Parachad Akiv poses for us the great question.

What is the real challenge of a free society?

And in this week's Parashar Moshehrabana springs the great surprise.

Let us see his words.

Be careful that you don't forget the Lord your God.

Otherwise, when you eat and are satisfied, when you build

fine houses and settle down, when your herds and flocks glow large and your silver and gold

increase and all you have is multiplied, then your heart will become proud and you will forget

the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery, if you ever forget the Lord

of your God.

I testify against you today that you will surely be destroyed.

Now what Moshehra Benu is saying, and it is really something very surprising, is he is turning

to the new generation and saying, you thought 40 years in the wilderness were the real

trial. And now you're going to enter the land of Israel and everything will be easy. He said

exactly the opposite is the case. The real challenge isn't poverty. the real challenge is affluence.

It is when you settle down, when you don't have huge challenges,

when you grow well off, that is when you are in greatest danger.

That is when the spiritual trial will really begin. Now what Moshehra Benu is

doing here is something very interesting that doesn't happen very often and it happens

only to certain very outstanding historical scholars in the course of civilization.

One of the first was the great Islamic 14th century teacher called Ibn Chaldun.

Ibn Chaldun gave an overarching theory of the decline and fall of civilizations.

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