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31 October 2022

AN APPLE A DAY ...

 

Violence?! G-d forbid! We're Jews!

On the categorically nonsensical and overwhelmingly Xian approach to the use of force

A blogger with a modicum of followers recently posted an apple so worm-rotted and icky, we just had to respond. . . . . Before anyone, you know... thought to take a bite.

To sum, this blogger's post campaigned against fisticuffs, guns and rebelliousness, in general — unless, of course, the assailant was preparing to plunge the dagger into your carotid conduit and you had no choice.

Kind of like that old joke Rav Kahane wheeled out regarding the difference between Muslims and Jews that we've pictorialized below —


Yes, the Mohammedan invokes his gawd when he endeavors to kill the Jew.
While the Jew, by contrast, invokes his G-d when preparing to die.

It's a bit dark, admittedly, but it speaks directly to the Jewish nonsense spouted by this otherwise spirited and sometimes intrepid and entertaining blogger.

Is the Jew Craven and Wheyfaced by Nature?

Yet it’s not with Rav Kahane that we intend to commence our screed today, but rather with the Chofetz Chaim.
Because, as is widely known, the Chofetz Chaim is considered in orthodox Jewish circles to be a grenade-launching, kung-fu master of low blows and eye-gouging nonpareil.
Right…?
So, what did the Chofetz Chaim say?
Well, in a discussion relating to the Russian-Jewish association of communists known as the yevsektsiya,  who were not at all well-disposed towards Judaism and its adherents, but were neither plunging daggers into their necks, he remarked...

“Jews [in the Soviet Union] made a mistake when the edicts of the yevsektsia began. They should have gone right into battle against them, with dedication and self-sacrifice, ready to give their lives. 

Many, indeed, would have been killed, but Satan’s power would have been weakened. No one could be found, however, ready to sacrifice himself in battle; and so the yevsektsia grew stronger.”

Wait a minute!
Fight?
Against Jews?
And many would have been killed?
The Chofetz Chaim?
Yup.

____________________________

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Turning the IDF Soldiers into Idols (Part 1/2) - Rav Yehudah Richter

 



Over the past year, since the establishment of the “government of change” and the appointment of Benny Gantz as Minister of Defense, illegal Arab construction in Judea and Samaria exploded – an 80% increase over the previous year. (Regavim)

DeIndustrialization of Europe

 We are watching the slow and deliberate disintegration of Europian and Asian Countries


which will roll over the Americas (South and Canada). What is happening in the Middle East is not being reported yet. But, to me, this is the slow painful and excruciating retribution on the nations.

(German) BASF shuttering operations, causing catastrophic supply chain collapse


Dire implications of BASF shuttering operations in Europe
- The coming MASS STARVATION and FREEZING of Europe
- Why War, Pandemics and Famine always go together
- Germans are clear-cutting old growth forests for firewood
- Deindustrialization is here - steel plants shut down
- "Crystal clear" that FAMINE will sweep across Europe
- Mass human migration will be unleashed globally
- Why "greenies" are a SUICIDE cult
- Transportation infrastructure failues / diesel shortages
- Fertilizer shortages and crop failures in America

BASF announces "permanent" partial shuttering of operationsin Europe
- This will set off supply chain Armageddon across Europe
- No BASF = No fertilizer = NO FOOD
- Jim Cramer CRIES about plummeting META stock
- Tech stocks crater; Elon seizes helm of #Twitter
- Actor Tim Robbins admits truth about #vaccines
- Don't vote until Election Day!
- World's largest STEEL PLANTS shutting down in Germany
- Fertilizer SHORTAGE in America as exports go to Europe
- Arrogant vaccine pushers keep dying suddenly
- Second railroad union rejects deal
- UK power grid may be turned off on cold nights
- US oil refineries, once turned off, will NEVER come back online
- Huge flooding in Australia destroys wheat crops
- Interview with Michael Yon
- Interview with Kay Rubacek

30 October 2022

What Were Noach and Family Thinking While in the ARK Thrashing Through The Mabul?

...

When Noach’s family was huddled in their little ark for one full year they were

busy thinking. They were busy with other things too; they were very busy taking

care of their cargo, but at the same time they were thinking, “What’s going on out

there? What’s happening to our cousins? What’s happening to our uncles and

aunts? What’s going to be with all our nieces and nephews?” That’s Noach’s nieces

and nephews! “What happened to our friends, our neighbors?”


