By Rabbi Pinchos Lipschutz
I’m back on an El Al plane, heading for Eretz Yisroel, expecting to spend a couple of weeks in Yerushalayim.
Making the trip was not an easy decision. The specter of another war with Iran was hanging in the air. President Trump had been bombing Iran for fourteen straight nights and had repeatedly threatened to go all out against them. Had that happened, Israel would most likely have been drawn into the conflict, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to be there for that.
Our flight was scheduled for Monday morning, and I decided that if Shabbos passed without incident, we would go.
When Shabbos was over, I turned on my phone and saw that not only had the president not ramped up his attacks on the evil regime in Iran, but he had announced that, inexplicably, he was putting everything on hold.
As I waited to see how things would develop, I was reading seforim describing the aliyah of the talmidei HaGra and the talmidim of the Baal Shem Tov. I read about what motivated these great people to leave behind their homes in Eastern Europe, the lives they were accustomed to, and whatever comforts they had, and to undertake the treacherous journey to Eretz Yisroel, where they knew they would face a life of deprivation and hardship.
Reading about why they went, and what they went through to get there, became a source of encouragement for me.
War or not, I would go.
I hadn’t made any particular plans for what I would do while I was there, but would simply follow the path of the multitudes of Yidden who, throughout the generations, yearned to be in Eretz Yisroel and took advantage of every opportunity to spend time in Hashem’s land.
And if there would be a war, I decided, I would make the best of it. I would not spend my time there angling for a way to get back “home.” I wasn’t looking forward to sitting in a bomb shelter, but if that was how Hashem had planned my vacation, I would accept it.
Every day, we put our lives in the hands of Hakadosh Boruch Hu and trust that He will care for us. In Eretz Yisroel, however, we feel it more.
The Torah (Devorim 11:12) tells us that Eretz Yisroel is different from every other land: “Eretz asher Hashem Elokecha doreish osah tomid einei Hashem Elokecha bah mereishis hashonah ve’ad acharis Shonah.”
It is a land upon which Hashem’s eyes are constantly focused, “from the beginning of the year until the end of the year.”
Perhaps that is part of what makes being there so different. We are always dependent on Hashem wherever we live, but in Eretz Yisroel, that dependence is palpable. You feel it.
As it turned out, there was no immediate need to worry. Despite President Trump’s bluster and threats, there was no war. Iran continues in its evil ways, and the world watches.
But perhaps the real question is not why I was willing to go to Eretz Yisroel with the possibility of war hanging over the country. The real question is why, throughout our history, Jews have been willing to do far more.
They left behind homes, families, livelihoods, and familiar surroundings. They traveled for months under conditions that are difficult for us to imagine. Some endured hunger and disease. Others arrived in a land where they had no means of supporting themselves and little of the physical comfort they had known in Europe.
And they did it willingly.
What were they looking for?
The answer is not simply that they wanted to live in a holy place. They were seeking something that cannot be measured in comfort, convenience, or even safety.
They wanted to be in the place where a Yid feels closest to the Ribono Shel Olam. They wanted to be in Hashem’s Chosen Land.
The stories of the talmidei HaGra and the talmidim of the Baal Shem Tov are especially moving because these were not people who had nothing to lose. They had homes. They had communities. They had positions of honor and lives that were familiar to them. Yet, the pull of Eretz Yisroel was stronger. The desire to live lives of kedusha in artzeinu hakedosha and help usher in the era of Moshiach pulled them out of their homes and away from their extended families to begin new lives in Eretz Yisroel. In the years since, many have followed their example, and as time passed, the challenges of settling there eased.
Those people understood something that we sometimes lose sight of.
For thousands of years, Yidden have davened, pleaded, sung, and begged to return to Yerushalayim, to Eretz Yisroel.
Every day, Jews around the world turn toward Yerushalayim. Three times a day, we ask to be returned to our land. At the end of the Seder, we proclaim, “Leshanah haba’ah b’Yerushalayim.” At its height, as Yom Kippur concludes, we cry out the same words.
And here I was, sitting on an airplane, heading to Yerushalayim, with the privilege of spending two weeks in Eretz Yisroel.
How blessed is our generation.
If only we would appreciate our blessings.
There is another thought that occurred to me as I sat on the plane.
We have become accustomed to something that is anything but ordinary.
We can wake up in New York, Los Angeles, London, or Paris, and by the next morning be in Yerushalayim.
We take it for granted.
We complain about the flight. We complain about the airport. We complain about the food. We complain about the traffic when we land.
