Rosh HaYeshiva, Machon Meir
“Remember days long gone by. Ponder the years of each generation. Ask your father and let him tell you, and your grandfather, who will explain it to you” (Deuteronomy 32:7). Rav Tzvi Yehuda Kook would customarily repeat to his students that in our generation we have to learn and recognize “what we are and what our life means.” We have to know who the Jewish People are, what is unique about them and what is their destiny. Yet if we are to know “what we are,” we first have to learn history. As it says, “Remember days long gone by. Ponder the years of each generation.” Yet if you lack the strength to learn this on your own, you must “ask your father and let him tell you, and your grandfather, who will explain it to you.” “Your father” refers to the prophets, and “your grandfather” refers to the sages (Rashi, ibid.).
The history of mankind is not a random collection of events. It has a beginning and a purpose, and it is all connected to the existence and the centrality of the Jewish People. As it says, “G-d set up the borders of nations to parallel the number of Israel’s descendants” (32:8). He orders and apportions each of the nations of the world its rightful place on earth, and He does all this “parallel to the number of Israel’s descendants.” In other words, it is all in accordance with the Jewish People, who are the center of the world and of all mankind, and for whose sake the world was created. It is around them that the entire history of the world and of mankind revolves.
The Jewish People are the teachers and educators, the disseminators of the light of faith and knowledge to all mankind. “G-d’s own nation remains His portion. Jacob is the lot of His heritage” (32:9). Israel is a special nation, a chosen people. They are the nation of eternity. True, we are small in quantity, as it says, “You are among the smallest of all the nations” (7:7). Yet we are giants in “quality” – in the role we play and in the influence we have – past, present and future.
We are the nation of eternity, who recount and testify to G-d’s existence on earth. Thus, in the third and most important of the Torah blessings, we bless G-d “who chose us from among all nations and gave us His Torah.” We are a unique creation, as it says, “I created this people for Myself that they might tell My praise” (Isaiah 43:21). [The preceding is a synopsis of a talk given by Rav Tzvi Yehuda to soldiers in 1978]
Our nation has experienced the trauma of expulsion of Jews from Eretz Yisrael by their own brethren. That trauma has to arouse us to national repentance. Our weakness as a nation is not in the realm of economics or the army, but of the spirit. We established the State of Israel as a national home in order to solve the existential duress of the Jewish People in the exile. Yet there is no justification to establishing a national home just in order to eat and to drink and to be like all the nations, G-d forbid. The purpose of the State of Israel has to be drawn directly from the goal and purpose of the People of Israel. The world was created for our sakes, and a grave responsibility rests upon us for the world’s continued survival. In this generation, the generation of national rebirth, we see how the fallen Succah of David is rising up once more. Especially at this time, we must repent and return to ourselves and uncover our uniqueness. Thus we will be privileged to see with our own eyes the redemption of Israel and the fulfillment of G-d’s promise to Abraham: “I will make you a great nation… you shall be for a blessing… Through you, all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Genesis 12).
G'mar Chatima Tova.
With blessings for a joyous Succot,
Looking forward to complete salvation,
Shabbat Shalom.
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