So what to do?
On December 15, 2012 we posted a piece entitled, There is No Other Solution, in response to the dust up that was taking place in Gaza at that time. It was the only solution then and even more so now, so we are re-posting it.
Saturday, December 15, 2012
There is No Other Solution
Looking Through the Abyss
In the post-mortem
that followed the recently concluded Operation Pillar of Cloud, the accuracy
and overall effectiveness of the Iron Dome anti-missile system was conceded by
virtually everyone, including the Arabs. But there were those who took it a step
further past the battlefield results to project a long term deterrent mode of
warfare that they claim will stay the course for the State of Israel in its struggle
for survival.
Rabbeinu HaGaon HaGadol
Rav Moshe Shapiro shlit"a wasn’t one of them.
In a most
profound analysis, he took what many find to be a terminally complex situation
facing Eretz Yisrael/Klal Yisrael, and reduced it to a problem and a solution
that can be comprehended by anyone.
In EmunahSpeak I
more often than not quote from one or two seforim or shiurim that I have heard
and then use them as building blocks to construct a thesis. But these are extraordinary times and Rav Moshe
has matched the tenor of these times with extraordinary words so I will let the
Gadol speak for himself, resigning myself to a few stage directions and sundry
comments where appropriate.
The Rav lets us hear
flat out that according to Teva (natural means) we are in a problem that has no
possibility of a solution, period. He
says further that a solution that is similar to the “solution,” (with as
many double quotes as we can put there) that we recently experienced vis
รก vis the Iron Dome and the pin point surgical strikes by which the IAF took
out 1500 Hamas launch sites, may last once or twice, but this is not a
solution.
And whoever
thinks of sitting and talking, to negotiate and make agreements as a “solution,”
insults the intelligence of a ten year old.
These are nothing but words of vanity.
The bottom line
of our current and future situation, as Rav Moshe sees it, is that the Creator
of the world has placed us between the ultimate rock and hard place with an
unsolvable problem.
Not the sort of
line that one would expect Nefesh B’Nefesh to be pushing, to say the least.
If we would be
talking about any other People or country their future would be toast because
the parameters of their existence are delineated by Teva. Not so Klal Yisrael.
Rav Shapiro
reminds us that the Rambam states clearly that Israel will only be
redeemed through Teshuva. And the Torah already
promised that eventually Israel
will do Teshuva at the end of the Exile and immediately they will be redeemed.
The Rav is not
saying a nice vort, a shmuz or giving a Shabbos Shuva drasho. He’s speaking in the context of hatzolas nefoshos,
and after looking into the aforementioned Rambam he states categorically:
To live like
this is impossible and to do something against it is impossible. But we have found a solution; the definite
solution! We learn from this that there
is no other solution. Any thought in the
direction of another solution is stupidity!
In Pirkei D’Rabbi
Eliezer we learn that HKB”H will raise up for Klal Yisrael a king whose decrees
are as harsh as Haman, and they will do Teshuva. We further learn that Yishmael was given that
name because in the future Hakodesh Boruch Hu will hear the sound of Klal
Yisrael from what Yishmael will do in the land in the End of Days.
Rav Shapiro
tells us that we know exactly what they will do in the Land in the End of
Days because we already saw it. Part of
this has passed, some of it is happening in the present, and we have the
ability to ensure that it does not occur in the future. Chazal revealed that this will be the form of
conduct, and this is how the Creator of the world will bring us to be redeemed. Someone will come and force us to
repent. Every thinking person
understands that this is the one and only explanation for what is occurring
here. There is no other
explanation! The Creator of the world appointed
Yishmael to be that harsh king through whom we need to pray, and the prayer
will be accepted. HKB”H will hear the
sound of the cries of the Jewish people.
And that’s the Halacha
as decided by the Rambam: A community, whenever they do Teshuva and cry out with
a complete heart, they are answered.
Rav Moshe asks: What
do we have to do? What obligates us from
these words?
And he answers: Don’t
go after any analysis (in the newspapers etc.) which is spot on advice
because the papers are full of solutions for what he has already established to
be a problem that is insolvable (in Teva).
