"When you go out to wage war against your enemies. And G-d, your G-d, will deliver them
into your hands and you will take captives.." (Ki Teitzei 21:10)

This Torah reading begins with the directives regarding the wars waged by the Jewish people, and guidance
with regard to how they should treat the captives they take. In a spiritual sense, these directives can be
understood as analogies applying to our efforts to refine the material environment in which we live.

For at times, the struggle to overcome the coarseness of that environment may be so bitter that it be
considered as "war." Nevertheless, a Jew is assured that he is given an advantage over his "enemies," this
worldly setting, and that if he perseveres in his Divine service, he will "take captives," refine that environment
and elevate it, preparing it for the era, when "I will cause the spirit of impurity to depart from the earth," with
the coming of Moshiach.

This theme is also reflected in the conclusion of the Torah reading which speaks of the constant struggle to
wipe out Amalek, for it is only in the end of days, with the coming of Moshiach, that G-d will wipe out all traces
of Amalek's hatred of the Jews, and our people will be able to live in peace with none to threaten them.

By Rabbi E. Tauger

Tales for the Shabbos Table

This week's section contains 96 commandments, more than any other in the Torah. One of them is the prohibition of a Jewish woman marrying a convert from Moab.

The Torah even gives a reason (22:5) "...because they (Moab) hired Bilam...to curse you."

But the Torah does not stop there, the next sentence continues(22:6):

"And G-d did not want to listen to Bilam and G-d transformed for you the curse into a blessing because G-d loves you."

At first glance this last sentence is completely unnecessary. What legal importance is it to us that G-d loves us, didn't listen to Bilam and even boomeranged his plans? The Torah forbids marriage to a Moabite convert because of what Moab once TRIED to do.

To help understand this, here is a story.

It was three thirty A.M. Friday morning and pitch black outside when the middle aged Jewish couple knocked at the door of Rabbi Kalmanson's Cincinnati apartment.

"Hello, please come in." the Rabbi opened the door and said in a half whisper. "Just don't talk to loud. My wife and children are asleep. Come in, come in. Here just take a seat, would you like something to drink?" He said, as he led them into his front room. He hoped he could go back to sleep soon.

The Rabbi was the director of the Chabad house in Cincinnati Ohio and although guests and visitors always filled his house this was the first time that he received a phone call at three A.M. from strangers that wanted to discuss something urgently.

The first thing he noticed was that the man was blind, but beside that they looked like typical, secular, American Jews.

They introduced themselves as non-observant Jews in trouble. The man had become incurably blind years ago after an operation to counter high blood pressure, but they had already come to terms with that. That wasn't their problem

They came because about a month ago they found a 'New Testament' under the pillow of their oldest daughter and when they asked her about it she reacted as though a woman possessed.

Usually a pleasant and sensitive girl, she began belligerently yelling all sorts of epithets against Judaism and praises of her newfound 'way'. It seems that one of her teachers in college, himself a 'newborn', had been working on her for months and she was under his spell.

They were desperate. True, they themselves were not in any way observant Jews, but they were Jews and they knew that what she was doing was wrong. Not only that, they felt she was drifting toward insanity.

They were both weeping. "We used to be so close and now she has become hypnotized. She's like a stranger, she won't even listen to us and only talks about her religion. In fact she is trying to convince us that we should join her. Can you help Rabbi? Please, we have no one else to turn to.

The Rabbi hadn't forgotten about going back to sleep. What could he do? He had no experience in deprogramming or anti-missionary work. In fact, generally speaking, that is not the Chabad approach. But his mind wasn't working. Then suddenly, from nowhere, he had an idea.

"Tell me, are you still on speaking terms?"

"Yes" the father replied. "At first we argued. But then she ran away from home and the only way we could get her back was by promising that we wouldn't talk about it any more. So now we are talking, but just not about that subject.

But yesterday we happened to overhear her saying to someone on the phone that in a few days she is going to officially become one of 'them' and we are going crazy."

"Will she be willing to come with you to my house tomorrow night for the Shabbat meal?" The Rabbi continued, "Or maybe I should first ask if you would be willing to come? Have you ever kept a Shabbat?"

They admitted that they hadn't but promised they would come and were fairly sure that she would join them, being as it would be the first time for all of them.

