Yeshiva Boy: What would you fight for?

Hannukah has ended, but the ideals and lessons of the holiday burn as bright as the holiday flames. This year the ideals of heroism, the right to live a Jewish life and fighting for what you believe in manifest themselves more vibrantly and visibly than in years past. Like the Maccabees, we are at war against an enemy who wishes to destroy our spirit, desecrate that which we hold dear and question our very right to exist as Jews in a Jewish land. Like the Maccabees, we have chosen to fight, knowing full well the danger which that entails.

As I sit in Yeshiva, the battle in Gaza is on my mind. I think about the young soldiers -- my peers -- who are placing themselves in harm's way to defend their homeland and its people. I think how easily Moshe in Golani could have been Natanel. I think about the families in the South that live under the constant threat and barrage of rockets. I think about the families in Gaza and the unintentional civilian casualties, which are tragic casualties nonetheless. And despite all that, my thoughts are drawn time and time again to one seemingly unrelated event: a Hannukah party I attended days before the fighting began.

My class and I went to my Rabbi's apartment for a Hannukah party. After singing traditional songs and eating our fair share of sufganiyot, I expected a D'var Torah from my Rabbi. What I got was a question, and a seemingly simple one at that. "What would you fight for? What would you literally get up, place yourself in harms way, and throw a punch for?" The question was sobering. Silence pierced the room. As the Rabbi posed the question to each person, many couldn't muster answers. 

Right then an epiphany hit me harder than the punch the Rabbi was talking about. Maybe the reason many people my age don't know what it is they'd fight for is because they have never been forced to fight for much of anything before. The vast majority of young adults who came to Israel this year have never been victims of anti-Semitism, been told they couldn't live in their hometowns, or had their families threatened.  And thank G-d they haven't. But whereas older generations were pioneers, underdogs and fighters working to build their lives in America, Israel or where have you, my peers and I are often complacent, byproducts of a life of comfort and affluence unparalleled by any other period in history. We have the world at our fingertips, but many of us don't know what to do with our seemingly unchecked potential and the responsibility that accompanies it.

Maybe figuring out what our responsibilities are begins by asking, "Where would I draw the line, what sort of events would force me to stand up and let my fists fly. When does the risk of staying on the sidelines outweigh the risk of doing something?" When is it, as General George S. Patton said, "Better to fight for something than live for nothing."

For the Maccabees the final straw was the attack on their religion, for others throughout history it was the threat to their land, families, economic survival, and for the State of Israel it has become clear that the existential line is its enemies' attempt to deprive its citizens of their safety and its right to exist as a Jewish state. 

The Maccabees were forced to figure out what they would fight for. At some point the rest of us will be too.