A Storm of Lies

Rabbi Pinchos Lipschutz

We read in this week’s parsha (31:3) that Moshe Rabbeinu addressed the Jewish people on the need to gather men for an army to exact revenge against Midyan. Rashi shares with us that although Moshe’s death was intertwined with this battle, he happily undertook it without delay.

This was no simple matter-of-fact undertaking, for as the Medrash (22:2) teaches, had Moshe desired to live longer, he would have postponed this war. Hashem told Moshe to avenge Midyan for what they had done to Am Yisroel and then he would pass from this world. The Medrash says that Moshe is deserving of praise, because instead of delaying the battle to live longer, he immediately spoke to the people and began assembling a fighting army.

Rav Meir Soloveitchik asked why this conduct of Moshe earns him praise. Does anyone suspect that Moshe would delay carrying out Hashem’s command out of personal interest? Of course, Hashem’s word takes precedence over selfish desires.

He explained that what was praiseworthy about Moshe’s quick mobilization effort was not because personal interest would have held him back, but because his main concern was always the betterment of Am Yisroel.

As he was approaching death, his concern was not about himself, but about what would happen to Klal Yisroel after he passed. This is evident when Hashem tells Moshe to climb Har Ha’avorim and then his soul would depart on that mountain. Moshe immediately begins to pray for Hashem to appoint a proper leader for the Jewish people. His primary concern was for the people, not for himself.

In Parshas Vayeilech, we find that Moshe said that he knew that following his passing, the people would veer from the proper path and begin to sin. This indicates that as long as Moshe was alive, his presence helped prevent the people from sinning. When he would leave them, there would be such a great spiritual decline and gap that it would cause the people to sin.

This became evident when Moshe left the people to receive the luchos. They decided that he was delayed in his return and began to sin without anyone standing up to them and trying to stop their wrongful acts. It was only when Moshe returned and called out, “Mi laHashem eilay,” that the Bnei Levi rallied around him to squash the evildoers. In his absence, nobody thought of battling them.

Not only that, but as long as Moshe was alive, there was a living example of the heights to which man can reach. The people had an image of how high they could push themselves to reach much higher levels of avodas Hashem. Additionally, just the fact that a person as holy as Moshe was among them raised the level of holiness of the Jewish people.

The Brisker Rov was once discussing the difficulties involved in acting on a certain pressing matter. A student of the Chofetz Chaim was present during the discussion and asked how the Chofetz Chaim would have addressed the situation. The Brisker Rov answered that if the Chofetz Chaim were alive, they never would have come to this situation, because his holiness would have raised the generation and the transgression would have been prevented.

Moshe was the teacher of Klal Yisroel. He brought us the Torah from Sinai and spent his time teaching it to his generation. He ensured that it would be properly passed down to future generations by writing the entire Torah Shebichsav and passing on the halachos leMoshe miSinai, among other things.

Knowledge of Torah and greatness in Torah are accomplished through the mesorah of Torah from rebbi to talmid. Moshe was the first and ultimate rebbi; all the Torah we have is traced back to him. Had he been able to live another ten or twenty years, he could have taught hundreds and thousands of additional talmidim, who would have then gone on to teach talmidim, widening the scope of greatness and Torah knowledge.

Moshe’s postponement of the war against Midyan would have tremendously enriched Klal Yisroel, and he could have easily justified it. Therefore, the Medrash praises him for carrying out Hashem’s command immediately, for our obligation is to follow Hashem’s directives without compromise or delay.

There is a story that the Brisker Rov would tell about a woman named Blumkeh, who assisted the Shaagas Aryeh and took care of his needs when he lived in Minsk, where he headed a yeshiva. When he was forced from the city, the Shaagas Aryeh wanted to express his appreciation to the woman for her dedicated assistance. He asked her what type of brocha he could offer her. She responded that she did not need anything, so the saintly rov blessed her that she would merit to construct two shuls, one in the area in which she lived and one in Eretz Yisroel.

She immediately constructed a large shul in Minsk, which was named “Blumke’s Shul” and went on to earn much fame until it was destroyed in the Holocaust. A few years after that shul was established, Blumkeh set out to travel to Eretz Yisroel to construct the second shul the Shaagas Aryeh said she would build.

On the way to Eretz Yisroel, she went to Volozhin to receive the brocha of the gadol hador, Rav Chaim Volozhiner. He told her that if she wished to go, then she could go, but if she were to ask him if she should go, he would advise her not to. “The brocha of the Shaagas Aryeh has to be fulfilled, and you will merit to build a shul in Eretz Yisroel, so why do you care to live another few years and then go to build the shul?” Needless to say, the blessed woman accepted the advice of Rav Chaim and postponed her journey.

I inject the story as an interesting aside. There was no command or mitzvah for Blumkeh to build the shul in Eretz Yisroel in any time frame, so Rav Chaim Volozhiner advised her to postpone the project so that she would be guaranteed additional years of life. But when there is a mitzvah or a halachic obligation to carry out, we do not make outside considerations.