The next night they were again sitting in the Rabbi's house but with a few changes. First, the Rabbi was dressed like a Rabbi and the house looked like something from another, bright and beautiful, world. Second, he did a few Jewish rituals like make Kiddush and washing hands before eating bread. And third, their daughter was sitting with them.

After a rather pleasant hour together (save a few acidic comments from their daughter that he pretended not to hear) Rabbi Kalmanson began phase two of his idea. He told the girl that, being as he didn't understand anything
about her religion and she probably didn't know much about his, he would like to exchange ideas. First she would teach him.

She enthusiastically accepted. She was so excited about a Rabbi (or anyone else for that matter) actually listening to her that she lost track of the time and that night she talked until...six in the morning.

When they finished she requested another session and in the course of the next few weeks they met four more times; she did the talking and Rabbi Kalmanson listened.

Then on their fifth meeting the Rabbi asked if he could say something.

She was so sure that he was in her camp that she was all ears.

And truly he was in her camp. He explained to her in the most calm and friendly way possible that no matter what she did she was a daughter of Sara, Rivka, Rachel, and Leah and G-d would always love her.

Then, paying no attention to all her 'proofs' and 'experiences' that she had been babbling about for the last weeks, he pointed out that the G-d of the Jews alone creates all being constantly (including the 'holy' spirits and ghosts that she is so excited about) and it is forbidden to pray to any of His creations or manifestations.

Not only that but it's totally unnecessary. G-d is infinitely merciful, loves us unconditionally, creates us every instant anew, is infinitely close to us, listens to our prayers and even forgives all our sins. He just wants us to reciprocate and that's why He gave the Torah.

Then he explained that her religious experiences with the Missionaries were the same as the Jews felt when they worshiped the Golden Calf; and they worshiped it for hundreds of years during the first Temple.

But the final blow was when he pointed out that in our generation there is a Jew called the Lubavitcher Rebbe who even does miracles and never dreamed of changing even one letter of the Torah or canceling any of its holy commandments.

"Could he make my father see again?" She asked.

"I don't know" answered the Rabbi, "But I know that he has done such things, and even greater. You just do what Jewish women with joy and self-sacrifice have been doing for over three thousand years, and we can hope for a miracle.

Little by little her Jewish soul began thawing out. She lost interest in her cult and began lighting Shabbat Candles. Then she made her parent's home kosher until a few months later she went with a group of girls to the Rebbe for Simchat Torah. It was nothing short of a miracle.

But that is not the end of the story. She remembered what Rabbi Kalmanson had said about the Rebbe and several months later she reminded him of it.

They wrote a letter asking for the Rebbe's blessing and advice and a week later they received an answer.

The Rebbe gave his blessing and advised that the father should begin to put on Tefillin every day, put mezuzahs on all the doors of his house and then a doctor who is a friend of the family should be consulted.

But her parents wanted no part of it. As far as they were concerned they were good enough Jews as they were and the blindness was incurable.

So she had no choice but to buy her father a pair of Tefillin and help him to put them on daily. Rabbi Kalmanson bought and put on the mezuzas (no small task as there were forty (!) doors in their home) and then he went with the girl to their family doctor for advice.

But the doctor was even less cooperative. "First of all Rabbi," he protested "I'm not an eye doctor. Second, expert eye doctors said that there is no cure. And third, why build up the poor man's hopes for nothing, hasn't he suffered enough? Who does this Lubavitcher Rebbe think he is? He knows anything about medicine? Etc etc." In short, he almost kicked them out of the office.

But a month later the phone in Rabbi Kalmanson's office rang. It was the doctor. He happened to pick up a medical Journal and noticed that there was some professor in New York that had developed a new technique for eye operations. He even contacted this professor and he said he was willing to see the girl's father.

Rabbi Kalmanson took him to New York, the professor made the examination and set the operation for the next day. It was to take at least four or five hours, perhaps more. His wife and daughter joined the Rabbi and they all sat nervously in the waiting room reading Psalms.

Suddenly, after only a half-hour the doctor burst out of the operating room and ran past them into his office. Moments later, as he rushed back out of his room to the operating table he sensed their worry and said. "Everything is fine. Your father will be out soon. Keep praying."

A few minutes later the doctor again came out this time followed by his patient, wheeled out on the operating table unconscious with bandages covering his eyes.

Two days later they were all there when the professor removed the bandages they had no idea what to expect. He admitted that the reason he ran out of the operating room so early was because the operation finished hours earlier than expected; he thought that perhaps there had been some mistake.

