The general mesorah of Torah shebe'al peh is the legacy of every Jew. We all share in that same mesorah. Alongside that general Torah shebe'al peh, there are also private mesorahs that different individuals, different groups of individuals have received. There are family mesorahs where we have certain family traditions. In larger groupings, someone belongs to a certain chasidus, there's a mesorah, an individual mesorah as part of that identification, as part of that affiliation. And one of the private mesorahs with which we're blessed potentially if we take advantage of the blessing is a mesorah associated with the Yeshiva where one learns. To learn here in Yeshiva means to potentially be a recipient of the mesorah of Rav Soloveitchik. The first and foremost way to try to provide a kli, a beis kibul for that bracha is to learn as much as possible first-hand his Torah, הן בהלכה הן במחשבה. It's in sort of in that vein and in that context I thought that maybe we'd spend a few minutes today just beginning with the beginning of Kol Dodi Dofek and trying to understand and highlight a few of the themes that he touches upon. Probably in terms of the focus on Medinas Yisrael, so that comes more towards the middle part and the concluding parts of the essay. I'm not sure how much if we'll get there, but od chazon lamoed. The Rav begins, and hopefully, hopefully I won't get distracted and we'll come back and reflect on why he begins this essay, this reflection on Medinas Yisrael this way, but he begins with the riddle, the enigma of Tzaddik vera lo. And he says that a person can reflect upon that challenge of theodicy. How is it possible that in a world created by the Ribbono shel olam, who's only tov and כל מאי דעביד רחמנא לטב עביד, how can it be that we encounter ra, that we encounter evil? That there is, that there is suffering. He says that a person can reflect upon that, can react to that in either of two contexts, or either of two mindsets. He distinguishes between a kiyuum gorali and a kiyuum yeudi. I'm not sure if there is a very good translation, but maybe an existence of fate versus an existence of destiny. And the existence of fate, he explains, is when a person is primarily an object, meaning he's subjected to all kinds of forces which are beyond his control. What happens in the world, what happens to a person individually, what happens to us collectively, nationally, is not something that we can control. So a person is sort of again passive, an object. That's the existence of fate. And when in that context, in that mindset, where a person reflects on the riddle of tzadik ve-ra lo, so he does so, again sort of just passively, philosophically. Alternatively, the Rav says, there is an existence of destiny whereby a person isn't simply a passive object controlled by, subjected to all kinds of forces, but a person who's a subject, a person who transforms, a person who is active, proactive. And on that level, the Rav says, so the response to ra is not an abstract philosophical question of how can it be? In the Ribbono Shel Olam's world, of the Ribbono Shel Olam who is ach tov and his world which is tov me'od, how can it be that there's ra? But rather, the question is, what should my reaction to ra be? So here, just perhaps to elaborate a little bit, referring to again the philosophical reflection which arises out of the kiyuum gorali, the existence of fate, so the Rav writes as follows: מתוך השאלה והקושיא הפתרון והתירוץ הוא בא לידי ניסוח מטאפיזי של הרע שעל ידה מתפשר הוא עם אותו הרע ומנסה להשלים עליו. משתמש הסובל בכוח ההפשטה השכלית שחונן בו מאת הבורא.
