WE WILL RESPOND WITH OUR CORE

Everyone is horrified beyond words at the unthinkable mass murders committed on Simchat Torah in Israel by Hamas, inside our country, across a dreadfully unprotected southern Israel — a valiant southern Israel where our people fought against impossible odds against an enemy.

We Were Shaken to the Core; We will Respond with Our Core.

Since the Holocaust we never had so many Jews killed in one day. Yet it also differs from the Nazis, because the Jews now thank G-d have a country and, while shocked and horrified by what has befallen us, resurrected the unified will, to protect ourselves and root out the cancel of terror and sadism.

President Biden said this week: I visited Israel 50 years ago. Golda Meir revealed to me the secret weapon of the Jewish people. She said: We have no other place in the world to go to!

The enemy wanted to sow fear and panic into our hearts. It wanted Jews to be paralyzed by fear, broken, and depressed. So, our first responsibility is to lift our morale as Jews and to lift the morale of our sisters and brothers in the Holy Land and in the entire world. They aimed to destroy our Simchat Torah—our joy of life and of Judaism, our joy of Torah, and our connection to Israel, and to our history. So now we need to create Simchat Torah every day—to celebrate as Jews with our Torah, our land, and our people, every day, every hour, every minute.

Yossi Landau, who has volunteered with Zaka for 38 years, shared: “The 20 children we saw in Kibbutz Be’eri were beyond terrible. [The terrorists] had bound their hands behind them. Abused them terribly. And simply put them one on top of the other and burned them. How can you do  such a thing?”

Israelis and Jews do not easily issue comparisons between our reality and the era of the Nazis and the Holocaust. Yet we’ve been making those comparisons this week. Hamas differs from the Nazis, in that it has not yet been able to organize still greater killing, and in the frenzy with which it massacres us, but not in its declared and proven genocidal intent.

Since the Holocaust we never had so many Jews killed in one day: more than 1300, more than 300 were wounded, and more than 200 were kidnapped and held in Gaza.

And then there is the Tzitzit story:

During Simchat Torah, Guy, off duty at the time, heard what happened, jumped into a police car, and together with some other soldiers headed south, along the way killing several terrorists and evacuating a wounded comrade.

As bullets flew from all directions, they too were not spared. Wounded in the legs but undeterred, they sought refuge in a ditch, fiercely defending their position while waiting for others to come.

When Israeli forces finally discovered him, he was lying there surrounded by 20 dead terrorists, leading to the Israelis mistaking him for one of them. But he lacked the strength to even proclaim  his identity and they were about to shoot him until someone cried out: "WAIT, he's wearing TZITZIT, he's Jewish!"

They then swiftly evacuated him to safety and brought him to a hospital where he was now healing, resting, and recovering.

This past Thursday, October 12, 2023, there was a demonstration at Duke University, supporting Hamas, blaming Israel for what has occurred. A Jewish professor, completely secular, heard about it, and emotionally outraged, began screaming at the top of his lungs: You are speaking like Nazis, Nazis, Nazis. To the point that the police escorted him away.

Sometime later he came to deliver his lecture in the University. Before he began a young woman approached him and presented him with a bouquet of flowers. She said: “I was so proud of what you did at that hateful really; here is a sign of appreciation and gratitude.”

The professor asked her if she was Jewish. She said no. “Why then do you care so much? She said: “Because you are the chosen people.”

The professor said to her: But you have been in my class for a long time. You know that I do not believe in any of that!

She said to him: You may not believe it, but we all know it!

As we grieve, and we fight, this is also a time to feel proud to be part of a people so holy, so beautiful, and great.

How do I know that we are great? When I see that the evilest people loathe us, this means we must be so good and holy to trigger such hatred from such despots.

When we see who hates us as a people—groups, cultures, and nations who find glee in burning children alive—it allows us to appreciate the depth of our goodness and holiness.

This reminds us how special we are, and what a special nation we have. If Hamas wants to murder every single Jewish child, this means that in every Jewish child and in every Jew there is infinite holiness, goodness,  love, and Divinity!

And this is the time to rise from the ashes and proclaim with every fiber of our being: that the people of Israel live stronger than ever. Every one of us is a soldier on the front lines, as ambassadors of the Jewish people, each one using our unique capabilities.

Every Jew in the world was called up to duty this past Simchat Torah. We are all soldiers. An army has many divisions, so find out which division you are in—and go conquer! Do it with joy, faith, confidence courage, and resolve. Because that is what we need above all else.

For me, this is so moving and sad. If you watched the demonstrations this week at Harvard, Duke, NYU, Stanford, the most sophisticated universities in the country, and many other universities— you have seen the horror: Jewish kids, our own kids, standing with antisemites, protesting against Israel, supporting Hamas.

Our universities failed us. Secular education devoid of the Torah is dangerous. Places of higher learning teaching people to think freely have turned out to be the  most morally impoverished and depraved places on earth, where kids are taught to defend rape and torture. Where Hamas are tzaddikim and Israel is evil.

Hamas uses their children as shields and then Israel is blamed for killing children. The depravity is surreal. It would be like blaming America and England for the casualties in Berlin in 1945.

Remember this. You need to educate your children at home, give them Yiddishkeit, sanity, morality, G-d, right from wrong, and Mitzvot. The collages are dangerous places—do not rely on them, do not trust them. This is the time to commit to giving our kids a Jewish education, because once they enter the university, if they are not super strong, they might become your nightmare.

The most famous holocaust survivor’s own grandson needed such a tragedy to teach him about Jewish pride?!

We were shaken to the core; we will respond with our core.

Am Yisrael Chai—and may we witness the transformation of darkness into light with a complete and speedy redemption, with all of our people, of all generations, first and foremost the holiest of the holy, killed only for being Jewish, celebrating for eternity.

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Yoseph Geisinsky