Dvar Torah

Parshat Yitro 5786

In this parsha we are given our National Mission by Hashem. Right before we received the Torah at Mount Sinai, the entire Jewish People were called upon by G-d to be a Kingdom of Priests and a Hallowed Nation.

A Kingdom of Priests.

We learn how priests are to behave (and not behave) by the lessons of Aaron and his sons as presented primarily in the Book of Leviticus. But what does this parallel language actually mean to us, today, in the real world? How do we execute on the idea of being a Kingdom of Priests and a Holy Nation?

In the same way that the Cohanim ministered to G-d on behalf of the Jewish People, the mission of the Jewish People is to minister to G-d on behalf of all the other peoples of the world. In the same way that the Cohanim/Levi’im were the teachers of the Jewish People, so, too, are the Jews the light-bringers to the Nations. And in the same way that the Cohanim had specific mitzvot that were not incumbent upon other Jews, so, too, do the Jews have mitzvot that are not incumbent upon the other Peoples.

Were the Cohanim “superior” or “better” than other Jews by virtue of their service? No. They simply have a different role to play; a unique voice in the complex fugue that is the Jewish Mission. Are Jews intrinsically “superior” human beings than other people? We are not. But we have a different role to play; a role that requires the careful and enthusiastic observance of the Torah’s 613 mitzvot. 

To be a Kingdom of Priests is to agitate for a world where all people come to recognize that all good emanates from Hashem, Creator of heaven and earth, the Eternal One, G-d of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the One who wants for us only good. (As we say in our prayers, HaTov Shimcha, Your Name is Goodness.) It is to sensitize people to the idea that the natural state of the human soul, the spark of the Divine, is to connect with its Source and be at peace with it – both Jew & Gentile. This idea is reflected in another prayer, the Kedusha – Nikadesh et shimcha b’olam – we will sanctify Your Name in this world, just as the angels sanctify Your Name in the Heavenly Realms.

The Jewish Mission is to unite mankind in the recognition that the One True Compassionate G-d created us all, Who loves us all, has assigned each to one of us a specific task in the great and holy work – our common goal – of perfecting the world together. 

Jewish liberals, who have discarded authentic Torah values, have substituted in their place jingoisms like ‘social justice’ as the Jewish National Mission. For these Jews, “Tikkun Olam” has morphed into “redistribution of wealth” and, broadly speaking, the communistic agenda of the far left. 

The authentic Jewish urging is not an appeal to socialism, or feminism, or gay rights, or gun control, or immigration policy, or any other over-exploited, feel-good political agenda, but rather a clarion call to genuine goodness and to compassion; a call to the heart that penetrates the layers of cynicism and transcends the superficial. It is a call to Truth and service and love. 

A Kingdom of Priests: another aspect of our universal calling is that, unlike faiths that threaten eternal damnation to non-believers, we proclaim the inclusive, universal message that G-d accepts all good people in heaven (i.e., keepers of the basic elements of human justice and compassion as embodied in the Seven Noahide Laws), irrespective of race, creed, or color. There is no place in G-d’s world for racism or exclusion. 

A Kingdom of Priests and a Holy Nation: The very survival of the faithful remnant of Yisrael, the nation that bears His name within its own, is empirical proof that G-d exists, and that He keeps His word, and that His Torah is true. 

And G-d apportioned the land of Israel to the people of Israel. The return of the Jews, a mere sliver of a people, to this mere sliver of a land, our ancestral homeland Israel, in defiance of every historical imperative but in complete fulfillment of Biblical prophecy, proves that He keeps His word, and that His Torah is true. The Torah is our deed, and the restoration of the Jewish commonwealth is fundamental to the fulfillment of the Jewish Mission.

Israel is in the headlines every day – out of all proportion to her size (she ranks about 125th in size out of 180 countries) and population (100/180). The Torah says that it is the place that Hashem watches “from the beginning of the year to the end of the year”; so, apparently, does the rest of the world. Why? Yerushalayim and the Har HaBayit (Temple Mount) are the spiritual epicenter of the world, as the place chosen by Hashem for His Name to dwell there. The Jewish/Arab conflict in the Middle East is not about the relative merits of Jew or Arab to live on the land; there is enough land in what was once known as “Palestine” for all. Rather, the ongoing war in Israel is the fulcrum of the intellectual/spiritual conflict between the worldviews that oppose G-d’s rule on earth, and its manifestation through the miraculous return of the Jews to the Land.

