17 Tevet 5772
Questions & Answers
Binyamin Golden
3rd candle of Hanukah 5772
Q. Why don’t we have the right to hear more messages?
A. Again, it was stopped because now every Jew has to search out a connection with HKB”H for himself. This coming month of Shevat, it will be twenty years that we are speaking. Twenty years since Yitzchak-Izik wrote the first message. In all this period, our job was to strengthen Am Yisrael, and slowly, slowly, during all these year - and twenty years is a lot of time - slowly, slowly, to bring them to this moment. But, Am Yisrael hears, reads, there are people who understand more and understand less. And it’s not only us in this world who are speaking about the redemption and the salvation. There are more who are trying to help Am Yisrael. But, Am Yisrael needs to want to in himself. It’s impossible to force someone to do something against his will. He needs to want to. So, if he wants – he must do the last part himself. It’s like when a child begins to walk, it’s possible to help him, but at some stage he needs so much to want to walk, until he will get up and will walk himself without any problems. Because he wants to walk. Because he wants to be independent and to arrive to places. And we, also. You need to want to be a servant of Hashem. And if we will be servants of Hashem, then we will be free men. But, you need to want to, because without this, it doesn’t go. This is the time you need to want to.
Almost each thing that’s been said until now, all that’s been said, will be possible to read. With G-d’s help, a booklet from the last messages is coming out, along with additional suitable sections. And if someone wants to receive strengthening, especially from what we have written, he will be able to lift the telephone and listen or read the booklet. Because there is nothing new or added that’s left to say. To tell you “when something will explode” or “when will be the war,” or today and this hour exactly - impossible. And it’s not important. What’s important is that everyone will return in teshuva. That’s what’s important. That everyone will arrive to HKB”H. That’s what’s important. To being to be too busy with: “which country will shoot off the first missile” – that’s not important.
Q. “Restore our judges as at first” – Ben David will not come until the false leadership ends. How can we really know who is a posek, who is a leader to the truth without bias? How can we identify?
A. We don’t know. Therefore, I say: The Jew needs to be connected to HKB”H. And to be very careful with whom he makes a connection. And even if he is careful, he doesn’t always know. The signs are – the Erev Rav do not have a Jewish heart, therefore he doesn’t have mercy on another Jew. He can indeed “make a show of it,” but a true Jew needs to know that it’s a show. Maybe not the first time, but the second or third time it will be clearer. This is a time that a Jew needs to be alone. To be alone with HKB”H. And not purposely, it’s not by chance that the idea of “hitbodedut” has returned in this generation by Rebbe Nachman, ztz”l. Because it is approximately what you need to do: to be alone with Hashem. And you don’t need to go to a forest, especially, for this. It can be done in the living room. But you need to be alone and search out the truth. And then, Hashem will help us. Alone, we can not do it. And you need every day to request from Hashem to save us from the Erev Rav.
Q. Chazal said that for a Jew there are three signs: Merciful, shy, and charitable…
A. But, that’s right, these are indeed three things which describe a true Jew. But there are Erev Rav who know to make an excellent show.
Q. Already, hundreds of years ago, in the writings of Rav Chaim Vital, ztz”l, it says that the leaders do not like to comment on or to admonish on matters of holiness and modesty. What is the reason that especially on this topic they are afraid to rebuke more than remaining deficiencies?
A. The reason is clear. Because when there is a great descent, what falls first? In Europe, they first threw out Shabbat, and family purity, and holiness. This is what the people want the most. And this is the greatest desire of the eigel hazahav. And therefore, the careful rabbis didn’t dwell on this so they wouldn’t lose their communities.