So the one suffering utilizes the capacity for intellectual abstraction with which Hakadosh Baruch Hu graced a person, עד כדי אשליה עצמית. Until the point of self-deception. The person fools himself by כפירה במציאות הרע בעולם. The person engages in, the Rav says, metaphysical speculation until he's able to come to the conclusion that the answer to the problem of tzadik ve-ra lo is that it's a mistake in our perception, that there really is no such thing as evil in the world. We'll come back to this in a minute, be'ezrat Hashem, what the Rav is referring to and what his critique, how his critique is intended. By contrast, the Rav says that the Torah, with its realistic approach to person and to human experience, says that מי שרוצה להטעות את עצמו על ידי הסח הדעת מן הקרע שבהוויה ועל ידי רומנטיזציה של חיי האדם
eino ela. אינו אלא שוטה והוזה הזיה. He's not in touch with, he's delusional. אי אפשר להתגבר על מפלצת הרע במחשבה פילוסופית ספקולטיבית. You can't overcome the problem of evil through philosophical and speculative thinking, and that's why the Torah says that a person just accepts the fact of incomprehensible ra in the world. ישנו רע שלא ניתן לפירוש ולהבנה. There is ra in the world that we can't understand. And instead, what the Rav characterizes as the halakhic approach is to ask what one's response to ra is supposed to be. Let's perhaps elaborate both of these approaches. And this is the first approach on a certain level, the Rav's very, very stinging criticism notwithstanding, is very much along the lines of what the Rambam writes in the Moreh. The Rambam writes in the Moreh that there is an equation between the ultimate good, the ultimate good is existence. The ultimate good is to be, is to exist. That's the ultimate good. Anything that we perceive as ra, says the Rambam, in truth is really just less good. So if the baseline is to not exist, to not exist, and then a person is alive but he walks with a limp, rachmana litzlan. So the Rambam says the fact that a person has a limp is not something which has its own absolute value, it's just less bracha. It means the person has less bracha. And when you think about it, what the Rambam is saying, there's something, this is a tautology, there's something very, very profound and a tremendous insight in what the Rambam is saying, and hear this, rabosai. And we'll see none of this is the focus of the Rav's very, very stinging arrows of criticism. But there's something like this, when you think of often, maybe always, the complaints, the grievances, the frustrations we have, it's because we have a certain baseline of entitlement. We assume that we're entitled to a certain baseline. We assume we're entitled to personal success, to get married and to raise a family and for that to be something which is very fulfilling. That's we assume that we're entitled to financial security, to professional success. We feel blessed if in addition to all that, I win the lottery, oh, Hakadosh Baruch Hu is sending me a bracha. In addition to all that, in addition to all that, I don't know, my kids win the award in school. So not only have I good kids and not only but they're nachas, they win the bekiyas award in school. Oh, now it's already a bracha. Now I have to feel some hakaras hatov. There's a sense of entitlement. And what the Rambam is saying is, no, everything, the fact that a person exists is the ultimate tov. When Hakadosh Baruch Hu says to Moshe Rabbeinu, אני אעביר כל טובי על פניך, the Rambam says it means I'm going to explain existence to you. Because there's an equation between existence and tov. וירא אלוהים כי טוב וירא אלוהים כי טוב וירא אלוהים את כל אשר עשה והנה טוב מאוד.
So it's not just some abstract manipulations of concepts. There's a profound, profound mussar vort and orientation that this Rambam by, again, which does ultimately deny. Evil. It says that evil is less of a bracha. משל למה הדבר דומה. Let's say you have two brothers that they share the same birthday. And on their birthday, so they both get a letter in the mail and each one opens the letter. And there it is from some benefactor that they've never met, for whom they've never done anything whatsoever in their lives. They have no claim, they have no nothing. So it's a birthday check, birthday card with a check enclosed. One of them gets a check for 20 million dollars. The other one gets a check for 10 million dollars. So what's going to be? The one who gets the check for 10 million dollars is going to file suit for discrimination that Mai Hai, you sent my brother a 20 million dollar check for his birthday and you only sent and my birthday check is only 10 million dollars? A person can't have taynos on you owed me a bigger gift. So what's the Rav's criticism, Iyov Azoy? And that's what the Rambam means by there's no such thing as ra in the world, because existence is hov. To be alive, and then on top of that for us, to be Jewish, to be alive Jewish are the ultimate brachos. Okay, a person has better health, more bracha. A person, Rachmana litzlan, has less health? It's not ra. Maybe it's less bracha, but what are you going to do? You're going to file suit because how come his birthday check is, I don't understand what your cheshbon is that his birthday check is 20 million dollars and my birthday check is 15 million dollars and you owe me an explanation? And until you give me that explanation, I'm not