Living Torah Archives

Much success in protecting the Land of Israel, as well as protecting the spiritual integrity of the Land of Israel. May the Jews in the Holy Land be protected, and by extension, the Jews all over the world. Good tidings, and happy holiday. (Collage)

If the Israel Defense Forces are to live up to their name, they must also be active in defending the fabric of Jewish life –Torah and mitzvos.

When Shmuel Blizinsky served in the Israel Defense Forces in the early 1950s, he was only able to find twelve religious soldiers on his entire base. As it turned out, the Rebbe was able to find three thousand. (1951)

The Israeli government must set its priorities in Operation “Peace for Galilee.” From the outset, the military experts made it clear that casualties could be minimized on both sides of the conflict by a swift operation, which could be over in days. Even the President of the US did not pressure Israel to do otherwise. But some politicians became afraid of their own inner insecurities.

The Talmud relates that King David and his general, Yoav Ben Tzeruya, supplemented each other. David was immersed in the study of Torah, while Yoav went out to battle.

Mr. Yosef Lautenberg was injured in the battle for Jerusalem in 1948, and among the founders of the IDF Disabled Veterans Organization. In 1976 he led the Israeli delegation, made up in large part of injured IDF veterans, to the Paralympics in Toronto, and decided to bring the group to New York to visit with the Rebbe.

In past generations, the numbers of one’s armies determined the outcome of war. Today, the quality of one’s forces far outweighs the significance of its numbers. This is true with regard to the technological superiority of weaponry, but, and even more so, the superiority of the soldiers themselves.

Recent generations have witnessed a paradigm shift in the art of warfare. Whereas it used to be the quantity of one’s soldiers and weaponry that deterred war or proved victory in the battlefield, today it is the quality of one’s arsenal that matters most. One technologically advanced weapon outweighs vast quantities of enemy manpower.