This week’s Haftorah carries an important message. We do not build a society on the power of an army alone. It has to have the moral infrastructure to support it. Without that they all else falls apart.
A Quick Devar Torah: Not by Might, but by Spirit
This week’s haftarah is tied directly to the opening of Parashat Beha’alotcha. The Torah portion begins with Aaron lighting the Menorah, and the haftarah from the prophet Zechariah centers on the vision of the golden Menorah during the period of the Second Temple.
In that vision we find the famous words:
“Not by might, nor by power, but by My spirit, says the Lord of Hosts.”
We recite these words regularly, but what do they really mean?
History is filled with mighty empires. They marched across continents with powerful armies. They conquered nations, built monuments, and seemed invincible. Yet today most of those empires exist only in history books. We find a few ruins, a few artifacts, and little else remains.
The Jewish people, by contrast, were rarely the strongest military power. We were seldom the wealthiest nation. What sustained us was something different: the Torah and the moral vision it brought into the world.
Zechariah was speaking to a tiny, poor community rebuilding the Second Temple. They had little money, few resources, and were surrounded by larger powers. Yet the prophet tells them that their future will not be determined by military strength or political influence. Their strength will come from the moral and spiritual foundations upon which they build their society.
A culture that rests only on power eventually disappears. A society that rests on moral principles can endure for generations.
There is a famous story about the last surviving veteran of the Battle of Bunker Hill. When asked whether he had been inspired by philosophers such as John Locke or Montesquieu, he reportedly answered, “I never heard of them. I had only one book in my house—the Bible.”
Similarly, during the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln was asked whether God was on the Union’s side. Lincoln replied, “I am not at all concerned whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God’s side.”
The point was not military strength alone. The struggle was understood as a moral one.
Even in modern times we see this principle at work. During the great airlift that brought Ethiopian Jews to Israel, many arrived with virtually nothing but the clothes on their backs. Appeals went out for donations. The response was so overwhelming that within a day authorities were asking people to stop bringing supplies because more had been collected than was needed.
A society built on mutual responsibility and moral obligation possesses a strength that cannot be measured in tanks, armies, or wealth.
That is Zechariah’s message. Nations survive not because they are powerful, but because they possess a moral foundation worth preserving.
“Not by might, nor by power, but by My spirit.”
Something to think about.
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