"OYYY!" he screamed in pain. "OYYYY my eyes!!!"

His wife and daughter began to weep uncontrollably..

"What is it?" The doctor asked. "What's wrong?"

"I CAN SEE!!!" He shouted. "I CAN SEE AGAIN!!"

Now they were all in tears...including the professor.

Two months later the father renewed his driver's license and needless to say he and his wife became observant Jews.

That answers the above questions.

The Moabites hired Bilam in order to destroy the Jewish people. That is why it is forbidden to marry with them, because the trait of destruction isa antithetical to Judaism.

The purpose of Jews is to bring blessing and meaning and to build the world,
and Moab wanted the opposite, like all the anti-Semites throughout history.

But here the Torah is telling us that it is specifically this particular Moabite trait, as evil as it can be, will bring Moshiach and build the world!

In fact King David, the forerunner of Moshiach (and who according to the Maimonides was Moshiach), originated from Ruth the Moabite. And the evil Bilam himself made the clearest prophesies in the Torah regarding Moshiach.

Maimonides writes that Moshiach will be a destroyer. He will destroy the nation of Amelek (spoken of at the end of this week's section) and all the enemies of Judaism.

So the Torah is letting us know that even when things look darkest and most evil G-d can and will transform it all to a blessing.

Just as the family in our story wouldn't have become observant Jews and the father would not have regained his eyesight if his daughter hadn't been snared by the missionaries.

As the Lubavitcher Rebbe said time and time again. Moshiach is here, all we have to do is open our eyes and see....
Moshiach NOW!

Rabbi Tuvia Bolton
Yeshiva Ohr Tmimim
Kfar Chabad, Israel
Torah Online Website: http://www.ohrmimim.org/torah

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Tales for the Shabbos Table

This week's section ends with three commandments dealing with Amelek: a nation that hates the Jews and tries to destroy them whenever possible.

1) To remember Amelek
2) Not to forget Amelek and
3) To eliminate Amelek.

At first glance this is not understood:

First, the reason Amelek hates the Jews is because he hates G-d.

Now, the Baal Shem Tov teaches that G-d creates the entire world constantly. So why would G-d constantly create people that hate Him?

Also, the last of these commandments seems to nullify the first two; if we eliminate Amelek so he doesn't exist, then why would we want to remember him.

To answer here is a story.

The Rebbe of Lubavitch, Rabbi Menachem Shneerson, (sometimes called 'The Rebbe') did so many miracles that often they were taken for granted. But here is one that can only be understood as miraculous.

Rabbi Moshe Finer was a member of a group of religious Jews that officially were not fond of the Rebbe and his 'Messianic' ideas.

It disturbed them when the Rebbe insisted that we must love every Jew and draw them to Torah (even the most blatant sinners) and we must reach out and educate even the gentiles about the seven Noahide Commandments.But now Rabbi Moshe was in a big dilemma. His wife was ill, the doctors said terminally ill, and there was simply no hope.

He and his wife had been to over fifteen different countries and spent tens of thousands of dollars searching for doctors and treatments but she just kept getting sicker. And now, just the other day, one of the biggest professors in Israel confirmed the worst. She had only days to live; only prayer would help.

Prayer! Rav Moshe had done nothing but pray since the first day they got the terrible news. For over a year he, all his friends and family were praying and praying, but nevertheless she was dying.

"You have no choice, Moshe", his wife pleaded from her sickbed. "Go see the Lubavitcher. We've tried everything Moshe, everything, We have nothing to loose, nothing. And you know that you admire him anyway. So go Moshe, please."

So the next day Rab Moshe put on his best Sabbath garments, took a subway to the Crown Hights area of Brooklyn entered the Rebbe's headquarters on 770 Eastern Parkway and made an appointment.

Fifteen hours later at two in the morning he was standing nervously in front of the Rebbe's office door waiting for it to open. After over five hours of waiting (he was scheduled for nine P.M.) he was now first in line. The people behind him were silently reading Psalms or nervously
adjusting their ties and straightening their suits.

The door opened! The man that just finished backed out of the Rebbe's office eyes red as though he had been crying and Rav Moshe entered.

The room was very brightly lit and very quiet; the walls were lined with books. The door closed behind him. The Rebbe was looking at a letter from a pile on his desk and occasionally the chair he was sitting on creaked or rustled like thunder in the silence.

