By Moshe Feiglin
"If you walk in the ways of my statutes and keep my commandments and perform them"."And I will give peace in the Land and you will lie down and nothing shall frighten you and I will cause evil beasts to cease from the Land and a sword shall not pass through your Land. 7. And you will pursue your enemies and they will fall by the sword before you. 8. And five of you will pursue one hundred and one hundred of you will pursue ten thousand and your enemies will fall by the sword before you". (From this week's Torah portion, Bechukotai, Leviticus 26)
The vision of 'peace' in this week's Torah portions seems to have a lot to do with war and victory. This can be confusing. Most people think that peace is about white doves and everybody merging into one happy global village.
Here in Israel, we have developed a quest for utopian peace; not the peace promised us by the Torah. We will settle for nothing less than the Messianic promise of the nations turning their swords to plowshares. To achieve this utopian state, we are willing to do anything to convince our enemies to make 'peace' with us.
But the peace in this week's Torah portion is pre-Messianic. It is a peace of deterrence. If we live our lives according to the Creator's rules, we will have peace because five of us will be able to pursue one hundred enemies. When we put our Land on the slicing board, there is no reason for us to get peace in return. The peace that Israel must strive for at this stage in our history is not utopian, Messianic peace, but rather peace based on deterrence. It is this peace that will foster our progress toward a Messianic existence.
Shabbat Shalom
The vision of 'peace' in this week's Torah portions seems to have a lot to do with war and victory. This can be confusing. Most people think that peace is about white doves and everybody merging into one happy global village.
Here in Israel, we have developed a quest for utopian peace; not the peace promised us by the Torah. We will settle for nothing less than the Messianic promise of the nations turning their swords to plowshares. To achieve this utopian state, we are willing to do anything to convince our enemies to make 'peace' with us.
But the peace in this week's Torah portion is pre-Messianic. It is a peace of deterrence. If we live our lives according to the Creator's rules, we will have peace because five of us will be able to pursue one hundred enemies. When we put our Land on the slicing board, there is no reason for us to get peace in return. The peace that Israel must strive for at this stage in our history is not utopian, Messianic peace, but rather peace based on deterrence. It is this peace that will foster our progress toward a Messianic existence.
Shabbat Shalom
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