And a response to media hate-bait against yeshiva students who avoid the IDF
The title of part 26 of The Prophetic Teachings of Rav Elchonon Wasserman might come across as provocative, but it shouldn’t be.
If one doesn’t believe that Hashem sent Hitler, he is a kofer.
If one believes that Hashem did send Hitler, but this was cruel or otherwise wrong, he is a kofer.
If one believes that Hashem made it impossible for us to determine why He sent Hitler, then perforce he must also believe that Hashem made it impossible for us to derive the appropriate lessons and rectify the spiritual cause. That would be tyrannical and cruel, and therefore this belief is kefirah as well.
If one believes that we are not supposed to try because we might get it wrong — we might do teshuva for the “wrong” sin! — and might offend some people along the way, he is intentionally choosing to ignore whatever message Hashem is trying to send, which is a surefire recipe for disaster.
If one believes that the emergence of people like Hitler and millions of supporters around the world is anything other than a spiritual wake-up call, and that anything other than a spiritual solution will solve the problem (Am Yisrael Chai, you rising lion!), he leaves Hashem little choice but to humble him in a very painful way, God forbid.
If you want to know Rav Wasserman’s explanation in 1935 for why Hashem sent Hitler, and the eerie parallels to present times, you can listen to the class. But first one must internalize this essential truth: everything that is happening has a spiritual cause, and the only answer to the problems we face is a spiritual response.
Hishtadlus is necessary to some degree, but it has become a buzzword, an avoda zara. Unless hishtadlus is predicated on a spiritual rectification, it has no meaning and no effectiveness — even if one pays lip service to the notion that “everything comes from Hashem”. It is the definition of going with Hashem b’keri, with happenstance. This only brings even more severe punishment in response, God forbid, until we finally get the message.
We learned much more in the class, including the necessary preconditions for one to be capable of giving effective advice, and why the “solutions” for so many of our problems only seem to result in things getting worse.
The class is also available on Rumble here.
Someone asked me to write something in response to these letters being reported in the “news”, https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/418050:
Here is my response:
This is sinister propaganda and hate-mongering from Arutz Sheva and the demons they work for. First of all, these letters were written over 40 years ago. About 10 years ago I wrote in Go Up Like a Wall that the IDF is a holy institution. (I also had a generally positive view of vaccines.) Are we supposed to believe that a letter written 40 years ago is a permanent blank check for the IDF, no matter what, and nothing would change their minds?
Mind you, these letters contain no context, no halachic analysis. We don’t know why they expressed this position or under what circumstances this position might change. So these letters are halachically worthless. All they tell us is that these rabbis would not go out of their way to help people avoid joining the IDF if they weren’t learning Torah full-time.
Naturally, the “news” fails to explore the reasoning behind their position at the time, and whether or not it remains relevant today. All they want to do is play “gotcha” with those wicked, hypocritical “haredi draft dodgers”, who we are supposed to hate more than anyone else and view as an existential threat to our existence.
Here are some questions the sanctimonious hate-mongers conveniently refuse to address:
What if the IDF is sending soldiers into death traps to be maimed and killed by the thousands for a pretextual war they never had any intention of winning?
What if the IDF makes a cynical show of accommodating the religious requirements of soldiers?
What if the IDF tramples on the Torah in so many ways, and has made no secret of their goal to secularize religious soldiers?
What if the IDF is run by kofrim and traitors?
What if the IDF continues to violently destroy “illegal Jewish settlements”, not to mention all the perfectly legal Jewish homes they destroyed in Gush Katif?
What if the IDF persecutes soldiers for refusing suicidal orders, or for independently rushing to defend besieged communities on October 7?
What if the state-owned weapons manufacturers are raking in billions in profits off our record taxes and cheap blood, while soldiers beg for food and basic gear?
What if the IDF has an unfathomable “intelligence failure”, then stands down while dozens of communities are being slaughtered, and then the very same people responsible for this are charged with sending Jews into “war”?
What if the IDF gets 15,000+ Jews maimed and killed for nothing, and then claims they have a “manpower shortage”...of 15,000 soldiers?
What if the IDF is a Molech death cult?
Are we supposed to believe none of this might impact the views of rabbis who formerly had a somewhat permissive view of sending ANYONE to the IDF? It sure impacted my perspective.
Why are these questions not the discussion EVERYONE is having, instead of bickering over letters from 40 years ago and falling for Erev Rav hate-bait?
Why are we allowing the media and their Erev Rav puppet masters to dictate the conversation?
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