A Lion Awakens: On the Turn from Inner Battle to National War

“I don’t understand you,” wrote a reader in response to the latest Tzarich Iyun English newsletter. “Aren’t you tired of war? What is it with you?”

Anti-war sentiments are not exclusive to the secular Left. A deep-rooted aversion to war as such exists within Charedi society as well. In recent months, Charedi public figures have indeed called for an end to the war in Gaza. Some commentators dismissed these statements as politically motivated, suspecting that concern over increased pressure to enlist Charedim lies at the root of the anti-war stance. But even if there is some truth to this claim, it remains partial at best.

Anti-war sentiments are not exclusive to the secular Left. A deep-rooted aversion to war as such exists within Charedi society as well

In a broader sense, Charedi Judaism carries an anti-nationalist element. Even without invoking the “Three Oaths” (that stand at the center of the Satmar anti-Zionist ideology) or embracing the radical position of Rabbi Elchanan Wasserman, who viewed Jewish nationalism as a form of idolatry, the Charedi individual is not educated toward national consciousness. Just a few days ago, I read — with a deep sense of disappointment — an editorial by Yossi Elituv, editor-in-chief of Mishpacha, who explained why yeshiva students are not expected to enlist:

Although exile among Jews — at the hands of our brothers, the children of Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov — is harder to bear, precisely because it is so unfathomable, we are confident that the One who saved us in every place to which we were exiled and wandered, where we suffered and were denounced, will save us once again from the hands of our haters and slanderers.

This is not the voice of the radical Eda Charedit, but the official editorial line of Mishpacha, one of the more moderate and mainstream Charedi publications. If even here, in the heart of the moderate camp, “a harsh exile among Jews” remains the operative framework, the distance between Charedi society and a sense of national solidarity is unambiguous. For this reason, one does not find in Yated Ne’eman or similar outlets any prayers for military victory or for the safety of soldiers. Rather, one finds mournful statements such as “These are difficult days for Israel, for many evils and troubles surround us” (as phrased in a recent letter from the Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah),[1] along with a general plea that “our Father in Heaven remove suffering from upon us.”

In the short essay that follows, I wish to present a different perspective. We are living in extraordinary times. The Jewish People are engaged in a war — a war of good against evil, of light against darkness — the likes of which we have not seen in generations (and perhaps millennia). We must internalize the meaning of this war, recognize its centrality, and lend it our full support. The battle between good and evil is not peripheral to our national existence — it is its very foundation. We must bring this truth into the heart of our religious consciousness.

 

The War Between Good and Evil

It often goes unnoticed, but every time we remove the Torah scroll from the Aron, we invoke the theme of war: “And when the Ark set out, Moshe would say: Arise, Hashem, and may Your enemies be scattered, and may Your foes flee before You” (Bamidbar 10:35). The Aron moves at the heart of the Jewish People, and its movement is accompanied by a prayer for victory: “Arise, Hashem, and may Your enemies be scattered.”

My Rebbe, Rav Moshe Shapira zt”l, would emphasize the centrality of this verse. Throughout Jewish history, the journeys of the Jewish People have been accompanied by the Aron of the Covenant. These journeys themselves become part of the Torah, part of the Divine story. According to Rabbi Yehuda’s opinion in Maseches Shabbos, this short passage, along with the following verse, constitutes a separate book of Torah in its own right. Rav Moshe would cite from the Chida that this small book will one day be revealed as a great work, a volume encompassing the full history of the Jewish People’s journeying with Hashem.

The Aron’s journey with the Jewish nation has a specific content: it is a journey of warfare, of overcoming enemies

Yet beyond this insight, the Aron’s journey with the Jewish nation has a specific content: it is a journey of warfare, of overcoming enemies. The primary expression of the Aron’s presence — the symbol of the eternal bond between Hashem and the Jewish People (as embodied in the form of the Keruvim atop the Aron) — is found in battle against the enemy. This point is particularly worthy of reflection in our own days, as we once again find ourselves at war.

The ultimate mission of the Jewish People is bound up with war — the war between good and evil. This idea is articulated explicitly in relation to the battle against Amalek: “For a hand is raised to the throne of God: Hashem shall wage war against Amalek from generation to generation” (Shemos 17:16). There exists a perpetual war, stretching across the generations, against the force of evil represented by Amalek. And as in Yehoshua’s battle in the wilderness — in contrast with the redemption from Egypt, where “Hashem will fight for you, and you shall remain silent” — it is the Jewish People who are tasked with fighting this war.

