Yeshiva
Beit Midrash
- Shabbat and Holidays
- Jewish Holidays
- The Seven Weeks of Condolence
In 1263, Rabbi Moshe ben Nachman (Ramban) argued against the Church in front of King James of Aragon that Jewish survival alone over the then past millennia was sufficient proof of the uniqueness of the Jewish people and of its covenantal nature with the Creator. "One sheep surrounded by seventy wolves!" he shouted to his adversaries who sought to deny the right of Jewish existence and the role of Judaism in world society. Almost eight hundred years later the same statement can and should be made with even greater emphasis. It is simply Jewish survival and resilience that puts the lie to the delegitimatization campaign that is currently being viciously conducted against us. According to the script of natural history we should no longer be here, there should be no great concentrations of Torah students and observant Jews present and there certainly cannot be a thriving Jewish state in its ancient homeland, the Land of Israel. I think that much of the anti-Jewish world’s bitterness and frustration that fuels its hatred, bias and bigotry against Jews and especially the State of Israel is that there apparently is no real "final solution" to the "Jewish problem." Much of the world truly believes that if there were no State of Israel and no strong Jewish community present in the world universal utopia will have arrived. And they therefore are angry with us for not accommodating this wish, which they believe would be so beneficial for the general good of humankind. It is the resilience of the Jew more than anything else that so frustrates our antagonists and has done so for lo so many centuries.
There are elements within the Jewish people that seemingly are willing to accommodate the wishes of our enemies, all in the name of pie-in-the-sky humanistic, utopian ideals that never have any true relation to facts on the ground or the reality of life. Their Jewish resilience has deserted them, replaced by a vague hope for universalism and a conviction that the lamb can truly lie down with the lion and not become lamb chops. This misplaced "goodness" and peace mongering at all costs has exacted a heavy toll of lives and stress in the Jewish and general world over the past many decades. The Jewish people, in the main, has rebuilt itself after the indescribable tragedies and disasters of World War II. A Jewish state exists in the Land of Israel, the Soviet Union disappeared and over a million Soviet Jews have reattached themselves in one degree or another to their people and heritage. There simply has never occurred such a string of events to a people after such a tragedy as was the Holocaust to the Jews. The world knows about Tisha B’Av but is ill acquainted with after Tisha B’Av. Jews see the good new year and better times on the horizon. It is not the memorials, important as they are, that will sustain our existence in the future. It is the continued physical and spiritual growth of our nation and its institutions of learning, government and compassion that will once again prove our vital ability of resilience to still be present within us.
The Seven Weeks of Condolence Hester Panim, Exile and Redeption
Shiv'a de-Nechemta: The Philosophy of Comfort and Redemption - 6
The Seven Weeks of Condolence Rebuilding Jerusalem
Shiv'a de-Nechemta: The Philosophy of Comfort and Redemption - 3
Rabbis in Midrash
Lessons
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Hosha'ana Rabba FLYDUBAI & HOSHANA RABBA- ANI VAHU HOSHIA NA- I & HIM SAVE US
"Ani vaHu Hoshia Na", "I and Him, Save Us". We don't just pray to Him, but we also pray to and for ourselves that we should emulate and educate our children to have that instinctive altruism with which He created the world. President Trump seemed amused about Yaniv Hayon, our PLUMBER who confidently worked with G-d like Superman (he learned from a pilot on a TV show!) to save 174 lives on the Dubai hijacking, but we in Israel are totally accustomed already 78 years to our plumbers, teachers, garbage-men, rabbis, farmers & doctors being Hashem's shlichim! This is what Zionism is about.
Moreshet Shaul Hashem Is your Shadow – part I
Based on Siach Shaul, Pirkei Machshava V’Hadracha p. 420 – an address from 1941
P'ninat Mishpat A Non-Contractor in Changing Times – part I
(based on ruling 85128 of the Eretz Hemdah-Gazit Rabbinical Courts)
Moreshet Shaul Our King on Rosh Hashana, Our Father on Yom Kippur.
Based on Aroch Siach, p. 221 (Rav Shaul Yisraeli)