And they knew unfortunately what did happen to them; and they were talking

about it. They knew about the aveiros that people were involved with, and they

were witnessing the results now. The water came pouring down, flooding

everywhere, and there was no recourse. There was no place to go. Even the highest

mountains eventually were covered.


It was a terrible sight. If you could look through the window of the teivah, you

would find people holding on to pieces of wood for their dear life but the waters

were too strong. And they were boiling hot too. Mankind was being wiped off the

face of the earth because of their sins! Such a catastrophe!


And they studied that in the teivah. For a full year, as death raged around

them, Noach and his family studied the terrible event of how all Mankind was

destroyed. They sat and pondered the lesson that there is such a thing as

responsibility for sin, punishment for aveiros.


Nowadays the world has forgotten that. Today the ideal of punishment has

gone lost. When a man commits a crime, it’s only a question of the utilitarian

achievement of punishment. In the universities they’ll make committees and

discuss it. Is it a deterrent? Or is it a rehabilitation? Maybe it’s restitution? Whatever

it is, it’s a debate, and in the debate, punishment goes lost and Mankind loses sight

of the great principle that there is such a thing as intrinsic responsibility for sin.


It’s a duty of the conscience; the conscience must feel that the sinner deserves

a punishment. Of course, we want the criminal locked up because we want to be

safe, but that’s not the primary purpose of punishment. When Mankind steps in

and inflicts punishment, we do it more than anything else because wickedness is

wrong. We are actually only vicars, emissaries, of Hakodosh Boruch Hu whose

abhorrence at a sin, at a crime, is tremendous. Sin is wicked! Wrong behavior is

wicked! That’s what punishment comes to tell you.


Today that attitude that the Mabul came to teach has gone lost, and we’re

worse off for it. There’s no such thing as wickedness anymore, no punishment.

What Mabul? Who cares? Who thinks about that? Wickedness has lost its edge in

modern society and that’s caused a breakdown in society and on all sides. Mankind

is suffering because of that.


But I’m not talking only about the gentiles. Even the frum Jews have forgotten

this lesson of the Mabul, that Hashem doesn’t put up with wickedness. How could

it be that just recently, only fifty years ago Hashem brought a Mabul on our people

in Europe and we react to it like a horse would react. Punishment? Oh no! That

can’t be.


Even the Orthodox, I’m afraid to say, don’t want to open their mouths and say

anything. Nobody wants to say the plain truth that the Holocaust was a Mabul

brought by Hashem because of our sins. The Jews in Europe had learned to hate

Judaism. Not all of them, but there were so many of them that it became a wave of

revolt against the Torah.


I saw a photograph in the Chubashav pinkas; it’s a book describing the town

of Chubashav in Europe. It’s a picture of a parade through the streets of the town

in the 1930s. And the people, the paraders, are carrying a big banner, all the way

across the street from one side to the other, and on the banner inscribed in Yiddish

it says, “Nider mit der klerikalism.” It means “Down with the clericalism.” Clericalism

means the rabbis. A big sign openly displayed in the streets of a Jewish town. Down

with the rabbinate! Down with the frumme! It means down with the Torah, down

with Hashem. And it was like that everywhere.


“The Jews in Europe declared war on Hashem.” That’s what Reb Elchonon

Wasserman zichrono livracha said. “And now He has declared war on them. That’s

why He’s sending His armies against them.” Reb Elchonon said that about Hitler.

Now, Reb Elchonon knew about the yeshivas. He knew about the talmidei

chachomim more than you. But he knew that the yeshiva people with their rebbes

were only a drop in the ocean of European Jewry and they didn’t have anybody who

listened to them.


Now, it doesn’t mean all the Jews were mechallel Shabbos, no. But even the

Jews who kept Shabbos and kashrus and everything else, they were no longer on

the side of the roshei yeshivah.


And their children were leading the way. I remember we sat on Shabbos

singing zemiros in the small town where I used to stay but we were drowned out.

Because outside the town there was a big hachshara of Jewish boys and girls who

were preparing to go to Eretz Yisroel. And they made fires on Shabbos and they ate

tarfus and they threw away all of Judaism. That was the new generation and they

were going to settle in Eretz Yisroel. Aretz! Aliyah! That’s what mattered. Shabbos,

not important. Tefillin, not important. Mikveh, not important.