Of course, one can frame the Jewish mission in positive terms, as Yeshayahu does: “This people I formed for Myself; they shall declare My glory” (Yeshayahu 43:21). Yet, we cannot reach that positive end without first fulfilling its negative counterpart — the eradication of evil. For this reason, the order of national commandments given to Israel upon entering the Land begins not with the building of the Temple but with the destruction of Amalek. As the Rambam writes: “Three commandments were given to Israel upon entering the Land: to appoint a king… to destroy the seed of Amalek… and to build the Temple” (Hilchos Melachim 1:1).[2]

This is not merely a war of national survival — it is Hashem’s war, a cosmic battle against the forces that obstruct the full emergence of good in the world

This is not merely a war of national survival — it is Hashem’s war, a cosmic battle against the forces that obstruct the full emergence of good in the world. And it is no coincidence that alongside the Aron’s place in the Holy of Holies, at the spiritual center of the Temple, the Aron also appears at the heart of the military camp: “For Hashem your God walks in the midst of your camp, to save you and to deliver your enemies before you” (Devarim 23:15). The Aron within the Temple represents the aseh tov — the affirmative side of the covenant between Hashem and Israel. The Aron within the army camp represents the sur me-ra — the active negation of evil, the triumph of good over darkness.

Every journey of the Children of Israel — and every time we take the Torah scroll from the Aron — we are reminded of the mission of that journey, and of God’s presence within the camp: “Arise, Hashem, and may Your enemies be scattered, and may Your foes flee before You.”

 

The War of the Yetzer

Today, we are facing an enemy that embodies absolute evil. Iran has openly declared the annihilation of the State of Israel as its highest national goal, and it has prepared operational plans to carry it out. It is the world’s foremost sponsor and orchestrator of terror against Jewish (and other) targets, including, of course, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Hezbollah. It is widely recognized — certainly by the Western world — as the global epicenter of terrorism, the proverbial “head of the snake.” And yet, in a bitter irony, its proxies are supported by extreme secularist movements in the West, who wage their own ideological war against all that is sacred and good.

On the face of it, this is a defining moment in Jewish history: Israel’s war against its most vicious enemy — a war of good versus evil, of light against darkness.

In place of cosmic conflict, Jewish tradition recast the concept of war in inward, psychological terms: the war of the yetzer — the personal, internal struggle against the evil inclination within

And yet, within the Charedi worldview, this framing is anything but self-evident. On the contrary, it may be seen as a provocative and even threatening innovation. This is due to a fundamentally different conception of warfare and its place in Jewish life. With the onset of our long exile among the nations, the Jewish People lost the ability to wage physical war. The battlefield — the realm of overt struggle between good and evil — was handed over to others. In place of cosmic conflict, Jewish tradition recast the concept of war in inward, psychological terms: the war of the yetzer — the personal, internal struggle against the evil inclination within.

In this way, the standard meaning of valor — “Hashem, strong and mighty; Hashem, mighty in battle” (Tehillim 24:8) — was transformed by the Sages into something spiritual: “Who is mighty? He who conquers his inclination” (Avos 4:1). And instead of focusing on the great wars of nations, our sages turned inward, emphasizing the hidden struggle of the soul. As the author of Chovos HaLevavos tells it:

They said of a pious man that he encountered soldiers returning from battle, carrying spoils after a fierce war. He said to them: You have returned from the minor war, bearing spoils — prepare yourselves now for the great war. They asked him: And what is the great war? He replied: The war against the yetzer and its armies.[3]

Already in the Zohar, the verse “When you go out to war against your enemies” is interpreted as referring to the inner battle against the evil inclination.[4] In the same spirit, it became customary in Elul to recite Psalms that speak of war, most distinctly Tehillim 27: “Though an army should encamp against me, my heart shall not fear; though war rise against me, in this I trust.” Over the long centuries of exile, when warfare in its plain sense grew remote and emotionally foreign, the biblical accounts of war were spiritualized — interpreted as metaphors for inner struggle. As one early Hasidic source puts it, “Today, this is the plain meaning of the text: the war of the yetzer is the essential war.”[5]

This framework is deeply entrenched in the Yeshiva world, where students grow into a perception that the true war is the war of Torah — the ideological and interpretive battle waged in the study hall. Indeed, numerous rabbinic midrashim interpret biblical verses of war as referring to halachic disputes among scholars.[6] Naturally, each teacher and Yeshiva head emphasizes the battlefield closest to his own soul. Rabbi Shmuel Markovitz, Rosh Yeshiva of Ponovezh, frequently spoke of the internal struggle:

It is obvious that the front lines in our generation are not those of the past. Today, the battlefield lies in the struggle against indulgence, and against the mindset that even a life of mediocrity is ‘good enough’; against the tendency to seek only the path of least resistance… That is our battle. In it, we declare: We do not want an easy life. And through that declaration, we merit Divine assistance to stand strong in the face of this test.[7]