The Rav further
asks: Should we sit and wait until a king as harsh as Haman will rise
against us and then do Teshuva?
Toward where
will we bring our shame,
asks the Rav, when the day will come and they will ask us, “Where were you? Where
were you when everything was so clear?”
What will we
answer? That we were too busy writing a
letter to a newspaper or reading it?!
So what
should we do? We are at the End of Days
and Yishmael is doing exactly as Chazal wrote.
When a person
is brought to Final Judgment, he is asked, “Did you expect salvation?” Such a question is asked of someone who
really wants it. The problem is that he
is not sitting and expecting it, so that is why he is asked this.
I suspect
that we will be asked, “Did you want salvation?” Forget “Did you expect." Did you want it? Or did you want that
it should not come? This is the first
thing. This is Aleph. Without this, it is impossible to even begin.
This is the very
point we made in EmunahSpeak: A
Burning Need where we said that
the reason Moshiach is not here is because we want Moshiach now as opposed
to we need Moshiach now. In its terminal passivity, the wanting of
Moshiach in and of itself will do nothing to bring the Geula. If he comes, he
comes. If not, we’ll keep on wanting until he does, whereas the need for
Moshiach will inevitably push Klal Yisroel in innumerable directions that will
create the conditions to bring the Geula ever so closer, speedily in our days.
This is the
first thing, says the Rav, We first need to enter
reality---not to live in our imagination.
This is the truth and it is very clear.
One
who expects salvation will merit it.
Hashem, for his
part, is waiting. But what about us?
Rav Shapiro says
that we are preventing:
We, the ones
who accepted the Torah, are preventing the revelation of His Glory in the
world. We are preventing the Redemption
of the entire world. How? By the fact that we are not waiting. This fact makes us into murderers. Not just murderers, but mass-murderers.
Know and
understand, says the
Rav, that these words are completely clear and serious. There is no toying around here or room for
playing games. We can forgo
the multitude of words of encouragement and awakening and another 2 chapters of
Tehillim after davening. This is not
what is requested. What is requested is
that we don’t prevent! We should not
prevent!
And then he says
a very big chiddush:
If the heads
of communities repent or if one community repents, in their merit the entire
exile will be gathered in.
One community
in Israel,
one synagogue. It is enough with this so
that all of us will leave the exile.
In the Torah we
are taught that Hashem agreed to heed Avraham Aveinu’s plea to spare the wicked
city of S’dom
if ten righteous people could be found therein.
And now that the
entire non-Jewish world has taken on a striking resemblance to S’dom we have it
on the good authority of Rabbi Moshe Shapiro that if only one community
(minimum of ten adult males) or one synagogue repents Klal Yisroel will be
instantly redeemed in their merit.
This is already
doable because given the thousands of Yidden these days that are focused on
growth the existence of a congregation capable of the requisite Teshuva moves
from a slight possibility to a definite probability.
But what is the
requisite Teshuva?
This we are not
told, but what passes as Teshuva for most of us on Erev Yom Kippur isn’t going
to hack it. It could be as we said in EmunahSpeak:
The Yesod of Teshuva that To
do Teshuva you have to strip away all of the excuses. So say goodbye to
all of the ifs, buts, and maybes, as you take yourself down to your spiritual socks.
Or maybe it goes
even deeper than that.
On 11 Tammuz
1941, Rav Elchonon Wasserman HY”D was murdered in Kovno’s Ninth Fort along with
a few talmidim and some other Rabbonim.
These were his last words:
In Shomayim
it seems that they consider us to be tzaddikim, because we have been chosen to
be korbanos for Klal Yisroel. Therefore, we must do Teshuvah now. We don’t have
much time. We must keep in mind that we will be better korbonos if we do
teshuvah. In this way we will save the Yidden in America. Let no foreign
thought enter our minds, Chas V’Shalom, as that will make us pigul, an unfit
korban. We are now fulfilling the greatest mitzvah. Yerushalayim was destroyed
with fire and will be rebuilt with fire. The same fire that will consume our
bodies will one day rebuild Klal Yisrael.
Klal Yisrael has
been rebuilt (at least quantitatively) and yet we find ourselves threatened by
that same fire.