We are meant to follow the mitzvos as laid out in the Torah and not introduce calculations that, in this instance or in such a case, the Torah would agree that it is okay to transgress a mitzvah. We do not invent our own theories and say that for kiruv we can look aside from issurim, or that the need for funds to support Torah is so great that we can engage in activities that aren’t totally proper to obtain financing. Our duty is to follow halacha and not to deviate from it, as legitimate as the reason seems to us.

One compromise leads to another, one pragmatic move leads to the next, and before you know it, you are as corrupt and hypocritical as the rest of the generation.

We live in a time when lies are accepted as truth, obfuscation as clarity, and incompetence as ability. We must do all we can to remain separate from hypocritical people and those who peddle fiction.

Over the past week in this country, a sitting president was basically pushed out of his position and forced to announce that he would not be running for reelection, despite having won the primaries and actively campaigning for the position. His party and the media widely and loudly praised him for his heroism in giving up his position for the greater cause of democracy.

Of course, it was all a lie. The very people who praised him so publicly had engaged in a bitter struggle with him to force him out. The media had been praising him since his nomination for the presidency and was propping him up for the past three years as he failed time and time again. Suddenly, after his disastrous debate performance against Donald Trump, the media saw the light and stopped peddling their nonsense that he was a strong, astute leader. Days after praising his brilliance and sharpness, they turned on him and began bashing him for being incompetent and senile.

Then the very party leaders who praised him upon his exit presented him with an ultimatum to either quit the race on his own or be forced out by the vice president and cabinet voting to enforce Constitutional Amendment 25 that he was unworthy of performing his duties. A letter was issued in his name, hours after he told his assistants that he was not leaving, stating that he wasn’t going to be running after all. No reason was given. On Wednesday night, in a prime-time broadcast, he made his way through a statement that didn’t shed much light on the matter. It didn’t matter anymore. He’s done. He’s yesterday’s news, and nobody cares what he says or does.

Everything they said and did was a lie. Then they anointed his vice president to be the candidate. Until that time last Sunday, she was viewed almost universally as a vapid, imbecilic person who had accomplished little. But as soon as the button was pressed, she was endowed with all the gifts a person could strive for. She became bold and energetic, a woman of steely resolve and deft diplomacy, authoritative but personal, a highly accomplished leader who would lead this country out of its malaise and into a bright new utopian period.

The endorsements quickly poured in, along with the money. Over $200 million was raised faster than you can say, “Where did all that come from?” They said that it was mostly from small donors who had never previously given. Out of nowhere, 100,000 volunteers signed up to work for this woman’s election.

The woman who had been getting negative coverage for the past decade is running a totally scripted campaign, reading speeches off a teleprompter and not answering reporters’ questions.

The path has been paved for her to take over not only Biden’s candidacy, but also his presidency and campaign. There is nothing about her that is authentic, yet the polls have already magically swung in her favor as an unprecedented propaganda campaign sweeps the nation, peddling lies as quickly as her past record is swept clean, lest people find out what she really thinks and what is in store for them should the election propel her into the White House.

We got a hint of what it would really be like last week when she shirked her position as president of the Senate and skipped town rather than preside over Binyomin Netanyahu’s speech to a joint session of Congress. She was signaling her anti-Semitic followers that when she is in the saddle, Israel will not have a friend in the White House.

The next day, she met Netanyahu, posed for a couple of pictures, and had a rough meeting during which she reportedly showed a lack of knowledge of the facts and her distaste for Israel. After the meeting ended, her people issued a cold and harsh statement that was disrespectful of Israel and its people.

The lies continue to be spread daily on every topic and subject, without too many people having the courage to publicly proclaim the truth.

Regrettably, we know that what happens in the rest of the country can have a corrosive effect on us as Jews have been declaring for centuries, “Azoi vi es kristalt zich, azoi es Yiddelt zich.” This is true in all areas, and we need to exercise special caution these days not to allow our moral compass to falter and our levels of kedusha to slither downward.

Even during the summer, when we look to dial things down a couple of notches, we must remember that we are an am kadosh. We hail from students of Moshe Rabbeinu and his Torah. On matters of halacha and morality, we do not compromise. We seek to live up to the example they set, and although we don’t have the Chofetz Chaim and the other holy Yidden of past generations living amongst us, we have their seforim and teachings and have studied from students of their students. We know what is expected of us and what types of lives we should be leading.

There are lots of temptations out there and lots of excuses to veer just a little and then just a little more from where we know we belong.

We all have the strength and ability to hold on a little longer until Moshiach announces that he is here among us, ready to take us all to where we belong, b’vinyan Bais Hamikdosh bimeheirah beyomeinu. Amein.

How Did It Happen?

By Rabbi Pinchos Lipschutz

Once again, we have seen that we are living in historic times. Very rare occurrences are transpiring on a regular basis, dramatically impacting our lives, the world in general, and history. Each event strikes fear into the hearts of men, women, and children as they change the trajectory of modern life.