going to thank you for the 15 million dollar birthday check. So Iyov Azoy, what's the Rav's criticism, what does he intend? So kemedumeh that one has to understand as follows. There is ultimate reality and there's human reality. And when you read it, you see that he, the Rav basically, if you read carefully, he doesn't use these words but he's saying so meforash. Ultimate reality means reality as perceived by HaKadosh Baruch Hu. That's what's really happening in the world is ultimate reality. But there's also human reality. We don't perceive or experience the world from HaKadosh Baruch Hu's vantage point. We can't and we never ever will. In Yimos HaMashiach we won't either. It's not the case that only at this point in history that we don't have that perspective. By definition, כי לא מחשבותי מחשבותיכם ולא דרכיכם דרכי, that chasm, that infinite gap, has to remain. So we can't understand ever the world, perceive, experience the world from HaKadosh Baruch Hu's vantage point. So there's ultimate reality and there's human reality. And what the Rav says is that what the Rambam tells us—he doesn't mention the Rambam by name, but that approach—is only intended to deal, it only deals with ra, again, in a philosophical sense. How can there be evil in the world of the Ribbono Shel Olam who's only good and כל מה דעביד רחמנא לטב עביד? But the problem that we encounter is not only a philosophical one. It arises from our experience. It arises from human reality. And within human reality, avada avada we experience things as ra within human reality. Do you hear that distinction of the Rav? It's crucial. Again, משל למה הדבר דומה. You take your baby for his vaccinations. So avada avada what's happening is good, and avada avada it's a very big mitzvah to do so. So that's sort of the, in the mashal, that's the mashal of the ultimate reality that the parents, who have maturity, can understand. On the baby's level, so the baby's level is he's minding his own business, he didn't get into trouble this morning, and his parents sent him to the doctor and the doctor takes out this big needle and winds up and and and stabs him with it. You can't explain it to the, you can't explain that fact away. That's just a given. That that's a given. That's what the Rav says on on the human level in terms of how we experience reality, we don't experience ultimate reality, we experience human reality. And Halacha deals with human reality. How do you see that? You see there's a different beracha for besoros tovos and besoros ra'os. On a besora tova a person says HaTov VeHaMeitiv, on a besora ra'a a person says Dayan HaEmes. כל מה דעביד רחמנא לטב עביד. I don't know if there's an ultimate distinction or differentiation between the tov and the ra, but certainly on the level of human experience, in our world, in our realm, there is a difference between between what we experience as tov and what we experience as ra and and Halacha recognizes that. Yes, you make a beracha either way, but חייב אדם לברך על הרעה כשם שמברך על הטובה. And yes, either way the beracha is supposed to be, Rashi explains when the Gemara says bekabbalah uvesimcha, it means belev shaleim. A person is supposed to accept it wholeheartedly, but at the end of the day, there are different berachos. One's a beracha of HaTov VeHaMeitiv, one's a beracha of Dayan HaEmes. And that's what the Rav is saying, that the problem of tzaddik vera lo and and what the nevi'im wanted to understand was not only they wanted to be able to understand tzaddik vera lo, not only not only theoretically but they wanted in terms of on a human level to be able to experience that. And that's takeh impossible. That that's impossible. Maybe just to read a few lines in this context. Vadai when when the Torah says that ישנו רע סבל וישנם יסורים שאוחזים בעולם. There is evil, there is suffering in the world. He says ודאי כי עדותה של התורה על היצירה שהוא טוב מאד עם אמיתתה.
Of course, of course what the Torah says is entirely true that reality is only good, exceedingly good. אולם אין זה אמור אלא מבחינת ההצצה האין-סופית של היוצר.
But that that characterization, that classification is vayar Elokim, is from the vantage point, the perception, the infinite perception of HaKadosh Baruch Hu. בהסתכלות החלקית של האדם הסופי. Given the partial perspective of finite man, so then אין הטוב המוחלט שביצירה נחשף. It's not it's not something which is revealed. On the human level ישנו רע שלא ניתן לפירוש ולהבנה. Now listen here, the Rav gives a mashal which seems to be a famous mashal and not his own, but listen to exactly how he presents it. משל למה הדבר דומה. לאדם המסתכל בשטיח נהדר. Look at at a rug, a tapestry, something ma'aseh choseiv with incredibly exquisite embroidery שציור מרהיב עין רקום עליו, and and that there's again embroidered within it is is an amazing amazing picture. However he looks at it mitziddo hasmoli. He's looking at it backwards. Looking at it backwards from the wrong angle. Ha'im habata zo, will this looking at the the embroidery תהפך מקור חוויה אסתטית נשגבת, is he going to have some exalted aesthetic experience? No, he's looking at it upside down, inside out and and and backwards. Okay, so that's that's a famous mashal, right? The famous mashal, some give the mashal if you read a book or you go to a play and and the play consists of four parts and One is only present for for the second part, so it doesn't make