During October 24-25 – to November 6-7 1917, the second and last major phase of the Russian Revolution of 1917 a struggle took place in which the Bolshevik Party seized power in Russia, inaugurating the Soviet regime.
After the October Revolution saw the Bolsheviks overthrow the Russian Provisional Government and establish the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR), the communists aimed to break the power of all religious institutions and eventually replace religious belief with atheism. Communism became Soviet Russia’s new “religion.”
Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn was an Orthodox rabbi and the sixth Rebbe of the Chabad Lubavitch Hasidic Movement. He is also known as the Frierdiker Rebbe, the Rebbe Rayatz.
Under the communist reign of terror the Rebbe Rayatz (Also called Admor, meaning our master, teacher and rabbi, and originally the tsaddik-righteous) was arrested by the Russian Bolshevik police, for the ‘crime’ of spreading Judaism with unrelenting devotion. In those days, to impose the terror of their ideology, the communists killed many millions of their opponents.
Faith was one of the elements of society that the communist regime fiercely opposed in order to abolish it. The Rebbe, who was the first and foremost propagator of Judaism, was in certain and immediate danger to his life.
At one of the stages of the investigation, when the Rebbe did not satisfy the wishes of his interrogators, one of them pulled out a gun, pointed it at the Rebbe’s head, and said: “This toy has already made a lot of people talk.”
The Rebbe answered him calmly: “This toy scares people who have many idols and one world. But not those who have one God and two worlds.”
This succinct sentence encapsulates strength which is one of the Jewish people and the State of Israel’s eternal secrets, to stand and overcome all of their enemies and persecutors.
The Struggle
These days, after the October 7, 2023 massacre that Hamas committed in Israel, while those who hate Israel are raising their heads and showing their true face in the murdering of innocent Jews, again, as in previous rounds, the point arises and becomes clear that the root of the struggle is around Jerusalem and the Temple Mount. After all, the struggle is not an external national struggle, rather the struggle for the holding point of holiness in the world – the place of inspiration of the Shekhinah. This means the divine revelation to the world, Jerusalem and the Temple’s location.
These days, the enemies of Israel are once again reminding the Jews and their enemies are trying to discourage them by saying, “We love death, just as you love life.” And there are among the people of Israel those who are frightened and say, “in this way, there is no chance of defeating our enemies, because they are not afraid of death, and we have no means with the power to deter and intimidate them.”
Is This a Correct Approach?
In the depths of the hearts of the people of Israel lies the truth that there is no fear at all. Precisely the fact that they love life, and their haters love death, will ultimately lead to our victory. Death has no power to strengthen a nation for the long term because it turns it into a nation of death. A nation that neither builds nor creates, a nation that is rotten will eventually fall.
The Islam, This Is the Enemy of Israel
Indeed, reality proves that the glorious Islam of years gone by sank into deep deterioration, leaving scientific development to others. And in addition – as we know, the belief that “the Arab is not the son of the desert, but the father of the desert,” perpetuates the desert and does not develop the place.
Islam is aware of the weakness of the lust for death. Therefore, it promises the “martyr” (Shahid as referred to by Islam) a life full of lewdness and carnal pleasures, supposedly the peak of life after death.
The Rambam* emphasized the magnitude of their error in Laws of Repentance 8:6.
* Moses ben Maimon, commonly known as Maimonides and also referred to by the Hebrew acronym Rambam, was a Sephardic rabbi and philosopher who became one of the most prolific and influential Torah scholars of the Middle Ages until present times.
The pleasure they speak of is the pleasure of the body, but in the next world only the soul lives. It is obvious they hold only a short-lived life – the life of the body which will eventually die, and it is found that their entire life revolves around death. Wicked people in their lives are called dead.
Against the worshipers of the idol of death stands the people of Israel, with a thirst for life. Apparently, this is also a weakness of the people of Israel because it is possible to scare them with the help of death.
Certainly, most people are not at the level of the Rebbe Rayatz, who looked at the gun and was not afraid. But in general, the people of Israel’s passion for life will win over the thirst for death of their enemies.
The people of Israel believe in one God and two worlds. They believe in life after death, in the spiritual and eternal soul, which even after the death of the body will continue to live. The Jewish people love life – the life of this world, and the life of the next world, and both are based on the true and eternal life, the life of the soul, a life connected to one God. “The righteous in their death are called alive.”
When you hurt, God forbid, one of the children of Israel a life is added to the world. They also cause them to have deeper and stronger roots in their homeland.
This Matter Is Highlighted in the Case of Akedat Yishchak*
* The binding of Yitzchak (Isaac) the son of Avraham, which was supposed to end up in sacrificing Isaac to God.
Avraham was ordered by God to bind and then sacrifice Isaac, so to speak – to worship God in an act of death. As it turned out that is not God’s way, and Isaac remained alive. However, upon Avraham’s returning from Akedat Yishchak’s place, it becomes clear that there was someone who paid for this event with their life – and that was Isaac’s mother Sarah. “Sarah’s death was attached to the binding of Yitzchak; receiving the news of the binding of her son who was destined for slaughter, and then he was not slaughtered – her soul left her body and she died” (Rashi’s understanding, Genesis 23:2)
Sarah is the first Jew to die in the world and her death turned back to life. Avraham made Sarah’s death the beginning of the rooting of the people of Israel in their land. The first purchase of the land of Israel by a Jew in his country. The purchase of the Cave of the Patriarchs, the tomb estate that becomes a cornerstone for the life of the people of Israel in their homeland.
The Cave of the Patriarchs is the entrance to Heaven, the place of connection of the two worlds for eternal life. The temple in Jerusalem is a place of heaven in our world. In the center of the Temple’s site, lies the Drinking Stone, from which the life of the world was founded and began.
It has already been said about this Rock in the Holy Zohar* – “Woe to you, holy stone, that the heathen are going to lay their dead on you.” Indeed, in the iniquity of the people of Israel, when nowadays the funerals leave the Temple Mount, the Arabs place their dead on the rock – the Drinking Stone. Thus they express that the root of the world is for them in death, and their end is to fall and perish.
*The Holy Zohar, the great secret of Judaism, is one of the foundational books of Judaism. The book was mainly compiled by the holy Tanah Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai and part of it was compiled by other Tanahs and Amorim.
IDF Inaugurate a Torah scroll
IDF (Israel Defense Forces) inaugurating a Torah scroll, in which a Torah scroll is installed in a makeshift synagogue/sanctuary, is an informal ceremony during a break in fighting in the war in Gaza:
In front of the heathen, the Nation of Israel returns and proclaims their increased faith in eternal life that extends to eternity from the place of the Temple, (Psalms 133:3) “Like the Hermon’s dew that descends on the mountains of Zion, because there (in Zion – the place of the Temple) God commanded the blessing, the eternal life.”
With Israel’s complete victory over Hamas, the people of Israel will claim another right to extend their eternal life.
As we are constantly updated on the Swords of Iron War that engages Israel with Hamas, we also witness how the Israeli soldiers are latching onto their faith. This tendency elevates them mentally and spiritually, a determining factor to win a battle.
With Israel’s complete victory over Hamas, the people of Israel will claim another right to the evaluation of His eternal life.
Against a Russian gun point, one God won. Against Hamas’ atrocious terror against Jews, one God will also win.
