This week's Torah reading describes how the land of Israel was apportioned to the Jews when they first arrived after leaving Egypt.
First according to logic; the biggest tribe got the biggest portion. Second, according to lots. And third, according to Divine inspiration; each lot yelled out the miraculous decision made by the Breastplate of the High Priest.
At first glance this makes no sense. If the land was allocated logically, then why throw lots or rely on miracles for the SAME result?! And what does this mean to us today?
Here is a story that might help us to understand. (HaGeula #471).
Eight-year-old Elchanan Betzalel Chadash was very sick and he didn't have much chance to live. In the early nineteen hundreds in backward Czarist Russia child mortality was common. Indeed, his parents had already buried several. But this time they decided to rely on miracles.
They went to the Rebbe Resha'b (Rebbe Shalom Dov Ber, the Fifth Chabad-Lubavitcher Rebbe) and poured out their hearts.
Elchanan Betzalel was their only son, several of their other children had passed away and now the doctors had given up on him as well. Were the doctors right G-d forbid?! Was there no chance?!
The Rebbe looked at them calmly and told them not to worry. "Add the name 'Alter' to his existing name and, with G-d's help, he will recover and live a long, healthy and happy life."
It didn't really make sense; if the Rebbe could do miracles, why did they have to change the boy’s name; why couldn't the Rebbe just make the child healthy? How can a name change get rid of disease? But Mr. Chadash and his wife had no choice. After all, if it weren't for miracles how could the Jews still exist after 2,000 years of persecutions?
They changed the child's name and almost immediately little Alter Elchanan began to improve until a few weeks later he was completely healthy. But perhaps too healthy.
Twenty years later when World War Two broke out Alter Elchanan, now almost 30 years old, was deemed to be in perfect shape and was inducted into the Red Army when the Germans attacked.
The first month or two his parents received mail from him but after that, the letters stopped coming.
The war began taking horrible proportions, over 20 million Russians, millions of them soldiers, were killed! But despite this Alter Elchanan's parents had faith. The Rebbe had promised him long life and the Rebbe was never wrong.
When the war ended, they were sure that either he would return or they would at least receive word as to his whereabouts. But they heard nothing.
Everyone told them to just accept reality. There were millions of soldiers unaccounted for; blown up, burned or buried with no trace and he was almost certainly one of them. If they could only ask the Rebbe it would calm their mind but that was impossible.
The Rebbe Resha'b had passed away in 1920 and his son, Rebbe Yosef Yitzchak (who became Rebbe after his father's passing) had been expelled from Russia and it was impossible to contact him from behind the iron curtain.
Meanwhile the years passed and if it hadn't been for the Rebbe's promises, his parents would probably have died from broken hearts long ago.
Then, one night in 1953, after almost thirteen years of doubt, there was an ominous, official sounding knock on their door that froze their blood.
They had heard about how the government informed the families of the dead and this was probably it. Mr. Chadash braced himself, his wife covered her mouth to keep from crying, he opened the door and there stood a middle-aged man with shining eyes - it was Elchanan!!
They embraced him and wept for joy! Where had he been for so long?! Why hadn't he contacted them?
After they all calmed down, he told them what had happened all these thirteen years.
In the first months after the Germans surprise-attacked Russia, the Red Army was in such total disorder that tens of thousands of their soldiers fell into Nazi captivity and he was one of them. He was put to labor in a German prisoner of war camp.
The work was heavy and almost non-stop, the food was sparse, disease was rampant and the Germans were cruel taskmasters. But the thing that worried him most was that he was sure that if they discovered he was Jewish they would kill him on the spot.
Luckily they didn’t notice him and the other Russian soldiers didn't give him away. But he knew it was only a matter of time. He lived in constant fear!
But miraculously every time that one of the camp guards become suspicious, unexplainably, just in the nick of time, he got transferred to another camp where no one knew him. And so it continued for five years until one day they woke up to find that the Germans abandoned the camp! They lost the war!
The Americans freed tens of thousands of Russian soldiers from the concentration camps and Jews got VIP treatment!
The Americans, having heard of the suffering of the Jews, had special orders to treat them better than the others. So he found himself in a special camp for Jews in occupied Berlin, with more privacy and even kosher food.
But what was foremost on his mind was the blessing the Rebbe gave to his parents about him surviving. He was sure that if they were still alive they surely were waiting for him.
So he was taken to the Russian forces in Berlin with the hope of returning with them to Russia. But he was in for a surprise. He was called into special interrogation and told to relate everything that happened to him in captivity and when he finished, the Russian officer questioning him lit a cigarette, blew smoke in his face, suddenly extinguished it, leaned forward and yelled.
"How can it be that you, a Jew, could possibly survive the Germans for four years? Ehhh? You want to tell me they didn’t know you were Jewish? Jew is written all over your face! Well, I'll tell you how! Because you gave them information, that's how! There is no explanation!! You are a traitor!"
Poor Betzalel, he tried to protest, to reason with them. What secrets?? He was a simple soldier! He didn't know any secrets! He had fought and suffered for Russia! He wanted to go home; his parents were waiting!
But it all fell on deaf ears. He was arrested, 'tried' and sentenced to fifteen years at ‘correctional’ hard labor in Siberia Thousands succumbed to the elements and perished (Stalin killed some 20 million Russians in this way) but miraculously he lasted eight years of back-breaking torture. Miraculously all the time he was there he managed to keep most of the Commandments; put on Tefillin, keep kosher and even Shabbat and the holidays when possible.
Then, in 1953 Stalin suddenly died and his successor Khrushchev ordered the release of tens of thousands of political prisoners; and Alter Elchanan Betzalel Chadash was among them.
The Rebbe’s blessings and prophecies were fulfilled in the fullest sense of the word. Elchanan Betzalel was reunited with his parents, married, lived to the age of eighty-three and saw generations learning Torah and living Chassidic lives!
This answers our questions about dividing the Holy Land via three methods. Israel is a place; a PHYSICAL place, where everyone one can FEEL and be CERTAIN that the world is a creation and its Creator (who creates the world constantly) gave His Torah to the Jews to improve it.
That is why it is called the Holy LAND and eventually (in the days of Moshiach) its Holiness will permeate the entire world.
And this is accomplished by Jews doing the commandments and serving G-d in three ways.
Brain, heart and soul:
First, to understand as much as possible. Then to FEEL that G-d chose us above all logic and reason. And finally, to arouse our Jewish soul to do the commandments only because G-d commanded.
Jews as the land was apportioned 1. Logically; by size of tribe 2. Above logic; by lots 3; Divinely: the lots cried out.
Just as Alter Elchanan in our story used all his powers; mind, heart and soul to not only survive but to increase holiness wherever possible; Logic, love and the Rebbe’s blessing.
That is what it means to us today:
Entering the land of Israel is THE example of bringing G-d into the PHYSICAL. In other words, it the prototype for all the commandments. (That is one reason there is no holiday celebrating the date the Jews entered Israel. Because every commandment we do celebrates entering Israel; bringing the Creator into creation.)
That is why we are awaiting Moshiach.
Moshiach will be a Jew, a great leader like King David, who will accomplish this by arousing ALL the Jews use ALL aspects of their being brain (logic) heart and soul to transform the entire world, through the commandments into a dwelling for G-d.
And the Lubavitcher Rebbe says this should happen at any moment. We are standing on the merits of thousands of years of Jewish hopes, prayers and suffering. Now it could be that just one more good deed, word or even thought can bring ...
Moshiach NOW!!
Rabbi Tuvia Bolton
Yeshiva Ohr Tmimim
Kfar Chabad, Israel
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