Spiritual Challenges in Modern Conflicts

That the last and most difficult galus that Am Yisrael will face

will be the confrontation with Yishmael.

And he says Yishmael is the most difficult because they

are the only

one of our enemies that comes with a spiritual

power. Meaning, Esav that represents

physicality and brute force.

So, of course, in the long run at least, ruchnius,

spirituality defeats physicality.

The danger of Yishmael is a much more subtle danger because

Yishmael comes not only with physical brutality,

but Yishmael comes with spiritual merits.

They are a child of Avraham. They have a koach of prayer.

They have a merit of Brit Milah,

again, which goes back to Avraham. There is a tznius.

That means because they have these merits

and there's a certain power in their prayer, the enemy of Yishmael that

Yishmael represents is an enemy that cannot be defeated

by conventional methods. There's no way to stop it, meaning

there is no logical way of stopping

people who are willing to die

for their cause.

What, they're threatened with death?

Bring it on. Gezunteheit. That's what I want.

You see, the Nazis, I have to say,

at a minimum, if you can say something good about the

Nazis, you know, is that they

were cowards. So when a Nazi thought he would be killed,

starts negotiating when they saw that the end was near.

And Hitler was enough of a coward that he took his own life in a quick way

rather

than facing the consequences. So Nazis were cowards.

So cowards can be defeated by overwhelming military

force. Mutual assured destruction only

works when you either have cowards or at least normal

people, people who don't want to die.

But when you have people who don't care if they die,

then how are you going to stop them?

There's nothing you can do. So really, the statement of Rav Chaim

Vital

that Galus Yishmael is impossible to defeat

by conventional military means,

you know, is even true in a simple political way.

There's no way. You know, you do your hashtadlus,

but there's no particular way

that you can guarantee anything. So the dilemma is we

need spiritual ways of defeating them.