Ki Tissa Drash 5786

Three weeks ago, in Parashat Mishpatim, we read how the Jews reached the highest of the high, communing with Gcd A-lmighty at Mount Sinai, hearing the Ten Commandments from the mouth of Gcd Himself, and declaring with one voice and one heart, “Na’aseh v’Nishmah,” we will perform and listen to these commandments.”

This week, we read how the Jews fell to the lowest of the low. Just a few weeks later, the Jews were worshiping and prancing around the golden calf like drunken Druids around a maypole.

[Um, sidebar: one of them thar Ten Commandments is a pretty clear prohibition against worshiping idols.]

There was an Israeli comedian who talked about the enormous respect Sephardic Jews have for their rabbis. But, he continued, “when the rabbi isn’t looking…” 

When the rabbi wasn’t looking, the Israelites of old whatever they wanted. So we blew it big time. 

Moses, meanwhile, is oblivious to all this. He’s up at the summit of Mount Sinai, enveloped as it was in fire and fog, faithfully transcribing the Torah from Gcd. The dictation suddenly stops, and Gcd says to Moses: “Go. Descend, because the people that you brought up from Egypt have ruined [our relationship]; they have quickly veered from the path that I commanded them, and fashioned for themselves a calf-idol, and are worshiping it and offering sacrifices to it, saying ‘These are your gods, O Israel, that brought you up from the land of Egypt.’” (32:7,8)

Rashi, the greatest of biblical exegetes, quotes the gemara Berachot on page 32: 

Gcd says to Moses, ‘descend from your position of greatness, for I only made you great because of them.’ At the very moment that the Jews began worshiping the idol, Moses was cast out before the Heavenly Court.

Rashi speaks across the centuries to tell us something fundamental about the nature of leadership: that leaders are, at best, a reflection of the people they lead.

Most Americans are dissatisfied with their political leaders. Congressional approval ratings hover around 8% – 9%. The odd thing about that statistic is that if you ask people about the satisfaction with their own congressman, the approval ratings are very high. So people hate congress but love their congressman. Go figure. 

And let’s not talk about presidential politics. No matter who holds the White House, Democrat or Republican, half of America will love him, and the other half will surely hate him.

Politicians will do and say anything – and I mean anything – to score points against their political opponents. Politics is no longer about responsible governance; it has become a bloodsport; maybe it always has been. To be sure, in our nation’s capital, there is no shortage of screaming and divisive rhetoric; boatloads of bombast, mudslinging, jingoism and sloganeering – on both sides of the aisle. And no doubt there is an obscene amount of money changing hands. But is there any great demonstration of leadership? of vision? of virtue? Of self-sacrifice on the part of politicians for the greater good of the nation?

Maybe we’re looking through the wrong end of the telescope: the Talmud is suggesting that instead of expecting more of our leaders, we should be expecting more of ourselves, of our society, of our culture. Maybe we have no right to expect better of our leaders until we demand better of ourselves. Politicians are merely a reflection, a cross-section, of who we are as a culture.

Perhaps if we hold ourselves to a higher standard of morality and ethics, we will have more ethical politicians. Perhaps if we hold ourselves to a higher standard of personal integrity, we will have more honest politicians. And perhaps if we hold ourselves to a higher standard of civility, we will have more civil political discourse.

The Torah is saying that virtuous cultures generate virtuous leaders, not the other way around. That is the takeaway of “Lech Reyd.”

At least we have the ability to change ourselves and, if need be, our leaders.

For almost 50 years, the Iranian people have been denied the right to elect virtuous leaders. The murderous regime of the Ayatollahs are responsible for the deaths of almost 1,000 American servicemen, thousands of Jews in Israel and around the world, and tens of thousands of their own people.

Since at least the 18th century, diplomats and politicians have prioritized stability over security. The mantra in Europe for hundreds of years was the idea of a ‘Balance of Powers;’ if the status quo could be maintained, so the thinking went, the prospects of war were diminished.

Even after the devastating failure of diplomacy that led to World War I, with its 20 million corpses and every European young man between the ages of 20 and 40 dead, the diplomats pressed on undeterred. Maintaining the status quo was foremost on Neville Chamberlain’s mind when he offered Czechoslovakia on a platter to Hitler at Munich. He may have been trying to maintain the balance of powers in Europe, but we have another name for it – appeasement.

Even in 2024, after the October Massacre, the world was calling for Israel not to destroy the Hamas savages, but rather, return to the status quo. And those same spineless voices call today for restraint against Iran and the preservation of the murderous regime, all in the name of the stability provided by the status quo. 

Predictably, on February 28th, 2026, the world was again calling on the combatants to restore the status quo: The Axis of Evil, including Iran and all its Jihadi proxies, against the interests of the West. Sure, the occasional oil tanker is commandeered by Islamists; sure, the occasional Jew dies from rocket and missile attacks coming from Gaza or Lebanon [by the way, over 5,100 Jewish civilians have been murdered at the hands of the Jihadis since the founding of the State in 1948.]; sure, JCCs are blown up in Argentina. But that is a small price to pay to maintain the status quo, right? After all, it’s only Jews we’re talking about…

But there has been a fundamental pivot. Israel and the United States have finally rejected the concept of stability through the Balance of Powers. We now seek, not stability, but genuine, enduring security through enlightened leadership. And the unavoidable path to that security is through the disruptions of war, uprooting forces of evil that are responsible for rivers of human blood. And ritual rape. And torture and genocide. Itbach al Yahud! Slaughter the Jews!

The world has come to confuse stability with security. But today, political stability is now at war with the imperative of enduring security.

Last week, we studied the text which commands us to wage war against frank evil. There is no grey area as it pertains to the Iranian regime. And today, we are fighting that war.

A war to the finish is the only means to achieve the goal of permanent security. We are fighting against religious fanatics, who will happily die to the last man and take as many innocent civilians as they can with them. We will see this war to its natural conclusion – every Islamist dead and the noble country of Iran returned to the hands of the Iranian people.  And don’t worry – Hamas is next up.

The prophets of Israel predicted an apocalyptic war between the forces of good and the forces of evil which would herald the messianic age. Are we in the midst of that war? I don’t know; I am just a humble pulpit rabbi. But this could well be the beginning of it. 

But I do know this: this is the most righteous war the United States of America has fought since the fall of Hitler in 1945.

When the dust finally settles, the people of Israel – the Children of Israel – will live within secure borders for the first time since the Divine restoration of Jewish Sovereignty in the Land of Israel. 

As George Washington famously said to the Jews of Newport Rhode Island, “every man shall sit in safety under his own vine and under his own fig tree”—derived from Micah 4:4—to symbolize peace, religious freedom, and the desire for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. He mentioned this biblical imagery over 30 times during his lifetime to represent a secure, agrarian life, free from fear.

To be sure, war has horrific costs; but as Rav kook once said: war has a way of defining our values. What is important enough to fight for? What is important enough to die for? Our families? Our homesteads? Our values? Our nation? Our G-d? 

The Jewish People and the American People have decided what those values are.

It is reflected in a prayer that we recite in the High Holiday liturgy: 

“And so, too, will the righteous see and be glad; the upright will exult; and the devout will be mirthful with glad song. Iniquity will close its mouth, and all wickedness shall evaporate like smoke on the day that You remove the domination of Evil from the earth.”

May we merit virtuous leaders and live to see the fruits of this historic struggle, speedily in our days, Amen.

Shabbat Shalom.