Uniting for Peace
Sunday, June 7, 1981
Six F-15 escorts and eight F-16 fighter bombers roared off the runway from Etzion Air Force Base in southern Israel. The air was thick and tense. Prior to take-off, Lt. General Rafael Eitan briefed the pilots. "The alternative is our destruction," he said, displaying unusual emotion.
Israel's intelligence had recently confirmed that Iraq had intentions of producing weapons in their Osirak nuclear facility. The atomic bombs which the Iraqi reactor would be capable of producing from enriched uranium or plutonium could be as fatal as the one that landed on Hiroshima. Realizing the mortal danger facing the people of Israel, the Israeli government decided to attack. At 3:55 PM, while the country innocently bustled about its daily activities, the fighter jets secretly took off.
Every detail of the mission was planned meticulously. The target was distant: 1,100 kilometers from Israel. The courageous group of elite pilots included Ilan Ramon, may his memory be blessed, as well as others selected from the special unit of the Israeli Air Force's fighter corps.
After a tense but uneventful low-level navigational route, the fighter jets reached their target. At 5:35 PM, they identified the reactor's dome, gleaming in the late afternoon sunlight. The enemy defenses, caught by surprise, opened fire too late. One minute and twenty seconds later the reactor was to lie in ruins. All six planes returned home safely.
Israel – and the entire world – was saved from mortal danger.
A day prior to this daring and miraculous mission, an urgent directive from the Chabad Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, was dispatched from his headquarters in Brooklyn. The Rebbe instructed his emissaries around the globe to stop their usual pre-Shavuot holiday activities and spend every spare moment to encourage Jewish children around the globe to acquire their own letter in a newly written Torah scroll. The emissaries were then to send back a report on that same day exactly how much was accomplished.
Two months earlier, the Rebbe had explained the importance of writing Torah scrolls in which thousands of Jewish children will be partners through purchasing one letter for the minimal cost of one dollar. Through every child "owning" his or her own letter, hundreds of thousands of Jewish children around the globe would be united in one joint scroll.
In a public address, the Rebbe stated that “we now live in a world rent with confusion and turmoil...Nowadays, even a single deranged, demented, or frustrated individual who has access to a destructive button or trigger can upset an entire region or country...Such unprecedented chaos must be countered with unique measures.”
The Rebbe continued to state that this new campaign for Jewish unity achieved through the communal children’s Torah – in addition to taking the natural steps necessary to achieve peace – would ensure peace in Israel and across the world.
The source for the Mitzvah of writing a Torah scroll is taught in this week’s Torah portion Nitzavim-Vayeilech. “And now, write for yourselves this song, and teach it to the Children of Israel. Place it into their mouths, in order that this song will be for Me as a witness for the children of Israel.”- Deuteronomy 31:19
At the Exodus from Egypt the Jews experienced true unity. The experience at Sinai caused them to become one. In order to bring this into practical reality today, in a way that even a child can appreciate, it needs to involve something tangible. Since the Written Torah was delivered as a complete, tangible unity, with the entire five books being given at Sinai, it is the best way to bring the Jewish people together “as one man with one heart”.
Ideally, every individual should either write a Torah scroll themselves or commission a scribe to write one on their behalf. However, due to the great amount of effort and costs that this would entail, it is the accepted practice to purchase at least one letter in a communal Torah thus fulfilling our obligation. Since a Torah scroll which is missing even one letter is invalid, acquiring one letter is comparable to having ownership over the rest of the Torah as well.
The mitzvah of writing a Torah scroll was given to the Jewish people — and fulfilled by Moses — directly before our people’s entry into the land of Israel over 3000 years ago. It is the last of the 613 Mitzvot of the Torah. Our Sages have taught that the fulfillment of this Mitzvah is one of the preparatory steps leading to the conclusion of the current exile and to the advent of the era when we will again enter Israel, led by Moshiach, and fulfill all the Mitzvot in the most complete manner.
The children's Letter-in-the-Torah Campaign is still active (see here), and has since been broadened to include adults too (see here). The completion of the eighth children’s Torah was recently celebrated in Jerusalem. To date, since the start of the Torah campaign, over 2.4 million Jewish children have acquired a letter in the children’s Torah scrolls. If you have not yet had the opportunity to do so already, please participate by acquiring a letter on behalf of yourself, a relative, grandchild or friend.
May the unity of these letters be powerful enough to avert any new threats to global peace and usher in the final redemption speedily in our days.