More so, each event demonstrates to man that he is not in charge of what happens anywhere and anytime, as the only explanation for their occurrence is the Yad Hashem. We can go back to the period of the Covid pandemic, but we don’t have to go that far back. We can examine things that took place within the past year.

On Shemini Atzeres, what is referred to as the world’s most impregnable border was exposed as anything but. Thousands of terrorists poured over the border between Gaza and Israel, attacking the towns nearby. Over one thousand Israelis were killed in a historically horrific manner, three thousand were wounded, and over 240 were taken hostage. The shock was overwhelming. The ferocity of the attack was shocking.

The simplicity of the attack, which saw backward savages overpowering the most technologically advanced country in the world, was too much to bear for most Israelis. Hundreds who had been attending a musical festival were shot as they ran for their lives. Those who made it to their cars were shot at, dragged out, and tortured as they died. Cars were set aflame with their passengers inside them.

Twenty-three towns were overrun, and horrors were visited upon their inhabitants. Entire families were butchered, as were any police officers and soldiers who happened to be in the way.

It was historic. It changed the trajectory of Israel and sent the country into a war it has not yet won. The war set off waves of anti-Semitism across Western countries, disrupting years of comfortable Jewish life since the Holocaust in European states. In the United States, it unleashed hatred of Jews among prominent Democrat politicians and the media.

If there is one thing secular Israelis believe in, it is their army. They view Tzahal as the most powerful and successful fighting force in the world, yet on that historic day, it failed them. The victims tried in vain to get police and army protection, but none was forthcoming. For seven hours, they were left to die at the hands of Palestinian butchers. On every level, the government failed its people in its most sacred obligation of protecting them from the very things they were experiencing.

People wondered how it could be that the most advanced army, with the most courageous fighters, backed by the world’s best intelligence agency and the toughest government in Israel’s history, allowed such a catastrophe to happen. It is staggering that thousands of terrorists participated in the attack, yet nobody noticed. The attackers came by air and by land, crashing through the world’s strongest border in eighty places. No alarms went off. Nobody monitoring and guarding the area saw anything. How can it be?

The answer is plainly evident for all to see: The reason it happened is because Hashem wanted it to happen. When Hashem assists Israeli soldiers, they are the strongest in the world, working miracles and fighting like no one else. But when, for whatever reason, Hashem does not help them, things that make no sense happen, and the strongest, mightiest, and brightest are shown to be helpless.

It doesn’t take investigations to see that the only reason a calamity of this magnitude did not previously occur is because Hashem prevented it from happening. We see that the amazing Yad Hashem has been there for Am Yisroel all these years, preventing something this atrocious from happening. We can be appreciative that we merited the protection of our Divine Father, and we can pray that we merit again, all across the world, that He continues to protect us from all those who seek our destruction.

It is providential that this occurred on the day that our Israeli brethren began laining Parshas Bereishis and one day before we did so in the Diaspora. Bereishis reminds us that Hashem created the world and maintains control over everything that happens in the world. Nothing happens by itself.

This past Shabbos, we experienced another dramatic, historic event that will change the trajectory of this country and was clearly directed by the Yad Hashem.

Former President Donald Trump was holding a campaign rally in an open field in Butler, Pennsylvania. Tens of thousands of people were in attendance. Suddenly, shots rang out. Trump was hit in his right ear, one person was killed, and others were seriously wounded. As chaos ensued, Donald ducked behind the lectern, and nobody knew if the would-be assassin succeeded. Within seconds, the Secret Service was all over him, and armed security people swarmed the area.

When the all-clear was sounded, the security people began removing Mr. Trump from the area, but he insisted on stopping for a moment. The 78-year-old candidate stood above the security personnel, held his fist in the air, and said, “Fight, fight, fight.”

He wanted to show his supporters that he was okay, urging them to fight on despite the huge, potentially destabilizing, shocking event of the evening. He was also signaling to the country’s citizens and to world leaders that he would be okay, tamping down any fears that he was seriously hurt. As a true leader, his natural instinct was to think about the people.

And so, the unplanned picture of the bloodied Trump, with determination written all over his face, his fist pumped in the air with an American flag as a backdrop, will be the shot that will be remembered long after the shock over the assassination attempt has settled.

The country and world were instantly abuzz. Someone tried to kill Donald Trump days away from his party’s convention and his official crowning as the Republican nominee for president. The leading candidate for the most powerful job in the world was targeted by a would-be assassin.

Once again Trump dominated the airwaves and sucked all the oxygen out of all other news stories. The contrast with his opponent became even more obvious. While his opponent can barely stand, even an assassination attempt wasn’t able to suppress Trump. Where his opponent can neither find the right word nor correctly pronounce it, even in a time of chaos with death hanging over him Trump was able to proclaim the right word and pose to reassure his supporters, the nation and the world. The iconic photograph of him doing that should propel him towards a landslide victory.

Then people began watching and rewatching clips of what happened and noticed that there was a complete breakdown of security and communication. The shooter was positioned on a roof within 150 yards of Mr. Trump, with a line of sight to the former president and a clear shot at his body and head. The only way to describe what happened is to say that it represented a total security failure.