any sense, it doesn't make any sense. Okay, if if if you would have seen the first part and you would have known what's going to happen in parts three and four, so then you'd see that part two makes sense. Others give a mashal which seems to be closer to the mashal that the Rav is paraphrasing of someone doesn't know how—not no one's ever seen how clothing is manufactured. So they see this beautiful, beautiful swath of material, beautiful velvet material. And then they see this tailor or seamstress, what are they doing? So they're taking, seemingly very destructively, they're taking the scissors and they hear this beautiful, everything is proportioned, the angles are perfect, perfectly rectangular and what's this tailor or seamstress doing with the scissors? So right away they're cutting and throwing away part of it. So it's crazy. It's destructive. Okay, so if you know what the process of making a dress or a suit is, then you understand what the tailor is doing. If you just sort of parachute in for this one moment and you don't know where things are headed and you don't know what it's laying the groundwork for, so then it just seems very destructive. So that seems to be more or less the mashal that he was giving also. But the emphasis it isn't. The Rav is talking about even if you see everything. He davka doesn't give that mashal of that you see part two of the play and you miss the opening part and the concluding parts. He doesn't say that you only see the tailor at one stage of his work. No, he gives a mashal that he davka gives you a mashal, no, you're seeing everything. You're seeing the whole embroidery but did you ever look, did you ever look at needlepoints instead of looking at the front of the needlepoint so you look at the back of the needlepoint? So the front of the needlepoint is this really nice picture that the kids had a lot of fun making. Look at the back. So the back is a bunch of knots and a bunch of loose threads and stam gornisht. Stam gornisht. So the Rav gives that mashal. What's the difference between his mashal and the other meshalim, the other type of mashal that we mentioned is that it's not that our limitation is only because in terms of the historical timeline we only have a partial view and a partial perspective. That implies, no, if only we could see everything, זה ספר תולדות אדם. If only we'd be privy to the entire book of זה ספר תולדות אדם, then everything would make sense and that's what the Rav is saying, no, that's not true. It's not true. Rav Shach has in his sefer Avi Ezri on the Rambam in Hilchos Yesodei HaTorah, so he says that he heard from Reb Volvel beshem Reb Chaim that what people say that le’asid lavo we won't need to have emunah because everything will be with yediyah is not true. And it can't be true because if there's a mitzvah to have emunah, Tzadik be’emunaso yichye, so mitzvos are not batelas le’asid lavo. So it's not true. It's not true that everything is going to be retrospectively understood and fully appreciated le’asid lavo. It's not true. Okay, so the way it's sort of presented there, so it seems like sort of a technical argument from mitzvos are not batelas. But what's intended, what's clearly intended is this again profound yesod that the reason a person doesn't understand is not only because oh, we don't know how history's going to play itself out for the next 20, 50, 100 years. Even when a person will be able to view the entire timeline from בריאת האדם עד קץ הימים, a person won't understand כי לא מחשבותי מחשבותיכם ולא דרכיכם דרכי. And it's for that reason that halacha says that when we're when we're conflicted or even tormented by, rachmana litzlan, the problem of ra, so on the human level there is a person can never understand. Everything we said from the Rambam notwithstanding. Watch a person in the throes of a horrible machala and it doesn't cut it. It doesn't cut it. As compelling as it is philosophically, as true as it is philosophically, as profound as its mussar implications are, it doesn't cut it. You see someone rachmana litzlan, someone rachmana litzlan in the throes of a horrible machala, so you say what do you mean there's no s'char? What do you mean there's no what do you mean there's no ra? What do you mean what do you mean with the with the— of one check for 15 million dollars, one check for 20 million dollars. And that's what the Rav says, that's what his criticism, his criticism is if one thinks that that first approach is one which not only solves the philosophical problem, but also solves the human problem. He's criticizing it on that level. The Rambam intends it, Rambam doesn't intend it on the level in which on which the Rav is criticizing it. So the second, again, the second mindset with which a person approaches evil in the world again is from the Kiyum Yehudi, the existence of destiny where a person isn't just an object, not just subjected to things beyond his control, but a person is a subject. So his reaction to yisurim is not the ultimate why question because on the human experiential level that can't be answered. His, the question that he asks is what am I supposed to do? What's my reaction supposed to be? How do I, how do I, I can't control what happens but I can control what it represents, I can control what its impact is upon me, what am I supposed to do? איך יתנהג אדם בעת צרה? מה יעשה האדם ולא ימוט בייסוריו?