The Rebbe looked up at him and said "Sit". But Rav Moshe couldn't sit. Something very, very unusual was happening here. He had lived around Chassidic Jews his entire life but he had never seen anyone like this, no less to be alone with him. This man was royal, powerful, wise, simple, friendly, holy and worldly all at the same time.

"What do you want?" asked the Rebbe.

Rab Moshe began to cry and tell his story. But when he finished the Rebbe answered. "But what do you want from me? If all the doctors and professors can't help what can I do?"

But Rab Moshe was becoming more and more positive that if anyone could do it, it was this man. "Rebbe, have mercy! My wife and I have been so much, through the Holocaust and everything afterwards. Oy Rebbe, she is such a good woman. Please.. please help!"

"Aha!" Said the Rebbe. "The Holocaust! So I have a solution for you!

"The Nazis, yemach Sh'mam (may their name be cursed) killed millions of Jews. Do you agree that I trade one Nazi woman for a Jewish woman. for your wife?"

Rab Moshe knew exactly what to say. "Yes!!" he answered enthusiastically "Amen!! Amen!! It should only be so with all the Nazis, yemach Sh'mam!!"

The Rebbe blessed him and his wife with a long healthy lives and Rab Moshe backed out of the room, drying his eyes and thanking the Rebbe as he went.

Sure enough, the next day his wife began to feel better and in two week's time she felt well enough to take a walk outside.

The doctors couldn't understand the change in her x-rays and were even more amazed when a month later the disease completely disappeared!

Needless to say, Moshe, his family and his friends dropped their opposition to the Rebbe.

This answers our questions.

A basic principle of Judaism is that every Jew is a complete world, containing spiritually, in miniature, everything in creation and therefore has the power to affect the entire world around him.

As the Rebbe often said regarding the situation in Israel today, "The Arabs aren't our only enemies; the entire U.N. is like 'Seventy wolves against one sheep'. But you should know that every Jew has a little gentile inside him and when he defeats that little gentile inside he will defeat the big gentile outside." Every Jew has an 'Amelek' a 'Nazi' within him; a cold, hard core of indifference and even hatred to G-d, Torah and the Jewish people.

And the only way to totally defeat it is by being attached to the Rebbe.

In fact that is why G-d creates Amelek, in order to unite the Jews to the 'Moses' of every generation in order to defeat him.

Just as Mordechi in his generation united and saved all the Jews from Haman, and just as Moses in his generation united and defeated Amelek (in the end of our section). So the job of the Jewish leaders of each generation, and especially the Rebbe in our generation (the generation of Moshiach) is to fight the 'little Amelek'; the coldness and indifference to living Judaism within each of us in order to transform each and every Jew into a warm, living Holy Temple.

That is the goal of Judaism and it will be accomplished ONLY by Moshiach. Only the Moshiach will totally defeat Amelek build the Holy Temple and gather the Jews.

But until then we must do these three commandments: 'remember', 'not forget' and try to 'destroy' the Amelek within us at every opportunity.

In other words; do all we can to bring...
Moshiach NOW!!

Rabbi Tuvia Bolton
Yeshiva Ohr Tmimim
Kfar Chabad Israel
Torah Online Site: http://www.ohrtmimim.org/torah

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Tales for the Shabbos Table

One of the 73 commandments in this week's section, is about returning lost items. This is very relevant to the Jewish month of Elul (the last month of the Jewish year, which we are currently in), when everyone is trying to "return" to G-d before Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur; the Days of Judgment.

In general, that is the job of "Tzadikim" (completely G-dly Jews). To give advice, prayer, inspiration, and help people to return to their true G-dly purpose.

Here is a story about how a great Tzadik, the fifth Rebbe of Chabad Rabbi Shalom DovBer, once needed help to return something he lost.

The Rebbe had just arrived in Petersburg after a long train ride, but when he went to get his baggage, he was dismayed to find that a chest full of precious books that he brought with him couldn't be found in the baggage room.

The Rebbe was very upset, but after the workers searched for over an hour with no results, he had no choice other than to proceed to his dwelling.

Several days later a young Chassid by the name of Avraham Eliyahu Gurarie entered the Rebbe's office with the following sad story:

A few months earlier he had got married, received a sizeable dowry of ten thousand rubles from his wife's family, and promptly lost all but a thousand of it, in a foolish business deal. At first his wife was just angry, but one thing led to another, and now she was talking about divorce. He broke down in tears and begged the Rebbe to help.