And here in the town, the old people were left without a generation to follow

them. So even though they sang zemiros, their hearts were with their children.

That’s how parents are – when their children forsake the Torah, the parents lose

hope and they are no longer enthusiastic for the Torah.


The Am Yisroel stopped keeping Shabbos in Europe. They stopped putting on

tefillin. They stopped keeping everything. There was a large-scale rebellion against

Hakodosh Boruch Hu in Europe. They were getting worse and worse until Hashem

finally said, “It’s enough! I’ll bring it to an end!”


But this they don’t want to talk about in the synagogues; it’s not popular talk

and therefore the people don’t get the lesson. And all those who perished in the

Holocaust perished in vain because nothing is being learned from it; nobody’s

getting better. Even many Holocaust victims didn’t learn anything; many of those

who escaped the concentration camps didn’t learn anything.


Only that the lessons of the Torah, the attitudes of the Torah are so far from

our minds, that nobody wants to tell people the secret that Hakodosh Boruch Hu

punishes for sins. Such a secret that it’s everywhere in the Tanach. Not only the

Mabul. Wherever you look in Tanach it’s reiterated so many times that it’s perhaps

one of the most salient features of Tanach: 


If Jews will forsake the Torahּ […– if you’ll refuse and you’ll rebelּ […] 

– you will be consumed by the sword  (Yeshaya 1:20).


That was one great achievement of the Flood. It came to show the remaining

family from whom the world would be built up again that sin is not just bad, it’s

catastrophic. The family that walked out of the teivah after a year, they knew in

their blood, in their bones, that sin is a terrible misfortune


____________________

R' Avigdor Miller Zt"l

Based on his books, tapes & Writings of Talmidim

Lessons of the Flood

פרשת ננ


Email: ey@TorasAvigdor.org | Telephone: 076-599-4020

Sign up to receive Toras Avigdor in Eretz Yisroel by email at ey@torasavigdor.org



Many rabbonim say we should not discuss in public

why the churban of Hitler happened. Why do you, Rabbi Miller,

think it is important to discuss it?


And the answer is this: Because it’s one of the most frequent questions

against emunah. The public has the impression that everybody in Europe was an

observant Jew and therefore there’s the argument, “That’s what happens to

observant Jews.” And then there’s another argument: “In America they’re not

observant and it didn’t happen.”

And so it’s important to defend the honor of Hakodosh Boruch Hu and

explain to people that in Europe it was much worse than America. Not that there

was less observance, no. Less observance than America is hard to find. But in

Europe, the people were throwing away the Torah more rapidly than any other

place. They had just two generations ago kept everything and now they had

revolted against the Torah violently! Not like American ignorami who went to

public school and never learned anything and they became goyim because of the

environment. These Jews in Europe learned to hate Judaism. Not all of them, but

there were so many of them that it became a wave of revolt against the Torah.

And Reb Elchonon Wasserman zichrono livracha said, “The Jews in Europe

declared war on Hashem.” And he said, “And now He has declared war on them.

And that’s why He’s sending His armies against them.”

So therefore, if you won’t speak in this vein, the people will remain with their

fatal error and they’ll think that the Jews in Europe were all perfect and they were

unjustly visited with retribution.

Coming Soon: Eyes and Cameras Everywhere


Israel Begins Chipping Citizenry Via Telephone

State passes law forbidding free, anonymous 👀movement within the country.


“Om Ani Chomah”

 


JERUSALEM (VINnews) — In what has become an annual tradition with growing numbers of attendees, a large rally was held in Bnei Brak to strengthen public resolve regarding the dangers of technology. The rally is promoted by a group of Avreichim named “Om Ani Chomah” led by Rabbi Zvi Meir Zilberberg and this year took place with thousands of people in the huge Vizhnitz Beis Midrash in Bnei Brak.

Rabbi Zilberberg spoke passionately about the dangers of technology to G-dfearing people. A large number of people present signed commitments to make restrictions in their use of internet and other forms of technology in order to join Om Ani Chomah.

The thousands of attendees came from all walks of Israeli society and special translating services were available for those who do not understand Yiddish. Rabbi Zilberberg told many stories about people whose religious level had deteriorated as a result of using all types of technological devices.

