If your brother becomes impoverished and his means falter in your proximity, you shall strengthen him – proselyte or resident – so that he can live with you. Do not take from him interest and increase; you shall fear your G-d and let your brother live with you. (Lev. 25:35,36)
King Solomon said (Prov. 21:13), “He who stops his ears at the cry of the poor shall also cry himself but shall not be answered.”
Anyone who deserts a person who needs him, will in turn be deserted by G-d. This is what happened to Elimelech: Elimelech was one of the leaders of the nation and sustainers of the generation. Yet when the years of famine arrived, he said: All Israel are gathering around my door, each one with his basket [asking for donations]. He got up and ran away from the Land (Ruth Rabbah 1:4). And he was punished for this by dying – he and both of his sons – in exile. Anyone who forsakes the divine commandment of lovingkindness – G-d will forsake him, measure for measure: Thus says Hashem: You have abandoned Me, and I, too, have abandoned you (2 Chronicles 12:5).
Kindness and kind deeds are a general category that includes many individual mitzvot like charity, marrying off a poor girl, visiting the sick and comforting mourners. Truthfully, the potential for kind deeds is immeasurable. Anything one does for his fellow man, even offering a single kind word, is part of the kindness that builds the world. In other words, every good deed one does for his fellow man is called good because of the kindness it contains, because kindness is the fundamental kernel within all good.
Loving one's fellow Jew is a mitzvah of global importance.
Love, respect and reverence for our fellow Jew, created in G-d's image and sanctified at Sinai as G-d's elect, is the duty of every single Jew, because he is part of that chosen people. Every Jew must grow spiritually by showing love and respect for his fellow Jew. In that way, he expresses his esteem for someone holy and select, created in G-d's image and chosen at Sinai to be G-d's special treasure. In effect, he gains self-esteem as well. These benefits are secondary to the main benefit accrued: Though such behavior one suppresses the evil impulse and breaks down his ego. This is man's purpose, and doing so exalts and sanctifies him. It says, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” The moment a person equates someone else – through the love and respect he shows him – with himself, thereby ceasing to view himself as the center of the world, his own ego will begin to grow smaller.
Kindness for one's fellow man, even for someone who is not one's relative and whom one does not know at all, is the trait that separates man from beast. It is this which elevates man to a level just beneath the angels, and perhaps just above them. Man's ability to give and to sacrifice his property and time for his fellow man is what G-d wished to implement on earth when He created it, and for this he created man.
R. Elazar said (Succah 49b), “Charity is only rewarded according to the kindness it contains, as it says (Hosea 10:12), 'Sow charity for yourselves, reap according to kindness.'” Rashi comments, “The giving is charity. The trouble taken is kindness, for example, bringing the money to the poor person's house, or taking the trouble that it should help him a lot... in short, paying full heed to the poor man's welfare.” How true are Rashi's words! Once more we have clear proof that the purpose of charity and kindness is its influence on the soul of the one offering it.
Make no mistake. Kindness, per se, is not the main purpose of creation or of Torah. Rather, it is the most outstanding, pronounced expression of modesty, self-abnegation, subjugation of the evil impulse and acceptance of G-d's yoke discernible in man. Man, by giving, nullifies his sense of taking. By worrying about his fellow man, he suppresses his selfishness, arrogance and lust.
There is nothing great or praiseworthy about the poor person receiving kindness or charity. In taking and benefiting, one performs no mitzvah. The mitzvah is entirely in that the giver gives, that the kind person's mercy wells up and he forgets himself, his property and his selfishness, suppressing his ego and giving of his money or time to someone else. In doing so, he reinforces the humility within. By suppressing his evil impulse and lessening his lust, arrogance and selfishness, he fulfills his task on this earth. For this he was created. It is patently obvious that the main purpose of kind deeds is not that the receiver receive but that the giver give.
Regarding tzedaka (“charity”), Chazal said a great thing which holds true regarding all mitzvot between man and his fellow man: The poor man does more for the donor than the donor does for the poor man. For as Ruth said to Naomi, “The name of the man with whom I worked today is Boaz” (Ruth 2:19). It does not say “who worked with me,” but “with whom I worked”. She said to her: Many good deeds have I done with him today for the slice that he gave me (Leviticus Rabbah 34:8). True, the simple meaning is that the master receives greater income from G-d than what he gives in charity. But Chazal take this far deeper: the greatness of the mitzvah of tzedaka is not that the poor man receives, but that the giver gives. There is no greatness in a person receiving something material – but great is the person who gives to someone else, thereby relinquishing the benefit that he could have received from his money. Performing this mitzvah affects his soul. He elevates and sanctifies it by removing the selfishness that encrusts it. Therefore Ruth said, Many good deeds have I done with him today. The same applies to any form of kindness that a person performs for his fellow-man: the greatness lies, not in the receiving, but in the active performance of giving. This is the great difference between Torah and socialism: Torah emphasizes the giving, whereas socialism emphasizes the receiving – and receiving only increases the selfishness of the recipient, who will never be satisfied with what he has received.
The Jews who distort the Torah are so influenced by the alien culture that they turn kindness and mercy into goals in and of themselves. By such means they elevate them above all the mitzvot, necessarily diminishing the value of all other mitzvot. They also push the concepts of kindness and mercy to foolish and dangerous extremes, while they themselves include wicked enemies of the Jewish People.
The real meaning of kindness and truth is that these principles are only part, albeit an exceedingly marked and conspicuous part, of the Torah's main purpose and goal – self-abnegation and suppression of our evil impulse and arrogance. All the mitzvot were given for this purpose, but kindness and mercy are the most direct part to this goal, as I have explained. Such acts express the Torah's essence, breaking down one's ego.
The word mercy – “rachamim” in Hebrew – comes from “rechem”, womb. There is no mercy like that of a mother for the child of her womb. There is an inseparable bond between them because the child is part of her body, “flesh of her flesh” (Gen. 2:23). Just so must be a Jew's mercy for his fellow Jew (if that fellow is worthy). It should resemble a mother's mercy for her child.
Compiled by Tzipora Liron-Pinner from “The Jewish Idea" and "Peirush Hamaccabee - Shemot" of Rav Meir Kahane, HY”D
Monday, May 14, 2012
Sunday, April 29, 2012
Parashat Kedoshim - Forbidden conjugal relations - Rabbi Meir Kahane
“Speak to the entire assembly of the Children of Israel and say to them: You shall be holy, for holy am I, Hashem, your G-d.” (Lev. 19:2)
“ You shall sanctify yourselves and you will be holy, for I am Hashem, your G-d.” (Lev. 20:7)
Twice G-d decreed kedusha (holiness) upon Israel. Why? It is “since I am holy.” In other words, just as G-d is holy, so, too, must we be holy. Our sages made this point in Tanchuma (Kedoshim, 5):
“Make yourselves holy”: Why must we do so? G-d caused us to cling to His loins, as it says, “For as the belt clings to the loins of a man” (Jer. 13:11). Therefore, “You must be holy, since I am the L-rd your G-d, and I am holy” (Lev. 19:2).
We also learn (Torat Kohanim, Shemini, 12), “Just as I am holy, so are you holy. Just as I am set apart, so you must be set apart.” Here, we find kedusha defined: It means separating oneself from the abominations, impurity and bestiality of the world, and instead clinging to purity and spiritual loftiness, goodness and the yoke of Heaven, intent on ascending and becoming holier. The beast is a prisoner of physical drives and lust. It cannot possibly separate itself from bestiality, for it is entirely bestial and was created to be precisely that in order to show man the behavior from which he must flee.
Breaking down one's passions is Israel's task. That is why kedusha was commanded so many times in the realms of life fraught with lust and desire, namely food and conjugal relations.
Regarding conjugal relations, G-d stressed our duty to be holy, when just before the section on sexual sin He said, “You must sanctify yourselves and be holy” (Lev. 20:7). Even though this verse is teaching about separation from idolatry (Torat Kohanim, Kedoshim 10), it still relates to the section that follows as well, that of sexual sin. Thus, our sages expounded (Vayikra Rabbah, 24:6):
Why was the section on sexual sin placed right after the section on kedusha? To teach that wherever we find separation from sexual sin, there we find kedusha. This follows the utterance of R.Yehuda ben Pazi who said, “Whoever fences himself off from sexual sin is called kadosh, 'holy'.”
Following is Rambam at the end of Hilchot Issurei Biah (22:18-20):
No prohibition throughout the Torah is as hard for most of the people to part with as are sexual immorality and fornication. Our sages say that at the moment that Israel were commanded regarding sexual morality, they wept and they accepted this mitzvah with resentment and weeping, as it says, “[Moses heard the people] weeping over their families (Num. 11:10), i.e. regarding family-related matters. Our sages said that a person's soul lusts and craves theft and sexual sin, and we do not find a community in any age that lacks people who breach the laws of sexual morality and forbidden cohabitation. Our sages further said, “Most succumb to theft, a minority succumb to sexual sin, and all use speech that verges on forbidden gossip.” Therefore, it is appropriate for one to suppress his evil impulse in this matter and to accustom himself to exceeding kedusha, pure thought and an appropriate outlook in order to be saved from them.
[In modern times,] the clearest and most painful example of the agonizing contradiction between liberal-democratic-western thinking and Judaism, the one that has led to the most violent and hideous hate and wildly irrational defamation, is surely the clear and ringing Jewish ban on intermarriage and sexual relations between Jews and non-Jews, a thing that has become the centerpiece of the hysterical attack by the Hellenist Jews on “Kahanism”.
There is no doubt that certain marriages are forbidden, such as Jew to non-Jew, incestuous unions, kohen to divorcee, mamzer to non-mamzer. We shall not play games. These are forbidden marriages and no rabbi will perform them. And so there is a cry: Civil marriage! Or a more elegant one: Civil marriage for those who are barred from religious marriage. I shall add only a word or two here about those whose real aim is not civil marriage but also civil divorce, something that would increase the number of mamzerim disastrously. Civil marriage is but a first step leading to civil divorce, which will truly split the nation into two camps, with one refusing to marry into the other. If this is what we truly want it is ours for the asking. But for those who are sincerely troubled by the refusal on the part of the rabbinate to marry certain couples, let us examine those disabled couples. It is true that under no circumstances whatever does halacha recognize an incestuous marriage, and there may indeed be some who will insist that a civil law should be created to allow marriage between mother and son or brother and sister on the grounds that the law should not limit any conduct so long as that conduct does not harm others. It may be true that there will be those who will – as in certain western countries – insist on recognizing the marriage of two homosexual males or females. For these, halacha has no answer; its ban is clear and absolute and one hopes that the proponents of civil marriage in these cases will be accorded the contempt they deserve.