"Here" said the Rebbe, handing him the ticket stub for his lost trunk. "Take this, go down to the train station, and ask them to find my books. I'm sure you will succeed.

The Chassid took the ticket, and excitedly ran to the station. But he was in for a disappointment. The baggage room was locked and deserted. He knocked and pounded on the door and called out, but no one answered.

He couldn't return empty handed, so he wandered around for a few minutes in the empty depot, till he saw an open restaurant. He went in, sat down, ordered a tea, took out a cigarette, and began to smoke.

After just a few minutes, he felt that someone was staring at him. He looked up, and sure enough a well-dressed man was sitting at a table in the empty restaurant looking at him with a friendly gaze. The Chassid nodded hello, and offered him a cigarette, and in no time they began a conversation. But when Avraham told him about the lost trunk the man interrupted.

"Well isn't that an amazing coincidence! I happen to be the manager of baggage and shipping here. You know what? Here, just give me that ticket and I'll fix it up".

He left the restaurant, and in minutes the entire station was reverberated with his yelling and shouting from the baggage room. The workers had been on break, and a few minutes after being yelled at, they carried out all the suitcases and bags, and finally found the Rebbe's trunk in a corner where it had been concealed behind all the other luggage.

When our hero returned with the books, the Rebbe was overjoyed and said,

"Avraham Eliyahu I owe you a favor. If you want your money and happy home back, then I advise you to travel to the city of Korch which is by the Black sea".

Avraham went home and told his wife how he, her husband, had actually helped the Rebbe, and what the Rebbe told him. When she heard all this, her anger temporarily transformed into pride, and she joyously began preparing his suitcase, and baking him enough cakes to last him a few days.

"Maybe he isn't such a bumbling fool after all," she thought to herself.

When Avraham reached Korch he checked into a hotel. Being that it was a hot summer day, he decided to go for a swim in the Sea, before he began walking the streets in search of his savior.

He was sitting on the sand, after having finished his swim, eating from the food his wife had prepared, when he noticed that next to him a Jew was sitting, admiring his fine cakes. Avraham offered him a taste, and in no time at all, he was telling him his entire story down to the last detail of the Rebbe's advice.

"You know what?" His newfound friend replied. "I think maybe I can help. Tomorrow meet me here at this same time....and don't forget to bring some of those delicious cakes with you. It would be a shame to loose a wife that bakes such cakes," he said with a smile.

Things were starting to move fast, and Avraham was exited. The next day found him sitting in the same place by the sea, but this time eating cakes with the man he had met the day before, together with a third man, who appeared to be a successful businessman.

"I heard your story, young man," said the businessman. "And I'd like to help you. By the way, you know these are REALLY tasty cakes. Please give my compliments to your wife. I have a freight car filled with cigarette papers. I'm willing to sell you them for a thousand rubles. That's all you have right?

Well, I think that you can sell them for a good price in Karmanchuk where the cigarette factories are. And if you can't, I'm always willing to buy them back from you. What do you say?"

Our hero saw the hand of G-d in this deal, and promptly handed over the entire thousand rubles without asking any questions. In fact, the
businessman had to force him to go down to the freight yard to see what he had purchased.

The businessman had the freight car sent to Karmanchuk with Avraham accompanying it. When he arrived, Avraham immediately made his way to a relative of his that lived there; a well-known Chabad businessman called Rav Tzvi Gur-Arie, to sell his newly acquired cigarette papers.

But Rav Tzvi was anything but enthusiastic. They really weren't worth much more than what Avraham paid for them. Maybe five hundred rubles more. When he heard how the Rebbe was involved, he raised it to two thousand.

"No deal!" said our hero emphatically. "Either give me the entire ten thousand which I ask for, or I'll go elsewhere!"

Rav Tzvi had no choice than to send him away empty handed. He was willing to give charity, but not eight thousand rubles! And the Rebbe never said that all the ten thousand would come from this one sale.

But Avraham Eliyahu did not lose hope. Exactly the opposite. To everyone he saw, he proudly advertised that he was willing to sell his papers for no less than ten thousand rubles. Of course no one really took him seriously

Until the next day. Someone stopped him in the street and nervously asked,

"Excuse me! Are you the one that is selling the cigarette papers?"

