Excerpt of a shiur given on 14th Iyar, 5785, (May 12th, 2025) to a group in Tsfat.

[The Rav is talking about Bat Yiftach, who ran out of her home to greet her father, Yiftach, who had made a vow that he would sacrifice to Hashem the first ‘thing’ that would greet him on his way home, if he was successful in his fight against the Ammonites, who were trying to claim some of the Kingdom of Israel’s territory. The Rav says that Yifatch wanted to immediately go and nullify his vow, but his daughter wouldn’t let him do that.][1]

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Where did she learn this?

Yiftach tore his clothes, what did you do to me?! He said, I’m going now to release myself from the vow.

[But his daughter said] No! You are not going to be released from the vow, I don’t let you. She was stubborn, so stubborn. Father, whatever you said, you should do it, whatever came out of your mouth.

Afterwards, [Hashem] took such revenge, He destroyed Ammon.

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Because Ammon wanted the shtachim [colloquial Hebrew often translated as ‘occupied territories’ in Western media] returned.

Whatever you want – just give back the shtachim (that Am Yisrael had conquered from them).

They wanted peace! They were ‘men of peace’.

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Now, Trump came (to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the Emirates).

He’s already prepared to give them two states, everything.

Already, they’re talking about that he’s ready to give everything to the Arabs, he wants Saudi Arabia, he doesn’t need Israel.

He said, the Arabs are more important. There are two billion Arabs, and the Jews are five million.

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“And now Hashem, the God of Israel, has driven out the Amorite because of His people Israel – yet you would possess it? Surely, whatever your god Chemosh lets you possess, that you shall possess; and whichever [people] God drives away before us, that [land] we shall possess.” (Shoftim 11: 22-23.)[2]

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He [the king of Ammon] said, give back the shtachim!

You’ve already been sitting on it for 300 years, this is not your land! You stole our land from us!

Already back then, they were talking about returning the ‘occupied territories’.

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Translated from Shivivei Or 409.

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FOOTNOTES:

[1] You can read the full story of Yiftach in Shoftim, 11:1-39.

[2] Part of the speech Yiftach made to the Children of Ammon, before he went to war against them.

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Ad kan, from the Rav.

I don’t know about you, but I am totally exhausted at the moment.

Too much going on…. and mostly, I don’t even know what, because I am trying to be ‘off the news’.

That said, I got sent the following articles by two readers:

Hebrew: https://www.israelhayom.co.il/news/welfare/article/18101702

And English: https://m.jpost.com/israel-news/article-856407

It’s good news, that this is finally starting to be talked about in official forums…. but there is still a long path ahead, probably, until the ‘world of lies’, particularly about this issue, starts to explode.

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I have a few more bits to translate from the Rav for you, BH.

And I’m just going to focus on that the next couple of weeks, because it seems to me it’s easy to share ‘opinions’ about what is going on, or not, at the moment – but it’s also mostly pointless, and just expending energy that could be better used doing other stuff.

BH, God knows what He’s doing.

Shabbat shalom.