Then there is the question of intermarriage. True, there is absolutely no sanction, a priori or a posteriori, for intermarriage under halacha. A Jew is forbidden to marry a non-Jew; his marriage will not be performed by a rabbi [the violation of halacha by reform clergy is irrelevant, this goes for all other forbidden marriages as well]; it will not be recognized under any circumstances. There are, indeed, more than a few among the nihilists in our ranks who oppose this. They would open the doors to the disaster that Jews fought so successfully through two millenia of Exile and to which they succumb so disastrously in the “free” western world. The destruction of the Jew can be accomplished in the furnaces of Auschwitz; it can also come about through intermarriage that destroys the Jewish identity of the couple and its offspring.
But there are other bans. Consider the ban on marriage between kohen and divorcee or mamzer and non-mamzer or a number of other bans mentioned in the Torah. The rabbinate will refuse tor marry these. Is it the not “fair” to allow them to utilize civil marriage? Before replying, let us understand something that is basic to Judaism.
What is “right” and what is not “right” for the Jew has never been a subjective thing, to be judged by man on the basis of his own cultural imperative. It has certainly never been something to be measured by transient, temporary standards. The Jews are an eternal people with eternal values, and eternity is not subject to the passing modes and fashions of ideology. The Jews are a divine people with divine values, and these infinite truths are not to be passed upon or rejected by finite and human animals.
The greatness and sole strength of halacha lies in its divinity, otherwise why cling to it? And that strength is decimated and the pillar upon which it stands is eliminated when it must give way before a generation that cries “unfair”. What law is “fair” to all people and what society does not demand a few sacrifice so that society may continue to exist? And one day, the one who was touched by “unfairness” will understand that it was not really so. It is not by the standards of finite “fairness” that the Jewish people and halacha abide. Let the law pierce the mountain, but the law must prevail. Or we, as a people, will not prevail. But there is more. Those who cry for civil marriage say that this is the only solution. Is that really true? Is it a solution? And if that solution is considered a solution, then is there not a far better way, one that does not question the absolute supremacy and authority of halacha? What will happen, if a civil marriage law is passed in Israel? Will the rabbinate recognize it? Will the religious community recognize it? The answer is negative in both cases. But that does not matter, is the retort. We are not interested in whether the rabbinate or the religious Jew recognizes it. We want it to be recognized officially by the state.
So, this is what apparently really troubles the proponents of civil marriage. That under present law, the state will not marry one non-halachically. Is this the problem? For this, there is no need for civil marriage; to solve this problem, there is no need at all to introduce the non-Jewish concept of civil marriage, a thing that threatens to be only the first step toward civil divorce that would catastrophically divide the nation. Halacha itself gives a way out. For while, a priori, no rabbi will perform a marriage banned by halacha, all marriages that are forbidden marriages - except those involving gentiles and incest – are recognized as marriages by the Torah a posteriori even though the couples disobeyed the injunction against them. Let us consider the case of a kohen and a divorcee or a mamzer and a non-mamzer. Faced with the refusal of a rabbi to marry them what would happen if, in the presence of two proper witnesses, the man betrothed the woman unto him? Such a marriage is a binding one, calling for a divorce to dissolve it, and although the two have sinned and disobeyed the Torah, the marriage is valid. Certainly the religious stigma remains, but would that stigma be any less under civil marriage? And in any case, do the opponents of halacha really care? Assuming that they are sincere in their avowals that their sole purpose is to allow the couple to be married and have their marriage recognized by the state, there is no need to introduce civil marriage. The state can insist that the marriage be recorded as a legal one, reading “married – in a priori violation of Torah law”. The additional wording should in no way bother those who are not interested in Torah law and who have achieved all that they say they wanted – a recognized state marriage.
To say that there are no problems that halacha cannot solve to the satisfaction of the secular public would be to lie. But halacha, unlike politicians, did not come into being to cater to the public but rather to raise it, uplift it, and sanctify it.
At the same time, however, let us never forget that we came here to the Land of Israel to build a Jewish, not a western country. It is Jewish values that are true, not western values (or eastern, for that matter). What is right and true is not to be determined by liberalism or democracy or progressive circles.
For the inhabitants of the land who are before you committed all these abominations, and the land became contaminated. Let not the land vomit you out for having contaminated it, as it vomited out the nation that was before you. (Lev. 18:27-28)
Compiled by Tzipora Liron-Pinner from “The Jewish Idea”, "Uncomfortable Questions for Comfortable Jews" and "Our Challenge" of Rav Meir Kahane, HY”D
“ You shall sanctify yourselves and you will be holy, for I am Hashem, your G-d.” (Lev. 20:7)
Twice G-d decreed kedusha (holiness) upon Israel. Why? It is “since I am holy.” In other words, just as G-d is holy, so, too, must we be holy. Our sages made this point in Tanchuma (Kedoshim, 5):
“Make yourselves holy”: Why must we do so? G-d caused us to cling to His loins, as it says, “For as the belt clings to the loins of a man” (Jer. 13:11). Therefore, “You must be holy, since I am the L-rd your G-d, and I am holy” (Lev. 19:2).
We also learn (Torat Kohanim, Shemini, 12), “Just as I am holy, so are you holy. Just as I am set apart, so you must be set apart.” Here, we find kedusha defined: It means separating oneself from the abominations, impurity and bestiality of the world, and instead clinging to purity and spiritual loftiness, goodness and the yoke of Heaven, intent on ascending and becoming holier. The beast is a prisoner of physical drives and lust. It cannot possibly separate itself from bestiality, for it is entirely bestial and was created to be precisely that in order to show man the behavior from which he must flee.
Breaking down one's passions is Israel's task. That is why kedusha was commanded so many times in the realms of life fraught with lust and desire, namely food and conjugal relations.
Regarding conjugal relations, G-d stressed our duty to be holy, when just before the section on sexual sin He said, “You must sanctify yourselves and be holy” (Lev. 20:7). Even though this verse is teaching about separation from idolatry (Torat Kohanim, Kedoshim 10), it still relates to the section that follows as well, that of sexual sin. Thus, our sages expounded (Vayikra Rabbah, 24:6):
Why was the section on sexual sin placed right after the section on kedusha? To teach that wherever we find separation from sexual sin, there we find kedusha. This follows the utterance of R.Yehuda ben Pazi who said, “Whoever fences himself off from sexual sin is called kadosh, 'holy'.”
Following is Rambam at the end of Hilchot Issurei Biah (22:18-20):
No prohibition throughout the Torah is as hard for most of the people to part with as are sexual immorality and fornication. Our sages say that at the moment that Israel were commanded regarding sexual morality, they wept and they accepted this mitzvah with resentment and weeping, as it says, “[Moses heard the people] weeping over their families (Num. 11:10), i.e. regarding family-related matters. Our sages said that a person's soul lusts and craves theft and sexual sin, and we do not find a community in any age that lacks people who breach the laws of sexual morality and forbidden cohabitation. Our sages further said, “Most succumb to theft, a minority succumb to sexual sin, and all use speech that verges on forbidden gossip.” Therefore, it is appropriate for one to suppress his evil impulse in this matter and to accustom himself to exceeding kedusha, pure thought and an appropriate outlook in order to be saved from them.
[In modern times,] the clearest and most painful example of the agonizing contradiction between liberal-democratic-western thinking and Judaism, the one that has led to the most violent and hideous hate and wildly irrational defamation, is surely the clear and ringing Jewish ban on intermarriage and sexual relations between Jews and non-Jews, a thing that has become the centerpiece of the hysterical attack by the Hellenist Jews on “Kahanism”.
There is no doubt that certain marriages are forbidden, such as Jew to non-Jew, incestuous unions, kohen to divorcee, mamzer to non-mamzer. We shall not play games. These are forbidden marriages and no rabbi will perform them. And so there is a cry: Civil marriage! Or a more elegant one: Civil marriage for those who are barred from religious marriage. I shall add only a word or two here about those whose real aim is not civil marriage but also civil divorce, something that would increase the number of mamzerim disastrously. Civil marriage is but a first step leading to civil divorce, which will truly split the nation into two camps, with one refusing to marry into the other. If this is what we truly want it is ours for the asking. But for those who are sincerely troubled by the refusal on the part of the rabbinate to marry certain couples, let us examine those disabled couples. It is true that under no circumstances whatever does halacha recognize an incestuous marriage, and there may indeed be some who will insist that a civil law should be created to allow marriage between mother and son or brother and sister on the grounds that the law should not limit any conduct so long as that conduct does not harm others. It may be true that there will be those who will – as in certain western countries – insist on recognizing the marriage of two homosexual males or females. For these, halacha has no answer; its ban is clear and absolute and one hopes that the proponents of civil marriage in these cases will be accorded the contempt they deserve.
Then there is the question of intermarriage. True, there is absolutely no sanction, a priori or a posteriori, for intermarriage under halacha. A Jew is forbidden to marry a non-Jew; his marriage will not be performed by a rabbi [the violation of halacha by reform clergy is irrelevant, this goes for all other forbidden marriages as well]; it will not be recognized under any circumstances. There are, indeed, more than a few among the nihilists in our ranks who oppose this. They would open the doors to the disaster that Jews fought so successfully through two millenia of Exile and to which they succumb so disastrously in the “free” western world. The destruction of the Jew can be accomplished in the furnaces of Auschwitz; it can also come about through intermarriage that destroys the Jewish identity of the couple and its offspring.
But there are other bans. Consider the ban on marriage between kohen and divorcee or mamzer and non-mamzer or a number of other bans mentioned in the Torah. The rabbinate will refuse tor marry these. Is it the not “fair” to allow them to utilize civil marriage? Before replying, let us understand something that is basic to Judaism.
What is “right” and what is not “right” for the Jew has never been a subjective thing, to be judged by man on the basis of his own cultural imperative. It has certainly never been something to be measured by transient, temporary standards. The Jews are an eternal people with eternal values, and eternity is not subject to the passing modes and fashions of ideology. The Jews are a divine people with divine values, and these infinite truths are not to be passed upon or rejected by finite and human animals.
The greatness and sole strength of halacha lies in its divinity, otherwise why cling to it? And that strength is decimated and the pillar upon which it stands is eliminated when it must give way before a generation that cries “unfair”. What law is “fair” to all people and what society does not demand a few sacrifice so that society may continue to exist? And one day, the one who was touched by “unfairness” will understand that it was not really so. It is not by the standards of finite “fairness” that the Jewish people and halacha abide. Let the law pierce the mountain, but the law must prevail. Or we, as a people, will not prevail. But there is more. Those who cry for civil marriage say that this is the only solution. Is that really true? Is it a solution? And if that solution is considered a solution, then is there not a far better way, one that does not question the absolute supremacy and authority of halacha? What will happen, if a civil marriage law is passed in Israel? Will the rabbinate recognize it? Will the religious community recognize it? The answer is negative in both cases. But that does not matter, is the retort. We are not interested in whether the rabbinate or the religious Jew recognizes it. We want it to be recognized officially by the state.
