Va’etchanan: Cling to the Commander

"But you who cling to Hashem, your G-d, you are alive today!"(Deuteronomy 4:4).

For the Jewish People, war is something that we must live with, as our reality reminds us every so often. Our enemies are cruel and always ready to spill Jewish blood. Many of our children here in the south of Israel have never known a missile-free childhood. We, their parents and grandparents, have fought in and lived through more wars and times of turbulence than we can count. Yet, with all the difficulties, the physical war isn't near as perilous as the spiritual war. The casualties from the spiritual war aren't in the hospital emergency wards or in the military rehabilitation hospitals – they're prisoners of war in a cynical world that tries to tell them that our holy faith is archaic or irrelevant, Heaven forbid.

The Torah gives us one single, simple piece of advice that's vital in surviving both wars – physical and spiritual. There's a way to avoid injury and ambush. There's a way to emerge victorious. There's a way to save lives and souls, in this world and in the next. Cling to the Commander! The 613 mitzvoth in English are known as "commandments", as in "Ten Commandments," which we also read in this week's Torah portion. As in the military, wherever we have commandments, we have a commander who issues those commandments. In the case of the Torah's commandments, Hashem is our Commander. The Torah promises that those who cling to Hashem are alive today! They shall not be hurt.
 

Above image courtesy of ChameleonsEye / Shutterstock.com

 
We don't always understand the Commander's commandments, nor de we understand the underlying rationale behind those commandments, for the Commander's wisdom is Divine and infinite, while ours is human and finite. Hashem is like the general standing on the mountain who see the battlefield in its entirety; the foot soldier down in the valley doesn't have the whole picture. He is in no position to criticize the general, even if the commands don't seem to be logical. If he starts to make his own decisions, he is liable to pay for their consequences with his life. The following parable will help us understand why clinging to the Commander – Hashem – and not budging from His holy commandments are so important:
 
Lieutenant Colonel Miller was a battle-seasoned battalion commander was taking his battalion through enemy territory. The battalion consisted of four companies of mostly inexperienced soldiers. The jungle trail that they were walking along led them to a narrow, rope-suspended foot bridge high above the river below.
 
The commander of Company A, Allen, was a smug military-academy-graduate captain with little combat or jungle experience, looked at the wobbly bridge and turned up his nose. He thought: "Why endanger my whole company on some flimsy rope bridge? The river's not that wide, and the walk down to the river is not that steep." Allen took his troops aside; they broke ranks with the rest of the battalion, walked down to the river and began to cross it on their own. Before they knew it, hundreds of poisonous snakes, as thick as tree trunks, attacked them from every direction. The snakes wiped out Company A.
 
The rest of the battalion crossed the bridge, but soon encountered the enemy. Miller gave the command to make a frontal assault, rush the enemy and overrun his emplacements. The commander of Company C, who considered himself much smarter than his commander Miller, assessed the situation with his limited faculties: "Why endanger ourselves in a frontal assault? Let's dig in here in the jungle and lob mortar fire on the enemy emplacement. After we "soften" them up, we'll attack!" The soldiers of Company C stayed behind in the jungle, but they never lived to attack the enemy, for they themselves fell prey to an enemy ambush.
 
Meanwhile, Companies B and D didn't budge from their battalion commander. With valor, they attacked the enemy, won the battle and lived to tell the story.
 
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Hashem is the seasoned Commander Who knows what's best for us. Quite a few people think they know better than the Commander, so they go off the path on their own. We see with our own eyes how they don't succeed. Yet, when we cling to the Commander, we never lose, and safely navigate our way through the struggles of this world until we attain the eternal bliss of the world to come.