And then we get into a car and drive through Yerushalayim.
Stop for a moment and think about that. For centuries, a Yid could spend his entire life dreaming about that moment. Our grandparents and great-grandparents longed to see Yerushalayim. They yearned to be able to walk through the streets of the Holy City.
For many of them, the dream remained a dream.
For others, the dream was so powerful that they abandoned everything they knew and undertook journeys that we would consider unimaginable.
And we?
We can book a ticket on our phone. A few clicks, a few hours in the air, and we are there. Perhaps because it is so easy, we don’t appreciate what we have.
There is a danger in miracles becoming routine.
When something extraordinary happens once, we are overwhelmed by it. When it happens every day, we begin to regard it as normal.
That may be one of the great challenges of our generation.
We were born into a world in which Jews can live in Eretz Yisroel as Jews. We can walk freely through Yerushalayim. We can learn Torah there, daven there, raise children there, and build communities there.
We can visit the Kosel whenever we want.
We can travel throughout the land that our ancestors could only dream of seeing.
And somehow, it has become ordinary.
Perhaps the seforim I was reading before the trip were reminding me not to let that happen.
They were reminding me that Eretz Yisroel is a gift.
A gift purchased with the yearning, sacrifice, and mesirus nefesh of generations.
A gift that carries responsibility, and a gift that should never be taken for granted.
Yet, Eretz Yisroel is going through a very difficult period.
Bnei Torah have been dealing with a campaign against them that would have been difficult to imagine not that long ago. Cynical propagandists have unleashed a vicious political war against the Torah community, turning the issue of military service into a weapon with which to attack an entire way of life.
The result, coming in the midst of an actual war against Israel’s mortal enemies, has been nothing short of a typhoon.
Instead of the Jewish people standing together against those who seek to destroy us, an increasingly bitter internal struggle has developed. The political and social divisions have become so deep that the country sometimes seems to be fighting a civil war while simultaneously fighting an external war.
And with elections approaching, the battle is only becoming more intense.
There is something particularly painful about this, because Eretz Yisroel is not merely a country. It is the home of the Jewish people.
For generations, the secularization of Israeli society was not merely tolerated. It was deliberately cultivated. Torah study and religious observance were pushed to the margins as the founders of the state sought to create a new Israeli Jew—more secular, more nationalistic, and less connected to the Jewish religious tradition.
The tragedy is that many of the early leaders had grown up differently.
They may not have been observant themselves, but they came from homes and communities where Torah, mitzvos, and Jewish tradition were familiar. They had parents and grandparents who were religious. They had relatives who were frum. They knew what Shabbos was. They knew what a bais medrash was. They knew that the Jewish people have a Torah.
And even when they fought against religious influence, many understood that the Torah community is an authentic and indispensable component of the Jewish people.
That understanding led to what became known as the religious status quo.
Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, despite being a secular socialist, reached an accommodation with the religious parties that included the famous arrangement granting exemptions from military service to yeshiva students.
The arrangement was far from perfect, and the Torah community certainly did not view the secular leadership as its natural ally. But there was an understanding that there was room in the Jewish state for Jews who lived according to the Torah.
There were other surprising connections as well.
Shimon Peres, who became one of Israel’s most prominent secular leaders, grew up with a Jewish religious background and had studied Torah with his grandfather. He also met the Chofetz Chaim as a youngster. Later, he played a role in preventing the draft of religious girls, for which the Torah community was eternally grateful.
Menachem Begin came from Brisk and, despite becoming a secular political leader, understood the world of Torah and the place of religious Jews within the Jewish people in a way that is difficult to find among today’s political class. He was familiar enough with Yiddishkeit that when he was hiding from the British, he hid in plain sight by living as a religious Jew in Yerushalayim.
When Begin came to power, it represented a historic change in the relationship between the government and the Torah parties.
There was still disagreement. There was still tension. There were still battles.
But there was a basic recognition that we, too, were entitled to support and rights.
That has changed.
Today, many of the politicians leading the campaign against the Torah community have little meaningful connection to Torah, halacha, or the culture and traditions of Jewish religious life.
And that lack of familiarity matters.
It is difficult to understand someone whose world you have never entered.
If you don’t understand why a person can spend his life learning Torah, you will see a yeshiva student as someone avoiding responsibility.
If you don’t understand what Torah means to a Yid, you will see Torah learning as merely another career choice.
If you don’t understand that the Jewish people survived exile because we remained connected toTorah, you will have difficulty understanding why the Torah community regards the preservation of Torah learning as an existential matter.
