One of the most concerning phenomena that we see today in the so-called enlightened world is that of cancel culture.
There are so many things today that if you try to stand up against the narrative of the time you are ostracized, censored, made to feel that you have no place among people who have a different view.
We are seeing this in the most unusual of places – in Western universities. How many times have people stood up for Israel and been shouted down, cancelled and cannot express their views.
We have seen this during the recent conflict with Gaza, how so many celebrities and social influencers have come out with a very one-sided view of the conflict, and those who try and give a different view are ostracized. It was instigated by Hamas, an internationally recognized terror organization, which explicitly say the Jewish people have no right to any collective presence anywhere in the Land of Israel whatsoever. If there is one people who have the oldest and deepest connection to a land, it is the Jewish People for the Land of Israel. Yet, this narrative is being challenged, and if you even dare to stand up and articulate it, you are cancelled, you are supporting the ‘dark forces’, and there is no room for any fair discussion.
We see a very similar thing in this week’s Parasha, a cancel culture also regarding the Land of Israel, when the Ten Spies came back and gave a report of the land and spoke about their fear of the land – the land “devours its inhabitants”, the Amalekites are in the land and that there was no way they could conquer the land. Calev and Yehoshua stood up and said of course they can conquer it. When they gave their alternative narrative, what was the response of the people? Cancel culture – they wanted to stone them, since they had no right to express that alternative view.
We have to express clearly the unequivocal right of the Jewish people to this land and to have a collective presence in the only place they have ever called their own, and to be courageous like Calev and Yehoshua in the face of this cancel culture, to express with conviction these sentiments wherever we find ourselves.
