Discernment and Darkness

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Discernment and Darkness
by Moshe Kempinski

Seeing the jagged edges of reality.

The free world is sinking into the whirlpool of indecision. The value of postponing critical decisions and making concrete choices has become an axiomatic belief of Biblical proportions. Differences between good and evil and darkness and light have become blurred and obscured. Leaders are chosen not because of their ability to cut through the haze, but rather their ability to increase the haze through verbal calisthenics. The increasing of the blurring and the haziness helps dispel the harsh corners and jagged edges of reality.

We have already seen how this wave of Relativism has swept away courage and fortitude.

It has become politically correct, and even advisable, to deal with evil as if it does not really exist. Evil is, in fact, be explained away with socioeconomic and political influences. This is true all over the globe. We have already seen how this wave of Relativism has swept away courage and fortitude from the European continent. The United States of America is poised for an election in which issues have been downplayed in lieu of charisma and oratory skills. Rather than confronting and combating the symptoms of evil in the world, there is much talk of redefining evil and of looking for ways to avoid confronting such evil head on.

The government in Israel has agreed to embark on a tahadiyeh or "cooling off" period with the Hamas terrorists in Gaza. This should not be confused with a treaty or ceasefire, as it is being portrayed in the Western media (as in the New York Times headline: "Israel Agrees to Truce With Hamas in Gaza"). It is simply a tahadiyeh, which means, in Islamic thinking, a period of rearming and repositioning forces.


Brig.-Gen. Yossi Baiditz, head of Military Intelligence's Research Division, said that "even if the calm is achieved with Hamas and the other terror organizations, it will be temporary and breakable." IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi told the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Tuesday that, in his estimate, the calm in Gaza will be "fragile and short." Haim Ramon, one of the ministers most aligned with the Left, declared at a Haifa University conference, "I am against a truce, because it is another triumph for radical Islam. It won in Lebanon and now it is about to win in Gaza. So what is the point of being moderate? Why would Hamas be interested in a resolution?"
Hamas is seeing this agreement as a victory. The Hamas spokesman said, "The Egyptians have told us that Israel has agreed to release most of those appearing on our list," and he further contended that "[we] have reached understandings according to which Israel would have no role in running the Rafah border crossing. From now on, the border would be managed by Palestinians, Europeans and Egyptians." Hamas also declared that "[in] the past, Israel was opposed to the reopening of the border crossings unless the soldier was released," but this has dramatically changed. Hamas spokesman Mahmoud Al-Zahar also said that "the calm (his words - MK) is a victory for the resistance organizations who took up arms, and its meaning is that the [Israeli] siege on Gaza has failed."


It is a painful reality that the decisions of this present Israeli government have nothing to do with peace or the security of this nation, but rather are only focused on the peace and security of this Israeli government. Yet, it is still important to understand how the Israeli people can be led down this dangerous and precarious road. The Israeli people do not trust Ehud Olmert or Mahmoud Abbas, but are desperate to try anything. They too, like the When discernment fails, then continuing on a journey can be a very dangerous venture.rest of the world, want to believe that evil is not as evil as evil truly is.


When discernment fails, then continuing on a journey can be a very dangerous venture. This lack of discernment is not new at all. Moshe sent twelve spies to discern the quality and strength of the land of Israel before their entry:


"Send thou men, that they may spy [vayaturu] out the land of Canaan, which I give unto the children of Israel; of every tribe of their fathers shall ye send a man, every one a prince among them." (Numbers 13:2)


Ten of them came back with a negative report:

"And they spread an evil report of the land which they had spied out unto the children of Israel, saying: 'The land, through which we have passed to spy it out, is a land that eateth up the inhabitants thereof; and all the people that we saw in it are men of great stature. And there we saw the Nephilim, the sons of Anak, who come of the Nephilim; and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight.'" (Numbers 13:32-33)


When discernment fails, then continuing along even a destined journey may be an impossibility. Towards the end of the Torah portion of Shelach we read:
"Speak unto the children of Israel, and bid them that they make them throughout their generations fringes in the corners of their garments, and that they put with the fringe of each corner a thread of blue. And it shall be unto you for a fringe, that ye may look upon it, and remember all the commandments of HaShem, and do them; and that ye go not about after your own heart and your own eyes, after which ye use to go astray; that ye may remember and do all My commandments, and be holy unto your God." (Numbers 15:38-40)


These two Biblical narratives are clearly connected. On the one hand, we are told that Moshe commanded the spies to spy out the land with the Hebrew word yaturu. Further on, we are warned in the section about the tzitzit "and that ye go not about after your own heart and your own eyes" using the same Hebrew word, taturu. What does the commandment of the tzitzit have to do with the sin of the spies?

What does the commandment of the tzitzit have to do with the sin of the spies? What remedy can it reveal?

In the Mishnah Berakhot 1:2, we learn the following ruling: "From when may one recite the Shema in the morning? From when one can distinguish between techelet and white."


On the practical level, we are being taught the appropriate times for the Shema prayer. On a deeper level, we are told much more. Night and darkness represents the times of exile and tribulation in this world. In order to truly comprehend the beginning of daybreak and the beginnings of change, we need to be able to discern the difference between the Biblical blue color of techelet from the white. This Biblical blue, which represented G-d's throne of Glory, needs to be discerned in order to understand the process of redemption. Not being able to make that discernment leaves us in darkness.


That is the darkness that has overcome much of Europe and has dimmed much of the world. That is the darkness that has enveloped our own present Israeli leadership. It is only the desire and effort to discern between light and dark and between good and evil that will enable our return to the clarity of daybreak. If we continuously search for the easy road and the compromise of "you're OK, I'm OK," then we will be greatly weakened in the struggle against the darkness that threatens to engulf us all.


17 Sivan 5768 / 20 June 08