And if your ideal is to become “k’chol ha’amim”—like all the nations—then Torah will inevitably come to be viewed as an obstacle to that goal rather than the foundation of Jewish existence.
They don’t understand us at all.
This is not simply a political disagreement.
It is a disagreement over what a Jewish state is supposed to be.
Is Israel merely a country inhabited by people who happen to be Jewish, or is it the Jewish state whose identity is rooted in the history, heritage, and Torah of the Jewish people?
Those are two very different visions.
During my trip, I met Moshe Gafni, Knesset leader of Degel HaTorah. He asked me a question that has stayed with me: “Do people in America realize how bad the situation of the Torah community is in Israel?”
People in positions of leadership within the Torah community are deeply concerned about what the next elections will bring and what kind of government will emerge afterward. They understand that the coming political battles are not merely about personalities or parties. The decisions made now may determine the relationship between the State of Israel and the Torah community for years to come.
Every election is important. But some elections are pivotal.
President Ronald Reagan famously warned that freedom is never more than a generation away from extinction. The same principle can apply to institutions and traditions. What one generation takes for granted, the next generation may no longer understand, and the generation after that may actively oppose.
The coming elections may therefore represent a turning point in Israel’s relationship with its Torah community.
And there is another development that should trouble every Jew.
As the State of Israel has become increasingly estranged from Torah, and as the Torah community has increasingly been portrayed as the problem rather than as an essential part of the Jewish people, something else has been happening in the world.
Hatred of Jews has been rising.
Antisemitism has become more brazen, more mainstream, and more politically acceptable.
On American college campuses, in European cities, and increasingly within the Democrat Party, which once considered itself a friend of the Jewish people and which many Jews supported and still support, anti-Israel rhetoric has often crossed the line into something much darker.
It is a troubling irony. We spent two thousand years praying to return to Eretz Yisroel. We finally returned. A Jewish state was established. Jews poured in from across the globe.
And yet, at the very moment when we have more Jewish power than we have had in two thousand years, there are those working to separate the Jewish state from the very thing that made us a nation in the first place: Torah.
That should frighten us, not because frum Jews need special privileges, but because a Jewish state without a Jewish soul is ultimately a contradiction.
Eretz Yisroel was not promised to us merely so that we could become another nation, with theaters, universities, and a government. It was given to us so that we could become the nation Hashem chose us to be.
But despite all of this, Eretz Yisroel remains Eretz Yisroel.
It is the land Hashem promised to our forefathers. It is the direction toward which we turn three times a day when we daven. Its air is holy. Its soil is holy. And many of the people who live there are visibly holy.
On this visit, I discovered a new gem.
A friend suggested that I daven on Shabbos morning at the Kerem Avrohom shul. It is literally a stone’s throw from the new developments on the Schneller property in Geulah, where I was staying.
The contrast could hardly be greater.
Jerusalem Estates is a modern high-rise development, with contemporary architecture and beautifully appointed apartments equipped with all the latest amenities.
And in its very shadow stands this little shul, a throwback to another Yerushalayim.
The shul is small and has only a few regular mispallelim. To reach it, you climb an outdoor flight of steps to the second floor. There is nothing grand about it. No marble lobby. No impressive entrance. No architectural statement.
Just a little shul.
But what a shul!
As soon as I heard how close it was, I was eager to daven there. I remembered having been there as a bochur, when I was learning in Brisk. Rav Dovid Soloveitchik’s yeshiva had learned one of the sedorim there, and I had gone there several times and regularly passed it.
Rav Elazar Menachem Man Shach had lived in Yerushalayim when he first came to Eretz Yisroel and he had learned in this very shul.
Now I had the opportunity to return.
The people were warm and welcoming. After davening, several of the mispallelim came over to greet me, asking my name and where I am from.
One of the men who approached me was an older Yid who was the baal korei.
I complimented him on his laining and asked him his name.
“Yadler,” he told me.
I asked if he was related to the famed Yerushalayim maggid, Rav Bentzion Yadler.
He looked at me and told me that he was his father’s father.
I took another look at him.
I studied his face and features, trying to discern in him the remnants of the Yerushalayim of old, the world of the legendary maggid whose name is woven into the story of Yerushalayim.
Apparently, he noticed me looking at him.
He looked me straight in the eye and said very seriously: “Ihr hut ah zechus vos ihr hut gedavent du! You have a zechus that you davened here!”
Indeed, I did.
I looked around the shul and noticed a plaque thanking the Jews of Vilna who had contributed toward the construction of the building.
