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27 Kislev 5762 - December 12, 2001 | Mordecai Plaut, director Published Weekly
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Opinion & Comment
In Search of Security

by Mordecai Plaut

What will be?

That is a question that is often heard these days in Israel as the presumptions that many have entertained for many years have crumbled. Is there a peace process with a "partner" who tries his best to murder you? Can Arafat make a deal? If he goes then what or who will take his place? What will be without tourism, without a high-flying stock market, without increasing economic growth?

Knowing what will be helps one to plan. One can take steps to maximize the gains from the future or at least to minimize the losses.

More than the utility of knowing what the future holds is the sense of security it seems to provide. If we know what will be and where we fit in, then we are "secure" in that knowledge, or at least we feel that way.

But that is not the direction to turn for security. As predictable as things seem, they can always change drastically. As likely as a certain course of events seems, it can quickly jump onto a new path that will have an entirely different outcome. Anyone who has lived through the past three months has seen for himself how dramatically and unexpectedly things can change.

When the Maccabim began their struggle against the dominant Greeks they did not make extensive surveys and studies. They just decided that the time for action had come and sought their security in the spiritual realm, in the certainty that their course was right. Once they knew that their actions were right according to the eternal standards of the Torah, they were not concerned with the chances of success as measured according to the usual laws of nature.

Matisyohu and his sons were not paralyzed into inactivity by the overwhelming challenge that they faced. They did not let the fact that they were a handful facing the mightiest power of the day, stand in their way. As Maran HaRav Shach zt"l said nine years ago soon after the heretical government was set up: "We needn't worry. They may win the elections and we will be in the minority. But the minority will win! We must strengthen ourselves in our own knowledge and if we are strong in our knowledge they will of necessity give in. We are a people who is alive and we have Hakodosh Boruch Hu Who is alive and stands at our side. As it is said in the name of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai (Succah 45b): `I have seen the bnei aliya and they are few. If they are a thousand, I and my son are among them. If a hundred, I and my son are among them. If they are two, I and my son are they.' . . . Even if most are against the Torah, we will stick to it, . . . and this way we will be saved."

We must look for our security in the knowledge that what we do is the right thing to do. If we act on that basis, then Hashem will certainly respond.


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