Defend Your People

Every avodah that a Yid does can be weaponized and used to be melamed sanigoriah, to be a defender and advocate for the Jewish people. Whether it is Torah, avodah (davening), or chessed, you can be a Meilitz Yosher for Klal Yisroel with every mitzvah you do, by doing it with the mindset to proclaim throughout the universe that the Jewish people are holy and good.

Davening as a Defense

Every tefillah that you daven can easily be turned into an exercise of being an advocate for the Jewish people. For example, let’s say you are davening for someone to have a refuah shelaimah. Don’t just daven that Hashem should heal him. Envision yourself as standing in the Beis Din Shel Maalah, and you are that person’s defense attorney! Advocate for this Yid! Make the case in the Beis Din Shel Maaleh: Hashem, this Yid is so holy and so precious, mammish a tzadik or a tzadekes, and all he or she thinks about is You! All he or she does is think about Hashem, talk about Hashem and do things for Hashem! Why wouldn’t they deserve a refuah shelaimah?!

Now, not only are you davening for a refuah shelaimah, but you are turning the tefillah into an exercise of saying good things about your fellow Jew.

Chazal teach us that when we daven for a particular Jew to be healed, we should daven for them b’soch shar cholei Yisroel, together with all other Jews who are ill. When you advocate for a specific Jew, you are also advocating for all of the Jewish people.

The Jewish people need this defense because any illness or danger that appears in this world is a reflection of a din in Shomayim on the Jewish people, or on one particular Jew. If we are in the thick of the tzarah, for example, if we are the one sick or in danger, it can be harder to focus on this spiritual perspective, because we are overwhelmed by the tzarah itself. But if we find ourselves at a distance, and we are davening for someone else or for the Jewish people as a whole, we can take a step back, see the spiritual prosecution, and stand in defense of our fellow Jew.

Chessed as a Defense

When you do a chessed, turn your mitzvah into an opportunity to advocate for the recipient of your chessed. Don’t have the mindset that you are giving tzedakah because, nebach, this poor Yid doesn’t have money. No! Stand up and advocate for him! “I am giving tzedakah to this Yid who deserves to be helped, because he is a precious Yid! And every Yid deserves to have chassadim done for them!”

Learning as a Defense

We must advocate for our fellow Jews through our Torah learning! Our greatest leaders used the Torah as a means of advocating for the Jewish people. Osniel ben Kenaz, the first of the shoftim, learned a whole ‘shtickle Torah’ {See sidebar} from a passuk to make the case for the Jewish people in the Heavenly court, even when they weren’t deserving. But it doesn’t have to even be as complicated as that. We can go on the offense to say good things about the Jewish people through our learning in the most simple of ways.

Let’s say you are learning a Rashi. You can just learn the Rashi and go on, or you can choose to turn that Rashi into an advocacy for the Jewish people. You can pause for a moment and say: “Wow! Look how special the Jewish people are that they produced a Rashi! And look how amazing and brilliant Rashi was!”

The amazing thing about using your Torah to advocate for the Jewish people is that even if you don’t understand the Rashi, you can still do this. Maybe even better! Now you can say, “Wow! Look how special the Jewish people are that they produced a Rashi! And look how amazing and brilliant Rashi is! Rashi is so deep that I don’t even know what he is talking about here!”

Every single thing that a person learns can be turned into a strategy to defend the Jewish people.

Osniel’s Shtickle Torah

After Yehoshua bin Nun led the Jewish people to conquer Eretz Yisroel and settle the land, there was a period of about 300 years before the period of Kings, beginning with Shaul Hamelech and then Dovid Hamelech. This was the period of the Shoftim, Judges. During this era, the same cycle kept repeating itself – the Jewish people would stumble in an aveirah, an enemy would come and subjugate us, eventually the Jewish people would do teshuvah, we’d be saved from the tzarah, and one of the Shoftim would emerge to lead the Jewish people through that time.

If there was ever a time that there could be a prosecution in the heavens against the Jewish people, it was this time period of the Shoftim, because this cycle kept repeating itself. The Jewish people did not seem to learn from their mistakes, and after a little while they fell again into another aveirah.

