Strategic Response vs. Reactive Entanglement

It was a very beautiful week. It was a very challenging week. And in some of the most meaningful ways, the beauty emerged from the very challenges.

We celebrated the culmination of the High Holiday season with Simchas Torah, that exuberant, uninhibited expression of delight in our Jewish heritage, and in the extraordinary gift of being entrusted by G-d with a mission: to illuminate the world around us with the light of Torah and mitzvos. That joy was unmistakable on the faces of the men, women, and children who came together to celebrate and dance.

And yet, this was also a deeply challenging week. We marked the third anniversary of the October 7 massacre, first on its Hebrew anniversary, 22 Tishrei (Shemini Atzeret-Simchat Torah), and again this past Wednesday, October 7. Three years later, the hatred has intensified, the threats have grown more menacing, and the divisiveness within society seems only to deepen, particularly as elections approach, both in Israel and in the US.

Also this week, I was invited to Greenwich High School to meet with the principal following the discovery of a swastika drawn in one of the bathrooms. Meanwhile, around the world, even the solemn anniversary of October 7 became another occasion for those hostile to Israel to renew their attacks.

But amid these challenges, moments of remarkable beauty and a fascinating historical coincidence brought it all into focus.

This past Wednesday, October 7, was the 26th of the Hebrew month of Tishrei, a day associated with a particularly meaningful victory in the celebrated Didan Notzach court case involving the Rebbe and the Lubavitch library.

In 1989, long after the court decided the original dispute over ownership of the library’s sacred books, the adversary pursued further litigation and sought to compel the Rebbe himself to testify in court. On 26 Tishrei, the judge rejected the attempt, finding no justification for requiring the Rebbe’s testimony. It was another moment of Didan Notzach, “Ours is the victory!”

But what interests me most is not the courtroom victory. It is the Rebbe’s approach to the entire ordeal.

From the outset, the Rebbe made clear that his calling was not litigation. His world was the teachings of his Rebbe, Torah study, in-depth discussion of difficult questions in Maimonides, etc. He did not want to devote his energies to lawyers and courtrooms.

This reflected a profound Talmudic principle, articulated by the Alter Rebbe in Tanya: “One who wrestles with someone covered in filth becomes soiled himself.”

Some battles must be fought. There are threats that demand a firm and uncompromising response. But we cannot allow ourselves to become so entangled in the confrontation that we lose sight of what we are actually fighting for.

Throughout the library case, the Rebbe insisted that the true response was not merely to prevail in court. It was to strengthen Chabad, expand its activities, establish more Chabad Houses, and bring more Torah and mitzvos to more Jews throughout the world.

In other words, you can win the fight and still lose the larger battle.

And that brings me back to Greenwich High School.

What made the meeting so heartwarming was the extraordinary receptiveness of the school’s leadership. My message was that fighting antisemitism, responding to incidents of hatred, and providing Holocaust education are all necessary. But they cannot be the sum total of our response.

We must also teach the world about Judaism itself. About the beauty of Jewish values, the richness of our heritage, and Torah’s extraordinary contributions to human civilization. Young people who know little about Judaism need more than instruction about the ugliness of antisemitism. They deserve an introduction to the beauty of Jewish life.

And then came another encouraging development: an article this week from the American Jewish Committee (AJC), emphasizing the importance of Torah study.

For years, Jewish organizations have done enormously important work confronting antisemitism. But October 7 and its aftermath have made something unmistakably clear: we need more than a reaction. We need a strategy.

How encouraging to see a major Jewish organization calling upon our people to study Torah! It is a message I hope the entire Jewish establishment will embrace.

Because whether we are confronting imminent physical threats – G-d forbid – to Israeli population centers and Jewish institutions around the world, facing a vindictive litigant determined to wear us down, or dealing with an incident of antisemitic harassment in our child’s school, we must, of course, respond decisively.

But if all we accomplish is defending ourselves and our positions, even successfully, we have let the adversary dictate the day’s agenda, drain our energy, and divert us from our greater purpose.

Even if we win, we lose!

A genuinely strategic response recognizes that the underlying objective of hostility is to weaken us. And therefore, the ultimate response must be to make ourselves stronger.

Stronger as individuals, stronger as families, stronger as communities, and stronger as a society. More deeply grounded in our principles, more connected to our heritage, more confident in our Jewish identity, more committed to Torah and mitzvos, and more determined to strengthen Jewish life in Israel and throughout the world.

That is how we turn adversity into achievement. That is how we transform a challenge into something beautiful.

And perhaps that is why the joy of Simchas Torah, with which we began this extraordinary week, is so profoundly meaningful.

We don’t merely defend the Torah we hold dear. We dance with it. We live it. We build our lives around it.

And that is the victory that truly matters.