So, this is what apparently really troubles the proponents of civil marriage. That under present law, the state will not marry one non-halachically. Is this the problem? For this, there is no need for civil marriage; to solve this problem, there is no need at all to introduce the non-Jewish concept of civil marriage, a thing that threatens to be only the first step toward civil divorce that would catastrophically divide the nation. Halacha itself gives a way out. For while, a priori, no rabbi will perform a marriage banned by halacha, all marriages that are forbidden marriages - except those involving gentiles and incest – are recognized as marriages by the Torah a posteriori even though the couples disobeyed the injunction against them. Let us consider the case of a kohen and a divorcee or a mamzer and a non-mamzer. Faced with the refusal of a rabbi to marry them what would happen if, in the presence of two proper witnesses, the man betrothed the woman unto him? Such a marriage is a binding one, calling for a divorce to dissolve it, and although the two have sinned and disobeyed the Torah, the marriage is valid. Certainly the religious stigma remains, but would that stigma be any less under civil marriage? And in any case, do the opponents of halacha really care? Assuming that they are sincere in their avowals that their sole purpose is to allow the couple to be married and have their marriage recognized by the state, there is no need to introduce civil marriage. The state can insist that the marriage be recorded as a legal one, reading “married – in a priori violation of Torah law”. The additional wording should in no way bother those who are not interested in Torah law and who have achieved all that they say they wanted – a recognized state marriage.
To say that there are no problems that halacha cannot solve to the satisfaction of the secular public would be to lie. But halacha, unlike politicians, did not come into being to cater to the public but rather to raise it, uplift it, and sanctify it.
At the same time, however, let us never forget that we came here to the Land of Israel to build a Jewish, not a western country. It is Jewish values that are true, not western values (or eastern, for that matter). What is right and true is not to be determined by liberalism or democracy or progressive circles.
For the inhabitants of the land who are before you committed all these abominations, and the land became contaminated. Let not the land vomit you out for having contaminated it, as it vomited out the nation that was before you. (Lev. 18:27-28)
Compiled by Tzipora Liron-Pinner from “The Jewish Idea”, "Uncomfortable Questions for Comfortable Jews" and "Our Challenge" of Rav Meir Kahane, HY”D
Monday, April 23, 2012
Israel's Independence Day – A play in four acts – assembled from the writings of Rav Meir Kahane
[First Act: While reading this, imagine you are standing on a crowded place, surrounded by music, lights, blue and white flags, beaming faces – celebrating. Planes fly artistic formations overhead, to the cheers of the crowd.]
“The State of Israel came into being not because the Jew deserved it, but because the gentile did. It came into being not because the Jew was worthy of it but because the Name of G-d had reached its fill of humiliation and desecration. “I do this not for your sake, O House of Israel, but for Mine holy Name's sake which ye have profaned among the nations.”
That is the essence and foundation of foundations. We say Hallel on Yom HaAtzmaut, not because the government or we are worthy of the miracle but because G-d has decided to put an end to Chilul Hashem. The sins and demerits of the Jews who created that State are of absolutely no relevance to its creation. Israel came into being because Israel is the essence and the apex of Kiddush Hashem! Israel is the Jew who hits and is no longer hit. Israel is freedom and not bondage. Israel is living proof of the falsehood that is Christianity [and Islam]. Israel is Kiddush Hashem.
And so, happiness for the Jew is watching the Phantoms zoom past the roofs of Zion and Jewish children shouting and waving at them. It is seeing “Jewish planes” after existing in a world for so many years in which every plane was “theirs”. In a world in which planes spit their deadly bullets into Jews, their swastika markings etched into Jewish souls as they pronounced “Auschwitz” upon us; in a world of planes wearing British bullseyes which guaranteed that a limping refugee ship would be stopped before it could reach the gates of Zion; in a world of planes with crescent and star promising to wipe the budding Jewish community of Eretz Yisroel off the map. But those are days that once were and will never return because today there are Jewish planes, too, and only those who endured the eternity when there was no such thing can understand true happiness and serenity.
Happiness is watching the Jewish army and knowing that the spirit of Zion cannot live without a body and that this army is the guarantor of that body's existence. And happiness is thinking, just for a moment, about what Jews have accomplished in just a few years since they returned home. From thousands to millions of Jews; from ghettos to cities and farms that are all Jewish; from a motley medley of foreign tongues to the resurrection of Hebrew – and how sweet it is to hear the military commands and the most technical of phrases spoken in the tongue of Abraham and the Book of Genesis. Happiness is to walk, on the eve of Independence Day, down King George Street, and have youngsters hit you on the head with the silly, plastic musical hammers that have become a permanent part of the day. Happiness is to thread your way past the incredibly crowded streets where cars are banned for the night and to listen to the music playing over the loudspeakers strung along the streets and the people dancing and laughing. Happiness is watching the non-Jews looking at a Jewish parade in the Jewish capital city of the Jewish State. Happiness is knowing that most of the non-Jewish countries who have consulates and embassies in the City of David boycott the Independence Day parade lest their presence be construed as recognition of the Jewishness of the City – and not giving one solitary hoot whether they show up or not!
Happiness is watching young Jewish children who never knew what it meant to be a minority and never heard the words “zhid” or “kike” or “yahud”. Happiness is knowing that if anyone did call them that, he would find his face attached to the end of a Jewish fist. Happiness is watching the soldiers with beards and yarmulkas showing that mastering the intricacies of a mere sub-machine gun is child's play for a Talmudic scholar.
He who does not believe that the rise of the State of Israel is the hand of G-d is not only a non-believer; he is also blind. If this rebirth of a nation and state and language from the clutching jaws of the seventy wolves is not a miracle, then there are indeed no miracles. If the renaissance of a people in the face of every logic and sanity is not Divine decree then the Spring that brings rejuvenation to the dead earth is not Divine and the life that emerges from the mother's womb is profane and natural. Happiness is walking in Zion and embracing your father Abraham. Happiness, for the Jew, is Zionism.
[Second Act: Now, imagine the lights going dark and the music fading away... think of the other, the darker side of Israel as a cold breeze touches your face:]
They came at night. A knock on the door. And then another. There are four of them. One flashed his card. Good evening, Rabbi Kahane, we are from the police. I regret to have to ask you to come with us for a small clarification. What is it about? He smiles: I prefer to speak about it at the station.
It is not new to me. Just the previous week others had come – at midnight. I sat in prison for a week and was suddenly released. No charge. I assume this is one more petty harassment on the part of the government. I take my tefillin on the reasonable charge that I will be held overnight and tell my wife: I will see you soon – don't worry. She will, but not too much – she has seen this many times before.
- The Arab in East Jerusalem is not an Israeli, does not want to be an Israeli, hates Israel, and looks forward to the day of his “liberation”, when all Israel will become “Palestine”. -
It is for saying self-evident truths that I am being arrested and I muse ruefully about the fact that even the weather has turned bitterly cold on this unsmiling holiday. A sudden shift in the weather has brought uncommon rain for the middle of May and the cold wind seems to mirror the feeling in Israel and the country drifts, as a ship without a hand at the rudder.
We arrive at the Russian compound, the main police station. The officer in charge jumps out. I wait patiently, knowing the procedure. I will be taken inside for questioning. As always, I will greet the police – whom I know – and smilingly say: “I have nothing to say concerning any question.” I will be either released or held for 48 hours and brought before a judge. This is the usual procedure. But not this time. Israel has progressed. The officer returns. In his hand he has some paper. He gets in and turns to me. I regret that I must do this in the automobile but I must read to you the following. He proceeds to read: “Under my authority as Minister of Defense and under the administrative detention orders, I hereby order that Meir ben Yechezkel Kahane be held in Jerusalem and Shata prison for a period of six months.” (signed) Ezer Weizman.
That is it. No trial, no judge, no attorney, no charge, no opportunity to defend. I think: This is what the “one democracy in the Middle East” has come to. I remember the little blue and white Jewish National Fund pushka I would put a penny into each day as a child. The dream was to build a Jewish State – someday. I remember the years I gave as a youth to Begin's Zionist youth movement – Betar, and the final words of martyred Jewish underground soldiers going to the gallows under “emergency” laws. I think of how many speeches I have made pleading for Jews to come home – home to Israel. I regret nothing. The dream remains and will be, long after the neo-Hellenists and gentilized Hebrews of today are gone. Weizman is not Israel. He represents all that is foreign and un-Jewish in the land. He will pass but the dream will remain – and be fulfilled.
[Third Act: Now the scenery switches again. Imagine yourself sitting in an auditory, listening intently]
The Rabbi used to give a shiur every Saturday night in the museum of the Potential Holocaust in Jerusalem, usually informal and relaxed talks on the weekly Torah portion with direct implications for everyday life and current events.
His audience was mainly young Americans vacationing in Israel, who had come to hear his message, and one theme that the Rabbi always emphasized was the obligation for Jews to make Aliyah. It was in the spring of 1990 that a young American woman confronted the Rabbi on this issue: “I am studying in Neve Yerushalaim,” she introduced herself. “I do understand the obligation to live in Israel – but I hate the government so much, I couldn't stand it here.”
The Rabbi looked at her in disbelief: “You hate this government?” he echoed her words. Then he continued, giving his famous gentle smile though his voice was as hard as steel: “I've been arrested 68 times – and you hate this government?!”
Even she joined in the general laughter, as the Rabbi hammered his point home: a Jew does not come to Israel because he loves the government, but because he loves the land, and because it is a mitzvah to live in Israel.
[Fourth Act: You are sitting at home in front of your computer, reading all this. From now on, it's in your hands. What will you do? If you haven't made Aliyah yet – will you flee your obligation and bury yourself in the impurity of the exile, because it seems to be the easy way out? If you are already here in Israel – will you curse the secular State and “exile” yourself on a windy hilltop or in a Hareidi ghetto, disengaged from the rest of Am Yisrael because you are “better” than them? Maybe instead, do you feel tired and want give up on idealism, join the rush for blind materialism “like everyone” and just forget about why we are here?
Or will you continue the thorny, grueling path of pushing and pulling Israel from what it is now towards what it is meant to be? A JEWISH State, the beginning of our redemption, Kiddush Hashem?
It's a long way that may need a Referendum or a Revolution, a keyboard for writing or a sword to be drawn, a tent on a hilltop or an office in a Tel Aviv skyscraper. This is your chance - think and do.]