This was a time when there was a judgment against the people in the spiritual world, and the events down below were a reflection of that. So let’s look at the first Judge, to see how he defended the Jewish people as a roadmap from which we can learn. (As a general rule, if you want to learn about something,

you look at the first instance of it in the Torah.)

The first Shofet was Osniel ben Kenaz, so let’s look at how he defended the Jewish people in the Beis Din Shel Maalah. The first thing he did to establish himself as the Shofet, was to make the following ‘shtickle Torah.’ In Parshas Shemos, it says that Hashem said, “Re’oh ra’eise es amech ani b’Mitzrayim, I see the pain of my people in Mitzrayim.” Why does it say a double expression of “Re’oh ra’eise, See I see?” Osniel explained that Hashem was saying to Moshe that He sees their pain in Mitzrayim, but He also sees a second thing – that they will sin by worshipping the eigel, so one would think that maybe they deserve the pain of Mitzrayim. What Hashem was communicating in this passuk is: “Despite the fact that I see that the Jewish people will sin, I still see their pain and will take them out of Mitzrayim.“

Osniel ben Kenas drew a conclusion from this passuk that Hashem obligates Himself to save the Jewish people even when we don’t deserve it! This powerful insight marked the beginning of Osniel’s leadership as a Judge.

This is how Osniel taught us to use the Torah as a means to stand up in defense of the Jewish people.

Who knows? Maybe that’s all we have left to do!

The friedeke Lubavitcher Rebbe said, “Moshiach is ready to come, all that’s left is for us to polish our buttons.” What does that mean that we need to polish our buttons? I don’t know. But maybe it means to polish neshamos, to paint neshamos in a good light. Maybe all that’s left to do is to continue to daven and learn and do chessed, but in a way that brings out the shine of the Jewish people.

Hashem puts every Yid in exactly the position, location, and environment where they can fulfill their unique mission. For example, in a time of war, Hashem puts some Yidden in a position where they need to physically defend and fight for the Jewish people, and that is their role.

Some people are not fighting on the front lines, but they are running to bomb shelters and living through a very stressful and chaotic time. The pressure of experiencing that,

of being in the thick of that, makes it very difficult to try to zoom out and come to the spiritual defense of the Jewish people. Their avodah is to work to preserve their avodas Hashem, to continue to learn Torah and do mitzvos and take care of their families despite the physical and emotional stress of the war.

Other people that live far away from the battlefield, have the ability to see the spiritual side of the war. They are being tasked with

defending the Jewish people in the Beis Din Shel Maaleh, to advocate for them and say good things about them!

This is how we can help our fellow Jew in a way that is productive. We can’t always physically help our fellow Jew who is in danger, and we can’t always directly help our fellow Jew spiritually, but we can always advocate for every Yid, to be melamed sanigora in a proactive way. We need to go on the offensive!

Stressing about, or obsessing about, Yidden who are in danger, or who are in a difficult spiritual place, and becoming depressed and broken about it is not productive. It breaks us and doesn’t help them! Advocating for them in the Beis Din Shel Maaleh is productive, and this is how we can actually help.

Sometimes we look at a situation and feel helpless, as if we have no control. This can lead us to do things that make us feel that we do have control, such as obsessively following the news and discussing the situation. Other times we might obsess or complain about certain ‘types’ of Yidden.

But this is unproductive, and the truth is that we have way more control over the situation than we think! We can react by advocating for our fellow Jews and actually affect change in the Heavenly court, which directly brings the yeshuos the Jewish people so desperately need in the world below.

Demanding from Hashem

In the times of the Shofet Gidon, the people of Midyan were subjugating the Jewish people. One of the decrees was that they forbade farming, in order to harm the Jews’ ability to earn a livelihood. Gidon’s father had a farm, and despite this decree, he was helping his father and working the land. The passuk says that a malach appeared to Gidon and told him, “Hashem imcha gibor chayil, Hashem is with you, strong warrior.”

