Reader: Dear Rabbi, in
reference to your article “Lebanon: Tisha B’Av & Teshuva” in last weeks
issue, you said it is vital to participate in “active sacrifice”. Question: How
do we engage in “active sacrifice”? There is no Temple to offer upon. Could we
be fulfilling this concept by “sacrificing” by not eating non-kosher foods?
“Sacrificing” by not driving in a car on Shabbat? “Sacrificing” by not smoking
on Shabbat? “Sacrificing” by not eating chametz on Pesach?
When we obey all negative commandments, not doing things we enjoy to
do, aren’t we engaging in active sacrifice? Therefore you are saying that
whenever we sacrifice, giving up doing the pleasurable things, are
we saying, “we owe our lives to our Creator?” If I am all wrong, how do I
actively engage in sacrifice? Have I “Lost Site” of this concept?
Rabbi Moshe Ben-Chaim: The concept of sacrifice I discussed, was specifically animal
sacrifice. The idea behind sacrifice is that man demonstrates his true state:
that he would not exist, just as this sacrificed animal, had God not created
him. This explains why Adam sacrificed an animal immediately upon his creation.
Other Torah restrictions you mention do not carry this lesson for the
performer. If so, are we without this realization today? Sadly, we are, but as
the Rabbis instituted prayer in place of sacrifice, there is much association
between prayer and sacrifice. Focusing on God in prayer, we also recognize the
concept of sacrifice, that we are dependent on God. This idea of dependency is
akin to the idea that we are created, since being created means by definition,
that we are dependent on a Creator.
Reader: Can we
expect of God; (Psalm 94: 1-95:3), to turn upon them (Hezbollah), their own
violence, and with their own evil He will cut them off, when the current Israeli
State’s leadership is bereft of God and His Torah? Can we expect of God, for
the sake of the observant Jews in Israel, to fulfill the above? If we do not
witness God’s intervention directly, can we anticipate His use of the IDF
indirectly to fulfill his promise?
If this military campaign ends in failure, can we conclude that God is looking
at the majority of Israeli non-Torah observant Jews’ irreligious state and not
at the observant Jews of the world’s wishes and hopes and prayers? Thank you
for answering these difficult questions.
Rabbi Moshe Ben-Chaim: We must be as Abraham “righteous towards God”, and pay Him the honor
due Him…for claiming knowledge of God’s interventions is impossible unless we
witness a miracle, and such a claim mitigates God’s exclusive omniscience. What
we can know, are His attributes of justice, kindness, righteousness, etc., all
taught in His Torah, and how He intervened in the lives of those righteous
patriarchs and matriarchs, and the Jews, throughout history. If we live by His
principles and fundamentals, we are assured a good life by means of His
intervention, and also, by means of reason: since the world operates based on
reasonable laws created by God, when we adhere to reason, we will experience a
life that meets with no friction with the world, but rather, with serenity.
God will keep His word to destroy His enemies, since nothing can affect
God, and that He should change is also impossible. Certainly if Israel was
guided by Torah principles they would find greater favor in God’s eyes, and
certainly, Hezbollah are God’s enemies. But human capacity excludes any
faculties, which can know God’s mind so as to determine whether any given event
was due to man, or to God.
However, the Rabbis teach that God determines the fate of the Jewish “nation” – not individuals, unless they are perfected. So it is safe to say that if Israel as a whole suffers during this time, God is not protecting the nation. We must then change our ways to comply with God’s Torah-mandated commands, so as to live in Israel, and in peace.