Tunnels, tunnels, tunnels.
Aza City may have more tunnels than the New York
City subway system and no one knows what to do with them (except Hamas of
course).
Rashi tells us that Moshe’s power was in his mouth,
and it was the power of prayer. Calling
out to Hashem is our weapon. Moab specifically brought in Bil’am to use our weapon against us.
Chazal teach us that Bil’am HaRasha died by the sword. They go on to explain that the cause of his death is
mentioned because Bil’am came after Klal Yisroel by means of his mouth. When
he attempted to curse us he died by means of the sword, which is his weapon.
And the tunnels are very much their weapon.
By means of them they seek to bring death,
destruction, and civil chaos to as many points in Eretz Yisroel as their
digging will carry them. While the
Israeli authorities are busy seeking ways and means by which these tunnels can
be detected and then destroyed, as well they should, at best we are talking about
after the fact solutions that purport to deal with the reality of existing
tunnels.
But how do we remove the threat itself and render it
an historical curiosity?
For this we have to counter their weapon with one that is specifically ours.
It’s no secret that Hamas had big plans for
these tunnels. They would have brought unimaginable disasters in their wake had
not Hashem, in His mercy, caused them to be discovered before they could be
brought to fruition.
More precisely, Hamas dug tunnels for ten years to
plan a Rosh Hashanah massacre which was only eight weeks from zero hour
before it was exposed.
But Hashem did more than save us from a disaster.
By means of the tunnels He also hinted to us what we
have to do. The ten year effort that Hamas
expended on digging deep down to build these tunnels is a template as to how we
should be dealing with this challenge.
We have to dig down even deeper than they did.
But whereas Hamas tenaciously dug outside of
themselves in the dirt, we have to dig deep down within ourselves into the very
depths of our neshamos to break those habits and middos that have interposed
themselves between our spiritual goals and their attainment.
Tinkering around the edges of our Elul do list won’t quite hack it if the Satan, in the
guise of Hamas, is digging deeper than we are.