Rabbi Zilberberg spoke against Smartphones and tablets which have for various reasons become commonly used even in chareidi society. He said that these were a danger to the future of Klal Yisrael and must be denounced as such.

Rabbi Zilberberg warned that the Nedarim Plus devices in shuls which are meant to facilitate contributions to the shuls can be hacked and that many have been used for other purposes. He also criticized educators and Mashgichim who have such devices and said that they must set an example to their students on this issue.

Rabbi Zilberberg encouraged those who withstand temptations and added that very soon they will be able to receive Moshiach in purity, knowing that they conquered their Yetzer Hara.

https://vinnews.com/2022/10/27/huge-rally-in-bnei-brak-against-damage-caused-by-technology/


29 October 2022

IF YOUR VOTE MATTERED

 This week's Torah class: Those who have no share in the world to come 

If Your Vote Mattered

 Here we go again. Election theatre is upon us in Israel. Morally bankrupt politicians emerge from their dark holes and VIP events to woo the peasants they despise with vacuous slogans and empty promises. Once again the peasants delude themselves that this time it can be different, that this time it will be different, if only they vote for one smiling scumbag over another.

Count me out. I'm done playing their game.

“Oh, but you're wasting your vote!” cry my fellow peasants in earnest. “If you don't vote then someone else will decide who wins! It's true, they are all bad, but you should vote for the least bad, because it will make a difference! And don't vote for a small party that seems to have some integrity, because they don't have a chance anyway. Don't waste your vote! It matters!”
This is what people have allowed themselves to be reduced to, voting for the least bad. If it were a race between Hitler and Mussolini, between the KGB and the Stasi, the country would be divided and at each other's throats over who to vote for, because it matters.
Tell me something. At what point in the last three years, during which we had numerous rounds of elections, did your wishes as a voting citizen matter at all? The people in power stripped you of your rights (assuming they weren't imaginary all along), placed you under house arrest, blackmailed you to take accursed shots, destroyed businesses, turned citizens and loved ones against one another, forced hospital patients to die horrible, lonely deaths, and a whole lot more.

Did your vote matter then? 

If your vote mattered, they would have asked us what we wanted regarding all the above and listened when we told them. Instead, they acted unilaterally, stonewalled concerned citizens, and brutally attacked protestors. They acted not as democratically leaders who were concerned about votes, but as tyrants oppressing their subjects.

Your vote didn't matter.

If your vote mattered you wouldn't be surveilled by Big Brother. If your vote mattered, we would be able to listen to theirconversations and watch them at all times.
But that isn't a campaign issue, either. It's a fact of life that we have to accept, because we can't change the system...even though our vote is supposed to do just that.
If your vote mattered, Amiram Ben Uliel would not be rotting in a dungeon for breaking after nineteen days of midieval torture and confessing to a crime no decent person can believe he committed. Is it the democratic will of the people for citizens with the wrong political beliefs to be rounded up, tortured by professional sadists, and have their lives destroyed? Did any of the scumbags with their makeup and marketing campaigns even ask, or bring it up at all?

No. Because your vote doesn't matter.

Did you ever stop to think why the establishment pushes so hard for you to vote? 

