Petah Tikva’s chief rabbi, Rabbi Micha Halevi, said in his weekly Torah lesson on Parashat Chukat that Israelis should not fear economic pressure from great powers any more than they fear their physical enemies. He drew the lesson from the biblical battles with Sihon and Og, linking them to Israel’s current security and political reality.
Halevi said Sihon represented a “wild man” and physical violence, while Og, king of Bashan, represented an “economic superpower” and material strength. He said Moses feared Og because he thought Israel and the wider world depended on his economic power and could be harmed by confrontation, but God reassured him, “Do not fear him.”
He applied that message directly to the present, saying, “We thought we were dealing only with wild men, now we understand that we are also dealing with an economic superpower.” Halevi added that just as Israel strikes its physical enemies, Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas, it should not be deterred by economic pressure from major powers.
He ended by saying, “We will continue to stand in the victory of the people of Israel... the Holy One, blessed be He, is with us and has not abandoned His kindness, and, God willing, we will overcome everything with good tidings, salvation and consolation.”