It is disconcerting that in this day and age, a someone with an AR-15 gun can get that close to a former president and the leading candidate for president.

How did it happen?

The FBI and the Secret Service were very slow to discuss what occurred, though everyone saw the attack, and much was obvious, including that fact that the roof was left unprotected. The Secret Service director and the director of the FBI were in hiding after their offices almost lost the life of the man most likely to be the next president of these United States. They didn’t appear in front of cameras to read statements, answered no questions, and did nothing to calm and allay the fears of the American people.

The FBI will investigate the incident and come back sometime in the future with a long, complicated report which will create more questions than answers. But we all know what happened. The country and the world know what happened. Everyone saw the massive negligence. A man was given a clear shot from 150 yards away.

Nobody trusts the FBI or the other branches of government anymore, and that is a tragedy born out of four years of targeting and going after Trump by different devices of the Justice Department, which oversees the FBI, and the Homeland Security Department, which oversees the Border Guards and the Secret Service.

Even people who aren’t conspiracy-minded see connections more insidious than catastrophic incompetence, and it is hard to convince them otherwise.

So, how did it happen?

Once again, it is apparent that the only way that there were so many breakdowns of protocol and common sense was because Hashem planned this and willed it so. And just as Hashem blinded the security teams at the Gaza border on October 7^th, He fooled what people consider the world’s toughest bodyguards. All the security personnel, with all their plans, their guns and their many precautions, are useless when Hashem decides that He wants something to happen.

There will undoubtedly be people who will come up with other reasons for the breakdown of the protective wall, but nobody will be able to explain why the bullet that was directed at Mr. Trump’s lower brain did not hit its target. For had Hashem not turned Mr. Trump’s head as the bullet raced towards him, it would have likely hit the brain stem area which regulates heart and lung function and he would have been killed. Hashem had him turn his head seconds before the bullet hit his ear. Had his head not been turned, the man a majority of Americans are supporting for president would have been history. He would have been gone.

Donald Trump is alive today because of a miracle. There is no doubt about it. And Trump, in his statement to supporters Sunday morning, admitted so, saying, “It was G-d alone who prevented the unthinkable from happening.”

Once again, we are reminded that while there is such a thing as teva, nature, everything that happens in this world is because Hashem wills it so. This should be comforting to us in these tumultuous times, when we never know what the day will bring. We hear of unspeakable tragedies, of young people losing their lives suddenly, leaving grieving families behind.

Not to equate the two, but people are having a historically difficult time providing for their families. Food, rent, homes, cars, insurance, tuition, and other basic needs have risen so much over the past three years that people are choking and have nowhere to turn for assistance, for help, for a way out of the quagmire they are in.

To be reminded that everything that happens is from Hashem is most comforting and indicates that there is a reason for this and a light at the end of the dark tunnel.

The Chovos Halevavos writes that the person who maintains faith in Hashem has the benefit of calmness, for he knows that everything that happens is from Hashem, and therefore there is no reason for him to be nervous, agitated, or ruffled. Through emunah and bitachon, a person understands that everything that happens to him is from Hashem and He assists those who have proper faith.

The Maharal in Gur Aryeh in last week’s parsha takes it a step further and writes that through emunah and bitachon, a person achieves simcha, happiness.

The Chazon Ish states that a person can be experiencing the greatest tragedy and still be in a state of happiness. Perhaps he arrived at this from a study of the Maharal. Someone who has proper emunah and bitachon knows that everything that is happening, whether it appears to be good or not, emanates from a loving Father who cares for him. Therefore, not only is there no reason for sadness, but there is much reason for happiness.

Yes, it is easier said than done, but it is something to strive towards, a goal for us to aim for so that we can be calmer and happier, despite whatever we are experiencing or have experienced in the past. We learn that trauma is not a harsh sentence, but rather a nisayon, a surmountable bump in the road of life.

We get there by studying the classic seforim written to provide support and guide us, such as Chovos Halevavos, Mesilas Yeshorim, and the like. There is an abundance of shiurim and meforshim on these seforim, and we would do ourselves well to use the summer downtime to connect to the inner soul and essence of our being.

Why are we here and what does Hashem want of us?

If all we do is gripe and complain, then we are no different than the Jews in the desert who never missed an opportunity to fret that Hashem took them out of Mitzrayim and brought them to the midbar to kill them, starve them, or cause them to die of thirst. Although they had benefitted greatly from Hashem’s kindness, they always found something to complain about, and whenever they thought something had gone wrong, they assumed that their end was near. We learn the parshiyos of Bamidbar and wonder how the people could be so shortsighted and forgetful of all the good in their lives.

We must learn from their lessons to always remember that no matter what is going on in our lives or what went on, Hashem is looking after us and is doing the best for us. It may not always be evident or obvious, but if we look for the good, we will find it. With proper emunah and bitachon, we can be joyful in otherwise stressful situations and overcome tragedy, sadness, bad days, and bad people.

May we all merit the ultimate joy with the coming of Moshiach speedily in our day.

