Rabbi Weissman: Understanding.....

 Understanding Your Life and World Events

The demanding but liberating truth...plus my response to solicitors for wounded soldiers

Here is a small excerpt from the essay we began learning in part 37 of The Prophetic Teachings of Rav Elchonon Wasserman:

The general way of the world is that when a person is in a state of prosperity, he attributes the cause to his own merits; his wisdom, energy, strength, and might of his hand were the cause of his success, or even “my righteousness and straightness of my heart”. Conversely, when a person is in trouble, he attributes the cause to this person or that person — everyone except himself…

There are endless examples of this. I noted how matchmakers take credit for “making a shidduch” on the rare occasions their suggestion actually works out, while never taking the blame when it doesn’t — that’s always the fault of the singles. They’re the ones who need mentorship and therapy.

People take vaccines, get violently sick anyway, then blame it on those who didn’t take the shots. Their vaccine kept other people safer than it kept them.

Tens of thousands of IDF soldiers and their families had their lives destroyed in the last two years alone for imaginary biblical victories, for a delusion. The fault is not their own for making a religious ideal out of serving Hamans with Hebrew names and “just following orders”, no matter how senseless or obscene. The main culprit is certainly not the Hamans — but yeshiva students who refuse to join the IDF and anyone associated with them

If more of them joined the IDF, the Hamans would still be in charge, but at least the Haredim would be murdered and crippled for imaginary reasons as much as everyone else. It’s the principle of the matter.

Rav Wasserman explains that this is the exact opposite of how a Torah-minded Jew understands things:

No man is responsible for his suffering other than the person himself. This is the truth regarding individuals and the general public. The Ramban says in Parshas Bo (Shemos 13:16) “A person has no portion in the Torah of Moshe Rabbeinu until he believes that all the events that come upon us are miraculous, without any nature or ways of the world, whether regarding the public or an individual. Rather, if he does the mitzvos his reward will give him success, and if he transgresses them he will be cut off with his punishment, all according to divine decree.”

This principle is encapsulated in the pasuk with three words: “In all the land are His judgments” (Tehillim 105:7, Divrei Hayamim I 16:14). “In all,” without any exceptions. Anyone who doesn’t believe in this fundamental principle is not a Jew at all.

We should expect most goyim to blame their problems on anyone but themselves, especially “The Jews”, but at least we shouldn’t fall into the same warped perspective.

The therapists will tell you to blame all your problems on your parents. And they surely made mistakes; you’re not the world’s best parent, either. At the end of the day, though, your problems are your responsibility, and yours alone. Anyone else who contributed to your problems will be accountable, but they are not the ultimate cause.

The therapists will never tell you that, because it would be very bad for business, but that’s the truth.

October 7 didn’t happen because the IDF had a series of extremely unlikely and unfortunate failures, nor even because the Hamans collaborated with our external enemies (including “friends”) to orchestrate it. It happened because of our collective sins. The internal and external enemies were the reason for October 7, but not the cause.

The Charedim aren’t “stealing” your tax money by receiving government benefits while refusing to join the meat grinder. The Hamans are stealing your money, selling you out in so many ways, inequitably giving back a small amount of what they steal from all of us, and turning people against their fellow victims instead of against their mutual oppressors.

At the end of the day, though, Hashem decrees on Rosh Hashana what you will earn in the coming year, and no one can take it away from you.

We need to stop looking for scapegoats for our personal and collective hardships, and focus on the cause. Why did Hashem bring a harsh decree against us? What message is He sending us? What did we do wrong? What do we need to rectify?

There is much more in the class, including:

• Why we sometimes get punished double for our sins (which really doesn’t seem fair) and how to prevent this happening
• How the world truly does revolve around the Jews
  

The class is embedded above and on Rumble here.

For a split second I thought he might have been referring to the army that stood down on October 7, decimated tens of thousands of Jewish soldiers in Gaza under false pretenses of a milchemes mitzva, is full of Shabbos desecration and to’eva, is busy kidnapping and jailing yeshiva students, has been destroying Jewish homes for decades, and so much more, but he was actually referring to the Palestinian Authority. Carry on then.

I just got a phone call from some organization soliciting money for injured IDF soldiers. Probably grifters. I told the woman on the other end to give the soldiers the numbers of Rafael and Elbit, who are making billions of shekels off the war and giving nothing to the soldiers.

“Wow, wow, wow,” she said. That wasn’t the response she was expecting.

I told her that the government is taking our tax money, giving it to state-owned weapons manufacturers, and raking in massive profits off the soldiers, while we’re being asked to buy them food and clothing.

“There are many things going on that aren’t good,” she said. “But we’re raising money to help the soldiers.”

I told her maybe the soldiers should say “Enough, that’s it”.

She thanked me and that was the end of the conversation.

Maybe she will relate it to others, who will relate it to others. Either way, I made my point.