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In the 1900's various movements in Israel and abroad thought that by downplaying their "Jewishness", making themselves more like the goyim and integrating themselves more into their culture and trying to coexist in peace and harmony, intermingled with them, they would achieve peace and endear themselves to the nations of the world. The result of that was October 7, 2023 and its aftermath that we are currently experiencing.
The paralyzing revelation (it is exactly that – a Divine revelation) is that no matter how much we try to make ourselves more like the goyim, how merciful and magnanimous we are to our enemies, the more we try, the more we cause them to hate us. And that hate erupts explosively.
The descendants of the philosophy of Amalek do not target Charedim in Bnei Brak because they are ultra-orthodox or "settlers" in Yehudah and Shomron because they supposedly "occupy" their land. They target any and every Jew, anywhere in the world, wherever they can find them, regardless of their level of "Jewishness" – simply because they are Jewish, not Israeli - Jewish!
They will not rest until they cleanse us from "the river to the sea", from France, from England, from the USA, from Canada, etc. It has nothing to do with humanitarian aid to Gaza, or electricity in incubators in Gazan hospitals. It is an irrational hatred of Jews, of Am Yisrael. That is what Amalek is.
Not all of Britain are Amalek, neither is all of France, the USA, Canada etc. The vast majority of Edom and Yishmael are our אוֹיֵב – they have a dispute with us, territorial, religious, monetary, etc. They don't particularly like us, they tolerate us for the most part, when it suits them. But they are not trying to wipe us off the face of the earth like our שׂוֹנֵא – Amalek.
For the most part they are ignorant to the facts, to the history. Many of them are joining the pro-Hamas rallies, not because they understand why, but mostly because it is "cool", it is the "in thing", on the streets and in campuses. They are not the problem, if we educate them and dispel the lies, they won't be at these demonstrations.
The problem are the real Amalekites. It is them or us, there is no middle ground. The only response to them is force, the IDF in Israel and Jews (as many as possible) on the streets of the USA, UK, France, Canada, etc. There is strength in numbers and the Jews abroad must come together and make a show of force. The pro-Israel demonstration in Washington this week was a good start, but it is only a start. 200,000 of all the millions of Jews in the USA is not enough. We need to see more of these demonstrations in New York, in Los Angeles and all over America. Similarly in London, Paris, Melbourne, Johannesburg.
We must wield the most powerful weapon possible on the streets – the Israeli flag and our cellphones, taking photos of everything that moves - as proof in case of an attack, chas veshalom. We must not cower and hide, not downplay our "Jewishness", by removing our Mezuzas from the door, by removing the Magen Davids around our necks or the Kippas from our heads. The opposite! We must display them proudly for all to see. Next to the Magen David graffiti spray painted on the walls we must dangle an Israeli flag! The Amalekites are trying to label us as Jews, we must help them, by showing how proud we are of being Jews, not ashamed.
Fellow Jews, we are again reliving the Exodus from Egypt and our redemption. Just as back then this was preceded by an act of faith, proudly displaying our "Jewishness" on the lintels and the doorposts – taunting our enemies, so today, as we approach our redemption, HKB"H wants to see the same act of faith – a return to our roots and our Creator and a clear display of our affiliation. Just as back then HKB"H performed miracles for us, so too will He do so today.
In Shushan the Jews put the fear of death into Haman's supporters, but still there was a hard core that would not relent and 300 of them were killed in Shushan. In the rest of the kingdom, 75,000 Amalekites were killed because they refused to stand down. Just like back then, it is them or us.
If, however, a member of Amalek agrees to stand down and relinquish their philosophy of hate, we are even allowed to accept them as a convert to Judaism. The Gemara (Sanhedrin 96b, Gitin 57b) says that descendants of Haman taught Torah in Bnei Brak. If the civilians in Gaza are prepared to relinquish the Hamas/Amalek philosophy, we have no reason to harm them.
If you live in a region in the world where you are vastly outnumbered and do not have strength in numbers, you should seriously consider relocating, to the only place that is really safe for Jews in the world today – Israel. HKB"H is going to bring you here eventually anyway, you might as well preempt it and do it comfortably and wisely, rather than waiting for a situation where you have to be airlifted with one suitcase and the clothes on your backs, chas veshalom.
The lengthy exile of Edom is approaching its end, as is the exile of Yishmael. Everything is converging on the Geulah.
The reason the exile of Edom was so long, 1878 years (or for those who still do not live in Israel – 1953 years) is because of the sin of שִׂנְאַת חִנָּם – the senseless hatred of Am Yisrael for itself. To weed out this cancer cannot be done in a short time. It requires a lengthy, repetitive punishment and lesson, teaching us, again and again, in every generation – who our real enemy is.
Everyone is focusing right now on winning the war and getting the hostages back and then turning our attention to the post war strategy. I am not talking about the post-war strategy in Gaza, who should govern it, I am talking about our post war strategy in Am Yisrael.
The attack on October 7 was an act of G-d. If HKB"H would have left it up to us to make peace within ourselves, it would not have happened. We were on the brink and the only thing that could save us from that was October 7. It would have been better if we could have woken up ourselves, without all the lives lost and destroyed Rachmana litzlan, but the yetzer harah is so strong among us in these final throes before the Geulah, that this was not possible.
