll have a good alliance. We won't we won't, you know, use your resources. Would you just mind letting us through? Son did not permit them to go through his territory. He gathered their people towards Israel, fought against Israel, and Israel smoked them with a sword. Did we run away this time? We took possession of their land this time. We do not look for the mercy of the nations. Maybe a little bit of diplomacy just in respect, a friendly alliance, but when that doesn't work and they come out with their guns blaring, we don't retreat. We fight and we win. I think that it's not a coincidence that they act differently this time because they've been encouraged by what just happened in the conflict with the Canaanites because they saw that Hashem is indeed with them and that gave them courage. And now look what happens in the last war in the portion. There's no dialogue. There's no asking permission. They say they turned towards the Bashan. The king of Bashan came towards them with all of his people. And God said, "Don't fear for him. Don't fear him. I've delivered him, his people, and his land into your hands." And then they smote him, his sons, and all of his people. It's a whole new way of looking at things. This is a whole new generation now in the deepest sense. Not just technically a new generation. Now they've actually become the generation of victory. more and more people when you know the I I'll say this they have a new way of looking at things when you turn to Hashem when they turn to Hashem and they were successful that made them more courageous but not courage in the way that's saying my might and my strength but a true deep courage the deepest courage comes from a place of faith and that leads to ever greater success ever greater courage and I think in Israel we're seeing this process too because people are turning away from that early Zionist ethos of I strength in my hand and I don't need God. Some of them have turned away and become fearful, run away, maybe moved away from Israel or tried to appease the nations. But many, maybe even most have come closer to faith, closer to tradition, closer to Torah. And then we see miracles. And alongside the hardship and they're being hostages taken, we call out to Hashem and we see even greater miracles with the Hisbala and even greater miracles with Iran, we're becoming and growing little by little, battle by battle into people who don't have trembling knees and ask for mercy, but rather people who are willing to strike courageously when we're threatened with or without the international community. So, you know, we still have we're in a growing process here in Israel and we still have a lot more to grow. Please God. But I think that this portion prophetically maps out a process that we will ultimately be going through here in the land. So may that process be as merciful as possible and Israel and our warriors continue to grow in their faith and in calling out to Hashem. May we continue to see miracles and be successful. Bye guys. [Music]