Thank God we are blessed every few months with the power of faith and spiritual elevation that can only be experienced by the assembly of hundreds of thousands of Jews gathering together to demonstrate their loyalty and devotion toward the divine process of redemption of the Jewish people in their homeland.

On Sunday night walking along the wide avenues of the government compound near the Knesset surrounded by hundreds of thousands of my brethren I became aware of the meaning of this phenomenon. While being immersed in this ocean of love and determination to continue the process of renewal of Jewish life in all of Eretz Yisrael I was engulfed by a spiritual sensation that I imagine engulfed the Jewish people when they witnessed the splitting of the Red Sea. This divine miracle which finally delivered them from the evil Egyptians ignited their level of faith to the spiritual heights of song and thanks expressed in Shirat Hayam.

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The multitudes of Jews demonstrating in Jerusalem conveyed a clear and strong message: It is immoral and unacceptable for Jews to transfer fellow Jews from their homeland. Jews will never agree to be uprooted from their homes in Eretz Yisrael. Such inhumane acts – which were always considered illegal and immoral when perpetrated against Jews in exile – are certainly unacceptable in our own homeland.

How absurd it is that the necessity of uprooting Jews from their homes is justified by the need for peace with our neighbors. This is the peace of being driven from town to town and from country to country. This is the peace we endured in exile. This is the peace of the ghetto.

We have not come back home to Eretz Yisrael to be forced again to flee from town to town. We are continuing to tread on the classical Zionist path of bringing life to our land and its people and consequently a blessing to our neighbors. Our enemies are intent on preventing us from achieving this. Their final goal is the uprooting of the reality of Jewish independence in Eretz Yisrael by terror and destruction. Therefore the foremost responsibility of a Jewish government is to confront this imminent danger by strengthening and securing our presence in Eretz Yisrael. Fleeing our enemies and uprooting flourishing Jewish communities thereby weakening our position would certainly be a criminal breaching of that responsibility.

These thoughts bring me back to the strange feelings I encountered last week upon hearing the declarations of world leaders at ceremonies commemorating sixty years since the liberation of the notorious Auschwitz death camp.

On the one hand there was a feeling of closure in that world leaders were forced to admit their guilt and responsibility for the atrocities committed against the Jewish people (all the more so since this had to be done in front of Jewish leaders).

On the other hand I felt a deep frustration at the obvious lack of genuine repentance since just six decades later these same world powers are twisting the arms of Jewish leaders to accept road maps that are meant to limit our rights to our homeland. Most of these nations are continuously supporting the Palestinian leaders of Arab terror and offering to reward them with the political power of an independent Arab state to be established within the Jewish homeland. They still consider Israel a pariah state always chiding us not to use exaggerated force when defending ourselves against murderous terrorist attacks. These leaders’ unbelievable lack of sensitivity for past atrocities allowed them to demand the expulsion of Jews from their towns and villages in Eretz Yisrael only because they are Jews.

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Rabbi Eliezer Waldman is rosh yeshivaof Yeshivat Nir Kiryat Arba.