How would we respond if a malach appeared and gave such a compliment? We’d be thrilled! We’d say “Yasher Ko’ach Malach!” and maybe take the opportunity to ask for a brochah or give the malach a kvittel!

How did Gidon respond? Gidon made it clear that he wasn’t satisfied with this compliment. Gidon’s response was: “Hashem is with me? Who cares! Why isn’t Hashem with all of the Jewish people! Our parents and grandparents pass down the story of how Hashem rescued the Jewish people from Mitzrayim with wondrous miracles, but where are the wondrous miracles that Hashem is doing for the Jewish people right now!? Midyan is breathing down our necks and not allowing Jews to earn a livelihood, and you are telling me Hashem is with me? Why isn’t Hashem with the rest of the Jewish people?”

The passuk says that at that moment, Hashem turned to Gidon and said, וַיִּפֶן אֵלָיו ד’ וַיֹּאמַר, Lech b’kochacha zeh v’hoshaata es Yisrael mikaf Midyan, halo shlachticha, Go with this strength, and deliver the Jewish people from the hand of Midyan. You will be My messenger. Essentially Hashem was saying, “Gut gezukt!” With this strength, you will go and save them. Rashi explains that “this strength” means “Shelimad’ta sanigoria al banai, you defended My children.”

The Zohar Hakadosh says that Gidon was not a tzadik and was not the son of a tzadik. (Halivei that we should be a tzadik on the level of Gidon being ‘not a tzadik‘!) So why was he the Shofet? Because he defended the Jewish people when they needed it!

The Avodah of Tisha B’av

Which brings us to Tishah B’Av. There is only one Tzadik about whom the Torah directly tells us the date of his yahrtzeit, and that is Aharon HaKohen, who passed away on Rosh Chodesh Av. If Hashem chose to reveal this information to us, that means that besides just the fact that it’s nice to know when the yahrtzeit of a Tzadik is, there is a message here that the middah that Aharon HaKohen exemplified is an important part of our avodah for the month of Av.

Now more than ever, we need to connect with the avodah of Aharon HaKohen. Chazal teach us that it was in his merit that the Jewish people were protected by the Ananei Hakovod, the Clouds of Glory. Why did Aharon merit to protect the Jewish people in this way? The answer is that Aharon HaKohen was fixated on defending the Jewish people from any prosecution. He saw his life’s mission as one of helping and bringing out the best in every Jew. This is why it was also his merit that brought about the physical protection of the Jewish people by the Ananei Hakovod.

Let’s look into this further. Aharon was a Kohen, the leader of the Kohanim. What kinds of Yidden came to the Beis Hamikdash and required the services of a Kohen? For the most part, it was those who sinned in some way and needed to bring a korban to rectify their sin.

What did the Kohanim, and their leader Aharon HaKohen, think about that Jew, who is bringing an animal to them because he did an aveirah? The Kohanim knew that the Yid was dealing with a terrible mistake that he had made; they knew when it was a Korban Chattos and not a Korban Todah…

Nevertheless, the Arizal teaches us that the Kohen’s job was not just to bring the sacrifice that the Jew brought, but to read the forehead of the Jew, and understand exactly how to help him get a tikkun for the aveirah he had done. [The Kohen would do this for a woman who needed a tikkun as well, but for tznius reasons the Kohen wouldn’t look directly at her forehead, but rather the woman would stand next to the Kior and the Kohen would look at her reflection, because the Kior was made out of bronze mirrors.]

In order to carry out this task of bringing a Yid the tikkun he needs,

the Kohen needed to believe that this Yid is 1) fixable, 2) worthy of fixing, and 3) on his way to becoming fixed anyway. The Kohen saw it as a zechus to be involved in that process, and looked at the Yid in awe. Wow! That is such a holy Jew!

This is the middah through which Aharon HaKohen protected the Jewish people.

An Aharon HaKohen mindset is to look at another Yid, no matter what he or she is going through, and to be in awe of them. To look at another Jew and to proclaim to the Heavens: “This Yid is so deep and so precious, and made up of a G-dly soul, a piece of the Divine. This Yid is a mystery! Even Hashem Himself, ka’viyachol, cannot explain why He loves you so much and how important you are.”