Q. What do you say about the war against modesty in the holy city of Jerusalem?
A. The war of chareidim against modesty is a thing that’s hard to understand. Every life-style of the chareidim in this generation is in trouble. The women wander around the street like prostitutes, and holiness is the last thing that interests them. And with all the Tehillim that they’re saying, and with all the daily prayers, what attracts them is the eigel hazahav. There were periods when the Jews were Jews who lived in Eretz Yisrael and they ran to the ba’al, because the ba’al attracted them. And this is the ba’al of today. The golden calf strongly attracts them, and it’s what they want. The men are dressed like several hundred years ago and the women like models from the newspaper. And worse that even the men today are immodest. Tight suits. There is almost no man who goes like once was: with wide coat, with wide trousers, covering like it should. It almost never happens. Everyone is tight on the body. Even funny, but it’s so disgusting, that it’s a conflict of emotions.
Q. What’s with the European dress that’s customary today among the public?
A. Without a beard, it’s gentile. A short coat is gentile. The Chazon Ish said, as far as I know, that a Jew needs to go with tails, a long coat. How were the Jews dressed in Europe? They were very much covered, with coats, etc. And in Arab lands, there were robes. A robe over a robe and with a shawl like the Baba Sali.
Q. It’s already written in chazal, that in the future Torah will be forgotten from Israel. But, on the other hand, we see that there is a great flowering of Torah institutions in our days, so how does that fit together?
A. But, they have forgotten the Torah. There is no Torah for the majority. For, indeed, they didn’t forget what they learned, the words, but they forgot the holiness. They forgot the basis of what it means to be a Jew. How is it possible to learn Torah without holiness? A gentile can learn Torah? Yes! He can sit and take a Gemara with translation and learn. But that’s not to say that he will understand. That’s not to say that he will make a connection. And what is this “Torah learning”? It’s that the soul will develop a relationship with the book and together they will arise, up, up, to special worlds. It’s not to sit and learn and to do tests. It’s not to sit and to learn, by heart, all kinds of details of knowledge just so that afterwards you can give it back by heart. This is just technical. And it’s not learning. It’s not the soul of a Jew. A gentile can’t understand this. He can’t really learn. He can only know to sit, to look at a page and to learn like he learns history or something else.
Q. What about the money, the economic situation?
A. The money will fall together with the war. That it has not yet fallen is interesting. The economic situation is bad and the evildoers are maintaining it, so that it won’t fall until the moment that it’s suitable for them, but HKB”H will decide.
Q. The verse says: “For the word is very near to you….” Is the mitzvah of teshuva really so easy? Also, in our days, it’s so easy?
A. Of course, it’s easy. And it’s easier when a person comes so far, then he doesn’t have to make such a big circle to get to the beginning, because he’s much closer…. But later, when his head is blocked with all the trash of Olam Hazeh, of the eigel hazahav, of the Erev Rav, all the education of the Erev Rav, then it’s very difficult. But a true Jew, only one word is enough to open his heart and his feelings. Which word? It’s a different word for everyone to simply awaken it.
Q. Binyamin once said, in the past, that the time will come that people will go out into the streets and seek “sackcloth and ashes”…
A. It’s not just that they will request “sackcloth and ashes,” they will ask for HKB”H. They won’t know what to do. They will understand that what they did in life – it was emptiness. It wasn’t completely for the sake of Heaven. It was only for the sake of our eigel hazahav, for the majority. And this will pain them very, very much. So, they will look for something, something to do. To put on tefillin, to sit on the floor, to cry. Man doesn’t know how to cleanse himself from all the falsehood. He will cry from sorrow about how he wasted so much gilgulim during all the years.
Q. So, the final tikun is actually that we will know to disregard all the eigel hazahav, all the physicality and materialism, and to “lift up the wings” to the direction of HKB”H, is this the tikun?
A. That’s the end, yes. To run away from the snake. What does physicality do for us? It gives us the feeling that we are far from HKB”H; that we don’t need to be dependent upon Him for anything. And more and more this enters into our head. Indeed, there are those who are praying, who are asking for parnasah, etc., but it’s more like a superstition and not like someone who is more connected to Hashem.