I listen to people speaking on TV about how everyone has had their misconceptions shattered and that Am Yisrael has woken up. I do not believe that we have completely woken up yet, I think there are still more people that need to be woken up and HKB"H will wake them up, hopefully this time with more miraculous, favorable acts of G-d for Am Yisrael and less catastrophic ones. In the end, B"H all the hearts of stone will be melted and Am Yisrael will finally get the message. We are this close …… As HKB"H said to Moshe Rabbeinu הִתְיַצְבוּ וּרְאוּ אֶת יְשׁוּעַת ה'.
Only HKB"H can do this, not us. Despite what happened on October 7, I still hear many of the same people, on the same Israeli/Jewish media channels, espousing the same misconceptions. Even October 7 cannot change this in their minds. They are so far gone that nothing they witness will change their erroneous beliefs.
The good news is that they are a tiny, miniscule minority. The vast majority of Am Yisrael, in Israel and abroad, have woken up. We need to focus and concentrate now on preserving the miraculous wave of achdut flowing over our nation and not give these fringe minorities any air time whatsoever, not acknowledging what they say, not answering them – not giving them any stage whatsoever. They are still peddling sinat chinam and they desperately want a stage to peddle it on. Let us not give it to them and marginalize them for the fringe minority that they are.
Am Yisrael are much smarter than we think, the majority of our nation is not with these fringes, they are disgusted by them. The sane majority in Am Yisrael need to actively concentrate and focus on all the positive. Our media channels need to be dealing exclusively with the achdut and the positive, good things. This is what Am Yisrael wants to see and when they do, they will "vote with their feet" and the media channels who give a stage to the fringes will plummet in the ratings and eventually disappear.
In the end, it all boils down to each individual in Am Yisrael. We all have to make a choice. HKB"H wants us to choose Him freely, not because we are forced to.
Everyone thinks the war is down south in Gaza, it is not. Each and every one of us are currently fighting the real war – the war with our yetzer harah.
Just as there is an art to every war, so too is there an art to fighting the yetzer harah. The yetzer harah does not tempt us with things that are obviously and patently wrong (each according to their own level). The yetzer harah gnaws slowly, step by step, slowly eroding our resistance, until we end up at that final stage of sin without even realizing it.
The yetzer harah will not directly tempt someone who is strict with Kashrut to eat pork. The very thought would make most Jewish people nauseous. Instead, the yetzer harah tempts us with a boiled candy in a jar in a dentist's office, that looks really appealing and upon inspection of the ingredient list does not appear to have any problematic ingredients. Only thing is – it does not have a hechsher. So, you think to yourself – what can be wrong with this? All it is, is sugar, cornstarch, coloring and some E-123's. and you eat it – and enjoy it immensely (and it is also good business for the dentist).
Next time, a business associate gives you a box of chocolates as a gift. You cannot refuse, it would be ungracious. Again, there is no hechsher on the box and the ingredients do not pop up any red flags, so you dig in. Later you discover that the filling of one of the pralines had gelatin made from animal derivatives.
Oh well, it was "batel beshishim", you think. And so on it goes, tiny little baby steps, gradually taking you further and further down the road, until you are eating in a restaurant without a hechsher - to not insult your boss who invited you to lunch. Eventually one day you wake up and realize you have eaten something with pig derivatives in and guess what ….. nothing happened to you! (physically at least).
This is the way the yetzer harah works. There is an art to the war.
To defeat the yetzer harah, we have to work the same art of war, in reverse. If someone who is not makpid on Kashrut decides to tackle the problem head on and immediately start eating only Kosher, overnight, the chances are that this will not last long. Epiphanies and radical approaches in defeating the yetzer harah are just as ineffective as if the yetzer harah tried a radical approach to get you to sin with something that is totally remote to you. This is what happened with Am Yisrael shortly after receiving the Torah on Har Sinai – they sinned with the egel. They had risen too quickly, so they fell just as quickly.
To defeat the yetzer harah, you need to take baby steps in the opposite direction. If you do not eat Kosher as a general rule, then make a resolution just once a week, on Fridays, to buy a challah roll from a Kosher bakery for eating on Shabbat. What harm can that do? You have the rest of the week to eat whatever you like, just as before? After this routine is well established, introduce another baby step - start making a bracha before eating that challah roll.
Hamotzi Lechem Min Ha'aretz. It's not like you are going to start growing peiyot and start wearing a streimel or anything like that! After a few weeks, you decide that while saying the bracha you will put on a kippa – just for the bracha, after that, off it goes! Slowly but surely, under the radar of the yetzer harah, you will end up keeping Kosher full time. This is the art of the war.
Eisav and Yaakov, until age 13 were exactly the same. They went to the same school, lived in the same home, learned the same things from their father Yitzchak and mother Rivka. So how did Eisav veer one way and Yaakov the other after bar mitzvah? It was not instantaneous, it was baby steps, chosen freely and willingly, one after the other, each leading them down a different path.
Yishmael and Eisav and their descendants had a role to play in HKB"H's plan, specifically related to the Geulah. Edom is likened to a pig, a חֲזִיר – because their job is לְהַחֲזִיר, to return the מַלְכוּת, the kingdom over the world to HKB"H. Yishmael had a job to make Am Yisrael cry out to HKB"H for salvation and to return to their roots. We are at the end of that process. Now we are in the final stages, eliminating Amalek and returning to our land from the four corners of the earth, united as one nation, with One G-d.
Shabbat Shalom
Eliezer Meir Saidel
Machon Lechem Hapanim
www.machonlechemhapanim.org
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