In this week’s Parsha, I counted twenty-one instances in which basically the same phrase is used: “the place where Hashem your G-d will choose to place His Name.”
Twenty-one times!
To what does this phrase refer? Yerushalayim!
Why did Moshe Rabbeinu not want to say “Yerushalayim” openly?
We are speaking here of the eternal capital of the Jewish People, the place from which the entire world was created! We are speaking of the eternal site of the Bais Hamikdosh, where the Shechina resides! And Moshe Rabbeinu wants to hide it behind a veil!
We live in a world of PR. In the world of Edom every product and person is vying to be “Number One.” I looked up “worldwide advertising expenditure” and this is what I found: “Global advertising expenditure is projected to surpass one trillion dollars for the first time in history!”
If you want to understand the difference between the Torah Way and the way of the other nations, it is right here! By the other nations, everything precious is in the open. Nothing is hidden! The biggest winner is the loudest or the wealthiest or the flashiest!
By Am Yisroel, lehavdil, kedusha is hidden.
Dovid ha Melech, the eternal king of Israel, was an unknown shepherd in the deep wilderness when Hashem selected him. Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky zt”l sat alone in his daled amos learning Torah and the entire world flocked to his doorstep to receive his bracha.
I want to address an issue that is deeply hidden in our days. The Artscroll Kinnos discusses the tragic end of certain communities in Germany whose residents refused to join their brethren in Yerushalayim because they did not want to leave “our little Jerusalem.” And they “began to call Berlin ‘Jerusalem.’” (Page 271) Contemplate what evil was later unleashed upon the earth as a result of this attitude.
My friends, we are building palaces in lands that are descending quickly into the depths of darkness. Please forgive me, but I want to say that conditions today in many countries are extremely dangerous. It has just come to my attention that a Jew was stabbed in Manhattan on Tisha b’Av on his way to shul. It has become popular now to hate Jews in places where we have been welcomed and honored for centuries. It may soon reach a point at which our brethren are isolated and cannot escape, G-d forbid, just as it happened in Mitzraim and in many other lands over the millennia.
Today one can still come to the place of ultimate kedusha, a Land about which it says, “the eyes of Hashem are always upon it from the beginning of the year to year’s end.” (Dvarim 11:12) In the world of big advertising, what was hated yesterday can become loved today or the reverse, but in the world of ruchnius, lehavdil, what was true yesterday will always be true, and “the Guardian of Israel never slumbers nor does He sleep.”
The future is in the Land from which kedusha can never depart. Even though it may be difficult to contemplate and accomplish, when it comes to personal survival, one must go to great lengths to save one’s life.
“Oh afflicted, storm tossed, unconsoled ones, behold! I shall lay your floor stones upon pearls and make your foundation of sapphires … your entire boundary of precious stones.” (This week’s Haftara)
Eretz Yisroel is the one place on earth that will surely become the capital of the world in the days of Moshiach ben Dovid, may we greet him soon in our days!
PICTURE CAPTION
A shepherd with his flock
GLOSSARY
Bais Hamikdosh: The Holy Temple
Bracha: blessing
Daled amos: immediate surroundings
Dovid ha Melech: King David
Edom: the Western Nations
Kedusha: sanctity
Lehavdil: to differentiate
Mitzraim: Ancient Egypt
Moshe Rabbeinu: Moses
Parsha: Torah portion
Ruchnius: sanctity
Shechina: Presence of G-d
Yerushalayim: Jerusalem
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