Recent events, beginning on October 7th and culminating in the current confrontation with Iran, demand a fundamental rethinking. We, the Charedi Jews of Zion, must reconsider

To summarize: The long exile shifted the battlefield between good and evil from the national and physical arena to the personal and communal. What emerged was the doctrine of milchemes hayetzer — the war of the yetzer. Even after the Jewish People returned to Zion and reclaimed political sovereignty over their ancestral land, the Charedi world chose to abstain from the defining innovation of the Zionist enterprise — the revival of Jewish nationalism — and instead devoted itself to the restoration of the destroyed world of Torah, with a singular focus on continuity. As part of this decision, the concept of war remained exclusively spiritual in its interpretation.

But it seems that recent events, beginning on October 7th and culminating in the current confrontation with Iran, demand a fundamental rethinking. We, the Charedi Jews of Zion, must reconsider.

 

From Wilderness to Nationhood

One of the most enduring slogans of Charedi opposition to modern Jewish nationalism is the famous dictum of Rav Saadia Gaon: “Israel is not a nation except through its Torah.” There can be no nationalism detached from Torah, and by this logic, political Zionism, which adopted a European-style nationalism divorced from religion, was inherently flawed. Indeed, even figures within the religious Zionist movement, most notably Rabbi Moshe Avigdor Amiel, rebuked secular Zionism with this very quote. Charedi thinkers, such as Rabbi Mordechai Schulzinger, repeated the phrase endlessly:

He who does what the Torah forbids is anti-national — a traitor to the nation… And on the other hand, one who follows what the holy Torah commands is the true nationalist, he who acts for the sake of the nation.”[8]

The Torah was given not merely as a set of private directives, but as a national constitution. Its purpose is to establish a fully-fledged national life lived according to the way of God

And yet, the question remains: How should we define Torah-based nationalism? The Book of Eicha states a stark truth: “Her king and her princes are among the nations — there is no Torah; her prophets, too, have found no vision from Hashem” (2:9). In the absence of sovereignty—without a king, ministers, and the ability to shape the structures of statehood—there can be no complete fulfillment or implementation of Torah. The Torah was given not merely as a set of private directives, but as a national constitution. Its purpose is to establish a fully-fledged national life lived according to the way of God — to build a society founded on principles of kindness, justice, and truth. Without sovereignty over our land, this aspiration is simply not viable.

This, perhaps, is the deeper intent of the Ramban’s famous teaching that observance of Torah in the Diaspora serves only as training and preparation for its true fulfillment in Eretz Yisrael: “So that they will not be new to us when we return to the Land, for the essence of all the mitzvot is for those who dwell in the Land of Hashem.”[9] The Vilna Gaon likewise wrote: “The essential fulfillment of the mitzvot depends on the Land; only now is every person obligated to learn and know how to perform them when he comes to the Land.”[10] Torah observance in its full sense is to be carried out within the framework of a people in its own land, not as isolated individuals or scattered communities in exile, and therein lies its deepest greatness.

Yes, “Israel is not a nation except through its Torah,” but to live out the Torah in its full national form requires Jewish sovereignty over the Land. Only through that sovereignty can the Jewish People realize their mission and bring the Torah’s full vision to life.

Torah observance in its full sense is to be carried out within the framework of a people in its own land, not as isolated individuals or scattered communities in exile, and therein lies its deepest greatness

In exile, our sages taught: “Since the destruction of the Temple, the Holy One has in His world only the four cubits of halacha.”[11] In the absence of national sovereignty, Torah was reduced to the private realm — the “four cubits of halacha.” The broader vision of shaping an entire society according to Torah could not be realized. Within this narrow frame, the cosmic battle of good and evil was internalized as the war of the yetzer, and the true warriors became the Torah scholars.

Let it be said unequivocally: the insights our sages derived over many centuries possess profound value, and we must carefully preserve the beautiful spiritual world built within the four cubits of halacha. But woe to us if this project of preservation blinds us to the extraordinary events unfolding before our eyes — if it deprives us of the opportunity to broaden the borders of Torah and take part in the battles of Hashem in the fullest sense.

It is hard for us to leave the wilderness of the nations, the four cubits that sustained us in the era when “her king and her princes were among the nations.” And yet, that is precisely our task

It was hard for the Jewish People to leave the miraculous existence of the wilderness. And it is hard for us to leave the wilderness of the nations, the four cubits that sustained us in the era when “her king and her princes were among the nations.” And yet, that is precisely our task.