On Logic

By Rabbi Pinchos Lipschutz

The United States is currently facing something it has never previously faced. Its presidential elections are several months away, and its president, who is also his party’s candidate for president, is senile. No, he didn’t just now become senile. He has been slipping for several years, likely even prior to his election to his current term. The more astute citizens were able to perceive that Joe Biden, the candidate in 2020 and president since 2021, is not operating at full capacity.

The media and his fellow politicians have been hiding the president’s condition from the American people. His administration governed following a leftist agenda, embedding it deeply into American governance, culture, and society. Expressing the truth about the president and his abilities risked the return of Donald Trump and his traditionalism and America First agenda.

Journalism today is less about objective reporting and more about framing occurrences to advance agendas and objectives. So, when there were clips of the president demonstrably weakened, saying silly things, or speaking gibberish and displaying that he was in decline, the right-wing media reported on them while the prevailing mainstream media, whose objective is to advance social progressivism, ignored them.

Biden was kept hidden from the general population. Sometimes they would trot him out to read speeches or comments from cards or a teleprompter, but he would rarely interface with people for long and didn’t engage in small talk. Invariably, when he did, he would say something foolish, wrong, or incomprehensible.

He would meet with leaders and dignitaries and read his comments from cards. It was poor form for foreign leaders to tell anyone that the president wasn’t with it. At summits, everyone would play along and cover for the American president. Liberalism was enabled to govern and lead the country and the world.

Generally, the gambit worked, and when the media and Democrat politicians were unable to ignore the instances, they blamed them on the right and said that the right-wing media was dishonestly editing clips to portray a healthy, sharp, vigorous president as incoherent and weak.

But the campaign messed up. They believed their own narratives about Donald Trump and assumed that, in an early debate, he would expose himself to the world for the madman they told everyone he is. The country would see that he is insane and wants to be a dictator. They would be rid of him once and for all.

But the tables were turned, and even after a full week of rest and preparation, their candidate could not perform. He spoke in incomplete sentences, was unclear and unfocused, and at times made absolutely no sense at all. There was no way to sugarcoat what 50 million people saw with their own eyes in real time. So instead of Trump being exposed, Biden was. And the jig was up.

Once they realized that, everyone who had been covering for Biden ran for cover. Then they made it seem as if they were surprised. They knew that if permitted to run for reelection as their candidate, Biden would lose, and the liberal enterprise they had going would implode. With little choice, they began sacrificing their man and playing up the incompetent woman he had chosen to serve as his vice president, hoping that they would be able to do for her what they did for him and convince the low-information voters to vote for her and then carry her over the finish line.

They say that their campaign is all about democracy, yet here they go and seek to upend the results of a primary in which Democrat voters across this country voted that Mr. Biden should be the Democrat nominee for president. However, because they fear that he will lose, they are now preparing to do something that was never done before and simply disgorge the democratically chosen candidate for president. Then they tell us that they are the ones fighting for democracy and Trump is the dictator. The media is gleefully formulating and driving this instead of simply reporting what others are saying and doing.

The process is now playing out, and it is an eis tzorah l’Yaakov. The left has now gained power in England and France. Should there be elections anytime soon in Israel, al pi derech hateva, the left will win. Should the left somehow be able to hang on to power here, expect the world to seriously tip to leftist positions and the cultural slide will continue at a faster pace. Western support for Israel can seriously decline, as that country goes through an anti-religious crusade.

Where does that leave us? How are we to live our lives in a period such as the one we now face? Should we engage in outreach, attempting to explain the Torah to those who mock and vilify us? Should we demonstrate the truths that have been guiding us ever since we stood at Har Sinai? After all, we are in the 21^st century now. Perhaps we should be using modern tools to explain to the world how wrong they are about us. Maybe they hate us because we have a marketing problem.

This week’s parsha opens with the high ideal we are to live with: “Zos chukas haTorah adam ki yomus ba’ohel.” This is the way of the Torah: If you wish to be a student of the Torah, you need to be consumed by it, without giving consideration to physical desires. To grow in Torah and kedusha, it is essential to avoid activities that do not contribute to spiritual growth.

The first Rashi of the parsha quotes the Medrash Tanchuma, which states that the Soton and nations of the world mock us and ask for the rationale of this mitzvah. Therefore, says Rashi, the Torah spells out that Parah Adumah is a chok, a gezeirah min haShomayim, and we do not ask questions about it.

The nations of the world, and those who mock us and attempt to steer us from the path of our forefathers, question us and our practices. They say that the mitzvos are backward and without reason. We don’t answer them. We don’t try to explain it to them. We reinforce to ourselves that we are following the word of Hashem, which is a chok. This way, we are able to succeed and flourish in a world of sheker.

A lion once encountered a chicken and began to choke it. “Why are you trying to kill me?” the chicken called out to the lion. “I never hurt you. You don’t know me. Why are you doing this to me?”

The lion looked at the poor little chicken it held in its grasp and responded, “Do you know why I am doing this? Because I can!”

