The Soul and the Shield
When I turned away from politics and back to Tanach, I discovered that our greatest teachers may have been pointing us toward partnership all along.
בֵּאלֹהִים נַעֲשֶׂה־חָיִל וְהוּא יָבוּס צָרֵינוּ
“Through God we shall act valiantly, and He will trample our enemies.”
— Tehillim 60:14
Since moving to Israel after October 7, I have found myself listening.
Listening to reservists.
Listening to wives whose husbands have spent hundreds of days in miluim.
Listening to Torah scholars.
Listening to families carrying unimaginable burdens with extraordinary faith.
And I’ve noticed something.
The conversation so often becomes Torah or the army.
As though the Jewish people must choose.
As though one diminishes the other.
The louder the debate becomes, the more I find myself asking a different question:
What has the Torah been teaching us all along?
So I began searching.
Not social media.
Not politics.
Tanach.
Then Chazal.
Then our greatest rabbinic leaders.
I wasn’t looking for ammunition for one side of the debate.
I was looking for understanding.
I began with something fundamental:
Torah is indispensable to the survival of the Jewish people.
The Gemara teaches that “Torah protects and saves” — תורה מגנא ומצלא.
The Chazon Ish saw uninterrupted Torah learning as one of the pillars sustaining Am Yisrael. Rav Shach repeatedly emphasized the indispensable role of Torah in the survival of the Jewish people.
Reading those sources, I found myself nodding in agreement.
Without Torah, who are we?
What exactly are we defending?
Torah is our soul. It is our identity. It is why, after thousands of years of exile, persecution, expulsions, and attempts to erase us, we are still here.
But then I kept reading.
The Rambam teaches that defending the Jewish people against an attacking enemy is a milchemet mitzvah — an obligatory war.
The Ramban counts taking possession of and dwelling in Eretz Yisrael among the positive commandments.
Rav Kook saw the spiritual and practical dimensions of Jewish national life as parts of a greater whole.
And Rav Joseph B. Soloveitchik saw the return of Jewish sovereignty and the ability of Jews to defend themselves once again as carrying profound religious significance.
At first, these ideas seemed to pull me in different directions.
Then I opened Tanach.
And a pattern began to emerge.
Moshe Rabbeinu stood before Pharaoh with unwavering faith, confronting the greatest empire of the ancient world with the word of Hashem.
Yet shortly after leaving Egypt, when Amalek attacked, Moshe did not tell Yehoshua that faith meant there was no need to fight.
Yehoshua assembled an army.
Moshe stood on the mountain with his hands raised toward Heaven.
The Mishnah teaches that it was not Moshe’s hands themselves that won the battle. When the Jewish people looked upward and directed their hearts toward Avinu Shebashamayim, they prevailed.
They prayed.
They fought.
They did both.
And then there is Parashat Shoftim.
The Torah doesn’t merely tell us about wars that happened. It gives us instructions for what to do when we go to war.
Before the soldiers enter battle, the kohen tells them not to be afraid, because Hashem goes with them — to fight against their enemies and bring them victory.
That stopped me.
The Torah does not say:
Hashem is with you, therefore you do not need to fight.
Nor does it say:
You have an army, therefore you do not need Hashem.
It tells us to go into battle and tells us that Hashem goes with us.
Faith and action.
Spiritual protection and physical responsibility.
Together.
But Shoftim also recognizes that not every individual occupies the same role. It speaks of those who have built a new home, planted a vineyard, become betrothed, or are fearful of battle.
That distinction matters.
Saying that Klal Yisrael needs both Torah and physical defense does not necessarily mean that every individual Jew must contribute to both in exactly the same way.
That is a much harder halachic and societal question — and one I am not pretending to answer here.
Perhaps our tradition already gives us a model for different roles working toward one purpose.
Yissachar and Zevulun.
Our tradition describes Yissachar as devoting himself to Torah while Zevulun engaged in commerce and helped sustain him.
They did not contribute in the same way.
They were partners.
Neither role erased the value of the other. Their different contributions made the partnership possible.
That made me wonder:
Why are we so determined today to turn different forms of service to Am Yisrael into a competition?
I am not suggesting that Yissachar and Zevulun provide a halachic blueprint for modern military service. It isn’t that simple.
But perhaps they give us a way of thinking.
What if the person sitting in the beit midrash and the person standing guard at the border stopped seeing one another as representing opposing visions of Judaism?
What if each understood that the other was also serving something larger than himself?
Maybe the question should not be:
“Why aren’t you doing what I’m doing?”
But:
“How can what I’m doing strengthen what you’re doing?”
That is not sameness.
It is partnership.
And when I continued through our history, I kept finding it.
Avraham Avinu armed his men to rescue Lot.
Yehoshua fought battle after battle to enter the Promised Land.
Gideon’s army was intentionally reduced so that Israel would know victory comes from Hashem, not from military strength alone. Yet they still marched into battle.
Devorah HaNeviah gives us another powerful example. As both prophetess and judge, she brought Hashem’s word to Barak and sent him into battle against Sisera. When the moment came, she told him:
“Arise, for this is the day that Hashem has delivered Sisera into your hand.”
Hashem would deliver the victory.
But Barak and his soldiers still had to rise and fight.
David HaMelech, perhaps Israel’s greatest warrior-king, never relied solely on his sword. Before going to war, he repeatedly sought Hashem’s guidance.
And perhaps David himself expressed the relationship between faith and action most succinctly:
בֵּאלֹהִים נַעֲשֶׂה־חָיִל — “Through God we shall act valiantly.”
The Maccabees did not fight because they rejected Torah.
They fought for Torah.
They picked up swords so that future generations could continue learning Torah, keeping Shabbat, and living openly as Jews.