"For ten thousand rubles" Avraham added.

"Here is the money! Let me see the merchandise, and its yours." Said the man.

They traveled to the trainyard. Avraham showed him the freight car, and received the money on the spot.

He later learned that there had been a fire in of one of the main cigarette paper factories, and all the cigarette producers were desperate.

When Rav Tzvi eventually heard about the fire, he too rushed to Avraham, only to find that he was too late.

"But you can go to the man who sold them to me in Korch" Said Avraham.

But when Rav Gur-Arie got there, the businessman told him that there were no more papers. And really the only reason he sold that carload to the young man was because he had mercy on him.

Meanwhile, our hero returned home with his "lost" dowry, and peace returned to his home. But when he went to the Rebbe to thank him and ask for advice on how to invest his newly returned wealth, the Rebbe just looked at him with a smile and said; "Now we are even. Good luck."

What can we learn from this story?

Even the most righteous and holy of people, even leaders of Israel like the Rebbe, need the help of ordinary people like you and me. (How much more so do we need each other).

Each of us has a holy soul; a G-dly purpose for which we were created. But each of us, whether because of improper education, bad habits, bad environment, character traits or just laziness has to some degree.....lost
our feeling to it.

Just as in our story:

- No one likes to suffer such a loss, and everyone is happy to have his true identity returned.
- If we help others to return, in the end we help ourselves.
- Although others can help us, in the end we must learn to manage on our own.
- Our good deeds can help everyone; they can make even the Moshiach come a bit earlier and help EVERYONE to find ALL they lost.

Moshiach NOW!

Rabbi Tuvia Bolton
Yeshiva Ohr Tmimim
Kfar Chabad Israel

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This week’s section begins with war. “When you go out to war on your
enemies” Rashi explains that it refers here to an ‘optional’ war i.e. one that the king declares for almost any reason, such as increasing national boundaries or even fattening the state treasuries.

This is not so understood. It is well known that the Torah places prime
importance on life. One is allowed to transgress almost the entire Torah
(except idolatry, murder and adultery) to save a life.
If so how can the Torah allow the King to declare war and risk human lives for such a thing as land or money!?

Also we have to understand; why do we need war at all?

For example, why did the Jews have to conquer the land of Israel through
war? Why didn’t G-d just make the inhabitants surrender, or leave on their own, or not move there in the first place?

I want to answer this with some very strange stories about another war. The one between first Rebbe of Chabad, Rebbe Shneur Zalman (called the ‘Baal Ha Tanya’, or the ‘Alter Rebbe’) and... Napoleon.

First, it is important to note that Napoleon wanted to conquer the world in
the name of ‘Liberty, Equality and brotherhood’, freeing it from the
cruelties and injustices of the various Monarchies and the Church and
thereby relieving the Jewish people of untold suffering.
So it was no wonder that almost all the Torah leaders of the time supported his war efforts.
That is, all except for the Alter Rebbe.

The Rebbe publicly announced that if Napoleon would succeed, although it would certainly raise the glory of the Jewish people materially (Napoleon even had a plan to make a Jewish secular state in Israel) nevertheless it would bring disaster; assimilation, intermarriage and loss of Jewish identity spiritually.

So the Rebbe declared war on Napoleon, and even sent one of his most
talented Chassidim, Rav Moshe Mizlish, to spy on him, passing all the
information to the Russian High command. Several battles were won thanks to this information and the Czar even gave the Rebbe the high honor of “Privileged Citizen for All Generations”

The way Rav Mizlish did it was that he got a job as a translator in the
French war headquarters and managed to hear and remember other vital
top-secret facts while doing his work, of course everything at great
personal risk.

The story is told that one afternoon, Napoleon himself startled everyone by suddenly bursting into the headquarters in a surprise visit. He stood for a moment in the middle of the room everyone standing in fear, rigidly at
attention around him.
Abruptly he turned sharply to Rav Moshe, stared viciously into his eyes, and screamed, “YOU ARE A SPY!!!” while pressing his hand against Rav Moshe’s heart to see if it were beating as that of a doomed man. Several very tense seconds of pregnant silence passed. But Napoleon did not detect anything.
He removed his hand, saluted sharply to the Jew and told him to leave the
room and never to return.
Afterwards, when the Rebbe asked Rav Moshe how he did it he answered, “Chassidus teaches that the mind should control the heart. I just figured that if I can control my heart against something so powerful as my own selfish urges, I can certainly control it against that puny human being”.