It matters less to them who you vote for (really) than that you vote at all. Believing that your vote matters is a myth, but it props up the rigged system. Regardless of which sold-out stooge gets installed as the leader, the establishment can proclaim that he is the democratically elected leader, he was chosen by the people fair and square, and therefore everything that follows is legitimate.
This is why regimes like China and Iran desperately want people to vote, and will force them to vote if necessary, even though it's a pointless exercise. It helps them maintain the illusion. 
That's why I'm out. Not voting will make a much bigger difference than playing their game and pretending it matters. 
If a high percentage of people boycott the election charade, it sends an unmistakable message to the establishment, and, more importantly, the general population: we trust the system so little that we aren't even playing along because of "why not" anymore. It weakens the system much more than your vote for an alternative party ever would. That's my opinion.
Even ten percent of a country that is organized and confident is enough to bring everything down. But the first step toward that is crossing the line, even a symbolic one, and saying to yourself and others that you're not playing the game anymore.
As long as you hang on and believe you can make a difference by playing the game, you won't cross the line. Nothing changes if nothing changes.
Similarly, if the readership of the controlled propaganda outlets dropped by 50% it would send a powerful message. If everyone who still reads Arutz Sheva, the Jerusalem Post, the Times of Israel, etc. would know that they lost half their readership, that alone would weaken the grip of the propaganda on them. 
It's the same with voting. If you know that so many people aren't voting, you'll also wonder "why bother" and be a little closer to dumping the system and joining a real alternative.
The mere act of showing up grants a little more legitimacy to the whole farce. It's like walking away from an abusive relationship instead of trying to fix it. At some point you have to cross that invisible line, or nothing changes.
If your vote really mattered, you would be able to choose between candidates who represent the best of society, not a collections of creeps, criminals, and incompetent people that you wouldn't trust to babysit your children. 
If your vote really mattered, the Amalekites at the World Economic Forum would have less control over what happens in Israel than you do. If your vote really mattered, they wouldn't have any at all.
If your vote really mattered, the last three years would have looked very different. Your vote didn't matter then and it doesn't matter now. Deep down most people realize it, but they continue playing along. 
I'm done participating in the Erev Rav charade. I'm done legitimizing their system. I'm done giving strength to the lie that we have democratically elected officials who represent the will of the people. I'm done hanging on to the wistful hope that maybe my vote will make a small difference even as we live in a state of tyranny and corruption.

I'm done being a sucker. 

That's their greatest nightmare – and the most meaningful vote of all.
__________________________

chananyaweissman.com/

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Shalom Pollack – Veteran Heroes Speak

TOUR NOVEMBER 2

Today we will have a  very rare and fleeting privilege.

Ezra Yachin, 94 yrs old and clear of mind has agreed to receive us in his home in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of "Beit  Chanina”

Mr. Yachin, the author of books, is the last living  "Lechi '' fighter.

He took part in every step on the way to Jewish independence in our land. The pre-state struggle for independence from the British and the war of independence are alive and clear in his memory. He was at "Deir Yassin '' and other crucial sites and times of which volumes have been written.  His is the last living testimony. We will hear it all firsthand.

We will proceed to "Ammunition Hill" the key battle site for the liberation of Jerusalem in the six-day war of 1967 and tour the famous  site and Jordanian fortifications, One of the paratroopers who survived the night of hand-to-hand onslaught has agreed to share his memories and thoughts  with us,

Finally, we will witness a site of poetic justice.

Haj Amin Husseini, Hitler's ally and the father of the "Palestinian " people owned a hotel and land in East Jerusalem. This property was purchased through a third party and today homes for many Jewish families are built there. His hotel will be a synagogue dedicated to the millions of  Jewish children he helped murder in the Holocaust.

The people we meet today are the last of a breed of heroes.

Departure from the Inbal hotel at 10:00

Return approx 4:00

Cost: 200 shekels.

28 October 2022

Reb Neuberger – When The Foundations Collapse

WHEN THE FOUNDATIONS COLLAPSE

In this week’s Parsha, the world is destroyed by a Flood. 


Last week we read how G-d created the world. By Noach’s generation, however, the world had forgotten that He exists. It wasn’t just that mankind rebelled. It was worse than that. Hashem’s Existence was completely ignored. 


Only Noach and his family remembered; only Noach and his family survived. 


When people forget Hashem it is because they WANT to forget. Idols of wood and stone do not expect us to adhere to laws of proper behavior, but Hashem does. When mankind wants to live like animals, they intentionally “forget” Hashem. 


When I met President George W. Bush in 2007, I told him why I thought he was receiving so much “flak” from the press. I said, “It is because you believe in G-d and embrace moral standards. Others, not on your level, want to pull you down, and that is why they criticize you.” (He clearly appreciated my words, and one of his aides later came to thank me for encouraging the President.)


Hashem expects us to “Judge the needy and the orphan, vindicate the poor and impoverished, rescue the needy and destitute, and deliver them from the hand of the wicked. [But the judges] do not know or understand; they walk in darkness; all foundations of the earth collapse.” (Tehillim 82)


Who are the “judges?” This is another name for the governments of the world. When governments judge lawlessly, the result is that “all foundations of the earth collapse.” The lawmakers who govern the nations, whether Jew or non-Jew, are responsible to subordinate themselves to the laws of Hashem. 