For thousands of years, that was how the nations of the world treated us. They tortured and tormented us. They questioned our loyalty and intelligence. They asked us many questions. The Torah tells us not to bother answering and not to engage in debates. They are not interested in our answers and explanations; we gain nothing by engaging them.

Besides, the ways of the Torah do not lend themselves to mortal explanation. We accept its teachings, chukim as well as mishpotim, because we acknowledge that we are bound to the bond of Torah living, which goes beyond what the world considers reason and logic. The Torah was presented to us by the Creator of the heavens and the earth, the world and all the constellations. He gave it to us and we promised to study and observe it.

We have been dedicating our lives to following its teachings for thousands of years and have been spending our spare time delving into it and working to know and understand its teachings. The Torah and the life it instructs do not lend themselves to simple, one-sided explanations, for it is only those who are sworn to its allegiance and subscribe to what has been handed down for dozens of generations who can excel in it and gain differing levels of comprehension.

Torah is more than a compendium of laws that can be memorized and followed.

A community was facing a crisis, and a group of well-intentioned people held several long meetings to discuss the issues involved and formulate a solution to the problem. After spending much time on this, they believed that they had arrived at a resolution. They met with local rabbonim for their approval. The proposed solution was impressive and sensible, and the rabbis went along with it. However, since this took place in the time of Rav Elazar Menachem Man Shach, one of them suggested that he would present the idea to Rav Shach for his final blessing.

Surprisingly, upon hearing the plan, Rav Shach immediately shot it down. He said, “I saw from the Chofetz Chaim that this solution is improper.”

The group who had worked so hard to solve the communal crisis was convinced that they had thoroughly analyzed the issue and arrived at a perfect solution. They were convinced that the reason Rav Shach didn’t go for it was because it wasn’t properly presented to him, so they arranged to go themselves and explain the problem and why their solution was most appropriate.

They were taken aback when Rav Shach told them that he could not agree with them. He explained that he would not get into a discussion with them about their ideas. It may be that your proposal is logical, but Klal Yisroel is not guided by the logical conclusions and thoughts of smart people; Klal Yisroel is led by mesorah, tradition.

“If the mesorah from the Chofetz Chaim is that we don’t pursue that avenue,” he explained, “then we don’t do it, no matter how smart it seems.”

He added that he had spent time with the Chofetz Chaim and discussed many issues with him, and this idea was not something the Chofetz Chaim would have supported. Therefore, despite its brilliance, it should not be implemented.

We face many problems and an uncertain future, but as we seek solutions, we must know that our people are not led by what is referred to as logic. We are led by the Torah, by the logic of the Torah as handed down through what we refer to as the mesorah.

No one, as smart as he thinks he is and as pressing as the issues are, has the ability to formulate plans that differ from our mesorah. Doing so fails to solve the problem and leads to more difficulties. Though the logic may be compelling, it is wrong.

So, when it appears that the kochos of tumah that the left promotes are gaining, the way we fight back is by increasing kedusha in the world. We are seriously impacted by what takes place around us. The leftists talk about climate change and preach that it threatens the world’s existence. Tumah is much more real than climate change and affects us significantly. It affects the underpinnings of the western world and country in which we live in many spiritual ways, and it also trickles down to us in our cloistered world. We are not immune to anything unless we immunize ourselves.

Hundreds of years ago, the Kotzker Rebbe closeted himself in his room. He famously commented to a chossid who opened the window to the room, “Der velt shtinked. Farmach dem fenster. Close the window and don’t allow the stench of the world into this room.”

How can we effectively close the windows to our homes, rooms, and offices?

How do we protect ourselves from the anti-Semitic and anti-Israel onslaught?

How do we protect ourselves from the anti-Torah forces in Eretz Yisroel?

For as long as people alive today can remember, gedolim such as the Chazon Ish and Rav Shach have been saying that the proper response to such situations is to add more yeshivos, more Bais Yaakovs, more elementary schools, and more kollelim. The way to respond to those who curse our existence, to those who seek to stem our growth and to the various festering issues, is by ignoring their calls and dedicating ourselves to increase our own study of Torah and to increase the study of Torah in general.

In our personal lives as well, when we are acting properly and people mock us and seek to harm us, our reputations, and things that we have worked hard to build up, our response shouldn’t be to get in the gutter with them. We should instead take the higher road and do our best to continue living our lives according to the Torah, halacha and darkei mussar.

We shouldn’t let detractors get us down and lead us to curtail our good actions. We should seek out seforim based on the Torah and mesorah to strengthen ourselves and give ourselves chizuk.

Life is tough enough without us stopping to engage with detractors of all types and fretting over the future.

Zos chukas haTorah: If we stick to the chukim of the Torah, follow the Torah no matter how difficult it is, and are honest, caring, and loving as the Torah tells us to be; if we act correctly according to the Torah, remain strong in our emunah and bitachon, and rely on the chochmas haTorah instead of our logic, then we are guaranteed that Hashem will protect us and do the best for us.

