Chayai Sarah – Toldot 5771 | Rabbi Nachman Kahana

BS”D Chayai Sarah – Toldot 5771

A: God In Search of a People

There are many precedents of holy people who requested a sign from HaShem to verify the truth of a prophetic vision they experienced.

Avraham asked HaShem for a sign that his children would inherent the land that precipitated the Brit bain habetarim (The covenant of the split animals).

Moshe Rabbeinu requested a sign from HaShem to verify what he had seen at the Burning Bush, and signs to take with him to the Jewish leadership who would be hard pressed to accept Moshe as HaShem’s messenger to free the Jews, when Moshe himself was, in their view, a major functionary in the hated court of Paro.

And so too, Gidon (Gideon), who requested signs from HaShem (Shoftim 6:13).

But our generation is unique. In our time, it is HaShem who initiates the signs (albeit subtle ones not to reveal too much of His presence which would disrupt the very fine balance of free choice) with the hope that His people Israel would “catch on” to what He is doing. But with the “help” of certain individual religious leaders here – and many, many more in chutz la’aretz – the signs and omens are either disregarded or interpreted to mean just the opposite of what is intended.

One example of the unhinged, disturbed mind of some people – If you walk in the old shuk of Me’ah Sha’arim you will see two printed notices. One said:

ARABS YES – ZIONISTS NO!

The second even more repugnant is:

ARAB RULE YES – ZIONIST RULE NO!

Of course, under Arab rule those Jews would not last long enough to finish the sentence Shema Yisrael.

And all this on the background of the greatest miracle HaShem has wrought for us since the destruction of the Second Temple.

But just to place things in their proper perspective, I wish to state emphatically that the most extreme member of our anti-Medina Neturai Karta is closer to HaShem than the most ardent Zionist, waving the blue and white flag before the White House in Washington, because by being here he places his fate in HaShem’s hands, together with of all Am Yisrael in Eretz Yisrael. Recall, what chazal taught that when Ya’akov was returning home he feared his brother Aisav because of two merits that Aisav had that Ya’akov lacked. The entire time that Ya’akov was away, Aisav had the merit of living in Eretz Yisrael and serving his parents. Ya’akov knew that the sanctity of Eretz Yisrael might stand with Aisav and override his own righteousness.

A corollary of this is that any active field soldier in Tzahal is closer to HaShem than others in Eretz Yisrael, because he knowingly and willingly places his life in jeopardy for Am Yisrael.

To return to the matter of the signs and omens.

Sign number one:

On August 5th of this year, 33 Chilean miners became entrapped 700 meters (2050 feet) underground. The attention of the world was fixed on their destiny, as the engineers dug a shaft barely wider than a man’s shoulders through the hard rock.

Two months later on October 14, the miners one by one, climbed into a specially designed narrow steel capsule for the 15-minute ascent through 2,050 feet of rock to the surface.

Scenes of jubilation erupted each time a miner was extricated.

This was a fantastic undertaking; and what made it legendary is the fact that there were no glitches; which is very rare in such complex situations.

Now the question is: where are the miners now? How quickly they disappeared from the public’s attention, as if they were snatched back into their underground existence – from the apex of world attention to complete anonymity.

What does it mean?

Over three thousand years ago, Balak, king of Moav, invited the infamous Bilam to curse the Jewish people. Three times Bilam prepared to invoke dreadful curses of annihilation and destruction upon the Jewish people; but each time HaShem brought forth beautiful blessings from the ugly mouth of Bilam. HaShem did not want anyone to even hear the curses.

On the 14th of October, the depraved president of Iran planned and orchestrated an event that was to be seen and heard across the globe. He would approach the northern border of Israel and invoke curses of destruction on the Jewish state. It was planned to be a worldwide event, drawing the attention of billions of people to what this man intends to do to Am Yisrael in Eretz Yisrael.

HaShem could have dealt with this modern Bilam as He did with the original – by turning his words into blessings. But it seems that Ahmadinejad is so despicable that HaShem did not want to even hear his blessings.

So HaShem provided the timing perfect.

