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Beit Midrash
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Jewish history is a history of uncertainty. The entire experience of exile and being "the other" is the supreme example of living with uncertainty. Jews for the last two thousand years always lived at the changing whim of monarchs, governments and societies. Even though Jews and their communities made long range plans and built magnificent structures, physical and spiritual, in their locations, all of these structures eventually proved to be only temporary in nature. The maskilim - the "enlightened" ones in the nineteenth century derided Jews as being "luftmesnchen" - Jews who live in the air, who have no base and no certainty. They sought to somehow remedy that situation either through secularism, socialism, communism or Zionism. But their certainty that the Jewish situation of uncertainty could be changed to certainty with the adoption of such ideologies and programs proved to be illusory and false. Europe, apparently stable and mostly peaceful for the nineteenth century in the post-Napoleonic period, exploded in two unbelievably ruinous wars in the twentieth century, destroying empires, changing borders, establishing and dismembering nations and destroying the Jewish population in Europe. How is that for uncertainty compounded? And the ironic and fearsome point of this is that practically no one saw these events as coming. We are always blindsided by life itself. It interferes with all of our best-laid plans and aspirations. At the end of the day, we are left alone to deal with the realities of life and never with what we imagined to be its certainties.
Among the certainties that Zionism advanced was that anti-Semitism would disappear and that Jewish security would be achieved through the establishment of our national state. Well, miraculously and against all odds and with great personal sacrifice and loss, the state was established, strengthened and exists in all of its glory and achievements. Yet none of the promised certainties that the state was to achieve have really come into being. Anti-Semitism is a thriving industry everywhere in the world. The State of Israel, through no fault of its own, has to a certain degree even exacerbated this problem for the non-Jewish world (and tragically enough, even sections of the Jewish world) have the luxury of being anti-Israel while piously professing that their statements and policies are not all associated with anti-Semitism. The Lord has blessed us that over five and a half million Jews are now concentrated in the state of Israel, an area of land far smaller than was the eastern European Diaspora. Our enemies speak only of our destruction so that our security is uncertain though we believe that the Lord together with our own arms and resources will help protect us somehow. All of us now realize that we face an uncertain future. But not fooling ourselves with imagined certainties is a step in the right direction of being able to live and prosper in a very uncertain world.
Rabbis in Midrash
Lessons
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Kuzari -Rabbi Ari Shvat Kuzari class 9 - "Seeing is Believing" (parag. 21-30)
These paragraphs elaborate on the theme that seeing and knowing is better than any attempt to prove logically, and begins explaining the difference between Israel and gentiles.
Ein Aya Various Universal Stages of the Geula Process
Rav Kook examines the various stages of redemption, explaining how (in addition to the obvious oft-mentioned stages of ingathering the exiles, reviving the Hebrew language, army, state etc.) the messianic dream of world prosperity, the State of Israel and world unity can and are realistically and logically gradually coming true.
Kuzari -Rabbi Ari Shvat Kuzari class 8- "Answering Questions on the Kuzari's Proof from Mass Revelation
How do we know that the "claim" of mass revelation to 2,000,000 witnesses at Mt. Sinai is really true? This important class answers all of the questions skeptics ask about this claim of the Kuzari.
Ein Aya Armies Still Necessary for Balance & the War Against Wars
Rav Kook explains why the world was originally divided into the various seemingly contradicting ideologies and cultures, in order to develop each one respectively. Swords or armies symbolize how each respective ideology defends themselves, as well as deters their opposing ideologies and cultures. On the other hand, the messianic era will be one of peace, and Rav Kook explains the transition to that stage, which mankind is already undergoing.
The Land of Israel LGBT'S IN ISRAEL
The question was asked, how can one make Aliyah with the LGBT parades?
Kuzari -Rabbi Ari Shvat Kuzari class 7 - Five Accumulative Proofs of G-d
As a preparation for the Kuzari's classic proof of G-d from the mass-revelation at Sinai, we start here with 5 other directions to strengthen our belief which also contribute to what the Kuzari will present as well.
Ein Aya Muscle & Meaning: The Dual Nature of Gevurah (Physical Strength)
Is physical strength and fitness a necessity or an ideal? Although it if often totally overlooked among topics of Judaism, Rav Kook writes that it clearly is also a necessity to deter the many enemies of Israel, but even in Y'mot HaMashiach, in the Messianic era, to a certain extent, it's ideal continues even after our enemies will have been finished off.