May we all merit to go in the ways of the Torah and mesorah, without falling prey to the many vices of the yeitzer hora to divert us from the proper path, which should lead us to Moshiach bekarov.

Leadership Lessons

By Rabbi Pinchos Lipschutz

To those who follow the news and have been following politics since the 2020 election, President Biden’s performance at last week’s debate came as no surprise. The confused man who wasn’t able to formulate coherent thoughts and seemed lost at times is the same man who was plucked from his fifth place finish in the New Hampshire Democrat primary and declared the official party candidate for president. He barely campaigned or left his Delaware home. While his campaign attributed the basement strategy to Covid, many suspected that the people who selected him as their candidate feared that if voters would be exposed to Joe Biden, they wouldn’t be able to vote for him. The gambit worked and Biden was sworn into office on Jan. 20, 2021.

As president, he basically remained detached from the people. He has held very few press conferences, and when he does, they are rehearsed and scripted, down to him calling on pre-selected reporters, whose names and photographs are clearly printed out for him on cards. There haven’t been interviews with national or local publications that may ask serious questions. He rarely, if ever, speaks off the cuff. Everything he says is either on a teleprompter or a card, and should he ever go off script, he gets in trouble for saying incorrect and silly things.

Every cabinet secretary and every government official who has come into contact with Joe Biden knows that he doesn’t have the mind necessary to make decisions and lead the country and the free world. Every time one of his emissaries went to Israel and said that the president said this or the president said that, it was a lie, because the president was plainly shown on Thursday night to be unable to think through an issue or present a coherent plan or statement unless it is placed in front of him by assistants.

The president’s performance in the debate was so bad that all the king’s horses and all the king’s men feared that they would never again be able to portray Joe Biden as an effective, strong, and respected leader. They panicked that the truth was out and the jig was up. The people had seen the truth about Biden’s abilities and would never vote for him again. The marionettes would have to pull Biden from the race and find someone who could defeat former President Trump in the November election.

Twenty-four hours later, they had thought it through, and word came down from on high that “we are sticking with Biden and doing what we have done until now. If everyone sticks together, we will be able to pull this off and get Joe Biden reelected. We will project Joe as a resolute, strong leader who had one bad debate performance, and we’ll get the leading Democrats to line up behind him with expressions of support and portray Trump as a liar and convicted felon. We can make it work.”

The question is: How can the leaders of a major political party, which represents fewer than half of Americans, support keeping an ineffective president in office? How could people who saw the same thing as everyone else who was watching deny the obvious fact and work to keep a weak and feeble person in the most important position in the world?

An examination of this week’s parsha will help us understand their mindset. We study the archetypical machlokes, which Chazal point to when describing a machlokes shelo lesheim Shomayim. We learn how Korach, a cousin of Moshe Rabbeinu, led a revolution against his leadership. Although he had been considered a righteous person, Korach acted as a politician, using cunning to spin the people against Moshe Rabbeinu and Aharon Hakohein. Using demagoguery, he portrayed Moshe as heartless and cruel to the poor, forcing people to do silly things, such as putting tzitzis and techeiles on a tallis shekulo techeiles. With deceit and sleight of mouth, he was able to gather around him serious leaders of the Jewish people and present a serious challenge to Moshe’s leadership.

That Doson and Avirom rallied to Korach’s side should have given away that something had happened to Korach that affected his judgment. Still, the 250 nesi’ei ha’eidah were convinced to go against everything they had stood for until then and join the revolution to topple Moshe.

How can people be so foolish? How can people who saw how the Jewish people were Divinely freed from Mitzri servitude through Moshe forget what they had seen and experienced? How could people who stood at the foot of Har Sinai as Moshe went up to Heaven and returned with the Luchos turn their back on him?

Rav Moshe Mordechai Shulsinger, in his sefer Peninei Avi Ezri, quotes a letter that the Steipler Gaon wrote him. In it, he says, “Because Korach was insulted that he wasn’t chosen to be a nosi, he became angry at Moshe, and to get even with Moshe and topple him, he became a kofer, a scoffer, and began to find things to complain about.”

How did this happen? Because, explains the Steipler, when the bad middos of a person are in control, his intelligence and ability to think clearly are compromised, and then negios set in.

Korach was blinded and hindered by his negios. His desire for personal advancement grew out of his jealousy of Moshe and Aharon. He was able to convince the great men of Klal Yisroel to join him in his rebellion, for it wasn’t only Korach who was subsumed by jealousy; the others were as well. They all wanted the “big job.” Their jealousy of Moshe and Aharon so clouded their understanding that they forgot what they had just been through with the meraglim, as well as everything that Moshe had done for them and the many times Hashem addressed the Bnei Yisroel through Moshe and Aharon. Their mental acuity was compromised, overtaken by their lust for power.

When people don’t learn mussar, they lose their hold on their middos, which become progressively worse. Bad middos lead a person to think highly of himself and pursue kavod, honor. He becomes overwhelmed by his desire for kavod and his jealousy of others who people honor and respect. His desire becomes a need, and his jealousy becomes outright hatred of others. His bad middos take him over and destroy him. That is what happened to Korach.