On the very day and very hour that Ahmadinejad was near our border spewing out his vicious diatribes against the Jewish state, the eyes and ears of the world were fixed on the destiny of the 33 miners. No one was listening to this would be Haman, because of the static provided by our Father in heaven. He was belching out his hatred, but there was no one out there to hear him, until he was forced to crawl back to Iran without the world even noticing.

One could say that it was just a good-luck convenient coincidence; but so was the crossing of the Red Sea.

The Second Sign:

Three things occurred in the week of parshat Chayai Sarah which relates how Avraham purchased Me’arat Ha’Machpela from Efron the Hittite.

A synod of bishops convened in Rome. At these affairs every speech is presented for approval before being voiced in public; so every speech represents the accepted ideology of the Church at that time.One of the last speakers was a Bishop from Lebanon who forcefully stated two points: The Jews are not God’s chosen people, and the Holy Land does not belong to the Jewish people!
Unesco declared Me’arat Ha’Machpela and the Tomb of Rachel near Bet Lechem to be internationally recognized as Moslem heritage sites with no connection to the Jewish people.
It was disclosed that the US is planning to initiate a settlement where Israel will give away all the lands we liberated in the Six Day War, including the Ramot area of Yerushalayim, Ramat Eshkol, Gilo, a great part of the Yerushalayim-Tel Aviv road, etc. And then Israel will lease these very same areas from the Arabs.

What does it mean?

Again its HaShem’s timing that draws our attention. For just in the very week that we read of Avraham’s purchase of the Machpele Cave; the Catholic Church, Unesco and the USA, each in his own way, stated that the Holy Land does not belong to the Jewish people.

The sign is so obvious. HaShem is telling the gentiles and even more to us, that it doesn’t matter what the whole world might think or do; the Jewish people are God’s chosen nation and the living proof of this intimate relationship between Creator and chosen people is our return to the Land of Israel and the blessings which abound here.

Indeed our generation with the never ending miracles that surround our lives here in Eretz YIsrael – many of which go unseen and unappreciated by questionable religious leaders – can be called the generation of “God In Search of a People”.

But for all our inadequacies, there are millions of Jews here in Eretz Yisrael who do appreciate, understand and develop the miracles and signs provided by HaShem.

Parashat Toldot

There is an historical, world wide prophecy the ramifications of which we have just begun to feel, hidden away in a somewhat overlooked pasuk at the end of parashat Toldot Beraishiet 28:9):

And Aisav went to Yishmael and married Machlat the daughter of Yishmael son of Avraham (and she was) the sister of Neva’yot, etc.

The merger of Yishmael’s hostility towards Yitzchak coupled with Aisav’s envy of Ya’akov would now be handed down, honed to “perfection”, and utilized against the Jewish nation at every opportunity.

Whenever Yishmael (the progenitor of today’s Arabs) and Aisav (progenitor of most of the Europeans) contrive together each one sharpens the other’s fangs.

Haz Amin Al Husseini, the Mufti of Jerusalem spent the war years in Berlin with Hitler where they incited and fermented their mutual hatred of the Jews.

Churchill severed 75% of Eretz Yisrael in order to create the Hashimite Kingdom of Jordan. And in collusion with the Arab interests, the British closed the gates to Eretz Yisrael, preventing hundreds of thousands of Jews from escaping the holocaust.

The British were responsible for the Arab murderous riots from the time the British Mandate took affect.

The Russians were behind the Six Day War and the Yom Kippur War, as well as supplying Syria and other Arab countries modern weapons aimed at Israel.

The USA has been supplying the Arabs with weapons for decades, and has now concluded an agreement to sell to Saudia 60 billion dollars worth of the most modern weapons.

The Torah warned us thousands of years ago what to expect from the descendants of Yishmael and Aisav, and it has come to pass.

It is now “playing out” on an international level. That which began as individuals and their emotions has assumed the proportions of nations involving millions of people.

The future of the world will evolve around the triangle of Am Yisrael, Yishmael and Aisav. It is happening before our very eyes.

Our victory is guaranteed, but only for those Jews who will have found refuge in the Holy Land.

Let us offer thanks to HaShem for His salvation.

Shabbat Shalom