Dangerous Ideas

27 Menachem Av 5772

Back around Tisha b'Av we discussed how among a list of causes given by the commentators on the Talmud for the destruction of the Second Temple, despite popular opinion, sinat chinam was not one of them.

I maintain that the idea of ahavat chinam (among other popular mantras) is not only wrong but a danger to the Nation of Israel.

Reb' Nir Ben Artzi, in recent days, has come out with things like the following:

...The establishment of a unity government, with Likud and Kadima, this was totally the influence of the Holy One! The Holy One desired that with this example, all the religious parties would similarly unite and they would all be with one heart, without exception. The dismantling of unity between Kadima and Likud, after only 70 days, is not the plan of the Holy One, the Holy One cried at the dismantling of unity! What helped this dismantling was the other side (sitra achra). The Creator doesn’t do bad, He doesn’t make arguments and separations between people, the Creator only creates unity, love and peace!

It makes for a pretty slogan, but it's not backed up by reality. And it's far, far from the truth. When we stood at the foot of Har Sinai, we were united "like one man with one heart," according to Chazal. But, where did that unity come from? From within ourselves? Was it an ability to set aside all our differences and accept them with love, no matter how divergent? Emphatically, NO! We were not the source of that unity. We were the recipients! It was the truth of the Holy Torah that united us around it. I believe that only around the essential truth can we unite - even (and especially) today.

Who was given Hashem's covenant of peace, but Pinhas, after he skewered Zimri and Kozbi? And yet he was condemned by the people. Hashem does not judge as we judge. We have to learn from our Torah what is important to Hashem and adjust our thinking according to His.

If Reb' Ben Artzi is correct, and let me tell you there are tens of thousands of religious people in Israel who agree with him (hence the "Reb.") They think that we can unite around evil and the strength of that unity alone will stand us in good stead with Hashem. Nu? So what about the unity of the people around the worship of the golden calf? What about the unity of the people in rejecting Eretz Yisrael on the first Tisha b'Av? What? Will you say that the failure of the Levites to join in the first cause and Calev's and Yehoshua's failure to join in the second cause ruined it for all of us? They were rewarded by Hashem while the rest were punished!!

Some religious people have become confused and they think that the current "Jewish" government is somehow equal to the malchut of Temple times. Nothing could be further from the truth! They were not confirmed or anointed by a prophet of G-d. They usurped and hijacked the budding geulah process to feed their own evil desires, the foundation of which is always to return to Egypt!

It is written that at the End of Days, the leaders of Israel (both religious and secular) would be from the Erev Rav. The Erev Rav have been described as klipot - shells - hard, opaque and insensate. They have no power of their own. Only by attaching themselves to holiness can they thrive and survive. By their attachment, they come between us and that holiness and dull our sense of it and drain away its power to fuel and enlighten us. The stronger the source of kedushah, the stronger the Erev Rav become who are attached to it. That's why Holy Yerushalayim was chosen as their capital and not Tel Aviv, as the world would have wished.

The light of geulah which began to shine when the GR"A's students first came to Eretz Yisrael attracted them and the brighter it grew, the more they came. When they first came under the influence of the kedushah of the land, they gained some merit for themselves. They excelled at four things:

• They assisted with the immigration of Jews to the Land.
• They built and funded religious institutions and allowed bachurim exemptions from army service in order to learn.
• They built settlements and re-established Jewish communities throughout the land.
• They defended the homeland and Jewish lives through many wars.

However, at the same time that the Land of Israel was being rejuvenated, so began a renaissance of Egypt in the form of a new world power which also emerged out of the ashes of WW2 - the United States of America! It would become the ultimate power opposing Am Yisrael in the days prior to Mashiach - a combination of all the exiles. It's not for nothing that an Egyptian obelisk sits in its capital (and that it was recently irreparably cracked by a rare earthquake). It's not for nothing that even the Egyptians see Pharaoh-like qualities in US President Barack Obama or that his first message to the Arab world was given from Cairo!

Today, if the "Egyptian" leadership of America is not running to the Erev Rav in Israel, the Erev Rav in Israel is running to the "Egyptian" leadership in Washington. Under their influence and guidance, in a perverted desire to "return to Egypt," the Erev Rav have begun to destroy all the merit that they had built up.

• They transferred Jewish immigration from the Jewish Agency to Nefesh b'Nefesh and have allowed the country to be overrun by illegal immigrants from abroad.
• They cut child allowances to large families, scrapped the Tal Law and plan a wholesale draft of yeshiva students.
• They began to bargain "land for peace" and uprooted 8500 Jews from Gush Katif. They are dismantling Jewish settlements countrywide.
• Since 1967, when the Temple Mount was placed into the hands of the Arab WAKF, each war since has brought about further failure, although they continue to win for the sake of Klal Yisrael

However, there was a significant "silver lining" in that cloud of 1967. The Erev Rav gave the single most powerful source of kedushah in the world to Yishmael and that has saved us and has brought us nearly to the redemption itself, as Hashem planned all along. The conflict with Persia is what is going to seal their fate once and for all.

There is only one thing worse than wanting to go back to Egypt and that is bringing Egypt into Eretz Yisrael and that is what you see today on the streets of Holy Yerushalayim - evidence of the Egyptian penchant for nudity, lewdness and licentiousness. It's not for nothing that the Erev Ravian "High Court of (In)Justice" is crowned with a pyramid.

The Erev Rav "rabbis" who told us not to fight the expulsions, but promised salvation through ahavat chinam - by hugging those who came to uproot and destroy - were very, very wrong. The antidote to the Erev Rav "mixture" is not unity with them, but separation from them. It's why Rav Binyamin Ze'ev Kahane, ztz"l, Hy"d told his students not to vote, but to abandon the system. It's rotten through and through and is only hanging on because of the kedushah that good Jews bring into it. Like a treacherous vine that is strangling a tree, when cut from its source of nourishment, it will wither and die and fall from the tree, allowing it to be restored to health.

Contrary to those who say this is Hashem's way, I must differ. Mixtures create chaos. Order comes from making havdalah - separation. From Day One of Creation, Hashem began to separate - light from dark; land from water; man from woman; etc. And it was all pronounced "good!" But, what caused the first blemish on a perfect creation? Man's mixing of good and evil!

At the close of each Shabbat, in the Havdalah Prayer, we bless Hashem for separating between "holy and secular, Israel and the nations, the seventh day and the six days of labor."

Our sages said that when the time of redemption would come, even a child would see it. Why did they specify a child? I think it is because children look with wide-eyed wonder and see things as they truly are, not yet having learned how to distort reality in order to make it conform to what they wish it to be.