I heard a big rabbi say on a tape that the Kol Yaakov will crush the Yedai Esav and that the Iron Dome succeeds because the One Above makes a miracle. I cant argue with him because that is the belief that gave our ancestors the ability to withstand 2,000 years of powerlessness and victimization. The big rabbi is Rabbi Shlomo Miller of Toronto,whose father was a good friend of Zaydie Seigel. It is on Yeshiva World News. Everything he said is exactly what any person of his stature in that world would say. It is all from Hashem, the army,the iron dome, whatever are just agents of Hashem .That is normative Jewish belief and I am confident my teachers would have said the same thing. There is no question that our religion believes that prayer, charity and repentance avert the evil decree. Saying Tehillim, learning extra hours, being more careful with mitzvos are all part of this and it is what every orthodox Jew accepts. Rabbi Miller made the point that if you talk during davening, you are showing that you really dont believe in the power of prayer. Where some orthodox Jews find another point to emphasize ,which does not denigrate any of the above, is G-d helps those who help themselves. When we were unable due to exile and oppression to fight off the enemies, we had no alternative but to be passive in a physical sense. For the first time in 2,000 years we are not helpless in a physical sense. Is that a rebellion against G-d as Satmar believes or is that another manifestation of G-ds love for the Jewish People/After the great destruction of the Holocaust , he gave us the unique opportunity to reconstitute our homeland and to rebuild our Jewish nation in the Land of Israel. is that not a blessing and why cant everyone see it as that? Why cant everyone pray for the success and safety of the Tzva hagana LYisrael/ Not,just the soldiers, not just those who guard our people,etc. Why does it bother them so much to utter this phrase? Rabbi Wein hs written about it many times and the last time he did, my good friend ,whom I will not mention, took him to task and tried to tell him that he is a small time historian and he doesnt have the the right to suggest that the gedolim may have erred about the Holocaust or the State of Israel. i told my friend that were it not for the State of Israel, the present renaissance of Jewish observance would not have happened, the yeshivas that have grown and the teshuva movement,ec. He answered me back that Satmar i doing fine without the State of Israel. i answered him that we are so far apart that there is nothing to discuss. When I was in Israel, i went to hear Rabbi Berel Wein at the Great Synagogue talk about his newest book and I came a little early. I told him w the friend said and he emphatically told me that he is totally wrong. He said the fact that Satmar people are trying to annex more land near their town and that they have political power and that the gentiles have respect for them is a direct result of the new way that gentiles look at the Jews now that we are not nebech cases who are weak and defenseless. In other words, the power of Israel gives every Jew in the world an image of power that we did not have before 1948. Thus those who least acknowledge the miracle benefit greatly. I had a conversation with another great rabbi.I told him tht one thing that is absolutely clear to me from the overwhelming success of the vest campaign is this. Maybe the top rabbis are quibbling about the wording of a prayer, but the amcha the average Jew makes no such distinction. Everyone is davening for Israel and wants to do whatever they can to help the IDF. These nit picking arguments are limited to the ivory tower , the regular Jews know exactly what Israel means to the Jewish People. Hashem has blessed us with Medinat Yisrael and I am proud that my son is on the front lines of the war for the Jewish People in the Jewish Homeland which is called the State of Israel. i am also proud that my children have absorbed this love for Israel that is in my DNA and act on it in various positive ways,each according to his or her ability. Everyone in Baltimore knows Yoni, he is the poster boy of a campaign that has so far raised quite a lot of money for vests for our soldiers. Everyone comes over to me and tells me they are praying for him ,that they gave to the vest campaign. 80 soldiers in his unit now have top of the line, modern bullet proof vests when they go out to do thei holy work. Time marches on and those who want to live in arguments that are settled can do as they wish, but the Jewish People not only love Jews, they love the State of Israel and the army of Israel.Maybe we have entered a new era when we also can have hands and we can also fight back and not cower in our basements waiting for the drunken Cossacks to tire of their mayhem. Yonis Dad, a proud Zionist.
Posted on: Tue, 29 Jul 2014 16:44:29 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015