Our ancestors failed this test once before, in the sin of the spies. They wished to remain in the desert rather than enter the Promised Land. As Rabbi Akiva Yosef Schlesinger explains, the people preferred to “remain in the wilderness and study Torah directly from the Divine,” believing that “the Torah was given only to those who ate manna.” But Yehoshua bin Nun stood against this vision, insisting that “we shall surely go up” — to settle the Land, and to unite the earthly realm with the study of Torah.[12] Today, as then, we are being tested. It is hard to step out of the desert, hard to depart from the exile in which we have dwelled for so long. But the moment has come. It is our obligation.

 

Like a Lion, the Nation Shall Rise

“Behold, a people rises like a lion” (Bamidbar 23:24). This verse has given its name to the present war against Iran. But what is its interpretation?

Rashi, following the Midrash, explains: “When they rise from their sleep in the morning, they strengthen themselves like lions to seize mitzvos: to don the tallit, to recite the Shema, and to lay tefillin.” Yet Rashi himself also cites the Targum, which gives the verse a more literal reading: the Jewish People rise as a lion to vanquish their enemies—whether in the conquest of Canaan or in the war against Midian—as affirmed by many other commentators.[13]

Throughout the long years of exile, the verse came to be interpreted primarily in line with Rashi’s beautiful drash: we rise in the morning to serve our Creator. But now, by the grace of Hashem, we are once again able to fulfill the verse in its full sense: the Jewish People rise like a lion to confront their enemies, guided by the enduring prayer of Moshe Rabbeinu that remains ever on our lips: “Arise, Hashem, and may Your enemies be scattered, and may Your foes flee before You.”

By unfathomable Divine compassion, we are witnessing an era of remarkable Divine providence. After two thousand years of wandering, we have once again become the standard-bearers in the struggle between light and darkness — not merely the internal battle of the yetzer hara, but Hashem’s own war: the clash between the values of Torah and a world of moral anarchy, between the path of Sodom and the path of Avraham Avinu.

We must recognize what is happening, give thanks for the miracles that have brought us to this point, and be prepared to enter a new and expanded arena of Jewish life

What is demanded of us in this moment? First and foremost: recognition. We must recognize what is happening, give thanks for the miracles that have brought us to this point, and be prepared to enter a new and expanded arena of Jewish life — no longer limited to the four cubits of halacha, but encompassing all realms of human existence. In other words, we must trust Hashem. We must trust that if He has brought us this far, then surely “we shall surely overcome.” Let us not fall, God forbid, into a modern repetition of the sin of the spies — “They despised the desirable Land; they did not believe His word” (Tehillim 106:24). Heaven forbid we embody the rebuke: “Yet in this matter, you do not trust Hashem your God” (Devarim 1:32).

These are great and awesome days — some, as I already detailed in Prophecies and Providence (penned fifteen years ago), have begun to reference the biblical prophecy of Gog and Magog. They call us to great and awesome responsibility: the responsibility for the extraordinary project of Israel’s return to its land; of uprooting evil from within us and from our surroundings; of expanding the domain of holiness into the public sphere. Let us pray to the Creator of the world that we merit a mighty victory, redemption, and consolation — and that we fulfill the full and literal meaning of these two verses:

Behold, a people rises like a lioness and raises itself like a lion; it shall not lie down until it devours its prey and drinks the blood of the slain.

And when the Ark set out, Moshe would say: Arise, Hashem, and may Your enemies be scattered, and may Your foes flee before You.

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[1] The text can be found here: https://www.emess.co.il/radio/tag/%D7%93%D7%92%D7%9C-%D7%94%D7%AA%D7%95%D7%A8%D7%94/feed.

[2] Rambam, Laws of Kings and Their Wars, 1:1.

[3] Chovos HaLevavos, Sha’ar Yichud HaMa’aseh, ch. 5.

[4] Zohar Chadash, Parashat Ki Tetze, 96a.

[5] These words are attributed in various places to the Rebbe of Peshischa. See, for example, Pri Tzadik, Bechukotai, sec. 10.

[6] See: Shabbos 63a; Temurah 16a; and many other sources.

[7] Rabbi Shmuel Markovitz, Kabbalas HaTorah: Collected Talks and Essays (Bnei Brak, 2018), pp. 151–153; see also many other discussions throughout the volume (e.g., pp. 47, 54, etc.).

[8] Mishmar HaLevi, vol. 1, p. 389.

[9] Ramban, commentary on the Torah, Vayikra 18:25.

[10] Aderes Eliyahu on Devarim 8:1 (“All the commandment that I command you this day you shall keep and perform in the Land…”), p. 607.

[11] Berachos 8a.

[12] Rabbi Akiva Yosef Schlesinger, Torat Yechiel, p. 944.

[13] See: Targum Onkelos; Ibn Ezra; Ramban; Rabbeinu Bechaye; the Sifrei; and others.