Queen Esther fasted and risked her life before the king — but the Jews were also given permission to defend themselves.
Nehemiah gives us one of the most powerful images in Tanach: Jews rebuilding Jerusalem while armed against those threatening them.
Building.
Defending.
Together.
Throughout Tanach, victory belongs to Hashem — but again and again, He calls upon us to step onto the battlefield.
Living in Israel today, I cannot ignore the miracles we have witnessed.
Missiles intercepted.
Attacks thwarted.
Lives spared despite overwhelming odds.
There have been moments when the magnitude of what was launched against us and the outcome simply did not seem to match.
I see Yad Hashem in that.
But those miracles did not happen in empty fields.
They happened while soldiers stood at our borders, pilots flew dangerous missions, medics ran toward danger, and reservists left their homes, careers, spouses, and children to protect people they had never met.
And sometimes the categories we so easily create — religious, secular, soldier, Torah learner — become much less clear.
Before soldiers enter battle, there are moments when men who may not define themselves as religious cover their heads while the unit’s rabbi gives them a bracha.
There is something deeply moving about that image.
A uniform.
A covered head.
A prayer.
A soldier about to defend Am Yisrael.
Faith and action standing together in the same person.
Hashem’s hand and human responsibility have never been enemies.
They are partners.
Maybe, then, we have been asking the wrong question.
Not:
Torah or the army?
But:
Torah and the army.
How has Hashem always protected His people?
Torah gives us our soul.
Those who defend Am Yisrael protect the lives that allow that soul to flourish.
One preserves our identity.
The other preserves our existence.
Neither diminishes the other.
That still leaves extraordinarily difficult questions about how those responsibilities should be divided among individual Jews. There are serious halachic questions, societal questions, questions of fairness, and questions about preserving Torah learning.
I do not pretend to have those answers.
But maybe the greatest challenge isn’t asking any of us to give up what we believe.
Maybe it’s asking us to loosen our grip just enough to truly hear one another.
And once again, our tradition gives us a model.
Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai disagreed — sometimes profoundly. Their debates were not about trivial matters. They argued over Torah itself.
Yet the Gemara tells us something extraordinary:
אלו ואלו דברי אלקים חיים — “These and those are the words of the living God.”
Halacha ultimately followed Beit Hillel, but the Gemara explains that Beit Hillel were humble enough not only to study the opinions of Beit Shammai, but to teach Beit Shammai’s position alongside their own — even mentioning the opposing view first.
They knew what they believed.
They did not surrender their convictions.
But they listened.
And their disagreements did not tear them apart.
The Gemara tells us that despite serious halachic disputes between their communities, Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai continued to marry one another.
Their disagreement did not prevent them from remaining one people.
The Gemara connects their relationship to the words of the prophet Zechariah:
“Love truth and peace.”
Maybe there is something there that we desperately need today.
What if those who believe deeply in the protective power of Torah could truly listen to those who believe that defending Am Yisrael requires military service?
And what if those who believe deeply in the necessity of military service could truly listen to those who believe that Torah learning itself provides spiritual protection for Am Yisrael?
Listening does not require agreement.
Respect does not require surrendering conviction.
And unity does not require uniformity.
We may walk away still disagreeing.
But what if we could walk away still loving one another?
Imagine what kind of Israel we could build if we did.
An Israel where the person in the beit midrash prays for the soldier at the border, and the soldier knows that the person in the beit midrash sees his sacrifice and values it.
An Israel where neither looks at the other and asks, “Why aren’t you doing what I’m doing?” but instead asks:
“How can what I’m doing strengthen what you’re doing?”
Maybe we don’t need to find a place where everyone thinks alike.
Maybe we need to rediscover how Jews who think differently can still recognize that they belong to one another.
Different voices. One Torah. One people.
What kind of Israel would that be?
Maybe that’s the Israel we’re supposed to be building.
An Israel where Torah and responsibility don’t compete.
Where faith and action strengthen one another.
Where we recognize the holiness in the contribution of the Jew standing across from us instead of seeing holiness only in our own.
Maybe then we would be one step closer to the Israel we pray for every day.
One step closer to Mashiach.
From Avraham to Moshe and Yehoshua.
From Devorah and Barak to David HaMelech and the Maccabees.
From Esther to Nehemiah.
The story of the Jewish people has never been one of choosing between faith and responsibility.
It has been the story of a nation that trusted Hashem completely while accepting the responsibility to act.
Not this or that.
But this and that.
The soul and the shield.
Torah and responsibility.
Faith and action.
The Torah that gives Am Yisrael its soul.
And those who stand ready to protect the lives that allow that soul to flourish.
Together, they have sustained the Jewish people for thousands of years. Together, they sustain us today. And together, with Hashem’s help, they will continue to sustain Am Yisrael for generations to come.
As we enter a new year, may we merit to see an Am Yisrael strengthened by both Torah and action, united despite our differences, and always protected by Hashem.
Wishing all of Am Yisrael a Shana Tova U’Metuka — a year of peace, protection, unity, and sweetness.
Sources:
Genesis 14:13–16; Exodus 17:8–13; Deuteronomy 20:1–9; Deuteronomy 33:18; Joshua 6, 10–11; Judges 4–5; Judges 7; I Samuel 23:1–5; II Samuel 5:17–25; Esther 8:11 and Chapter 9; Nehemiah 4:11–18; I Maccabees 2–4; Psalms 60:14; Zechariah 8:19; Mishnah Rosh Hashanah 3:8; Sotah 21a; Eruvin 13b; Yevamot 14b; Rambam, Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Melachim u’Milchamoteihem 5:1; Ramban, Hasagot to Sefer HaMitzvot, Positive Commandment 4.