Then I saw the date, 5654. I made a quick calculation and realized that it was the year 1894.
I stood there for a moment, contemplating those numbers.
1894.
What did the world look like then?
What did Yerushalayim look like?
What did life look like for the Yidden who built this little shul?
The world has changed almost beyond recognition since then. Empires have risen and disappeared. Nations have been created and destroyed. Technology has transformed every aspect of human life. Yerushalayim has expanded far beyond what it was back then and become a major city.
Yet, this little shul is still there.
Torah is still being learned there.
Tefillos are still being recited there.
Yidden are still walking up those same steps to stand before Hakadosh Boruch Hu.
The rov of the shul is the fourth member of his family to occupy the position, going back to the famed brothers, Rav Yonah and Rav Eliyohu Rom.
I went over to him and said shalom aleichem. He asked my name and whether I was related to Rav Yisroel Lipschutz, the author of the Tiferes Yisroel on Mishnayos. I told him that I wasn’t, and that my family came from Kovno. He smiled and told me that I had come to the right place and should feel at home.
He then told me something else.
The famed gaon, Rav Yehoshua Leib Diskin, who lived in the Old City of Yerushalayim, would venture beyond the walls during the summer and daven in this very shul.
Rav Yehoshua Leib Diskin had previously served as the rov of Kovno.
Suddenly, my own connection to the place felt a little more personal.
I had been doubly blessed.
I had the zechus to be in Yerushalayim, and I had the zechus to daven in a small, unassuming shul where great gedolim had stood before me—where Rav Yehoshua Leib Diskin had davened, where Rav Shach had learned, and where the yeshiva headed by the son of the Brisker Rov, populated by talmidim who would go on to become Klal Yisroel’s roshei yeshiva, rabbeim, and rabbonim, had once learned.
This is Eretz Yisroel.
For all its problems, for all its struggles, for all the political turmoil and uncertainty, there is no place like it.
Every step taken there is a mitzvah.
Every corner has a story.
Every stone seems to hold a secret.
The land preserves and transmits a heritage that stretches back thousands of years, and everywhere you turn, you encounter the people who lived there, dreamed there, struggled there, davened there, and refused to give up on it.
Perhaps that is why, especially now, we need to concentrate on the good.
It is Elul.
The month when we prepare ourselves for the Yom Hadin has arrived.
And the Torah gives us a remarkable formula for approaching that judgment.
The Kedushas Levi, in this week’s parsha, Parshas Shoftim, explains the pesukim of “Shoftim veshotrim titein lecha bechol she’arecha.”
We are commanded to establish judges and officers. But there is another message hidden within these words.
If we learn to judge others properly, with fairness, compassion, and kindness, then “veshoftu es ha’am mishpat tzedek”—we can bring about a more merciful judgment upon Klal Yisroel.
The way we judge others influences the way we ourselves are judged.
That is a powerful thought with which to enter Elul.
We are all preparing for the Yom Hadin. We are examining ourselves, thinking about where we can improve, where we have fallen short, and what we can do differently in the coming year.
And we all have much to daven for.
Klal Yisroel is in a serious situation.
Our brothers and sisters in Eretz Yisroel are living with danger from without and painful divisions within. The Torah community is facing challenges that could have consequences for generations. Antisemitism is rising around the world. The Jewish people need rachamim.
An important thing we can all do now is to help arouse the middah of chesed.
Judge others favorably.
Speak more kindly.
Assume the best.
Look for the good.
Give people the benefit of the doubt.
And perhaps, in that zechus, we will merit that Hakadosh Boruch Hu will look upon us with that same middah.
The summer is coming to an early end this year, and the heady days of Elul have arrived.
We spent the summer trying to maximize the days of bein hazemanim. Now we have entered a different season, one in which we have to maximize something far more precious: the days of Elul.
We were given a gift in Eretz Yisroel.
We were given the gift of a generation that can travel to Yerushalayim with a boarding pass.
We were given the gift of Torah, of tefillah, of Jewish life, and of the ability to walk in the footsteps of generations who dreamed of being where we are.
Let us not take any of it for granted. Let us appreciate the blessings we have each day in our lives.
Let us see the good. Let us judge one another favorably.
And let us use these precious days of Elul to arouse the middas hachesed, so that we and all of Klal Yisroel may be judged favorably and merit a kesivah vachasimah tovah, a year of good health, yeshuah, hatzlocha, brocha, and, if he has not come before the new year begins, bias Moshiach Tzidkeinu.
