The Border Wall is Not Enough
Now, does that mean if you have chachomim you don’t need walls? Does it mean you don’t have to have police and an army? Of course not. You need everything; but it means that the walls and the police and the army will be effective only when the talmidei chachomim are sitting and laboring in Torah. Because Hakadosh Baruch Hu is the One Who makes it effective and He tells us that it’s the Torah learners, the ones who are busy day and night studying His words, those are the ones who protect the nation. All the blessings on the nation – protection and shalom and parnassah – come to us because of the Torah learners.
And so what will it help you if you have fortifications and weapons and military precision if that fundamental attitude is missing? It’s like in Eretz Yisroel today. What good is the army if Hakodosh Baruch Hu sees that the Torah learners aren’t important to the nation? The apikorsim in Israel – even the frum apikorsim – they think their little toy army, that’s what's going to protect them? I know it’s a difficult thing to hear but I hope they’ll never discover their error in a tragic way.
Years ago I said this in public – I said that the yeshivos, that’s our army, that’s our artillery, that’s our navy, that’s our tanks – and Jews were incensed when they heard that. They thought I was exaggerating, maybe trying to raise money for the yeshivah. But I was just saying the plain Torah truth; you can’t go away from the Torah truth, from seeing through the darkness.
