This coming Thursday, we will be fasting in commemoration of the churban Bais Hamikdosh and several other national tragedies. I believe that at the moment, we find ourselves at a similar time when, on this day, Moshe Rabbeinu broke the Luchos. On this day, when we made the Golden Calf, the Torah was forgotten and the nations of the world became ascendant against us (see Eruvin 54a), the Zohar Hakadosh (Parshas Ki Sisa) reveals that it was not really the authentic members of Klal Yisroel who caused these calamities. It was the Eirev Rav. What we did was remain silent. We didn’t protest; we were strangely taciturn. And we have paid for this muteness dearly. For millennia, and we are not finished yet, we have been paying for that sin (see Rashi, Shemos 32:34, from Sanhedrin 102a). We know that it was our reticence that sealed our fate from, amongst others, the Bais Halevi (Parshas Bo, page 34; Derosh Umili D’aggadata, Bo, page 120). In other words, it was passivity, not action, that ruined our grandeur and sent into us exile. It was “shetikah kehoda’ah — silence is acquiescence” that soiled our pristine souls.

In the past week or so, we have been faced with a similar test — though not identical, to be sure — of our reaction toward others who utter kefirah and denial of Hashem’s total dominion over the world and every single one of us in it. In ancient times, this would have required our hearing heresy with our own ears, but today, when even with the most minimal technology we read and hear such apikorsus in the prevailing media and do not react, we reenact our ancient sin of silence. Although I often speak and write with tremendous hakoras hatov about the president’s chassodim, we dare not ignore his present lapses. I refer to the universally promulgated statement of the president of the United States that if not for him, there would be no State of Israel. Let us not be foolish or puerile enough to differentiate here between Eretz Yisroel, Am Yisroel and the State of Israel. That is fine when we are being careful about separating kodesh from chol in our national lexicon. But when it is apparently our best — perhaps only — friend on the world scene, we must speak out in horror and pain at the insult to our Creator and Father in heaven.

The words of the novi (Yirmiyahu 51:51) are clear, especially when explicated by the Medrash: “We were shamed, for we heard words of disgrace.” The Medrash there teaches that this refers to the words of blasphemy we heard from the Eirev Rav and didn’t even react. We all realized that the president had also humiliated his ostensible friend and colleague, Prime Minister Netanyahu. Last Shabbos in shul, I shared with my listeners in the Shabbos morning drosha that it is impossible to sever this insult to the titular head of the Jewish state from the fact that our beloved Land has been arresting young talmidei chachomim for the sin of learning Torah. Something that was hitherto associated solely with anti-Semitic regimes, such as the former Soviet Union and Nazi Germany was suddenly misappropriated as the law of the Land we love. While I will certainly confess that “lo novi anochi — I am no prophet,” not to perceive a connection between the humiliation of lomdei Torah and that of the prime minister is a form of spiritual blindness or willful denial.

I write these words with no malice and many tears. But they must be written and spoken, at the very least not to be guilty of our ancient sin of speechlessness upon the actions of the Eirev Rav. It also cannot be coincidental that all of this is playing out on the world stage as we enter the Three Weeks. As the Bais Halevi taught us, these weeks, which usher in the worst days on the Jewish calendar, also remind us to speak up when the ultimate heresy is spoken, that Hashem does not run the world. We, who are all “believers the children of believers” (Shabbos 97a), know that Hashem did not just create the world to abandon it. He constantly runs even the tiniest aspects of His universe, all the more so the major events of His children and nation.

So what should we do at this point?

Let’s borrow from the soothing words of the Sefas Emes (Balak, 5648, page 245). He points out that Chazal (Bava Basra 14b) tell us that the pieces of the broken Luchos were in the holy Aron together with the second Luchos that were never severed. “Our task,” the Gerrer Rebbe teaches, “is to fix all of these shards, which is akin to the dispersal of Klal Yisroel in golus all over the world, so that they could be collected, restored and received again whole and perfect.” He goes on to quote the Arizal that when Aharon Hakohein declared to Klal Yisroel that “tomorrow will be a Yom Tov for Hashem” (Shemos 32:5), this meant that in the future world, Shivah Assar B’Tammuz will become a great Yom Tov. As he explains, when the Luchos were first presented, it was a wonderful moment for Klal Yisroel, which it will be once again when they are restored.

To return to the president, as we have mentioned, he has already sustained much debasement from his faux pas. Even some of his hitherto loyal admirers — our own pundits in the frum world — have categorized him in the most derogatory of ways, some deserved, some perhaps not. The prime minister, too, who has surely not done enough to protect lomdei Torah from being humiliated in prison, has himself now been cast into the dust-heap of history as a loser and a quitter. The lessons are so obvious that they require no elaboration. However, as a bit of cheshbon hanefesh and self reproach, we should revisit Shlomo Hamelech’s famous teaching that “the hearts of kings are in the Hands of Hashem” (Mishlei 21:1). Rav Elchonon Wasserman (Kovetz Maamorim 1:168) long ago taught us that “the fate of Eretz Yisroel will be decided in heaven not by the Arabs or the British government.” We just saw how the prime minister of England, another ruler who spoke disparagingly about Eretz Yisroel, was forced to resign in utter disgrace. Although that may not have been the official reason, we know better, and all world leaders should take note that there is a Creator Who decides all, despite, not because of, them. Many of us engage too much in the game of politics and too little remembering Who is actually in charge.

Perhaps the Chasam Sofer (Teshuvos, Orach Chaim 234) said it best. Speaking of Eretz Yisroel and its place in the universe of Divine decision-making, he explained that although there is a disagreement if the kedusha — sanctity — of Eretz Yisroel remained intact after the churban, all agree that “when it comes to its importance to those alive and to those who have passed away, that has never changed.” In other words, spoken to Jews and gentiles alike, to leaders and the rest of us, don’t mess around with the Holy Land. Don’t use it as a pawn, don’t ever disparage it, and, perhaps most important of all at the moment, don’t hinder its ultimate purpose of being a home for the Torah and those who learn it constantly.

May Hashem guide our leaders, both Jews and gentiles, always to be kind to Klal Yisroel and to its Land. It is to their benefit to do so, as Hashem has so clearly demonstrated.