The quotes and excerpts in this compilation were taken from Rabbi Kahane's book “Listen World, Listen Jew” pp. 122 -125, from Rabbi Binyamin Ze'ev Kahane's booklet “Confronting the Holocaust” Chapter “A knock on the door”, and from Lenny Goldberg's “The Wit and Wisdom of Rabbi Meir Kahane” p. 211-212. Compilation and conclusion by Tzipora Liron-Pinner.
“The State of Israel came into being not because the Jew deserved it, but because the gentile did. It came into being not because the Jew was worthy of it but because the Name of G-d had reached its fill of humiliation and desecration. “I do this not for your sake, O House of Israel, but for Mine holy Name's sake which ye have profaned among the nations.”
That is the essence and foundation of foundations. We say Hallel on Yom HaAtzmaut, not because the government or we are worthy of the miracle but because G-d has decided to put an end to Chilul Hashem. The sins and demerits of the Jews who created that State are of absolutely no relevance to its creation. Israel came into being because Israel is the essence and the apex of Kiddush Hashem! Israel is the Jew who hits and is no longer hit. Israel is freedom and not bondage. Israel is living proof of the falsehood that is Christianity [and Islam]. Israel is Kiddush Hashem.
And so, happiness for the Jew is watching the Phantoms zoom past the roofs of Zion and Jewish children shouting and waving at them. It is seeing “Jewish planes” after existing in a world for so many years in which every plane was “theirs”. In a world in which planes spit their deadly bullets into Jews, their swastika markings etched into Jewish souls as they pronounced “Auschwitz” upon us; in a world of planes wearing British bullseyes which guaranteed that a limping refugee ship would be stopped before it could reach the gates of Zion; in a world of planes with crescent and star promising to wipe the budding Jewish community of Eretz Yisroel off the map. But those are days that once were and will never return because today there are Jewish planes, too, and only those who endured the eternity when there was no such thing can understand true happiness and serenity.
Happiness is watching the Jewish army and knowing that the spirit of Zion cannot live without a body and that this army is the guarantor of that body's existence. And happiness is thinking, just for a moment, about what Jews have accomplished in just a few years since they returned home. From thousands to millions of Jews; from ghettos to cities and farms that are all Jewish; from a motley medley of foreign tongues to the resurrection of Hebrew – and how sweet it is to hear the military commands and the most technical of phrases spoken in the tongue of Abraham and the Book of Genesis. Happiness is to walk, on the eve of Independence Day, down King George Street, and have youngsters hit you on the head with the silly, plastic musical hammers that have become a permanent part of the day. Happiness is to thread your way past the incredibly crowded streets where cars are banned for the night and to listen to the music playing over the loudspeakers strung along the streets and the people dancing and laughing. Happiness is watching the non-Jews looking at a Jewish parade in the Jewish capital city of the Jewish State. Happiness is knowing that most of the non-Jewish countries who have consulates and embassies in the City of David boycott the Independence Day parade lest their presence be construed as recognition of the Jewishness of the City – and not giving one solitary hoot whether they show up or not!
Happiness is watching young Jewish children who never knew what it meant to be a minority and never heard the words “zhid” or “kike” or “yahud”. Happiness is knowing that if anyone did call them that, he would find his face attached to the end of a Jewish fist. Happiness is watching the soldiers with beards and yarmulkas showing that mastering the intricacies of a mere sub-machine gun is child's play for a Talmudic scholar.
He who does not believe that the rise of the State of Israel is the hand of G-d is not only a non-believer; he is also blind. If this rebirth of a nation and state and language from the clutching jaws of the seventy wolves is not a miracle, then there are indeed no miracles. If the renaissance of a people in the face of every logic and sanity is not Divine decree then the Spring that brings rejuvenation to the dead earth is not Divine and the life that emerges from the mother's womb is profane and natural. Happiness is walking in Zion and embracing your father Abraham. Happiness, for the Jew, is Zionism.
[Second Act: Now, imagine the lights going dark and the music fading away... think of the other, the darker side of Israel as a cold breeze touches your face:]
They came at night. A knock on the door. And then another. There are four of them. One flashed his card. Good evening, Rabbi Kahane, we are from the police. I regret to have to ask you to come with us for a small clarification. What is it about? He smiles: I prefer to speak about it at the station.
It is not new to me. Just the previous week others had come – at midnight. I sat in prison for a week and was suddenly released. No charge. I assume this is one more petty harassment on the part of the government. I take my tefillin on the reasonable charge that I will be held overnight and tell my wife: I will see you soon – don't worry. She will, but not too much – she has seen this many times before.
- The Arab in East Jerusalem is not an Israeli, does not want to be an Israeli, hates Israel, and looks forward to the day of his “liberation”, when all Israel will become “Palestine”. -
It is for saying self-evident truths that I am being arrested and I muse ruefully about the fact that even the weather has turned bitterly cold on this unsmiling holiday. A sudden shift in the weather has brought uncommon rain for the middle of May and the cold wind seems to mirror the feeling in Israel and the country drifts, as a ship without a hand at the rudder.
We arrive at the Russian compound, the main police station. The officer in charge jumps out. I wait patiently, knowing the procedure. I will be taken inside for questioning. As always, I will greet the police – whom I know – and smilingly say: “I have nothing to say concerning any question.” I will be either released or held for 48 hours and brought before a judge. This is the usual procedure. But not this time. Israel has progressed. The officer returns. In his hand he has some paper. He gets in and turns to me. I regret that I must do this in the automobile but I must read to you the following. He proceeds to read: “Under my authority as Minister of Defense and under the administrative detention orders, I hereby order that Meir ben Yechezkel Kahane be held in Jerusalem and Shata prison for a period of six months.” (signed) Ezer Weizman.
That is it. No trial, no judge, no attorney, no charge, no opportunity to defend. I think: This is what the “one democracy in the Middle East” has come to. I remember the little blue and white Jewish National Fund pushka I would put a penny into each day as a child. The dream was to build a Jewish State – someday. I remember the years I gave as a youth to Begin's Zionist youth movement – Betar, and the final words of martyred Jewish underground soldiers going to the gallows under “emergency” laws. I think of how many speeches I have made pleading for Jews to come home – home to Israel. I regret nothing. The dream remains and will be, long after the neo-Hellenists and gentilized Hebrews of today are gone. Weizman is not Israel. He represents all that is foreign and un-Jewish in the land. He will pass but the dream will remain – and be fulfilled.
[Third Act: Now the scenery switches again. Imagine yourself sitting in an auditory, listening intently]
The Rabbi used to give a shiur every Saturday night in the museum of the Potential Holocaust in Jerusalem, usually informal and relaxed talks on the weekly Torah portion with direct implications for everyday life and current events.
His audience was mainly young Americans vacationing in Israel, who had come to hear his message, and one theme that the Rabbi always emphasized was the obligation for Jews to make Aliyah. It was in the spring of 1990 that a young American woman confronted the Rabbi on this issue: “I am studying in Neve Yerushalaim,” she introduced herself. “I do understand the obligation to live in Israel – but I hate the government so much, I couldn't stand it here.”
The Rabbi looked at her in disbelief: “You hate this government?” he echoed her words. Then he continued, giving his famous gentle smile though his voice was as hard as steel: “I've been arrested 68 times – and you hate this government?!”
Even she joined in the general laughter, as the Rabbi hammered his point home: a Jew does not come to Israel because he loves the government, but because he loves the land, and because it is a mitzvah to live in Israel.
[Fourth Act: You are sitting at home in front of your computer, reading all this. From now on, it's in your hands. What will you do? If you haven't made Aliyah yet – will you flee your obligation and bury yourself in the impurity of the exile, because it seems to be the easy way out? If you are already here in Israel – will you curse the secular State and “exile” yourself on a windy hilltop or in a Hareidi ghetto, disengaged from the rest of Am Yisrael because you are “better” than them? Maybe instead, do you feel tired and want give up on idealism, join the rush for blind materialism “like everyone” and just forget about why we are here?
Or will you continue the thorny, grueling path of pushing and pulling Israel from what it is now towards what it is meant to be? A JEWISH State, the beginning of our redemption, Kiddush Hashem?
It's a long way that may need a Referendum or a Revolution, a keyboard for writing or a sword to be drawn, a tent on a hilltop or an office in a Tel Aviv skyscraper. This is your chance - think and do.]
The quotes and excerpts in this compilation were taken from Rabbi Kahane's book “Listen World, Listen Jew” pp. 122 -125, from Rabbi Binyamin Ze'ev Kahane's booklet “Confronting the Holocaust” Chapter “A knock on the door”, and from Lenny Goldberg's “The Wit and Wisdom of Rabbi Meir Kahane” p. 211-212. Compilation and conclusion by Tzipora Liron-Pinner.
Sunday, April 15, 2012
Parashat Shemini - The Meaning of Life - Rav Meir Kahane
The sons of Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, each took his fire pan, they put fire in them and placed incense upon it; and they brought before Hashem an alien fire that He had not commanded them. A fire came forth from before Hashem and consumed them, and they died before Hashem. (Lev. 10:1-2)
Dear friend, open your mouth wide and I will fill it with a major, albeit harsh, principle from the Torah of life: Since life on this earth is only a vestibule for the banquet hall which is the World-to-Come, only an instrument of G-d whose purpose is to bring man and the world to holiness and the yoke of G-d's kingdom, and since true life occurs only in the World-to-Come, the world of truth, it follows that in order to attain this goal and teach people fundamental lessons, G-d sometimes shortens peoples' lives.
Sometimes, those who pass away are righteous, innocent persons, even children and infants, and the fools and the “dead” who move around among us see in it only cruelty, or even lack of logic, direction and Divine conduct in the world.
Life was given to man as a loan, a loan that he must pay off when the time comes, and that he is not entitled to refuse. As our sages said (Avot, end of Ch. 4):
Perforce you were formed and perforce you were born; perforce you live, perforce you shall die, and perforce you have to give a strict account before the Supreme King of Kings, the Holy One, blessed be He.
The two sons of R. Meir and his wife Beruriah died. Our sages describe how Beruriah acted before revealing the tragedy to her husband (Yalkut Shimoni, Mishlei 964):
Beruriah set food before R. Meir. After he had eaten she said, “Master, I have a question to ask. Someone previously gave me a deposit to take care of for him. Now he has come to reclaim it. Should I return it or not?” R. Meir replied, “Daughter, if someone has a deposit, is he not obligated to return it to its owner?” She then said, “I would not return it without your knowledge.”
Taking his hand, she brought him up to the bedroom. She pulled back the bed sheets and he saw his two sons lying there deceased. He began to cry and said, “My sons, my sons! My teachers, my teachers! My sons in proper behavior. My teachers in that they would enlighten me with their Torah.” At that moment she said, “Master, did you not tell me that we must return a deposit to its owner? 'The L-rd gave and the L-rd has taken away. Blessed be the name of the L-rd' (Job 1:21).”
