Rabbi Dr. Kenneth Brander reflects on Hosea’s call for repentance, warning against misusing Torah to evade duty—especially in Israel’s time of war—while urging unity, love, and responsibility to defend Am Yisrael.
On this powerful Shabbat between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, we read the prophet Hosea’s piercing words about repentance. His message could not be more relevant to our people today:
“The ways of the Lord are just; the righteous will walk in them, but sinners will stumble over them” (Hosea 14:10).
What does it mean to “stumble” over God’s ways? The Sages teach two lessons:
- The simple one: ignoring God’s commandments leads to failure and judgment.
- The deeper one: even Torah itself can be twisted into a stumbling block if misused by those seeking loopholes or excuses.
The Talmud warns of those who study laws only to exploit them—turning divine wisdom into a tool for corruption. Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi put it starkly: Torah is a potion of life for the sincere, but a potion of death when misused.
🇮🇱 Torah and the Duty to Defend Israel
Over the past two years, we have buried students and alumni who fell defending Israel. They gave their lives not only for their brothers and sisters but for Torah itself, which commands us to fight in a milchemet mitzvah (divinely mandated war) when Jewish survival is at stake. They are the “righteous who walk in God’s ways.”
But there is also painful dissonance. Some Jews who study Torah do not live by it. Instead of answering the call to defend Am Yisrael, they use the beit midrash as a refuge from responsibility, or worse, invoke religion as a shield against national duty. This, tragically, is what it means to “stumble” over the very Torah they claim to uphold.
💔 From Pain to Responsibility
Yet even in disappointment, our response must not be resentment. Rather, it must be self-reflection and renewed commitment:
- To engage in Torah with integrity.
- To embrace responsibility for Am Yisrael.
- To ensure the beit midrash remains a place of courage, not escape.
And above all, to love every Jew, even those who stumble. On Yom Kippur, we declare together:
“In the yeshiva on high and the yeshiva below, we permit praying with transgressors.”
This is our strength: even when some falter, we remain one nation, bound together by Torah, responsibility, and an unbreakable love for each other.