When Hashem is ignored by the nations of the world, Hashem may withhold strict judgment for a time in order to allow them to do teshuva, but, at the moment he deems appropriate, judgment will be meted out, as it was in the Days of Noach. In the words of Dovid ha Melech, “When the wicked bloom like grass and all the doers of iniquity blossom, it is to destroy them until eternity….” (Tehillim 92)


Several years ago, we flew on Turkish Airlines from Baku to Istanbul. On the electronic map, the Country of Israel was missing! The world pretends Hashem does not exist; the world pretends Israel does not exist. When you want to pretend something doesn’t exist, you just delete it from the map. This is what is called “sticking your head in the sand.” People who don’t want Hashem to “interfere” in their lives simply act as if He doesn’t exist. 


Today, the foundations are collapsing. 


People are afraid to walk in cities; innocent people are attacked on the street and the judges free the attackers. Nations invade nations and threaten them with nuclear oblit-eration. Even the “stable” nations are tottering: Great Britain, once the seat of a vast empire, is in chaos. The queen has died and the government has fallen after only a few weeks. 


There is no stability beside Torah. “Ain od milvado … there is nothing else.”


This week’s Parsha makes clear that adherence to the Torah is the prerequisite for the continued existence of the world. The avoda of the Children of Israel is to teach this truth to the world; all mankind is bound by adherence to the applicable Torah laws. “The existence of the world depends on Jews learning Torah. If a Jew learns Torah … he sustains the world and prevents its destruction.” (Rabbi Elchonen Wasserman zt”l)


On Pesach, Hashem brought the Children of Israel out from Mitzraim. We were at the bottom, spiritually and physically. Yetzias Mitzraim was a physical redemption. The spiritual redemption occurred at Har Sinai. By the time we complete the Yom Tov cycle and arrive at the Yom Tov of Sukkos, we have reached an exalted spiritual level at which all that exists is ruchnius, the Holy Torah, which we hold close to us and with which we dance. 


The haters surround us, so we are required in the name of survival to keep this in mind at all times. If we live with Hashem in front of us, which is our constant challenge to live up to, then we may be able to survive the collapse of the surrounding nations and see the Final Redemption and the rebuilt Bais Hamikdosh


It is not easy to achieve the spiritual level required for survival. It was not easy for Noach to withstand the taunts of those who mocked him when he built the teva. But he survived. 


We also want to survive. 


When all else collapses, we see clearly that there is only refuge. “Achas shoalti … one thing I asked of Hashem … to dwell in the House of Hashem all the days of my life.” (Tehillim 27) 


Now, “Kol goyim savavuni … All the nations surround me. In the Name of Hashem I cut them down.” (Tehillim 118) 


The Name of Hashem. That’s all there is. 



Rising Flood Waters


Mt. Ararat in Turkey, where the Ark finally rested


Speaking with President Bush

Buckingham Palace



GLOSSARY

Avoda: Holy task

Bais Hamikdosh: The Holy Temple

Dovid ha Melech: King David

Har Sinai: Mount Sinai

Noach: Noah

Ruchnius: Spirituality

Tehillim: Psalms

Teva: Ark

Yetzias Mitzraim: Exodus from Egypt 

Yom Tov: Biblical Holiday

Rabbi Kahana – Parashat Noach

 

BS”D Parashat Noach 5783

by Rabbi Nachman Kahana | Oct 25, 2022


Dramatic Changes in Life


Midrash Raba (Bereishiet page 56):


שהיה נח אמגאנשים שראו געולמות, נח דניאל ואיוב. נח ראה העולם בישובו ובחרבנו ובישובו. אמרו רבותינו לא מת נח עד שראה קן צפרים בישובה, עד שראה שבעים אומות יוצאות מחלציו והם כתובים בפרשה זו. איוב ראה ישוב ביתו וחרבנו וישובו. דניאל ראה ביהמק וראהו חרב וראהו בנוי בנין שני,

 

Noach was one of three men who saw extreme reversals in their lives: from contentment, to disaster, to restoration of contentment. Noach experienced a super advanced society; he then saw it destroyed and eventually rebuilt. According to the Midrash, by the time he died, Noach saw 70 races evolving from his descendants.

E’yov (Job) established his princely, elegant, wealthy family. He then saw the demise of all its members and his fall into dire poverty; followed by his remarriage and restoration of wealth and family.

The prophet Daniel saw the first Bet Hamikdash, its destruction and then the rebuilding of the second Bet Hamikdash by Ezra and Nechemia.


