In last week’s Torah class we studied Yirmiya chapters 33 and 34, which contain an interesting mix of mussar and encouragement right before the destruction of the first Beis Hamikdash. As always, we studied selected commentaries and drew lessons for our times. As always, it’s incomprehensible that yeshivos don’t teach this and actively discourage students from learning it. The class is embedded above and on Rumble here.
Let’s preface what follows with more Torah. Yirmiya chapter 41 teaches about the assassination of Gedalya, the governor of Jerusalem and the small remnant who remained following the destruction. His murderer, Yishmael ben Nesanya, subsequently went on a killing spree. In the chaos that followed, the few who survived made a series of mistakes and squandered their opportunity to remain in the land, shoveling the final dirt on the bayis rishon period. That is why we fast on Tzom Gedalya.
41:9 states as follows (Judaica Press translation):
וְהַבּוֹר אֲשֶׁר הִשְׁלִיךְ שָׁם יִשְׁמָעֵאל אֵת כָּל־פִּגְרֵי הָאֲנָשִׁים אֲשֶׁר הִכָּה בְּיַד־גְּדַלְיָהוּ הוּא אֲשֶׁר עָשָׂה הַמֶּלֶךְ אָסָא מִפְּנֵי בַּעְשָׁא מֶלֶךְ־יִשְׂרָאֵל אֹתוֹ מִלֵּא יִשְׁמָעֵאל בֶּן־נְתַנְיָהוּ חֲלָלִים
Now the pit into which Ishmael had cast all the corpses of the men whom he had slain because of Gedaliah — that was [the one] that King Asa had made because of Baasa, king of Israel. That one Ishmael the son of Nethaniah filled with corpses.
The simple meaning is that these people were slain in the course of the assassination of Gedalya, but the wording seems to implicate Gedalya in their deaths. Indeed, Chazal derive the following in Nidda 61a (cited by Rashi):
וְכִי גְדַלְיָה הֲרָגָן וַהֲלֹא יִשְׁמָעֵאל הֲרָגָן אֶלָּא מִתּוֹךְ שֶׁהָיָה לוֹ לָחוֹשׁ לַעֲצַת יוֹחָנָן בֶּן קָרֵחַ וְלֹא חַשׁ מַעֲלֶה עָלָיו הַכָּתוּב כְּאִילּוּ הֲרָגָן
But did Gedalya murder them? Was it not Yishmael who murdered them? Rather, because he should have been concerned about the advice of Yochanan ben Kareach [who warned him of the plans to assassinate him] and he was not concerned, the verse considers it as if he murdered them.
As everyone knows, IDF and state leaders received numerous, highly credible warnings in the years, months, weeks, days, and hours leading up to October 7. For example, here is how Google describes their treatment of Rafael Hayun prior to October 7:
[Rafael Hayun] is an independent, civilian Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) collector who operated a highly sophisticated private monitoring hub out of his home in Netivot. For years, Hayun legally intercepted and monitored the public handheld radio and communication frequencies used by Hamas operatives in Gaza. He regularly forwarded active warnings and intelligence directly to field commanders and special units like Maglan.
Months before the October 7 attacks, the IDF Information Security Department (led by an officer known as Col. "G") grew concerned that Hayun's broad listening setup could inadvertently compromise Israeli military communications.
Yeah, right.
At the military's request, the Israeli Ministry of Communications formally revoked his listening license and confiscated his specialized radio tracking equipment, cutting off his ability to monitor Gaza's tactical networks.
What an unfortunate coincidence.
Following the October 7 massacre, Hayun went public on national television, stating that he had intercepted detailed Hamas invasion drills as early as 2019. He claimed that if his equipment had not been seized, he would have been able to hear Hamas mobilizing in real time and potentially warn the borders. Amid intense public pressure following his broadcast interviews, the Ministry of Communications restored his license and equipment shortly after the war began.
Let’s also not forget their treatment of the Tatzpitaniot, the young women in the IDF whose sole purpose was to watch the Gaza border and report anything irregular.
Before October 7, 2023, the Tatzpitaniot were largely dismissed, ignored, and treated with systematic condescension by higher-ranking military officials. When some Tatzpitaniot insisted on escalating their warnings to higher chains of command, senior officers explicitly threatened to court-martial them for disrupting routine operations.
What is the point of having specially trained women monitor the border if you are going to dismiss their warnings anyway, threaten to imprison them if they issue urgent warnings?
But it’s even worse than that. Here is what I posted on March 21, 2024:
Explosive recordings of Roni Eshel, an IDF surveillance girl (Tatzpitanit) stationed on the border with Gaza on October 7, were just released. For nearly 6 hours she sent report after report of the hordes of terrorists surging across the border that she witnessed with her own eyes, until she was brutally murdered.
Anyone who still believes this was an intelligence failure is demonstrating an actual intelligence failure and might as well board the next train to Auschwitz.
Read and listen here.
(Notice the "with unity we will win" propaganda embedded in the video.)
May Hashem avenge Roni's blood not just from the people who actually murdered her, but from all those who deliberately let it happen.
If you disagree, your daughter can sign up to become a Tatzpitanit here.
Anyone with an ounce of seichel will understand that this was a deliberate act of betrayal. Anyone who wishes to delude himself will accept any preposterous excuse at face value and mock those who reject the excuse. They won’t seriously consider that this was deliberate betrayal, even though if it were, this is exactly how it would look.
The official excuses blame this on sexism and disbelief that Hamas could pull it off. We’re supposed to believe that’s why the Tatzpitaniot were told to shut up or go to jail.