To be in awe of another Jew is an Aharon HaKohen’dke mindset.

We’ve all learned about the way Aharon HaKohen would bring peace between Jews. He’d go to Reuven, and tell him that Shimon felt terrible about the fight they were in and wanted to make up and ask forgiveness. Then he’d go to Shimon and say that Reuven felt terrible about the fight they were in and wanted to make up and ask

forgiveness. In this way he “tricked” them to stop fighting.

Was Aharon HaKohen a liar? And how many times could people fall for his trick before they discovered that Aharon had deceived them into making peace?

The answer is that Aharon HaKohen truly believed it! The Aharon HaKohen mindset is to look at two Yidden who are fighting and said, “If Reuven and Shimon are upset at each other, it’s only because Reuven and Shimon both desperately want Moshiach, and they don’t know what to do with that frustration, and so it spilled over in this way. They don’t even know what they are really upset about, but it’s certainly not what it looks like on the surface level.”

Aharon felt this in his heart so strongly that all he had to do was communicate this with each party in the dispute. He didn’t “trick” anyone! Devarim hayotzen min halev nichnasim el halev, words that come out from the heart, enter the heart.

If words aren’t being received, it means they aren’t being said with 100% honesty and authenticity. Aharon mammish meant what he said, and that is why it was received by the hearts of the Yidden he was helping.

This proactive mindset of Aharon HaKohen literally protects Yidden and brings them closer to discovering that holy and pure part of themselves. Devarim hayotzim min halev nichnasim el halev, heartfelt words that are spoken to advocate for a Jew, enter into the heart of that Jew. And even if we don’t speak them out loud, good thoughts that we think about that

advocate for our fellow Jew will also enter into the mind of that Jew.

We know that Sinas Chinam, baseless hatred, destroyed the Beis Hamikdash, and Ahavas Yisroel will bring it back. It is clear that this is the avodah we need to work on right now. If the Torah goes out of its way to tell us that Aharon HaKohen’s yahrtzeit is on Rosh Chodesh Av, that communicates to us that the mindset of Aharon HaKohen is the ultimate way to engage in the avodah of Ahavas Yisroel.

In this way, Ahavas Yisroel can be weaponized, and Ahavas Yisroel has to be weaponized! When Ahavas Yisroel is wielded in this proactive way, it can mammish help Jews, uplifting them and bringing them closer to the people they have to become and who they truly are.

Go around thinking: “Yidden are holy and amazing and unbelievable! I don’t even chap what that Yid is, and that Yid himself doesn’t even chap who he really is!”

Take It To Go

Engaging in this avodah doesn’t come naturally. It can seem unusual, or even awkward. We might think this avodah is not for us simple Jews, that this is a job for the Bardichever Rebbe.

But this form of proactive Ahavas Yisroel is really a simple avodah we all could and must engage in! It doesn’t even require us to do something we aren’t already doing! As Rav Yussie taught us, the regular avodas Hashem you are

already involved with – your davening, your learning, and your chessed – can all be weaponized and done with a mindset to advocate for the Jewish people.

If there are so many meniyos (obstacles) from doing this, it is only because the other side, the yetzer hara, knows how powerful it is and how much it affects the Jewish people. If the other side takes such extreme measures to prevent this avodah, that just indicates its value and its power, and it’s time we fight back. It’s time we yell it from the rooftops. It’s time to spread the message to every Yid in the

world: that we all yield an incredible power to be a meilitz yosher for all of Klal Yisroel.

We have no idea how powerful this is, and what we can accomplish for our people by orienting our Avodas Hashem in a way that proclaims good things about the Jewish people. Hashem is waiting to hear it! We don’t have to ‘convince the Judge.’ The Judge is listening and waiting for good words to be said! We are in control; we have the ability to help Yidden anywhere in the world in any type of difficulty. The Judge is waiting to hear our advocacy.