Life is nothing but a deposit from G-d. It is decreed that one should live a specific length of time, and during that time he should fulfill the mission incumbent on him. Like anyone guarding a deposit, a person must guard his life, neither damaging nor making improper use of it. When the time comes, he must return it to its owner.
Man's life on earth is exceedingly short; it passes in the blink of an eye.
On the one hand, it is qualitatively of enormous importance, for only through it can a person fulfill the duty for which he was created.
On the other hand, however, how brief and transient life is! It is compared to “the potsherd that breaks, the grass that withers, the flower that fades, the shadow that passes, the cloud that vanishes, the breeze that blows, the dust that floats, the dream that flies away” (U'Netaneh Tokef).
Our true, eternal existence is in the World-to-Come, not here on earth. As our sages said (Avot 4:16), “This world is like a vestibule before the World-to-Come. Prepare yourself in the vestibule so that you may enter the banquet hall.”
This carries both encouragement and a warning, and we must assimilate the whole message with pure acceptance of the yoke of Heaven. A person must understand his mission on earth and the idea that life was given only to fulfill that mission. He must understand how brief and transient life is and how much emptiness pervades it. Once he understands these things, he will recognize that he need not fear either the day or moment of death as long as he pursues life by accepting the yoke of Heaven and being constantly ready to sanctify G-d's name through self-sacrifice. If someone has attained immortality by doing G-d's will, what does he lose if he suddenly leaves this world? One should not delude oneself into viewing longevity as an end in itself. The main thing is life's quality: how a person lives. Does he attain true life as defined by G-d? When a person exists on this earth without accepting the yoke of Heaven and without readiness to sacrifice his life to sanctify G-d's name, that is not “life” at all, but a bestial existence.
By contrast, if someone's life was cut off in its prime through his sacrificing himself, that person was alive before, he is still alive now, and he will remain alive forever in the World-to-Come. The wise person who understands G-d's ways and Torah will thus never fear. He will always be ready to sacrifice his life to sanctify G-d's name, and precisely in this way, to continue living.
When G-d wishes to demonstrate how great, awesome and just He is, He shows no favoritism even to the righteous. He killed the two sons of Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, who were righteous (and not only did He kill them, but He took their souls on the most joyous and holy day, that of the Tabernacle's dedication). What great suffering was caused to Aaron, their father, and Elisheva, their mother!
Dear reader, let us consider our grave duty to fear G-d. As explained above, G-d will sometimes take a person before his time to teach a profound idea that will sanctify His name. G-d's doing so involves no cruelty whatsoever. On the one hand, life on this earth is short and fleeting. It is not eternal. If someone dies young, as much as a tragedy it is for his relatives and friends, he is really only leaving this earth a few years before he would have anyway.
On the other hand, someone whom G-d kills to teach that person's nation and contemporaries and the world a Divine lesson that will sanctify G-d's name, thereby ascends to greatness. Our sages said (Vayikra Rabbah 2:1), “Ten things are called precious... From whence do we know that the death of the saintly is among them? It says, 'Precious in the sight of the L-rd is the death of His saints' (Ps. 116:5).” Thus, those saints who die to sanctify G-d's name are precious, and their death is precious.
G-d suffered greatly for having killed Nadab and Abihu, who were righteous. As our sages said (Bamidbar Rabbah 2:23):
“Nadab and Abihu died before the L-rd” (Num. 3:4): The Torah's mentioning their death in several places teaches that G-d was sorrowful because Aaron's sons were dear to Him. Likewise it says, “I will be sanctified through those close to Me (Lev. 10:3).
Vayikra Rabbah (20:10) says, “The death of Nadab and Abihu was twice as hard on G-d as it was on their father.” R. Eliezer HaModai says (Sifri, Pinchas 137):
Consider how dear the righteous are before G-d. Wherever it mentions their death it mentions the sin that led to it as well. Why does it go to such lengths? To avoid giving mankind the pretext to say that righteous men died because they had acted corruptly in secret. Thus, in four places it mentions the death of Aaron's sons, and in each it mentions their sin to make known that they had no sin but this.
One should be aware that in all four places where G-d mentions Nadab and Abihu's sin, He points to the strange fire that they brought in the Holy of Holies. This was their sin, as noted in previous sources.
When they saw the fire descend, they became excited and followed their own Halachah that it was a mitzvah to bring regular fire as well. They wished to stress the connection between G-d's holiness and that of man. At the root of all this was their desire to enter the Holy of Holies, to commune there with G-d, and to offer an incense that would be accepted.
Although Nadab and Abihu were righteous and wished to come close to G-d, the outcome of their deed was the diminishing of G-d's glory and of Israel's reverence for Him. Hence G-d made Nadab and Abihu an eternal example, an everlasting reminder of the crucial principle that we must demonstrate fear of G-d through reverence for the Temple: This is what G-d meant when He said, 'I will be sanctified through those close to Me, and thus glorified before all the people.' Aaron remained silent (Lev. 10:3). Besides the general reverence all are obligated to feel, there are concrete limitations on a persons' entering the Temple, depending on who he is. If he is an Israelite, his being pure or impure has a bearing, as does the type of impurity, itself. If he is an ordinary Kohen, his being physically blemished, not cutting his hair or wearing torn clothes has a bearing. If he is the Kohen Gadol, he faces other limitations when he enters the Holy of Holies once each year.
Although the reason for these limitations is the levels of holiness within these boundaries, entering in opposition to that holiness indicates a lack of fear of G-d, the levels of holiness having been fixed chiefly so man would experience that fear.
What emerges from all this is that G-d gave us life to perform a specific task, and created man to fulfill that task and bring the world holiness, purity, humility, fear of Heaven and acceptance of G-d's yoke. This being the case, when the times demand it, G-d might also remove someone from this earth to teach a specific idea. We need not mourn such a person. Rather we must stand silently as did Aaron and accept sentence. We must transcend our natural sorrow and be joyful about this exalted soul.
G-d's holy ones are likewise adored and lauded through this, for by their early deaths they complete their role on this wretched earth in holiness and acceptance of the yoke of Heaven, and there is nothing greater than that. No exit from this earth could be more exalted.
Compiled by Tzipora Liron-Pinner from “The Jewish Idea” of Rav Meir Kahane, HY”D
Dear friend, open your mouth wide and I will fill it with a major, albeit harsh, principle from the Torah of life: Since life on this earth is only a vestibule for the banquet hall which is the World-to-Come, only an instrument of G-d whose purpose is to bring man and the world to holiness and the yoke of G-d's kingdom, and since true life occurs only in the World-to-Come, the world of truth, it follows that in order to attain this goal and teach people fundamental lessons, G-d sometimes shortens peoples' lives.
Sometimes, those who pass away are righteous, innocent persons, even children and infants, and the fools and the “dead” who move around among us see in it only cruelty, or even lack of logic, direction and Divine conduct in the world.
Life was given to man as a loan, a loan that he must pay off when the time comes, and that he is not entitled to refuse. As our sages said (Avot, end of Ch. 4):
Perforce you were formed and perforce you were born; perforce you live, perforce you shall die, and perforce you have to give a strict account before the Supreme King of Kings, the Holy One, blessed be He.
The two sons of R. Meir and his wife Beruriah died. Our sages describe how Beruriah acted before revealing the tragedy to her husband (Yalkut Shimoni, Mishlei 964):
Beruriah set food before R. Meir. After he had eaten she said, “Master, I have a question to ask. Someone previously gave me a deposit to take care of for him. Now he has come to reclaim it. Should I return it or not?” R. Meir replied, “Daughter, if someone has a deposit, is he not obligated to return it to its owner?” She then said, “I would not return it without your knowledge.”
Taking his hand, she brought him up to the bedroom. She pulled back the bed sheets and he saw his two sons lying there deceased. He began to cry and said, “My sons, my sons! My teachers, my teachers! My sons in proper behavior. My teachers in that they would enlighten me with their Torah.” At that moment she said, “Master, did you not tell me that we must return a deposit to its owner? 'The L-rd gave and the L-rd has taken away. Blessed be the name of the L-rd' (Job 1:21).”
Life is nothing but a deposit from G-d. It is decreed that one should live a specific length of time, and during that time he should fulfill the mission incumbent on him. Like anyone guarding a deposit, a person must guard his life, neither damaging nor making improper use of it. When the time comes, he must return it to its owner.
Man's life on earth is exceedingly short; it passes in the blink of an eye.
On the one hand, it is qualitatively of enormous importance, for only through it can a person fulfill the duty for which he was created.
On the other hand, however, how brief and transient life is! It is compared to “the potsherd that breaks, the grass that withers, the flower that fades, the shadow that passes, the cloud that vanishes, the breeze that blows, the dust that floats, the dream that flies away” (U'Netaneh Tokef).
Our true, eternal existence is in the World-to-Come, not here on earth. As our sages said (Avot 4:16), “This world is like a vestibule before the World-to-Come. Prepare yourself in the vestibule so that you may enter the banquet hall.”
This carries both encouragement and a warning, and we must assimilate the whole message with pure acceptance of the yoke of Heaven. A person must understand his mission on earth and the idea that life was given only to fulfill that mission. He must understand how brief and transient life is and how much emptiness pervades it. Once he understands these things, he will recognize that he need not fear either the day or moment of death as long as he pursues life by accepting the yoke of Heaven and being constantly ready to sanctify G-d's name through self-sacrifice. If someone has attained immortality by doing G-d's will, what does he lose if he suddenly leaves this world? One should not delude oneself into viewing longevity as an end in itself. The main thing is life's quality: how a person lives. Does he attain true life as defined by G-d? When a person exists on this earth without accepting the yoke of Heaven and without readiness to sacrifice his life to sanctify G-d's name, that is not “life” at all, but a bestial existence.
By contrast, if someone's life was cut off in its prime through his sacrificing himself, that person was alive before, he is still alive now, and he will remain alive forever in the World-to-Come. The wise person who understands G-d's ways and Torah will thus never fear. He will always be ready to sacrifice his life to sanctify G-d's name, and precisely in this way, to continue living.
When G-d wishes to demonstrate how great, awesome and just He is, He shows no favoritism even to the righteous. He killed the two sons of Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, who were righteous (and not only did He kill them, but He took their souls on the most joyous and holy day, that of the Tabernacle's dedication). What great suffering was caused to Aaron, their father, and Elisheva, their mother!