What is a person supposed to do that he doesn't, doesn't, isn't destroyed because of the yisurim? התשובה ההלכתית לשאלה זו פשוטה מאד. The halakhic answer to this question is very simple. הייסורים באים כדי לרומם את האדם. To uplift the person. Letahero ulezakcho ulekadesho. To purify him, to sanctify him. Lenakot et machshavto. To cleanse his thought. ולצרפה מכל פסולת השטחיות. From all superficiality. Vesigei hagasut. And all forms of arrogance. And aden et nafsho. To make his soul more refined. Skipping a few words, כללו של דבר הייסורים תפקידם. The role, the function of yisurim is לתקן את הפגם באישיותו של האדם. To galvanize a person to correct, to perfect that which is blemished within his personality. When you think about it, something very paradoxical emerges. Our knee-jerk reaction when rachmana litzlan we see a person who is beset by yisurim, we see that helplessness which is what it is on the physical level. We see that helplessness, that helplessness as something which is demeaning and very, very undignified. The opposite of what it means to be, what it means to be dignified is to be independent, to be sort of in control of a situation. And here's the person rachmana litzlan beset by yisurim and none of that is the case. A person can't take care of himself, a person can't fend for himself, a person experiences dependence upon other people and we see that as being again demeaning and undignified. And on one level it is, it certainly is on one level. But what emerges according to what the Rav is telling us here, is that this experience is one which really, if a person reacts appropriately, is one that potentially restores dignity. Because if the experience of yisurim again does galvanize a person to teshuva, it does galvanize a person to strip away layers of superficiality. from his from his life. It does it does cleanse the person of arrogance. So ultimately the person is really becoming more of a person, a greater person, a more dignified being than than he was when again superficially he was just just in control of everything. Within the the essay, the Rav transitions to to talking about Medinat Yisrael. Again the essay was as as you know was originally delivered here as as a drasha in תשי"ז in 1956 on on Yom Ha'atzmaut. So the Rav continues as follows: וגם עכשיו אחרי זה גם עכשיו אנו עומדים בימים טרופים ימי זעם ומצוקה רגועי פגעות ולימודי ייסורים אנו.
We live in in times of distress. We've been afflicted, we've been we've been experiencing the the cauldron of suffering. במשך חמש עשרה השנים האחרונות. Again 1956 going back 15 years, i.e. to the Holocaust. So נתייסרנו בעינויים שאין כמותם בתולדות אלפי שנות גלותנו. The suffering of the years of the Holocaust are is unparalleled and unprecedented in in Jewish history. Elbonu Shmad. Then the Rav continues and says that פרשת הסבל לא נחתמה בייסודה של מדינת ישראל. And it's not the case that we turned a page entirely in 1948 and that we transitioned that the parsha of suffering concluded and a new parsha opened, that's not the case. Certainly a new parsha began, but it overlaps with the with the previous parsha. פרשת הסבל לא נחתמה בייסודה של מדינת ישראל. The parsha of suffering didn't come to a conclusion, didn't conclude with the establishment of Medinat Yisrael. כיום הזה עוד שרויה מדינה זו במשבר וסכנה. The medina is still in a state of crisis and danger. וכולנו מלאי פחד וחרדה לגורלו של היישוב. And and all of us are full of fear and trembling for the future of the Jewish state. One of the the remarkable qualities of of this essay, despite its references to the then current events, is how incredibly timely every part of it remains ad hayom hazeh. That פרשת הסבל לא נחתמה בייסודה של מדינת ישראל. It wasn't only true in in 1956 when the medina existed in the pre-67 borders which if you look at a map were just so tiny with Syria having the the advantage of the high ground and in the in the Golan Heights and and all the vulnerability which that represented and many other factors. But clearly both the suffering as well as the danger, they were ongoing in 56. In Taf Shin Zayin they were equally ongoing in תשע"ט as well. I don't know if it was easier in 1956 or maybe we sort of excuse ourselves by thinking it was easier in 1956 to recognize that reality. But you live with miracles long enough, so you begin to take the miracles for granted. And avada, avada, Eretz Yisrael, Medinat Yisrael always exists in mortal danger with Iran, with all surrounded as Chazal describe in the Gemara about a seh, it's true in golus but it's true in Medinat Yisrael also. A seh which is which is surrounded by seventy chayos torfos. So the danger is very much current. It's not only historical. It's not only trying to to enter the to read this essay have to enter a mindset of 1956. No, it's true and it's true avada, it's true today as well. The suffering is also ongoing. Just within the past week, there were more casualties. You go sometimes to in the summers, so