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Gevurah in Our Day:

From the Chashmona’im to the IDF

Rabbi Reuven Brand

itting under the stars on the hard Gevurah, as Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik people collectively found the courage to
stone slab of an amphitheater, wit- zt”l explained in an address to a Mizrachi cling to Hashem. As communities scat-
nessing the swearing-in ceremony of convention nearly 70 years ago, does not tered across a vast Diaspora, we blessed
Snewly minted Israeli tank soldiers, connote physical strength: “Gevurah signi- Hashem each day, ה ָרַ�וּבְּ ְגְ ּ� בְּ ל ֵאֵ ָרַ ְשַּׂיַ רַ ֵזֹוּאֵ, “Who
�
is a powerful experience. As a young Jew fies heroism. The hero is not the physically girds Israel with strength.”
from the Diaspora attending the cere- strong one, but the one possessed of the Individually, we have followed the strict
mony, I felt many emotions. quality of heroism.” interpretation of the Mishnah in Pirkei

I was awed by the precision and profes- For as long as our people could consciously Avot (4:1): ֹוּרַ ְצֵּּיַ תָ ֶאֵ ׁשַׂ ֵבְֹּוּ � כִּ ַה רַֹוּ � בְּ ּ�גְ �וּה ֶזיַ ֵאֵ, “who is a
sionalism of the officers and cadets. I remember, collective gevurah has meant gibor? One who conquers his inclination.”
was moved by the parents of these young one thing: The heroism of survival. Despite Throughout our long history, we have lived
soldiers, beaming with pride. I was also impossible odds, the Jewish people have in Christian, Muslim and secular cultures
of every kind, subject to powerful cultural
done “the paradoxical, the absurd” in the
conscious of witnessing history, of expe- words of the Rav: We have survived. We influences that threatened to pull us away
riencing firsthand a historic transition of survived physically, despite being exiled, from a life of Torah. On occasion, individu-
the Jewish people. As a Jew, especially one expelled and tormented. And we have als have slipped into the tide of darkness,
still living in the Diaspora, I was attentive survived spiritually, despite experiencing losing their grip on Hashem’s hand. Yet
to what was playing out before my eyes – a periods of loneliness and Divine hidden- our people have overwhelmingly found
new type of gevurah. ness. Across centuries of oppression, our the gevurah to uphold our inner spiritual

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