Dear reader, let us consider our grave duty to fear G-d. As explained above, G-d will sometimes take a person before his time to teach a profound idea that will sanctify His name. G-d's doing so involves no cruelty whatsoever. On the one hand, life on this earth is short and fleeting. It is not eternal. If someone dies young, as much as a tragedy it is for his relatives and friends, he is really only leaving this earth a few years before he would have anyway.
On the other hand, someone whom G-d kills to teach that person's nation and contemporaries and the world a Divine lesson that will sanctify G-d's name, thereby ascends to greatness. Our sages said (Vayikra Rabbah 2:1), “Ten things are called precious... From whence do we know that the death of the saintly is among them? It says, 'Precious in the sight of the L-rd is the death of His saints' (Ps. 116:5).” Thus, those saints who die to sanctify G-d's name are precious, and their death is precious.
G-d suffered greatly for having killed Nadab and Abihu, who were righteous. As our sages said (Bamidbar Rabbah 2:23):
“Nadab and Abihu died before the L-rd” (Num. 3:4): The Torah's mentioning their death in several places teaches that G-d was sorrowful because Aaron's sons were dear to Him. Likewise it says, “I will be sanctified through those close to Me (Lev. 10:3).
Vayikra Rabbah (20:10) says, “The death of Nadab and Abihu was twice as hard on G-d as it was on their father.” R. Eliezer HaModai says (Sifri, Pinchas 137):
Consider how dear the righteous are before G-d. Wherever it mentions their death it mentions the sin that led to it as well. Why does it go to such lengths? To avoid giving mankind the pretext to say that righteous men died because they had acted corruptly in secret. Thus, in four places it mentions the death of Aaron's sons, and in each it mentions their sin to make known that they had no sin but this.
One should be aware that in all four places where G-d mentions Nadab and Abihu's sin, He points to the strange fire that they brought in the Holy of Holies. This was their sin, as noted in previous sources.
When they saw the fire descend, they became excited and followed their own Halachah that it was a mitzvah to bring regular fire as well. They wished to stress the connection between G-d's holiness and that of man. At the root of all this was their desire to enter the Holy of Holies, to commune there with G-d, and to offer an incense that would be accepted.
Although Nadab and Abihu were righteous and wished to come close to G-d, the outcome of their deed was the diminishing of G-d's glory and of Israel's reverence for Him. Hence G-d made Nadab and Abihu an eternal example, an everlasting reminder of the crucial principle that we must demonstrate fear of G-d through reverence for the Temple: This is what G-d meant when He said, 'I will be sanctified through those close to Me, and thus glorified before all the people.' Aaron remained silent (Lev. 10:3). Besides the general reverence all are obligated to feel, there are concrete limitations on a persons' entering the Temple, depending on who he is. If he is an Israelite, his being pure or impure has a bearing, as does the type of impurity, itself. If he is an ordinary Kohen, his being physically blemished, not cutting his hair or wearing torn clothes has a bearing. If he is the Kohen Gadol, he faces other limitations when he enters the Holy of Holies once each year.
Although the reason for these limitations is the levels of holiness within these boundaries, entering in opposition to that holiness indicates a lack of fear of G-d, the levels of holiness having been fixed chiefly so man would experience that fear.
What emerges from all this is that G-d gave us life to perform a specific task, and created man to fulfill that task and bring the world holiness, purity, humility, fear of Heaven and acceptance of G-d's yoke. This being the case, when the times demand it, G-d might also remove someone from this earth to teach a specific idea. We need not mourn such a person. Rather we must stand silently as did Aaron and accept sentence. We must transcend our natural sorrow and be joyful about this exalted soul.
G-d's holy ones are likewise adored and lauded through this, for by their early deaths they complete their role on this wretched earth in holiness and acceptance of the yoke of Heaven, and there is nothing greater than that. No exit from this earth could be more exalted.
Compiled by Tzipora Liron-Pinner from “The Jewish Idea” of Rav Meir Kahane, HY”D
Sunday, April 1, 2012
Pesach – Seder night’s secret meaning - Rav Binyamin Ze'ev Kahane
It happened that Rabbi Eliezer, Rabbi Yehoshua, Rabbi Elazar ben Azaryah, Rabbi Akiva, and Rabbi Tarfon were reclining at the [Seder] table in B'nei Brak, and they were recounting the story of the Exodus from Egypt all that night, until their students came in and told them: “Our Rabbis! The time has come for the recitation of the morning Shema!” (From the Pesach Haggada)
It happened. Rabbi Maimon suggested a nice idea regarding the historical background of this episode. Even though it is not clear whether it is historically accurate, it sheds essential light on understanding the milieu in which these five sages lived and were active. Rabbi Maimon asks: why did these four great Tannaim leave their homes on the Seder night to travel to B'nei Brak, the home of Rabbi Akiva. Indeed, according to the Talmud, each of the other four Tannaim had houses of study in other cities. More than this: given that they wanted to sit together – why at the house of Rabbi Akiva, who was considered the student in relation to the others? His explanation is that this episode occurred during the period of preparation for the revolt of Bar Kochba – whose arms-bearer and one of the leaders of the revolt, was Rabbi Akiva ( Mishne Torah, Hilchot Melachim/Laws of Kings 11:3). It should also be noted that the Rambam writes that the other sages of the generation also supported Bar Kochba. Accordingly, when these five sages sat in B'nei Brak, precisely at the place of Rabbi Akiva who was at the center of the revolt, they engaged not only in recounting the Exodus from Egypt in the past tense, but – and principally - the “Exodus from Egypt” of their own time. As is well known, the first redemption was a portent for the final Redemption. This means that in order to understand the fundaments of the final Redemption – which is predicated on faith, self-sacrifice and Kiddush Hashem – the fundaments of the first redemption must be learned thoroughly. Therefore, studying the first redemption, and studying the final Redemption, are one and the same thing!
As is known, the Bar Kochba Revolt occurred about 60 years after the destruction of the Second Temple. Nevertheless, the belief and the understanding that it was possible to bring the Redemption today, if you would hearken to His voice still beat in the hearts of these leaders of Israel.
For regarding the last exile (as opposed to the Babylonian exile [of 70 years]), no fixed period was ever predetermined. And so, they sat throughout that night, discussing the present revolt, whose purpose was to usher in that day which would be greater than the Exodus from Egypt (See the Talmud, Berachot 13a).
For if one sits and tells of the Exodus from Egypt as belonging only to the past, and does nothing for the current Redemption – then what value is there in all the stories he tells on the Seder night? For him, the recitation of the Haggadah really is, as Rabbi Yehuda ha-Levi described it, “like the twittering of a starling”!
And in this context, it should be noted that Rabbi Menachem Kasher, in his book ha-Tekufah ha-Gedolah (“The Great Era”), writes that in this generation, the obligation of the Seder night is to relate not only the story of the Exodus from Egypt, but also the miracles of our generation – those miracles of the beginning of the Redemption, which were greater even than the miracles of the Hasmoneans. These miracles, and the events that the Jewish nation has undergone for a century past, can also bring the Jew to faith. As with the Exodus from Egypt, we again saw that out of total despair and terrible humiliation,
we arose and revived our nation – after everyone had already eulogized us.
And in the same vein, we can add that we should not only sit and recount the miracles, but rather – like Rabbi Akiva and his colleagues – we should sit and discuss the future continuation of the Redemption process. We must ponder how to advance the Redemption, how to smooth the road to Redemption, and how to continue in the path of Bar Kochba and Rabbi Akiva in order to bring the Redemption that is knocking at the gate – immediately, quickly, and without unnecessary suffering – for it is not enough to sit and wait for the Mashiach, we must actively bring him.
According to this explanation, the sages did not notice that the time for the morning Shema had arrived, not just because they were engrossed in deep discussion, but also because, for reasons of secrecy, they were sitting in a place that sunlight would never reach.
Our Rabbis! The time has come for the recitation of the morning Shema!
This call can also be explained as hinting at something deeper. The recitation of the Shema is the symbol par excellence of the acceptance of the yoke of Heaven, which brings one to self-sacrifice. Rabbi Akiva said, when he was executed by the Romans, that he had always been concerned that he might not have the opportunity to fulfill the mitzvah of sacrificing his very life for Kiddush Hashem: When will my chance come to fulfill it? And his soul departed with the word echad (“one”).
Hence, these students were telling their rabbis: Our Rabbis! The time has come to accept unto ourselves the yoke of Heaven, and to go forth and to revolt against the Romans who oppress and humiliate the Jewish nation and desecrate the Name of Heaven. We can thereby bring the Redemption, even at the price of supreme self-sacrifice. For one of the conditions for redemption is self- sacrifice. Indeed two of the sages mentioned here, Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Tarfon, are among the Ten Martyrs; and several of the Ten Martyrs were students of these sages. The Romans killed them for violating their decrees and, as already mentioned, for their active involvement in the Bar Kochba revolt.
Significantly, one of the decrees of the Romans in that generation was the prohibition of reciting the Shema. Rabbi Meir said:
Once we were sitting in front of Rabbi Akiva in the Beit ha-Midrash; we were reading the Shema, but we were not reciting it audibly, because of a Roman soldier who was standing by the door. (Tosefta Berachot 2:13)
Apparently, this statement is a similar encoded hint of resistance to Roman occupation, along the lines of the commentary on the preceding section.
The time has come for the recitation of the morning Shema. These five Tannaim were sitting and discussing the “Exodus from Egypt” of their generation, i.e. planning how to bring about the final Redemption; and, as we just explained, this is of paramount importance. How, then, can the recital of the Shema take precedence over this?
There are two answers:
First, Judaism demands precision in the tiniest details of the mitzvot, and one who treats the small details (which might appear to be of secondary importance) lightly, will eventually treat the major principles lightly. Unfortunately, we have seen this in our generation: Some of the greatest thinkers in the nationalist movement abandoned the details of the mitzvot, according them secondary importance, preferring to deal with the “truly important” issues. But ultimately, since the absolute values of Torah did not define their framework, they began to compromise; and having begun to compromise on minor nationalist issues, their compromises became progressively greater, until they conceded those “truly important” issues as well – and, eventually, lost their entire ideology.
Second, the commandment of reciting the Shema is, as we have already said, a declaration of the acceptance of the yoke of Heaven, which is the foundation of all – and it is also the way to bring the Redemption. We must always remember this: when working to bring the Redemption, we must always remain within the framework that G-d has dictated. It is He who establishes the rules and conditions for the Redemption. And the truth is that some of the central conditions of the Redemption fundamentally oppose the ideals of Western culture, which – unfortunately – greatly influence even those who speak highly of the Redemption. We must remember that to bring the Redemption, the first basic condition is acceptance of the yoke of Heaven. And this demands that we accept G-d's dictates in the nationalist sphere, too, whether we understand His reasons, or not, whether they are “acceptable” to us or not; for we are not “nationalists” - we are servants of Hashem.