Motivated by his desire for honor, prestige, and power, Korach was able to mislead his many followers by peddling empty, disingenuous arguments. His follower, Ohn Ben Peles, was saved from the fate of Adas Korach by his wife. When he informed his wife that he had joined Korach’s revolution against Moshe, she did not engage in a debate with him. As he told her of Korach’s arguments against Moshe, she sat silently and did not respond to anything he said. She quickly understood Korach’s motivation for his revolution and why her husband joined with him. She promptly got to work to save her husband from the mess that she knew would result from battling Moshe.

She said to Ohn, “What will you gain by getting involved in this machlokes and following Korach? You won’t gain anything! You’ll be the same simple person with the same job and low position in life whether Moshe wins or Korach wins. Why are you jeopardizing your life and everything else for Korach?” She won the day and saved her husband’s life.

Now, if the dispute was over the issues that Korach had presented, of what use was her argument? Ohn should have responded to his wife and admonished her for what she told him. “How could you tell me to drop out of the campaign for Korach? Moshe is corrupt. He did so many things wrong. The laws he presents don’t make any sense. We are engaged in a serious battle over ideology. You are undermining the revolution.”

But Ohn’s wife was a wise woman. She knew that the root of Korach’s insurgency was neither halacha nor hashkofah. Nor was it about fairness and integrity. It was about his negia, about jealousy. Everyone in Korach’s eidah, including her husband, was motivated by their negia, their jealousy over other people’s attainments and their desire to achieve power. Therefore, she addressed his negia and not his intellectual arguments.

Rav Elozor Menachem Man Shach would explain that the power of daas Torah is that those who possess it are free of negios. They have no personal investment in what they are called to rule upon. Their only negia is to the truth. They study Torah, and Torah overtakes them and transforms them. All their decisions and actions are guided by Torah, not by their middos. They are possessed by a love of Torah and Am Yisroel.

The appetite for leadership positions is an outgrowth of insufficient humility coupled with a lack of belief in Hashem. One who is immersed in Torah and maasim tovim, and reinforces himself with mussar study, doesn’t crave attention and praise from the masses, for he knows that mortal praise and adulation are fleeting and meaningless. The eternal accolades are those that he aims for. Hashem has the ability to reward him for his actions and to properly respect him and his actions.

So many of our gedolim shunned recognition and publicity until Hashem thrust them into leadership positions.

The Chazon Ish studied alone and interacted with few people. When he settled in Bnei Brak, there were few Torah Jews living there. As the post-Holocaust Olam HaTorah grew, the Chazon Ish would have to assume a leadership role, which he did, becoming a prime mover behind the establishment of the Israeli Torah community as we now know it.

Rav Elozor Menachem Man Shach was known as a person with no interest outside of learning and teaching Torah, and the welfare of his talmidim. When the passing of numerous Torah leaders left a leadership void, the man who knew only Torah stepped out of his zone of comfort and, in his older years, led the generation to unprecedented heights.

When Rav Shach felt his strength ebbing, he turned to another person with no outside interests, Rav Yosef Shalom Elyashiv, whose life revolved strictly around his learning, and literally forced upon him the mantle of leadership.

Lehavdil, the Democrats are the exact opposite. They knew that President Biden was diminished and incapable of leading the country, but he was their ticket to power, so they lied about him to the people and pushed him over the finish line. They hid him from the people and manipulated the strings of power. All of them, from Dr. Jill on down, don’t care about the people, or the country, or the world. They care only about themselves.

They say that their campaign is about democracy, but instead of going after him the democratic way, they have been doing everything in their considerable power to make sure that Donald Trump doesn’t return to the White House. Not because they care about democracy, but because they are motivated by their need for power, and if he returns, they will all lose their power.

Their negia for power causes them to perceive everything in a twisted fashion, and they collude with the media to convince more than half the country that they represent leadership and decency and honor, and that their opponent is just the opposite.

Their desire for honor and power led them to attempt to destroy Trump through many different ways, from alleging that he colluded with Russia to impeaching him twice, and lately seeking to tie him up in court with charges never previously brought against a former president. Their negios prevent them from seeing the incongruity.

They selected Biden to be their man and propped him up as a leader. They hid him from the people and have had the media portray him as forceful and precise when he is anything but.

It’s easy to learn the parsha and then look at the hapless Democrats and mock them, but it is a lot more important and a lot harder to learn the parsha and then look at ourselves and examine how we act and what motivates us.

Each week, when we learn the parsha, we should seek out the lessons it contains for us in our day. When we learn Parshas Korach, it should prompt us to keep our middos in check and ensure that our motivations for what we do are proper. We should be reminded that humility is the most important middah. The more humble we are and the less we seek power, attention, and recognition, the safer we will be and the more we will accomplish.

By following the Torah and Moshe, without getting involved with the arguments and attacks of people who have strayed from the truth, we will earn benefit for ourselves and the world, helping prepare us all for the coming of Moshiach.