How Could Gidon Have Released Soldiers Before a War Instead of Recruiting Even

THE DAILY CHIZZUK BY MOREINU HARAV ELIEZER BERLAND SHLIT”A

WHAT HAPPENS TO A BACHUR ON THE DAY OF HIS BAR MITZVAH?  HOW DID GIDON, WITH ONLY 300 SOLDIERS, SUCCEED IN DEFEATING A GIANT ARMY?

TACTICAL LOGIC WOULD SUGGEST THAT TO WIN A WAR, YOU NEED AS MANY SOLDIERS AS YOU CAN GET, BUT GIDON DID THE EXACT OPPOSITE: HE SENDS HOME THOUSANDS OF FIGHTERS MOMENTS BEFORE THE COMBAT BEGINS AGAINST A GIANT ARMY.  IS THIS LOGICAL?

WHY IS REDUCING THE NUMBER OF FIGHTERS EXACTLY WHAT BRINGS THE SALVATION?

AND WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM THIS TODAY?

WEDNESDAY, 28 SHEVAT 5785

These are his holy words:

We will explain what a bar mitzvah is: A bar mitzvah is when a bachur receives a new soul.

The Rav asks the bar mitzvah boy: Do you want to be a tzaddik?

The boy answers: Yes!

Then you now have a new soul.  Now your soul just wants Hashem.  We just read, “Behold, Hashem was standing over him” (Bereishit 28:13).  “Behold, Hashem was standing over him” on the bar mitzvah, because a bar mitzvah boy receives a soul from the world of Atzilut (Emanation).  The moment that he says, “Yes, I want to be a tzaddik,” he receive a soul from the world of Atzilut!  Then, he only wants holiness; he only wants Hashem.

https://vimeo.com/1060246587

A bachur needs to do teshuva (repentance) for everything that happened until his bar mitzvah.  If he does teshuva, he will remain a tzaddik also after his bar mitzvah!

Because a person is full of “pagamei habrit – blemishings of the covenant.”  “Behold in iniquity was I fashioned, and in sin did my mother conceive me” (Tehilim 51:7).  David was a “ben temurah” (a “son of exchanging”).  Therefore, a punishment was given to his father Yishai by having to return in reincarnation as Rabbi Chiya.  Then his wife always made trouble for him, troubles all day. [“Shaar HaGilgulim” by Rabbi Chaim Vital, ch. 38, says: Therefore King David did not leave the chitzonim [the ‘outside forces’].  Rather, in the previously mentioned incident, on the verse, ‘Behold, in iniquity was I fashioned,’ that Yishai, David’s father, thought that he was coming to his concubine, but she was really his wife.  And likewise, his wife saw a drop of blood at the end of the unification, and this is what is written, ‘In sin did my mother conceive me,’ because if not for this, the chitzonim would not have left him alone to come into the world.  And likewise, this is the reason behind Tamar, Ruth, and Rechav Hazona, and all souls of converts, and all the kings of the house of David, who come from Ruth the Moabite, from the unification of Yehuda and Tamar, and, likewise, Rabbi Akiva, the son of converts, because he was a descendent of Sisra.  This is the deception and strategy that HaKadosh Baruch Hu does with the klipot [forces of evil], and He deceives them in order to remove a soul that is misappropriated amongst them.  Understand this.]

It is written that David’s father, Yishai, was reincarnated as Rabbi Chiya, because David was a “ben temurah.”  Why was he a “ben temurah”?

Because it is written, “A Ammonite or Moabite shall not enter the congregation of Hashem, even their tenth generation shall not enter the congregation of Hashem, to eternity” (Devarim 23:4).  Today, we know the halachah [that this prohibition applies to] “a male Moabite and not a female Moabite,” but then, they did not know the halachah.  [Regarding an Egyptian and Edomite it is written:] “You shall not reject an Egyptian” “You shall not reject an Edomite.”  [But regarding a Moabite, it is written,] “Even their tenth generation shall not enter the congregation.”

He asked Avner, “Whose son is this lad” (I Shmuel 17:55)?  What is that to say?  You don’t know who this lad is?  You don’t recognize him?  He has been playing music for you [Shaul] already for a half-year!

Perhaps Shaul knew his father?  Here, it is written in Gemara Berachot (58a) that David’s father would go forth with 600,000 men.  Today people ask: Enlist?  Don’t enlist?  However, then there were 600,000 soldiers.  All of them were Breslovers, yeshiva bachur’s – 600,000 soldiers.

Shaul asks about David: Who is this?  Whose son is this?  He didn’t know his father.  Shaul asks Avner, “Do you know his father?”  “Avner said, ‘By your life, O king, I do not know.’”  He swore that he did not know him or his father, “by your life.”

The whole army today is 100,000.  Then, there were 600,000, all yeshiva bachur’s.  They took to war only someone who had never spoken between Yishtabach and Yotzer, and who also never spoke between hand Tefillin and head Tefillin (Sotah 42a).  If a person happened to speak between hand Tefillin and head Tefillin, they would not accept him into the army.

Gidon came to war with 32,000 soldiers (Shoftim ch. 7), all of them yeshiva bachur’s.  He said to them, “You are going straight home,” and he sent them home – “evaders.”  What about “bearing the burden”?  “Sharing the burden[1]”?  What kind of “sharing the burden” is this?  How will 10,000 succeed?  They had to conduct a war against a million men.  They were like the sand on the seashore – countless with countless camels.

Gidon began with 32,000 soldiers.  Afterwards, he told 22,000 to go home.  What is this?  This isn’t “sharing the burden.”  This isn’t equality?  This isn’t right.  An army isn’t organized in such a way.  Pardon me, but if there would be a chief of staff one day, know that he would have to bring another 32,000, and he [Gidon] even sent them home.  He sent them all home; he doesn’t need them.

Gidon didn’t know halachot.  He didn’t learn in Shuvu Banim didn’t know halachot.   He fattened an ox for seven years in honor of idolatry.  For seven years, he fatten an ox, so that the ox became so fat that he didn’t manage to fit it into the doorway.  Outside of this, he beat wheat in a winepress [and not on a threshing floor, as is customary].  This is a Torah prohibition.  This is “dash (threshing).”  This is threshing the wheat and separating the kernels from the stalks.

Gidon sat on Seder night, and the following day, he already went to beat the wheat in the winepress and to drive out Midian.  What is it mean to drive out Midian?  Because the Midianites would take [steal] from Israel their wheat, so they would process the wheat in a winepress.  In a winepress, you make wine.  An olive press is for oil, and on a threshing floor, you thresh wheat.  Then, they made the wine on the threshing floor and the wheat in the winepress.  All of this was to confuse the Midianites, who would take everything.  They would wait for the Jews to make wine and then would take all the wine.  It was like this for seven to eight years.

Then Hashem said to Gidon, “I don’t need an army.  I don’t need soldiers.  Send everyone home, and there will remain 10,000.”  Then Hashem told him: “Also this is too much.  Now take the 10,000 and bring them to a stream.  Whoever puts his head into the water when he drinks, release him.”  A person reached the stream after not having drunk for three days already.  So he put his head into the water in order to drink.  Hashem told Gidon, “Whoever puts his head into the water, send him home.”  He was left with 300 men, and against Midian who were like locusts – millions.

[1] שויון בנטל – “Sharing the burden” or “equality in the burden,” the terminology used amongst the Israeli left and other members of the anti-Charedi population as their motto and rallying cry for drafting Charedim.