WHO IS TO BLAME? - Part 2

2 Marcheshvan 5784 

UPDATE: (3 Marcheshvan)  

Part 2 - Rabbi Richter, Israel at war!! Takin' off the gloves!!  Who's responsible?  
(Part 1 here as well as below.)

Pollard: 'Ship of fools steering our country onto the rocks'

"FUN" FACT:  GW Bush invaded Afghanistan in retaliation for 9/11 on Oct. 7, 2001.  Now they say Israel had a 9/11 experience, also on Oct. 7 twenty-two years later.

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“…we are not so brazen and obstinate as to say before You, Hashem, our God, and the God of our forefathers, that we are righteous and have not sinned – rather, we and our forefathers have sinned.  

...We have turned away from Your commandments and from Your good laws but to no avail.  But You are righteous in all that has come upon us, for You have acted truthfully while we have caused wickedness.”  (Vidui Prayer)

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Please bear with me.  This will be a long post, but every word is crucial.  It holds a very, very important message. 

When terrible things happen, the first question is always, "Why is God doing this to us?"  And when we hear about terrible things happening, we always look for the reason.  Because we human beings know at the soul level that nothing happens without a reason and that ultimately HKB"H has allowed all that occurs.

The bitter truth is WE are the ones to blame for what has happened to us.

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From The Ishmaelite Exile by Rabbi Yechiel Weitzman, copyright 2006, Jerusalem Publications: 

Part 6:  The End of Days: Final Purification

Section 1:  Israel’s Tests Throughout the Course of History 

In Parashat Ha’azinu, the Torah describes in minute detail the destiny of the Jewish people through the End of Days.  A large portion of the description of events found there deals with events that will be the lot of the Jewish people if they do not fulfill their historic Mission. 

…The following process is a sort of law of spiritual nature that God imbued in Creation.  It consists of the following stages:

1.  “Hashem will see and be[come angry, provoked by] His sons and His daughters” (Devarim 32:19)

2.  “And He will say, ‘I will hide My face from them…”  (Devarim 32:20)

3.  “For a fire will burn in My nostrils, and it will blaze to the nethermost depths.  It will consume the earth and its produce and set a fire to the foundations of mountains”  (Devarim 32:22).  Rashi comments that this did indeed take place at the time of the Temple, when the Temple and the city of Jerusalem were burned, and the Land was laid to waste.

4.  “Outside, the sword will bereave, while inside there will be terror – both young man and virgin, an infant with a gray-haired man”  (Devarim 32:25) [There it is again!].  This describes the afflictions of the Jewish people in exile – the pogroms and anti-Semitism.

5.  “I said I will disperse them; I will eradicate memory of them from mankind”  (Devarim 32:26).  Here the holocaust is described in its enormity, in which a great portion of the Jewish nation was obliterated. 

The seeming absence of the Divine presence, the tribulations that the nation of Israel underwent in exile, and the tragedies described in the above verse were supposed to serve as a test of faith for Israel throughout the years.  Therefore, before the events that it describes, the Torah gave the following introductory verse:  “The Rock, perfect is His work, for all His ways are just.  A G-d of belief, without injustice.  Righteous and fair is He”  (Devarim 32:4). 

…Belief is the absolute recognition that G-d personally supervises every detail of a person’s life, and that He will mete out reward and punishment for every single thing a person has done.  This belief includes man’s obligation to trust G-d and to know that everything that happens to him is from G-d and for his benefit. 

Belief is demanded of man especially when he faces hardships.  At such times, doubts arise that give a person no rest.  He begins to make calculations regarding Divine justice and its fairness.  Some people arrive at the conclusion that G-d has, heaven forbid, abandoned His world and that human beings are no longer under G-d’s personal supervision.  To protect himself from such terrifying doubts, a person must gird himself with faith, for this is what will safeguard him. 

…Tests of faith are sent our way to test the strength of our belief that G-d is a just and fair Judge Who personally supervises every one of His creations. 

Section 2:  The Refining Process at the End of Days 

…The sages explain that the era immediately preceding the coming of the redeemer will be a period of refining the Jewish people to separate those who uphold the faith from those who choose to abandon it. 

…The Rambam…[writes] that all of the troubles at the End of Days are trials of belief and truth: 

And now, brothers, you must pay attention and listen carefully to what I am going to lay out before you.  Teach it to children and women so that any questions of belief they may have will be answered, so that the truth will become so firmly lodged in their souls that they cannot budge from it.  And you, brothers, be strong and courageous, and be supported by these true verses.  Let not the strength of the enemy’s hand and our own nation’s weakness frighten you.  For this entire situation is no more than a trial and a test so that you can demonstrate your belief and our chosenness to the world.

Until now, all the people of the world have been going through a massive birur process during which people have been choosing their side and deciding their ultimate fate: 

Behold, I set before you today a blessing and a curse. 

The blessing, that you will heed the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you today;  

And the curse, if you will not heed the commandments of the Lord your God, but turn away from the way I command you this day, to follow other gods, which you did not know.  (Devarim 11:26-28)

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This day, I call upon the heaven and the earth as witnesses [that I have warned] you: I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse.  You shall choose life, so that you and your offspring will live; 

To love the Lord your God, to listen to His voice, and to cleave to Him. For that is your life and the length of your days, to dwell on the land which the Lord swore to your forefathers to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob to give to them.  (Devarim 30:19-20)

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We humans always think the party will go on forever, but there is always an end to it.  We don't want to think about that.  COVID was a huge wake-up call.  How many of us understood the message?  