These were remarkable men who merited to see the closing of tragic historic circles by the “hand of HaShem”.


There are many among us today who recall the glory of Torah study and devotion to HaShem in Ashkenazic Eastern Europe and Sephardic North Africa and eastward, prior to the time of the Shoah. They witnessed the destruction of these Torah oriented communities and their rebirth here in Eretz Yisrael.


Restoration


No one can foresee the details of our future with Iran lurking in the background, and the too many non-Jews in our country, and the spread of world-wide anti-Semitism even in liberal democratic nations; but one thing is certain – we will merit to create another Torah centered society here in Israel again.


Those of us who have had the privilege of serving in active-duty units in Tzahal will recall the back-breaking training marches while carrying heavy stretchers on our shoulders, often in deep sand.


Judaism is the heavy stretcher of history, and the Torah observant are the men and women supporting it from beneath for just one more kilometer and just one more; for just one more generation and then another, until we shall be able to rest our weary bodies and sooth the bruises on our backs when the Bet Hamikdash will be rebuilt.


The Torah observant in the holy land with their families of 5-10 (or more) children and many grandchildren and many, many great-grandchildren to the exclusion of the 2-3 children of non-religious families of the Jews in the galut who could be coming on aliya but refuse to do so – we in the holy land are beneath that stretcher as HaShem’s chosen people.


The demographic problem of the miniscule Jewish nation after 3300 years can readily be understood from one sad statistic. We number today only about 12-13 million Jews world-wide; taking into account that any number of American Jews counted in the census statistics half of them, if not more, are not -halachic Jews. They include reform conversions and the reform recognition of a child born to a Jewish father and gentile mother as being Jewish.


After nearly 80 years since the end of World War II we are still very far from the number 18 million of Jews who were alive on the day that the war broke out. This is due to the on-going assimilation holocaust among the reform, conservative and unaffiliated Jews in North America which has reached 70-80 percent!


What can we do? This is a catch 22 dilemma.


In truth, the religious leaders of world Jewry should declare this situation as the second Shoah that has occurred to our nation in modern times. To declare these facts without trepidation and embarrassment in an attempt to stem the tsunami of inter-marriage. However, this would present a nasty problem. The gentiles would respond: “Why are our sons and daughters prohibited to you? Are you some kind of master-race?”


The truthful answer would be as in the following parable:


A man once traversed the land in search of absolute truth. He ventured into a faraway town, and as was his habit, asked if anyone there knew the truth of life. A townsman replied that there is a rumor that on the nearby mountain lives a woman who knows the truth. The man ascended the mountain where he saw the ugliest person he had ever seen. Her age could have easily been 100 or 120. Any beauty which might have been hers was long ago lost, and she was a pitiful sight. He asked her if she is the woman who knows the truth. She replied that she is the personification of truth in the world. The young man stayed with her several months enraptured by her wisdom and revelations in every subject. After several months he informed the woman that he must return to civilization. She understood. And this woman despite being the personification of truth requested a favor of the young man, “Please tell the world that I am young and beautiful”.


The lesson here is that truth is often viewed as being too ugly and stringent for most people to accept, so we prefer to envelop and enshroud it with a cosmetic veneer of falsehood.

To proclaim the situation of intermarriage and assimilation as a Shoah would produce the reaction that we and our religion are racist, and that would open a Pandora’s box of active anti-Semitism. So, our leaders prefer to remain silent, and as the proverbial ostrich just stick their heads in the sand.


But, in fact, Judaism is not racist, because we did not proclaim that we are better or that we are the chosen; but it was the Creator Himself who is not part of this world but “out of the box” who made this proclamation. Hence, He is not subject to the rules that govern human behavior. HaShem chose the Jews. So, we should walk with pride and announce we are HaShem’s sons and daughters and His loyal subjects. We can find strength and happiness and walk proudly that our souls and bodies are the elite of HaShem’s creations. And then let the “chips fall as they may”. Because that is the truth!


It is our fervent hope and expectation that just as Noach, E’yov and Daniel merited to see the restoration of their blessings after a period of disaster, that we too, after being the light to the world at the time of King Solomon, then descending to the depths because of our sins, shall in our time merit to see the restoration of Am Yisrael as the recognized spiritual leaders of mankind.


Shabbat Shalom

Nachman Kahana

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