The next story is even stranger. All the great Tzadikim (Totally Holy
Jews) of the time knew that Napoleon’s success was hanging on a thread; if the Alter Rebbe would blow the Shofar first on Rosh HaShanna Napoleon would lose, and if they were first he would win.
[It seems that the Shofar on Rosh HaShanna is much more potent than we can imagine, especially in the hands of a Tzadik].

Now, the Shofar is blown close to the end of the morning prayers, after the reading of the Torah. So the other Tzadikim began their prayers at the
earliest possible moment and prayed with the greatest possible speed only to discover that after all this, the Baal HaTanya preceded them, he blew the Shofar first!! [The Rebbe later explained that his secret was not that he
prayed faster than the others, but rather that he simply blew the Shofar
immediately and then prayed afterwards.]

[Incidentally, when Napoleon later attacked and conquered the city of Moscow the first thing he did was send soldiers to the home of the Rebbe, (who had already fled before the oncoming troops) in order to bring back even one of the Rebbe possessions (Napoleon had great spiritual powers of evil and sorcery, and through this he hoped to harm the Rebbe) but the Rebbe had earlier ordered that his house be burned down totally (!) to leave Napoleon empty handed.]

The point of these stories is that war has a spiritual source, especially
for the nation of Israel whose entire identity is spiritual.

War means to carry out the work that G-d assigned to the first man (1:28)
“Be fruitful and multiply rule the earth and conquer it.”
Who was the enemy that Adam had to conquer? He was alone in the world!?
But the answer is that he had to conquer himself and the entire creation in
order to reveal Gdliness. And the only way was through SELF-SACRIFICE.
(That is why it was so difficult for him not to eat from the forbidden
fruit.)

When he failed, this job was passed down to anyone who desired it, and no one did until the arrival of Avraham, some 2000 years later.
He accepted upon himself the job of revealing the Oneness of G-d everywhere, even at the greatest risks; he renewed the battle to take the world out of its ‘naturalness’ and make everything in the world holy.
He even succeeded in passing this goal down from generation to generation (therefore he is called ‘our father’) until his offspring had multiplied into a vast nation. Moshe, the first real Jewish leader, continued the job of educating and directing them until his successor, Yhoshua, began its final stage; building a permanent dwelling for G-d’s revelation in the holy LAND; even the EARTH was to be permeated with holiness. But here too, just like Avraham, the Jewish people needed self-sacrifice to succeed, in this case actual war.

But the height of this war was reached by King Dovid (and those kings after him).

A Jewish king is supposed to be the ultimate Jew, totally devoted to only
one thing; revealing HaShem everywhere; educating the Jewish nation, and
through them the entire world, that, as we say in the prayers of Rosh
HaShanna: ’HaShem the Gd of Israel is King and all that exists is part of
His kingdom.”

So now we can understand why the king can risk Jewish lives for even the
most simple and mundane matters, because the essence of the Jewish King is unifying the entire creation, even its most mundane details (such as money and land) under the reign of The Creator. And his main ‘weapon’ in this ‘war’ is the one revealed by Avraham; self-sacrifice

This also explains why the Rambam writes that the Moshiach will be a king (Melech Ha Moshiach) and one of his jobs will be to fight the battles of Gd.
Because the job of Moshiach is to finalize the work begun by Avraham and that can only be done through ‘war’ and self-sacrifice.

But, as the Lubavitch Rebbe stressed many times, this war need not be one of bloodshed.

And the perfect example is the Rebbe himself. He began an all out total war against ignorance and encouraged his Chassidim to endanger themselves spiritually (and often physically) by leaving the security of their
‘ultra-orthodox’ environments and their Torah learning and go from door to door, out into the streets or even to far corners of the earth, to search
for non-observant Jews and encourage them to do even one commandment.

This is the war of the Moshiach. And the Rebbe assures us that all we need to win is simply to go out and try.

And that is the deeper meaning of the first sentence of our Parsha: “When
you go out to war” if you cast fear to the winds and just GO OUT and try to spread Judaism, then you are guaranteed that you will be “ON (victorious over) your enemies”.

May we all rejoice with the revelation of Moshiach NOW!!!

Tuvia Bolton-Yeshaiva Ohr Tmimim

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