we've been blessed for many many many years to be in Eretz Yisrael. One of one of those summers there was a pigua and so there was given transportation to one of the levayos, that particular levaya happened to be of the chayal Boaz from Philadelphia who had been killed. So it was on Har Herzl. So you walk around on Har Herzl and you look at the matzeivos and you look at the birthdate and then you look at the day that chayal was killed al kiddush Hashem, there are just no words. It's heart-rending, it's mind-boggling, there are no words. This one was 18. And we need to think of it not only mathematically. We need to think of it, I think most of us sort of begin living at age 18. That's when we sort of first mature and they're ready to begin. It's not sort of don't think of 18 as ימי שנותינו בהם שבעים שנה so patch 25%. No, it's this one's 19. Occasionally you see someone who was really old, he was in his 20s. He's in his 20s when he was מוסר נפש על קידוש השם and killed. פרשת הסבל לא נכתבה בייסודה של מדינת ישראל and obviously it's true for not only the chayalehem and chalalei Tzahal, it's also true for all the victims of the piguim, Rachmana litzlan as well. פרשת הסבל לא נכתבה בייסודה של מדינת ישראל. And the mechayev which the Rav talks about here in this essay of yisurin that yisurin are mechayev a reaction. Not a reaction of complaint. And as much of a chiyuv as there is and there certainly is a chiyuv of hishtadlus on a practical natural level, there is a chiyuv of hishtadlus on that level. The Torah talks about having an army and it means that one is supposed to strategize militarily, politically, how to how to defend ourselves. But none of that in any way diminishes the mechayev that the Rav talks about in in this essay that when we do encounter suffering, when we do encounter... Whether those of us who live outside of Eretz Yisrael do so legitimately or illegitimately, even assuming that one is talking about someone who's doing so legitimately and there obviously is such a category, we all need to recognize that everyone who lives in Eretz Yisrael and on top of that, even more so, all the Chayalim are doing something which is not their obligation more than our obligation. Hakadosh Baruch Hu wants Jews to live and to populate Eretz Yisrael, and that's true of all of us and there's supposed to be an army that defends us in Eretz Yisrael. And I don't know that al pi din there's really a difference. I don't know anything. Nothing I say is ever intended halacha, but there doesn't seem to be any difference between whether a person is born in Eretz Yisrael or born in Chutz La'aretz in terms of what that obligation would be. So what they're doing, and I'm talking about attitudinal implications, not practical implications, we should recognize they're doing our shlichus. Okay, so maybe what we're doing is also a shlichus of another part of what Hakadosh Baruch Hu wants in the world. I don't mean to delegitimize what everyone else is doing, chas v'shalom. So there shouldn't be any sense of detachment. There should be complete sense of identification and we should encounter and be experiencing the reality of this sentence of פרשת הסבל לא נחתמה ביסודה של מדינת ישראל and the mechayev again of l'romem et ha'adam, l'nakot et machshavto to cleanse his thought, to peel away all the shitchiyus, all the layers of superficiality and pettiness in our lives. So we encounter that mechayev. I'm a little bit overtime but basically just to jump ahead to the one other theme again so prominent here in the essay. The Rav explains that basically there are two ways to be m'orer a person. As it were, Hakadosh Baruch Hu has two primary ways to awaken, to arouse, to try to stimulate and evoke a response, and the tzad hashaveh of the two is to replace the ordinary with the extraordinary because the ordinary we sort of get used to, so it doesn't really, it doesn't evoke a reaction, it doesn't, it's not a source for us of hisorerus. But the extraordinary, the extraordinary is, the extraordinary the Rav says can come in the form of ra and suffering, that's something extraordinary, or the extraordinary can come in the form of extraordinary chasadim, extraordinary nissim. And the emes is that in Medinat Yisrael those two mechayvim converge and they coexist side by side. The mechayev of the extraordinary suffering is there, again the news of the last week, not that hochecha is necessarily but once again reflects it. And avada avada the incredible miraculous bracha of our having Eretz Yisrael. The fact that it's been 71 years in no way diminishes from its miraculousness, from the extraordinary. In identifying with ארץ ישראל, so both of these מחייבים converge and when the time of year is such that we are even more focused, so clearly clearly recognizing these מחייבים and what each of us can and should do individually, what perhaps collectively, is something that should be first and foremost on our minds.