Lessons will be learned, they love you as much as you love them, they want nothing more than to protect you at all costs, and they will do better next time, so let it go. Gamble everything on it, Charlie Brown.
Unlike the people who control the state and the IDF, Gedalya was a righteous, G–D-fearing person. Nevertheless, the Torah holds him accountable for all the people who were murdered because he dismissed a credible warning. He had reasons, too, better reasons than “Col. G” and the rest of the “intelligence failures” concocted.
The people in charge on October 7 share culpability for every drop of blood that was lost, every ounce of suffering that could have and should have been prevented — even if it weren’t a carefully orchestrated betrayal.
Incredibly, next month’s elections are the first since October 7, 2023. We might have expected such an irrepressible public outcry, such a demand for a thorough house cleaning, that the ruling class would have been forced to stage an election just to prevent anarchy. But we have been conditioned well; we bide our time, sacrificing and being sacrificed, deluding ourselves that we just need to vote harder and smarter next time.
So we allowed the same people responsible for October 7 to get 20,000 soldiers maimed and killed in little Gaza for nothing remotely worth the price (who could have possibly predicted that?). Three years later we finally get a chance to change everything on election day — if only we vote better.
Then we will continue to wave the flag and loyally “serve”, no matter what, because change is slow, and it’s only been a few decades.
Since we live in a “democracy”, and it’s definitely not rigged, we would expect some radically different options on election day in light of October 7and the ensuing parody of a milchemes mitzvah.
For example, some of those running for office might call for everyone in charge on October 7, those who had the authority to take decisive action, to be arrested and interrogated. Considering the stakes, perhaps for them even to be given the Amiram ben Uliel treatment.
What did they know? Who gave the orders? Who gave the orders to the people giving the orders? Who were those foreigners in blue shirts on October 7 who seemed to be directing the Hamas operatives? Who was there speaking English that day?
What was going on in the middle of the night on our side of the border, before the fence was breached? Who really sacked the IDF base on the Gaza border in the wee hours of the night? (Israeli Journalist: IDF bases were ambushed from within the night before Oct 7)
Amiram ben Uliel held out for 17 days under of torture, including several days of “enhanced” torture (the details of which remain classified), until he finally confessed to a crime he clearly didn’t commit. (What world-class torture specialists the un-Jewish state has in their darkest places! Doesn’t that fill you with pride? Am Yisrael Chai!)
I wonder if “Col. G” and his comrades would last 17 minutes before they chirped like birds and turned on each other. Wouldn’t you be even slightly tempted to vote in favor of that, if you actually had that option? But you don’t have that option on election day, of course, and you never will. Such an idea will never even be discussed by the carefully chosen pundits who control the public discourse. Only peasants can be tortured, for the greater good.
Bennett and his ever-shrinking yarmulka is promising to fix what’s wrong with the state. What’s wrong with the state? The haredim who don’t serve the state, obviously. His solution? Those who don’t serve the state won’t receive a single shekel from the state. Because that is our role as citizens and Jews — to serve the state. (Col. G. and many like him will continue to be funded.)
Video Link: https://www.youtube .com/watch ?v=zkrEE1GK_DM (with no spaces)
Here’s a question no one campaigning will ask: Why should the IDF continue to be funded by our tax money after they stood down on October 7? After all, those who don’t fight for the Jewish people shouldn’t get a shekel . . .
How about cancelling the IDF draft completely? Anyone calling for that? Wouldn’t that have a better chance of crossing the electoral threshold than some of these parties have? But, of course, this suggestion is verboten, outside the playbook.
No, they have decided for you what the most important issue is, what you should be obsessed with, to the exclusion of all the above: IDF serviceservitude, specifically for those who identify as Haredim. The survival of the Zionist state and all who dwell therein somehow depends on that.
Direct all your pent-up rage not at them, and only at them. They’re the problem. They’re the existential threat.
Here’s a new party advertising to those who identify as Religious Zionists, cynically calling itself Unity:
At last, the Religious Zionist community has someone to vote for: four bare-headed men and an obligatory woman, not even a Bennett-sized yarmulka in sight. Not even a pretense anymore of appealing to the religious half of the label. It’s all about the Zionism; all about the IDF.
Meanwhile, there’s another new party called The Charedi Public, targeting that population with ads declaring that anyone who doesn’t learn will serve and promoting secular education. I’ve seen them on Jerusalem buses and in Bnei Brak. The cost of the campaign is over 2 million shekels.
So what exactly makes these people “Charedi”? In what substantial way are they different from . . . the Religious Zionists of not too long ago?
What do these ads signify? Is it simply yeridas hadoros?
Or is it a window into the insidious, sophisticated efforts to gradually erode the sensitivities and commitment of all segments of the religious population, targeting each with “culturally appropriate” messaging, siphoning off those on the fringes and weakening the rest.
That’s how Amalek does it. They target the weak, the vulnerable. They infiltrate communities. They play dress-up, this one with a Charedi uniform, that one with a Dati Leumi look. They normalize what was previously unthinkable, and gradually move the lines, from the inside. Works like a charm.
Yesterday’s Religious Zionist is now barely distinguishable from a secular Zionist, and yesterday’s Charedi is now little more than a “frum” Religious Zionist in different garb.
The lines are moved. The weakest fall away completely, and the ones above them fall a level as well.
Change does indeed happen slowly, but not the way optimistic voters wish to believe. They’re being played, every single time. They are not changing anything; they are the ones being changed.
You will never be allowed to win the game, and the game will never end until you refuse to continue playing.
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