THE LAND OF ISRAEL

Dear Family,

I hope everyone is well.

Mazal Tov Avi on your birthday this Shabbos. Wishing you a successful year in all the good work you are doing, and with much happiness!

We are now starting Chumash over again from the famous Parsha Bereishis.

Shmuly and I were learning a sicha of the Rebbe from Bereishis last night, where the Rebbe spoke about the greatness of Rashi, and how this manifests especially in his first commentaries at the start of the whole of the Torah, which has the power to reflect the whole of Torah, its greatness and depth, and similarly the purpose of Torah and the Creation.

I cant go into the details of what we learnt, but I would like to share some aspects of this Rashi on the word BEREISHIS (simple superficial meaning is 'in the beginning')

Rashi points out that the word BEREISHIS is calling for a deeper explanation:

1. Because the grammar is incorrect - if it was really coming to tell us the simple meaning of the order of creation, it should have said 'barishonah'
2. In the next verse we see that the waters already existed, and so how can we say that 'In the beginning G-d created the heaven and the earth'? etc

Rashi, who almost always only focuses on the simple meaning of Torah, says that the word BEREISHIS is asking us for a deeper explanation from Medrash (a deeper level of Torah)

And the Medrash explains that the word Bereishis means beis (2) reishis. And beis can also mean 'for the sake of' reishis

1. Torah is called reishis ('the BEGINNING of His Way' - Mishlei)
2. Israel is called reishis ('the FIRST of His produce' - Yirmiyahu)

Ie Hashem created the world for Torah and for Yisrael

Another aspect Rashi brings up in his very first comment in Torah, quoting Rebi Yitzchak, is that 'IF THE NATIONS OF THE WORLD WERE TO SAY TO ISRAEL ' YOU ARE BANDITS BECAUSE YOU CONQUERED THE 7 NATIONS OF CNAAN' ISRAEL SHOULD ANSWER: ' THE ENTIRE EARTH BELONGS TO THE HOLY ONE. HE CREATED IT AND GAVE IT TO WHOM HE SAW FIT. WHEN HE WANTED HE GAVE IT TO THEM, AND WHEN HE WANTED HE GAVE IT TO US.'

And is this accusation not familiar to our ears, ringing in the news almost every day of the year right up to our present times?!

World bodies, governments of almost every country in the world, the UN etc are obsessed with this issue, which is totally unreasonable, especially in our modern times when people are supposedly more civil.

Besides the above Rashi explanation, and all the other prophecies in the Bible (which the whole world accepts!), the Rebbe explains in another sicha, and many times over and over, that by giving away LAND one is putting lives at risk.

'Whoever destroys a Jewish life is considered to have destroyed an entire world. And whoever saves a Jewish life is considered to have saved an entire world.'

Exchanging Land for 'peace' is unheard of in history, and it is clearly obvious to everyone, and especially the military experts, that Israel's security will be majorly compromised if it gave away any of its Land, and this would put lives at risk, both Jewish and our enemies.

I suppose it is a good time now with the upcoming elections in America, a country which has tremendous influence on our beloved Eretz Yisrael, to add in some politics.

Please think very carefully, to vote for the candidate who is going to help Israel stand up to all the lying nations, who are lying about who the Land belongs to. We don't want to see America joining that league!

And in this process of using our voting power, we will be able to play a part in saving Jewish and Arab lives.

Gut Shabbos to all!