Beit Midrash
- Family and Society
- Torah and Daily Life
- Additional Lessons
Answer: Religious Zionism is not dissolving. To the contrary, it is growing and branching out, like a tree that grows and spreads its branches in all directions. The branches spread out, and as they do the distance between them grows. What we are witnessing is not division and estrangement but growth and expansion, for all of the branches are attached to the same stem and roots.
The growth and success of your local garin Torani reflects the situation in many places in Israel. New yeshivas are popping up and old yeshivas are becoming more established; numerous Kollels and yeshiva high schools are being founded; settlement in Judah and Samaria is growing more quickly than in any other place in Israel, despite the government’s evil decrees.
The higher the building, the longer the shadow it casts. If a person looks at the shadow alone he sees growing darkness, but if a person looks for the cause of the shadow, he discerns that it is the building that is growing. This is the way of the world. "The more possessions a person accumulates, the more worry he accumulates."
Religious Zionism is growing, and the more it grows and flourishes, the more it encounters opposition. Growth leads to increased variety, and each of the various branches concentrates on its own unique features. Even though all of the branches receive nourishment from the same root, each seeks to develop its uniqueness. The individual branch is cautious about unity so long as it has not fully established itself, for it fears being swallowed up by the whole. However, once its own unique role has been established, it rejoins the others. After all, all of these various approaches feed from the same source.
Religious Zionism embraces the ideal of national redemption in an all-encompassing sense - one that includes the entire Torah, the entire nation, and the entire land. This goal, which unites all of these ideals, will ultimately be reached. Because of its loftiness many obstacles will have to be overcome, but ultimate victory is guaranteed, for God goes before us and leads us to our complete redemption.
Would You Like One Day or Two?
Rabbi Yirmiyohu Kaganoff | Elul 5768
Making a Beracha before Separating Challah
Rabbi Yirmiyohu Kaganoff | 5772
The Great Cottage Cheese Controversy
Rabbi Yirmiyohu Kaganoff | 5772
