Plus powerful words from Rav Avigdor Miller on Distinguishing Between Jews and Israel
I don’t like writing teasers to lure more viewers for my Torah classes, as if I’m competing for people’s attention with the endless entertainment options on the Internet, or even with other people giving classes. It feels degrading to the Torah that I am offering, and it also feels like an extra redundant chore. If you appreciate the Torah and perspective I offer in my articles, I think you will appreciate the classes as well; why wouldn’t you? There is so much there, and I simply can’t transcribe it all.
I was all fired up on Shabbos, just waiting to give this class today. An advice column in a weekly Jewish publication featured the following question:
My wife stopped making dinner because I tend to complain. For example, if the chicken, vegetables or rice were undercooked — I would point it out. She finally said I should make dinner myself. I apologized, but it’s not helping. How can I appease her and have her agree to make dinner again?
The answer he received from the “marriage and advice counselor” and editor of the publication infuriated me.
What would you respond?
More importantly, was your response based on Torah and rooted in Torah?
Mine was. That was the basis for today’s class.
It will make many people bristle, especially if they were marinated in degenerate Western education (Amalek-inspired). However, if such people can get past their conditioning, biases, and reflexive emotional reactions, they might just learn something and change their minds.
That is why we learn Torah, after all, isn’t it? It certainly should be…
The class is embedded above and on Rumble here.
Speaking of things that will make people bristle, but which will be appreciated by those who are capable of learning and rethinking their views:
Thanks to a reader for forwarding this to me, from torasavigdor.org.
Rav Avigdor Miller on Distinguishing Between Jews and Israel
Q: Should we be worried that the “Zionism is Racism” resolution that was just passed by the UN is going to affect the Torah world?
A: There’s no question that what anybody does is going to affect us to some extent. What the State of Israel has done affects us. And what the enemies of the State of Israel does affects us.
But let’s not confuse the issues. When these countries get together and they oppose the State of Israel, let’s not be in a hurry to say that they’re enemies of the Jewish people.
The Zionist organizations are longing that this should be the national slogan of all Jews, so that all Jews should be roped in; we should all be in the same boat together with them and whatever happens to them should chalilah happen to us. No. We have to dissociate ourselves from this. It doesn’t mean we have to give comfort to the enemies of Israel but when we do defend the State of Israel we should never speak in the name of the Jewish people. Whatever is said has to be said for the State of Israel, not the Jewish people.
The Jewish people are not involved in fights with Arabs. The Jewish people are not involved in fights with the colored peoples of the world or with white peoples. We have no fight with anybody. We are fighting against the yetzer hara. That’s enough to keep us busy all our lives—that’s a big enough enemy. It’s not what I say. The Shavler Rav, zichrono levrachah, said that. I was once present when he said that. We were a small group of yeshivah men sitting in the country; it was after Tisha B’av he was sitting down and he was speaking to us informally. He said, “People are making protests against the Arabs.” This was forty years ago and there were Jews who were protesting the Arabs. He said we should all get together—he said this seriously—and make a great protest against the evil inclination. That’s our enemy.
It’s not the Arabs who are our enemy. That’s a mistake. Shouting at the Arabs? First of all, you’re shouting in the wrong direction. We have to shout at ourselves. We have to shout at the Zionist leaders, the atheists who head the State of Israel. They’re the ones we have to shout at. You know these people caused the death of at least a million Jews in Europe? It’s proven today. The famous Kastner trial proved that the State of Israel—Shertok, Weizmann, Ben Gurion, Golda Meir, the whole caboodle—were responsible for the death of over a million Jews in Europe. They could have saved them and they didn’t want to do it because of little selfish ambitions.
If you don’t believe me, try to get hold of a copy of the book called Perfidy by Ben Hecht. You know, you can’t get it. You know why you can’t get it? You can’t get it anywhere. Why can’t you get that book? It’s a queer thing. The book wasn’t published long ago. Why can’t you get it anymore? The answer is that the powerful Zionist organization has a lot of money and they saw to it that the book is not available. It’s just not available. It’s easier to buy books against the pope—that’s also not easy; I know about it; it’s very hard to get books against the pope, but it’s easier; there are publishing houses that specialize in that—than to get a copy of Perfidy. Because the Zionists have quite a strong organization.
So I’m not saying that right now we should go out and fight the Zionists but we shouldn’t identify the Jewish people with the politicians that are heading the State of Israel.
Why is it that when Sadat came to America and he was given a reception he demanded food that was kosher according to Mohammadan laws, and not a single one of the Zionist leaders demanded a kosher meal? They ate any kind of chazerei that was fed to them in the public reception. Not once did they ask for kosher food.
So what are you talking about? They’re our leaders?! They’re our enemies! I don’t care what you people say. You people are bamboozled by the press. You’re bamboozled by the rabbis. Rabbis are just slaves of the people. The American rabbi? You get together let’s say in a certain neighborhood fifty families and you make a congregation and hire a rabbi. Whom do they hire? Do they go to the rosh yeshivos and say pick out the biggest tzaddik and the biggest lamdan? No. They pick out somebody according to their hearts, who mirrors their thoughts. Some low fellow, an American boy, a bumpkin, an oaf, an am ha’aretz, a nobody. That’s the truth. They don’t take rabbis whose opinions they don’t like. They pick a rabbi who is going to mirror their ideas. That’s how it is everywhere. Unless he has his own synagogue. Otherwise, whom do they pick?
And don’t forget that the ladies have something to say about it too. And the men, the same thing. They’re all burim. The president himself could be a man who doesn’t keep the Torah and he has a lot to say. You expect such a president to choose a rabbi a tzaddik? So he chooses a rabbi who approves of the Zionists, that’s all.
Therefore although whatever happens affects us— no question. It’s no benefit for us that all these third world nations have been mobilized against the State of Israel and now the Jews are shouting ‘Zionism is Judaism.’ ‘The State of Israel is the Jewish people.’ So now we’re telling the world that because you hate the State of Israel so all the Jews hate you. It’s a very bad policy.
There was once a time when Jews lived in Syria, Jews lived in Egypt. Jews lived in all Northern Africa. Jews lived in Yemen. Whether they lived prosperously or not, but they lived. They weren’t persecuted too much. In other places in Europe they were persecuted plenty. But the Jews lived. Now the Zionists have succeeded that in all these places it’s impossible for a Jew to live.
That’s a big accomplishment. When they started the Zionist organization they said, “If we’ll have our state then Jews will now be respected all over the world.” That’s what they said. It’s written in countless documents, declarations. “If we’ll have our own state then Jews will be respected all over the world. We won’t be homeless wanderers anymore and antisemitism will die out.”
And now you see how it’s dying out. Antisemitism is burgeoning like never before just because of the Jewish state.
So therefore all these things affect us; certainly they affect us. But it’s up to us to try to dissociate, to distinguish, to make a difference between the State of Israel and the Jews. We try to help them; yes, we have to help; there are a lot of Jews there. But at the same time we have to make clear they are not the Jewish people.
(November 1975)
Any further comment from me would be superfluous.
No comments:
Post a Comment