As reflected in Psalm 93, a sovereign Israel is a threat to the adherents of Christian & Moslem replacement theologies; it shakes their worldviews to the foundations. The continued survival of the Jew puts the lie to his system of beliefs. The destruction of the State of Israel and the re-expulsion of the Jews are critical to the supersessionist worldviews, in order to correct the “aberration” of kibutz galuyot, the Ingathering of the Exiles. Therefore, all efforts to hobble and constrict the State of Israel, to push her back to indefensible borders, to murder Jewish women and children, especially new immigrants, are important milestones toward their ultimate goal. But Israel and the settlement enterprise will endure because it is the mitzvah she’kol ha’mitzvot t’luyin bah (i.e., living in the Land of Israel is the mitzvah upon which every other mitzvah is predicated). Witness the miracles in the battles of 1948, 1967, 1973, 2024. Nowhere in any of  the Books of the Prophets does it say that Hashem will return us to our land – only to be driven into exile again.

Disparate and difficult headlines – Iranian nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, increasing worldwide anti-semitism, assimilation and intermarriage, the global jihad, the Vatican’s unceasing call to wrest Jerusalem from Jewish control, the multi-front war against Israel, the prying away of Eretz Yisrael from the Jews by degrees, the blackmail of the Petrodollar, particularly tainted Qatari money, can all be cohesively understood through the prism of Geulat Yisrael, the Ultimate Redemption. The vested interests of the status quo will stop at nothing, including, terror, coercion and mass murder, to prevent the realization of the Jewish Mission. Such people cannot be reasoned with; the intellectual battle can only be engaged.

Our gentile friends must decide on which side of history they wish to be aligned. It is most notable that 11 million American Evangelicals intuitively support Israel and the Jewish claims to the Land, because they believe the Scriptural promise of G-d to Abraham and his descendants: mivarechicha baruch, um’kallelecha arur (Those who bless you will be blessed, and those who curse you will be cursed and all the peoples of the Earth will be blessed through you. – Genesis 12:3). They also understand that through the Redemption of Israel will come the redemption of all peoples. G-d bless them and may their numbers increase.

So we have seen that our National Mission has a universalistic component, our charge as the Kingdom of Priests to minister and spread G-d’s oneness and light among the nations.

But in addition to our universalistic mission, we also have a particularistic mission: as a Holy Nation, to live apart from the Gentiles and their values; to live as proud Jews, devoted to the enthusiastic performance of the 613 mitzvot.

You might ask yourself: after years of going to synagogue, why have I not heard these ideas articulated before? The reason is simple: Since the year 135 CE, our diaspora existence has focused on the mere rudiments of existence. We had no opportunity to influence the world. And over time, most of our brethren lost sight of the bigger picture of our people. Over time, the leitmotif of survival dominated Jewish thinking. That survival mentality, critical in previous generations, is a serious impediment to the Ultimate Redemption.

Therefore, to our fellow Jews, we must agitate for an internal revolution. We must shed our reflexive survival mentality and cultivate a mindset of manhigut (spiritual leadership), and behave in a manner that reflects our noble calling. We must cultivate the absolute Ahavat Yisrael (Love of our Fellow Jew) so famously embodied by R’ Avraham Yitzhak HaCohen Kook, one of my intellectual heroes.

We must cultivate a mindset of mission, of a life of purpose, a life of destiny; if we can ignite the fire of youthful passion in the dissemination of all that is holy and good, of priesthood and of leadership, then it is virtually assured that our children and our children’s children will remain faithful to Judaism for all time. 

How do we light that fire in our children? By rekindling it in ourselves first.

We must shatter our own apathy and complacency; we must perform our mitzvot with passion and dedication, and strive to perceive the mission behind the mitzvah. We must read the words of the Siddur, the daily prayerbook, as if reading them for the very first time, every time, pregnant with impact and layered in meaning. 

Lastly, we must take a stand in the culture wars, and be the voice of Truth in a world of lies and falsehood. Wake up brothers and sisters! Why do we yet sleep? The world burns around us and we dither.

To rise to our calling as the Kingdom of Priests and a Holy Nation – the dual charges of universality and particularity – is to live for a far higher purpose than the craven pursuit of a comfortable life; of self-gratification and the next buzz. To be truly Jewish is nothing less than to have a hand in, and to make a signal contribution to, the salvation of the world.

And our shul, B’nai Israel Synagogue, has a significant role to play in the fulfillment of the Jewish Mission, both in Pensacola and far beyond.

May it be G-d’s will that we rise to the challenges of our times.

Shabbat Shalom.