Love of the Land: Be Happy

Be Happy

And you shall rejoice in all the good that Hashem, your G-d has given you and your household, you and the Levi and the convert in your midst.
(From this week's Torah portion, Ki Tavo, Deuteronomy 26:11)

You got everything on a silver platter. You received a young state that triumphed over seven Arab armies and instilled fear in the hostile world around it. After that, you wondrously received Jerusalem and Biblical Israel. You received the Sinai and the oil fields in a victory that military experts defined as a "miracle of miracles." You received the Golan Heights and Mount Hermon. You received a burgeoning economy. Your enemies were destroyed. The terror organizations fled to Tunis in despair. Their leader was denied entry into the U.S. and many other western countries. You were internationally admired. All that you had to do was to rejoice in all the good that G-d had given you.

But you were not happy. All of these wonderful gifts forced you to face the truth of your national existence in the Land of Israel. The Temple Mount - where the rebuilt Temple should be standing - frightened you and you scurried out of there and desperately handed it over to your enemy, once again. You called Biblical Israel "territories" and since then you have done absolutely everything to get your enemy to take them back from you. You took the murderers who want to see all of you dead, who murdered your sons and daughters in cold blood, the terrorists that your Father in Heaven had given into your hands - and turned them into statesmen - so that you would have a recipient for the Biblical lands that you were trying so hard to be rid of. You turned your brothers who returned to Biblical Israel and made it flourish with their blood, sweat and tears into enemies of the nation. You expelled some and destroyed their homes, and still scheme to do the same to those who remain.

And now, the entire world (even America, your great ally) does not recognize your right to exist at all. And why should it, if you yourself are afraid of existing?

Instead of projecting the image of the victorious David triumphing over seven Arab armies, you have become the heavy Goliath, not even capable of liberating one captured soldier being held a few kilometers from your border. You have surrounded yourself with an entanglement of fences, walls and watchmen. The world scorns you. Israeli citizens abroad hide their true identity. There are neighborhoods in your capital, Jerusalem, where a Jew will not dare enter. The same is true for parts of Jaffa, Acco and Natzeret. You now buy the oil that you drilled in Sinai for top dollar. You have given the abundant water supply granted you by G-d - for free - to the Arabs living in Jordan, part of Israel's inheritance.

All that you had to do was to rejoice in what G-d had given you - and to rejoice in who you are. That is all.

Shabbat Shalom,

Moshe Feiglin

taken from

Love of the Land: Be Happy