Self-sacrifice has always been the central condition for hastening the redemption; and so is it in our days. The primary repentance that G-d demands for hastening the Redemption and preventing the terrible sufferings of the birth-pangs of the Mashiach is a return to genuine trust in G-d, tried and proven by our willingness to endanger ourselves for the sake of those mitzvot which appear “dangerous”. These mitzvot include annexation, and open and unabashed settlement of all parts of the Land of Israel; driving the Gentiles out of the Land without fear of what the nations (including America) will say; removing the foreigners from the Temple Mount and implementing our sovereignty there.
May we merit to properly fulfill the mitzvah of telling the Passover story, and to act upon the practical conclusions derived from learning about the first Redemption. Have a happy and kosher Passover.
Excerpted by Tzipora Liron-Pinner from “The Haggada of the Jewish Idea” by Rav Binyamin Ze'ev Kahane HY”D (English edition, translated by Daniel Pinner)
It happened. Rabbi Maimon suggested a nice idea regarding the historical background of this episode. Even though it is not clear whether it is historically accurate, it sheds essential light on understanding the milieu in which these five sages lived and were active. Rabbi Maimon asks: why did these four great Tannaim leave their homes on the Seder night to travel to B'nei Brak, the home of Rabbi Akiva. Indeed, according to the Talmud, each of the other four Tannaim had houses of study in other cities. More than this: given that they wanted to sit together – why at the house of Rabbi Akiva, who was considered the student in relation to the others? His explanation is that this episode occurred during the period of preparation for the revolt of Bar Kochba – whose arms-bearer and one of the leaders of the revolt, was Rabbi Akiva ( Mishne Torah, Hilchot Melachim/Laws of Kings 11:3). It should also be noted that the Rambam writes that the other sages of the generation also supported Bar Kochba. Accordingly, when these five sages sat in B'nei Brak, precisely at the place of Rabbi Akiva who was at the center of the revolt, they engaged not only in recounting the Exodus from Egypt in the past tense, but – and principally - the “Exodus from Egypt” of their own time. As is well known, the first redemption was a portent for the final Redemption. This means that in order to understand the fundaments of the final Redemption – which is predicated on faith, self-sacrifice and Kiddush Hashem – the fundaments of the first redemption must be learned thoroughly. Therefore, studying the first redemption, and studying the final Redemption, are one and the same thing!
As is known, the Bar Kochba Revolt occurred about 60 years after the destruction of the Second Temple. Nevertheless, the belief and the understanding that it was possible to bring the Redemption today, if you would hearken to His voice still beat in the hearts of these leaders of Israel.
For regarding the last exile (as opposed to the Babylonian exile [of 70 years]), no fixed period was ever predetermined. And so, they sat throughout that night, discussing the present revolt, whose purpose was to usher in that day which would be greater than the Exodus from Egypt (See the Talmud, Berachot 13a).
For if one sits and tells of the Exodus from Egypt as belonging only to the past, and does nothing for the current Redemption – then what value is there in all the stories he tells on the Seder night? For him, the recitation of the Haggadah really is, as Rabbi Yehuda ha-Levi described it, “like the twittering of a starling”!
And in this context, it should be noted that Rabbi Menachem Kasher, in his book ha-Tekufah ha-Gedolah (“The Great Era”), writes that in this generation, the obligation of the Seder night is to relate not only the story of the Exodus from Egypt, but also the miracles of our generation – those miracles of the beginning of the Redemption, which were greater even than the miracles of the Hasmoneans. These miracles, and the events that the Jewish nation has undergone for a century past, can also bring the Jew to faith. As with the Exodus from Egypt, we again saw that out of total despair and terrible humiliation,
we arose and revived our nation – after everyone had already eulogized us.
And in the same vein, we can add that we should not only sit and recount the miracles, but rather – like Rabbi Akiva and his colleagues – we should sit and discuss the future continuation of the Redemption process. We must ponder how to advance the Redemption, how to smooth the road to Redemption, and how to continue in the path of Bar Kochba and Rabbi Akiva in order to bring the Redemption that is knocking at the gate – immediately, quickly, and without unnecessary suffering – for it is not enough to sit and wait for the Mashiach, we must actively bring him.
According to this explanation, the sages did not notice that the time for the morning Shema had arrived, not just because they were engrossed in deep discussion, but also because, for reasons of secrecy, they were sitting in a place that sunlight would never reach.
Our Rabbis! The time has come for the recitation of the morning Shema!
This call can also be explained as hinting at something deeper. The recitation of the Shema is the symbol par excellence of the acceptance of the yoke of Heaven, which brings one to self-sacrifice. Rabbi Akiva said, when he was executed by the Romans, that he had always been concerned that he might not have the opportunity to fulfill the mitzvah of sacrificing his very life for Kiddush Hashem: When will my chance come to fulfill it? And his soul departed with the word echad (“one”).
Hence, these students were telling their rabbis: Our Rabbis! The time has come to accept unto ourselves the yoke of Heaven, and to go forth and to revolt against the Romans who oppress and humiliate the Jewish nation and desecrate the Name of Heaven. We can thereby bring the Redemption, even at the price of supreme self-sacrifice. For one of the conditions for redemption is self- sacrifice. Indeed two of the sages mentioned here, Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Tarfon, are among the Ten Martyrs; and several of the Ten Martyrs were students of these sages. The Romans killed them for violating their decrees and, as already mentioned, for their active involvement in the Bar Kochba revolt.
Significantly, one of the decrees of the Romans in that generation was the prohibition of reciting the Shema. Rabbi Meir said:
Once we were sitting in front of Rabbi Akiva in the Beit ha-Midrash; we were reading the Shema, but we were not reciting it audibly, because of a Roman soldier who was standing by the door. (Tosefta Berachot 2:13)
Apparently, this statement is a similar encoded hint of resistance to Roman occupation, along the lines of the commentary on the preceding section.
The time has come for the recitation of the morning Shema. These five Tannaim were sitting and discussing the “Exodus from Egypt” of their generation, i.e. planning how to bring about the final Redemption; and, as we just explained, this is of paramount importance. How, then, can the recital of the Shema take precedence over this?
There are two answers:
First, Judaism demands precision in the tiniest details of the mitzvot, and one who treats the small details (which might appear to be of secondary importance) lightly, will eventually treat the major principles lightly. Unfortunately, we have seen this in our generation: Some of the greatest thinkers in the nationalist movement abandoned the details of the mitzvot, according them secondary importance, preferring to deal with the “truly important” issues. But ultimately, since the absolute values of Torah did not define their framework, they began to compromise; and having begun to compromise on minor nationalist issues, their compromises became progressively greater, until they conceded those “truly important” issues as well – and, eventually, lost their entire ideology.
Second, the commandment of reciting the Shema is, as we have already said, a declaration of the acceptance of the yoke of Heaven, which is the foundation of all – and it is also the way to bring the Redemption. We must always remember this: when working to bring the Redemption, we must always remain within the framework that G-d has dictated. It is He who establishes the rules and conditions for the Redemption. And the truth is that some of the central conditions of the Redemption fundamentally oppose the ideals of Western culture, which – unfortunately – greatly influence even those who speak highly of the Redemption. We must remember that to bring the Redemption, the first basic condition is acceptance of the yoke of Heaven. And this demands that we accept G-d's dictates in the nationalist sphere, too, whether we understand His reasons, or not, whether they are “acceptable” to us or not; for we are not “nationalists” - we are servants of Hashem.
Self-sacrifice has always been the central condition for hastening the redemption; and so is it in our days. The primary repentance that G-d demands for hastening the Redemption and preventing the terrible sufferings of the birth-pangs of the Mashiach is a return to genuine trust in G-d, tried and proven by our willingness to endanger ourselves for the sake of those mitzvot which appear “dangerous”. These mitzvot include annexation, and open and unabashed settlement of all parts of the Land of Israel; driving the Gentiles out of the Land without fear of what the nations (including America) will say; removing the foreigners from the Temple Mount and implementing our sovereignty there.
May we merit to properly fulfill the mitzvah of telling the Passover story, and to act upon the practical conclusions derived from learning about the first Redemption. Have a happy and kosher Passover.
Excerpted by Tzipora Liron-Pinner from “The Haggada of the Jewish Idea” by Rav Binyamin Ze'ev Kahane HY”D (English edition, translated by Daniel Pinner)
Sunday, March 25, 2012
Shabbat Hagadol - Before Redemption - Rav Meir Kahane
(From the Haftarah)... For behold, the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the wicked people and all the evildoers will be like straw... (Malachi 3:19)
Behold, I send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and awesome Day of Hashem. And he will turn back [to G-d] the hearts of fathers with [their] sons and the hearts of sons with their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with utter destruction. (Malachi 3: 23,24)
Then you will return and see the difference between the righteous and the wicked, between one who serves G-d and one who does not serve Him. (Malachi 3:18)
Before us, then, there is a fundamental principle regarding the future of the Jewish People:
Redemption can come by one of two ways. If we merit it, through repentance and deeds worthy of it – especially faith and trust in G-d, without fear of the non-Jew – it can come through G-d hastening it, quickly, immediately, “today, if we hearken to His voice”. Not only will it come quickly, but with glory and majesty, without the suffering or Messianic birth pangs of which both Ula and Rabbah said (Sanhedrin 98b), “Let it come without my seeing it”. If we do not merit this, however, then the Messiah will certainly come and the Redemption with him, but only later on, “in its time”. This redemption will be accompanied, G-d forbid, by the terrible suffering of Chevlei Mashiach, Messianic birthpangs.
We seem to have two contradictory redemption processes before us; [...] but there is no contradiction. Rather, both are possibilities. That is, either can happen, but not both. As for which it will be, that depends on the Jewish People and their deeds. If they prove worthy, they will merit redemption “in haste”, glorious and majestic, without Messianic birth pangs.
Otherwise, a different process will occur, a process that does not have to be – complete redemption through unparalleled suffering, and all because of our sins and our stubbornness. Only the blind and those who refuse to see will fail to understand that today we are right at the very heart of the Ikveta DeMeshicha, “the footsteps of the Messiah”, the beginning of the redemption.
This State of Israel is the beginning of G-d's wrath against the nations who do not know Him and who have profaned His name with scorn and derision.
Yet, it is clear that a redemption whose beginning is based exclusively on redemption “in its time”, on, “I do not do this for your sake, O house of Israel” (Ezek. 36:22), on, “Not for your sake do I do this, says the L-rd G-d. Be it known unto you. Be ashamed and confounded for your ways, O house of Israel (Ezek. 36:32) has concealed within it tragedies and Messianic suffering from the Supreme King of Kings; and whoever says that G-d concedes shall concede his life (Bava Kamma 50a).