There was always going to be a final Rosh Hashanah/Yom Kippur through which we could purify ourselves and make atonement for our sins, so that we would be in the best possible condition to weather the final birth pangs of the messianic era. And we might very well have just passed it.  Whatever fate was decided on Yom Kippur was sealed on Hoshana Rabbah - October 6, 2023.  And the Judgment began to fall upon us on October 7, 2023, which coincided with Shemini Atzeret/Simchat Torah.  How appropriate that our embrace of the Holy Torah would signify our attachment to God's commandments:  "The blessing, that you will heed the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you today...."

To date, I have heard about a kibbutz which avoided attack on October 7th because it was locked in honor of Shabbat Kodesh.  I have not heard of any slaughter inside yeshivot or batei knesset, Baruch Hashem!

In the 9th chapter of the The Book of Ezekiel, the prophet describes the scene inside the spiritual realm when it came time to let the decree of destruction fall upon the first Beit Hamikdash and the Jewish people.

The sins of Israel had become irreparable. The Temple would be destroyed, as the somber narratives of the later chapters of Kings and Chronicles detail. The people looked up the hill at their Temple, confident that it would protect itself and them from King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon and his conquering army. No human king could destroy the habitat of God's Presence! But, as the Talmud describes it, the Divine Presence was receding from the Temple, stage by stage, in ten stages. Holiness had been there because of the people; when they lost their merit, it lost its holiness. The building on the hill was no longer a "Temple," it was merely a grand edifice, a shell, devoid of its sanctity. And then, it was reduced to a flaming ruin, with its people dead or driven off to exile and slavery.

Such was the world of the Prophet Ezekiel.

...The Book of Ezekiel is surely a book of tragedy, but not a book of despair, for Israel will rise again and return to its home. There, in Jerusalem, it will assume a new and eternal name Hashem Shamah - Hashem Is There. (48.35) 

Ezekiel's Vision of the (Then) Future Destruction of Jerusalem by Babylon

Commentary: Ezekiel heard as God summoned the forces that were to destroy the city. The man clothed in linen was the angel Gabriel, the angel of fire, who, in Ezekiel's vision, was to cast the fire upon Jerusalem. From his loins hung scribal implements (represented in the verse by the slate) with which to inscribe on the foreheads of the righteous the mark that would spare them from death (Radak). The prophecy goes on to say that the sinners were about to be wiped out. This sign on the forehead of the righteous was to protect them from the fate of the sinners."  (Source: The Stone Edition Tanach - Introduction to the Book of Ezekiel)

Ezekiel - Chapter 9

Then He called into my ears with a loud voice, saying, "Bring near those appointed over the city, and each one his weapon of destruction in his hand."

And behold six men* coming from the way of the upper gate, which is turned northward; each man has his sledgehammer in his hand, and one man among them clothed in linen with a scribe's tablet on his loins, and they came and stood beside the copper altar. [*Rashi: Our Rabbis explained them in Tractate Shabbath (55a) as Anger, Wrath, Fury, Destroyer, Breaker, Annihilator.]

And the glory of the God of Israel lifted itself from upon the cherub upon which it had been, to the threshold of the House, and He called to the man clothed in linen, upon whose loins was the scribe's tablet.

And the Lord said to him, "Pass through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and you shall mark a sign upon the foreheads of the men who are sighing and moaning over all the abominations that were done in its midst."

And to these, He said in my ears, "Pass through the city after him and smite; let your eye spare not and have no pity.

Old man, young man, and maiden, young children and women, [And there it is again!] you shall slay utterly, but to any man upon whom there is the mark you shall not draw near, and you shall commence from My sanctuary." So they commenced from the old men who were before the House.

And He said to them, "Defile the House and fill the courts with the slain [and] go out," and they went out and smote in the city.

And it came about when they smote, that I remained, and I fell on my face and cried out, and I said, "Alas, O Lord God, are You destroying the entire remnant of Israel when You pour out Your fury on Jerusalem?"

And He said to me, "The iniquity of the house of Israel and Judah is exceedingly great, and the land has become full of bloodshed, and the city has become full of perversion, for they said, 'The Lord has forsaken the earth, and the Lord does not see.'

I too - My eye will not spare, neither will I have pity; I have placed their way on their head."

And behold, the man clothed in linen, on whose loins was the tablet, replied with a word, saying, "I have done according to all that You have commanded me."  

I think we are witnessing the beginning of a similar event occurring before the Shechinah returns to Yerushalayim, Hashem yerachem!

And it shall come to pass throughout all the land, says the Lord, two parts of it shall be cut off. They shall perish, and the third shall remain therein. And I will bring the third in fire; and I will refine them as one refines silver, and I will test them as one tests gold. He shall call in My name, and I will respond to him. I said, "He is My people"; and he shall say, "The Lord is my God."  (Zechariah 13:8-9)

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IMPORTANT LETTER FROM HARAV DAVID BAR-HAYIM

AN IMPORTANT MESSAGE FROM

 HARAV YEHUDAH HACOHEN RICHTER