OUR ENEMIES AND A SOLUTION

Dear Family,

Hope everyone is well.

Mazal Tov to Zalmy on passing his first year of Law with very good results BH! Well done Zalmy!

Mazal Tov to Eliana on her birthday tonight! We love you Eliana.

Today is also the birthday, and the day of redemption from prison, of the Frierdike Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneerson and is a day of great joy in the Chabad Calendar.

He had many ENEMIES through his life, but he stood up with complete fortitude to them all, and was instrumental in not only keeping Judaism alive through terrible trials of Communist Russia (Stalin), Hitler yimach shemam, imprisonment etc, but also causing Judaism to thrive against all odds.

In this week’s sedra Balak, we come up against other ENEMIES of the Jewish People ie Balak King of Moab and the sorcerer Bilam, who he employed to help him destroy us.

Bilam was a very powerful person. In fact the Midrash states that in some aspects he was as powerful as Mosheh Rabeinu. (but on the side of Evil)

In an interesting sicha from The Rebbe, we see that there is a connection between Bilam and Amalek, another arch-enemy of the Jewish people. (Likutei Sichos Vol 2 p 338)

If you look at the first 2 Hebrew letters of Bilam and the first two letters of Amalek, it spells Bilam.

And similarly if you take the last 2 letters of Bilam and the last 2 letters of Amalek, it spells Amalek. Ie there is a strong connection between them:

בלעם – Has link to Jewish root in Lavan

עמלק – Has link to Jewish root in Eisav

However no matter how powerful Bilam was, and how deep their hatred was for the Jewish People, he states that he can only say what Hashem allows him to say in trying to curse us.

So he and Balak persist in attempting to search out the weak points in the relationship between Hashem and our People, and to listen out for the time when Hashems anger may arise against us according to our misdeeds, and to try and take advantage of those periods.

3 times Bilam tries to utter curses, but each time he has to be obedient to Hashem, and blessings come out of his mouth instead, according to Hashems instructions.

How do we counter our enemies?

In the same way that that the Hebrew letters of Bilam and Amalek are linked together, so are the Hebrew letters of Yirah and Ahavah.

Let’s take a look:

יראה – Fear of Hashem and their implications of refraining from doing aveiros.

אהבה – Love of Hashem and their implication of fulfilling the positive mitzvos.

Of the 2 qualities Yirah is more essential and that is why it comes first.

The parallel between the above 4 Hebrew words is not only an exciting coincidence, but is a result of a deeper connection that exists between these forces of Good and Evil.

The Rebbe goes on to analyse these 4 forces more deeply, but the practical lesson that comes out for ourselves (because our external enemies have also our own INTERNAL ENEMY counterparts within ourselves) is, that when we go out into the world to perform our mundane activities ie when we leave our Home of Torah and Mitzvos, we should build a fence.

A fence means a protection, in that we should establish fixed guidelines to ensure that our spirituality is not impacted by our mundane activities, and to establish a framework to be able to thrive in our new surroundings.

Wishing everyone a Gut Shabbos, and looking forward to having Reuven and Chana Lieba with us.