There will be no “hasty” redemption (Isaiah 60:22), glorious and majestic, devoid of dreadful suffering, unless the Jewish people return to their Father in Heaven, accept His yoke, and chiefly, unless they trust in Him completely and are ready to sanctify His name through self-sacrifice. The redemption which began despite our sins in order to sanctify G-d's name before the nations in might and splendor, has, in the hands of an “ungrateful, unwise nation” (Deut. 32:6), turned into a profanation and a blasphemy carried out precisely by those whom G-d sought to redeem. If the beginning of the redemption and the state served to sanctify G-d's name, then the only way to move on to “hasty” redemption is to continue reinforcing the Kiddush Hashem which the state's very establishment constituted. The Divine imperative is continued Kiddush Hashem through trusting in G-d, and liquidating the Chilul Hashem without fear of the non-Jew, without fear of flesh and blood. Every retreat, every submission, every concession to the non-Jew, every hand raised against the Jew, every attack, let alone murder, of a Jew in the Land, every taunt and curse by a non-Jew in the Land is a Chilul Hashem. Now, instead of continuing to reinforce the Kiddush Hashem process, the Jewish people retreat and profane G-d's name.
Whoever does not allow Jews to live everywhere in the Land, whoever ties their hands and prevents their taking the revenge of G-d and Israel against the nations who curse and revile G-d, profanes G-d's name and profanes the great miracle and the powerful dream realized by G-d at the start of the redemption.
A time will come when G-d sees that to the nations and most of Israel, it seems that “His power is gone” - He is impotent. He will see that for many Jews and non-Jews, He is “nothing”, non-existent, Heaven forbid. For many others who pay lip service to His existence, He will appear “hindered”, powerless to act, a king “caught in tresses” (Song of Songs, 7:7), without connection or relevance to the world. He will see that there are masses of Jews who keep rituals, who keep the practical mitzvot by rote, yet who in times of danger, at the moment of truth, abandon their faith and trust in G-d. For them, G-d will become like one “abandoned”, and no Chilul Hashem could be greater. G-d will then wish to sanctify His great name, transformed by faithless heretics to “nothing, hindered, and abandoned.”
Listen well, my friend, to a great axiom of redemption. Ostensibly, those who ridiculed the mourners of Zion, who mocked those who believed in redemption, were the nations. Clearly this is so, yet also countless Jews do not believe, and they ridicule those who look forward to redemption, and, in general, the whole concept of redemption and the Messiah.
Do not let your brother, friend or the rabbi to whom you feel closest lead you astray by saying that redemption will come without suffering or tragedy, for that is impossible without repentance and trust in G-d through bold deeds without fear of the nations.
Redak's quotation from Isaiah is part of the following (Isaiah 26:20-21):
Come, My people, enter your chambers and shut your doors behind you. Hide yourself for a brief moment until the wrath is past. For the L-rd shall leave His abode to punish the earth's inhabitants for their sin. With this, G-d informs Israel that before redemption comes, before G-d leaves His abode to punish the nations for their sin, there will be a moment of wrath; that is, a period of wrath and suffering. This clearly is referring to the war of Gog and Magog.
Although it says, “Hide yourself for a brief moment”, and Redak commented that they would “suffer briefly”, woe to us for that brief moment, for it will include Jerusalem's conquest and accompanying atrocities, [...] and the nations' conquest of Eretz Israel for nine months, and in G-d's eyes, that, too will constitute just a “brief moment”. Who can measure the suffering and anguish which that moment will generate, if it comes through redemption “in its time”? All the same G-d, Who has control over time and place, has the power to transform that “moment” into a very short time, if redemption comes “in haste”. This is a major principle regarding the Messianic birthpangs, and we must not forget it.
If Israel heed G-d's voice and follow in His ways, He will subdue Gog and Israel's enemies “kim'at”, like the kim'at rega, the “brief moment” of Isaiah 26:20. Then, redemption will come quickly and “forever”.
Return unto Me, and I will return unto you, says Hashem, Master of Legions… (Malachi 3:7)
And this is a repetition of the same promise that is given in Zechariah 1:3, in a tremendous oath! The redemption will come to the extent that we long for it and demand it.
Compiled by Tzipora Liron-Pinner from “The Jewish Idea” of Rav Meir Kahane, HY”D
Behold, I send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and awesome Day of Hashem. And he will turn back [to G-d] the hearts of fathers with [their] sons and the hearts of sons with their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with utter destruction. (Malachi 3: 23,24)
Then you will return and see the difference between the righteous and the wicked, between one who serves G-d and one who does not serve Him. (Malachi 3:18)
Before us, then, there is a fundamental principle regarding the future of the Jewish People:
Redemption can come by one of two ways. If we merit it, through repentance and deeds worthy of it – especially faith and trust in G-d, without fear of the non-Jew – it can come through G-d hastening it, quickly, immediately, “today, if we hearken to His voice”. Not only will it come quickly, but with glory and majesty, without the suffering or Messianic birth pangs of which both Ula and Rabbah said (Sanhedrin 98b), “Let it come without my seeing it”. If we do not merit this, however, then the Messiah will certainly come and the Redemption with him, but only later on, “in its time”. This redemption will be accompanied, G-d forbid, by the terrible suffering of Chevlei Mashiach, Messianic birthpangs.
We seem to have two contradictory redemption processes before us; [...] but there is no contradiction. Rather, both are possibilities. That is, either can happen, but not both. As for which it will be, that depends on the Jewish People and their deeds. If they prove worthy, they will merit redemption “in haste”, glorious and majestic, without Messianic birth pangs.
Otherwise, a different process will occur, a process that does not have to be – complete redemption through unparalleled suffering, and all because of our sins and our stubbornness. Only the blind and those who refuse to see will fail to understand that today we are right at the very heart of the Ikveta DeMeshicha, “the footsteps of the Messiah”, the beginning of the redemption.
This State of Israel is the beginning of G-d's wrath against the nations who do not know Him and who have profaned His name with scorn and derision.
Yet, it is clear that a redemption whose beginning is based exclusively on redemption “in its time”, on, “I do not do this for your sake, O house of Israel” (Ezek. 36:22), on, “Not for your sake do I do this, says the L-rd G-d. Be it known unto you. Be ashamed and confounded for your ways, O house of Israel (Ezek. 36:32) has concealed within it tragedies and Messianic suffering from the Supreme King of Kings; and whoever says that G-d concedes shall concede his life (Bava Kamma 50a).
There will be no “hasty” redemption (Isaiah 60:22), glorious and majestic, devoid of dreadful suffering, unless the Jewish people return to their Father in Heaven, accept His yoke, and chiefly, unless they trust in Him completely and are ready to sanctify His name through self-sacrifice. The redemption which began despite our sins in order to sanctify G-d's name before the nations in might and splendor, has, in the hands of an “ungrateful, unwise nation” (Deut. 32:6), turned into a profanation and a blasphemy carried out precisely by those whom G-d sought to redeem. If the beginning of the redemption and the state served to sanctify G-d's name, then the only way to move on to “hasty” redemption is to continue reinforcing the Kiddush Hashem which the state's very establishment constituted. The Divine imperative is continued Kiddush Hashem through trusting in G-d, and liquidating the Chilul Hashem without fear of the non-Jew, without fear of flesh and blood. Every retreat, every submission, every concession to the non-Jew, every hand raised against the Jew, every attack, let alone murder, of a Jew in the Land, every taunt and curse by a non-Jew in the Land is a Chilul Hashem. Now, instead of continuing to reinforce the Kiddush Hashem process, the Jewish people retreat and profane G-d's name.
Whoever does not allow Jews to live everywhere in the Land, whoever ties their hands and prevents their taking the revenge of G-d and Israel against the nations who curse and revile G-d, profanes G-d's name and profanes the great miracle and the powerful dream realized by G-d at the start of the redemption.
A time will come when G-d sees that to the nations and most of Israel, it seems that “His power is gone” - He is impotent. He will see that for many Jews and non-Jews, He is “nothing”, non-existent, Heaven forbid. For many others who pay lip service to His existence, He will appear “hindered”, powerless to act, a king “caught in tresses” (Song of Songs, 7:7), without connection or relevance to the world. He will see that there are masses of Jews who keep rituals, who keep the practical mitzvot by rote, yet who in times of danger, at the moment of truth, abandon their faith and trust in G-d. For them, G-d will become like one “abandoned”, and no Chilul Hashem could be greater. G-d will then wish to sanctify His great name, transformed by faithless heretics to “nothing, hindered, and abandoned.”
Listen well, my friend, to a great axiom of redemption. Ostensibly, those who ridiculed the mourners of Zion, who mocked those who believed in redemption, were the nations. Clearly this is so, yet also countless Jews do not believe, and they ridicule those who look forward to redemption, and, in general, the whole concept of redemption and the Messiah.
Do not let your brother, friend or the rabbi to whom you feel closest lead you astray by saying that redemption will come without suffering or tragedy, for that is impossible without repentance and trust in G-d through bold deeds without fear of the nations.
Redak's quotation from Isaiah is part of the following (Isaiah 26:20-21):
Come, My people, enter your chambers and shut your doors behind you. Hide yourself for a brief moment until the wrath is past. For the L-rd shall leave His abode to punish the earth's inhabitants for their sin. With this, G-d informs Israel that before redemption comes, before G-d leaves His abode to punish the nations for their sin, there will be a moment of wrath; that is, a period of wrath and suffering. This clearly is referring to the war of Gog and Magog.
Although it says, “Hide yourself for a brief moment”, and Redak commented that they would “suffer briefly”, woe to us for that brief moment, for it will include Jerusalem's conquest and accompanying atrocities, [...] and the nations' conquest of Eretz Israel for nine months, and in G-d's eyes, that, too will constitute just a “brief moment”. Who can measure the suffering and anguish which that moment will generate, if it comes through redemption “in its time”? All the same G-d, Who has control over time and place, has the power to transform that “moment” into a very short time, if redemption comes “in haste”. This is a major principle regarding the Messianic birthpangs, and we must not forget it.
If Israel heed G-d's voice and follow in His ways, He will subdue Gog and Israel's enemies “kim'at”, like the kim'at rega, the “brief moment” of Isaiah 26:20. Then, redemption will come quickly and “forever”.
Return unto Me, and I will return unto you, says Hashem, Master of Legions… (Malachi 3:7)
And this is a repetition of the same promise that is given in Zechariah 1:3, in a tremendous oath! The redemption will come to the extent that we long for it and demand it.
Compiled by Tzipora Liron-Pinner from “The Jewish Idea” of Rav Meir Kahane, HY”D
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