BS"D Bereisheet and Noah 5772
A:
In the wake of the monstrous sin of fratricide, HaShem appeared to Kayin with the horrendous, devastating cry that reverberates to this day in the subconscious of every murderer (Beraisheet 4:10)
קול דמי אחיך צעקים אלי מן האדמה
"... Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground."
"Your brother’s blood", Rashi explains, refers to all the generations which could have been born to Hevel had he not murdered.
From that time on, the decline in individual and societal morality continued unimpeded for the following ten generations until the time of Noach, when HaShem decided that this was not the world He intended to create.
HaShem’s decision to destroy every breathing entity on earth (except for Noach, his immediate family and some chosen species of fauna) was undoubtedly influenced by the collective chorus of the billions of people who could have been born from Hevel. These voices called out from the depths of the ground where Hevel was buried, reverberated before the heavenly throne of justice, together with the voices of the victims of the cumulative sins of the generations demanding divine retribution for what had been perpetrated upon them.
The Creator had no choice but to descend from the Throne of Compassion and ascend the Throne of Harsh Justice to declare that all life would cease to exist after 120 years, if humanity does not change its direction.
Now, if HaShem was responsive to the yet unborn pagan descendants of one man - Hevel, son of Adam and Chava - how much more is HaShem responsive to the unborn offspring of the six million Jews who were murdered by the Germans and their willing allies in the Second World War. To this great chorus of voices, we should add the Jews who were slaughtered in the name of the Church and in the name of Muchammad in the 2000 years of our exile.
How many talmidei chachamim (Torah scholars) could have come forth from these poor murdered souls?
The goyim, in their orgy of murder, abdicated their chance for a better world by murdering the intellectual elite of the Jews in their midst. The hate ridden anti-Semites surrendered their chance for a speedy cure for debilitating diseases such as cancer and diabetes for a better life in all areas. They destroyed millions of God’s chosen people, and in return HaShem is punishing them with the malignant presence of over 20 million backward Moslems in their midst.
The world’s Islamic population is approximately 1.2 billion people or 20% of the world's population. This huge number has produced 7 Nobel Prize winners. The Jewish nation is approximately ten million (after subtracting half the number of Jews in the US who are non-halachic) or about 0.02% of the world's population, but our sons have received, to date, over 130 Nobel Prizes, with ten going to Medinat Yisrael.
The continent of Europe is in decline. It is being dragged down by the PIGS nations - Portugal, Ireland-Italy, Greece and Spain. The voices of all the Jewish souls murdered in the Shoah, and now resting in the earth of those lands, resonate clearly in the shamayim calling for retribution. But not only the voices of the murdered call out to Hashem, but also the voices of their unborn descendants. Retribution is being delayed as long as these nations support and make restitution to the Jewish nation. But they will soon stumble.
The day is not far off when Germany - who has been walking on egg shells in their relations with the Jews - will renounce their special relationship with the State of Israel, and that will signal Europe’s descent into social and financial decay.
The US will be dragged down with it, causing anti-Semitism to raise its ugly head and take control of the public will. At that time - which has all the signs of not being far off - the only thing that will interest the Jews of Europe and the US will not be their homes or cars, but to escape the deluge of gentile hatred and enter the Noach’s Ark of salvation - Medinat Yisrael.
Not all will escape. But those who have "eyes in their head" will leave before the pending Kristallnachts, and will succeed in saving themselves and their loved ones.
B:
The College for National Security is Israel’s most prestigious school for the training of our future military and other security organization leaders. It is here where the participants are trained to thinking "out of the box"; where people who are used to think in terms of "millions" are trained to think in terms of "trillions".
One cannot apply to attend this course. The participants are recommended by their superiors based on mental acumen and accomplishments in their respective fields.
We now have a very close relative presently in the course.
On Monday of this week, the entire course came to the Chazon Yechezkel Synagogue in Jerusalem’s Old City, where I serve as the rabbi.
They were dressed casually. No no one could have guest that among them were high-ranking soldiers, as well as men whose activities will never be revealed. Several wore kippot and others requested kippot. They had very intense looks on their faces, and their questions showed that every detail of my talk was being carefully scrutinized.
It is at times like this and with people like these, where I perceive the great distinction between religious practice and faith.
A religious person is one who goes through all the movements and motions of the halacha. Yet it is possible that he or she possesses little or no faith in HaShem. And the opposite is also true. One can maintain a huge degree of faith in HaShem, yet not practice the do’s and do not’s of the Torah.
Most of the men who were sitting in the bet knesset are not "religious" in the accepted sense; yet each and every one believes in the God of Israel, and has immutable faith in the eternal future of th Jewish people in Medinat Yisrael.
On the other side of the spiritual spectrum, many "religious" Jews in the galut, including well-known rabbinic figures, are halachic practitioners, but they question the miracles occurring in front of their eyes. They have little faith in HaShem’s promise as stated in the words of the prophets that He will return the scattered of Am Yisrael home to Eretz Yisrael. They prefer the warmth and comfort of the galut rather than expose their family and students to the unsure and "dangerous" realities of life in the Holy Land. They are religious but have no faith. There are very many people in the Medina who are not "religious" for a myriad of reasons, but 99% carry in their heart the unexplainable faith that we have miraculously returned home never to be exiled again.
My message to the unique men attending this course was one that they will take with them in the future.
The message was that they come with a broad perspective of Medinat Yisrael from a security, governmental and international point of view, while I come from a Torah perspective. But at the end of the day we will meet at the point of agreement. As with a circle, where the further the two sides deviate from the starting point, they ultimately meet.
I told them that at the end of the course, when the circumstances, details, facts, figures and statistics of the Medina will be evident to them, they will conclude that the establishment of the Medina, its history and development to this very day cannot be understood in rationale political, economic, military and social terms. But are the obvious results of an "Invisible Hand" that hovers over the people in Eretz Yisrael.
I call that hand Hashem, others call it the unique forces of Jewish history, but we will all conclude that the establishment, survival and advancement of the State is unprecedented in human history, and the development of Israel to this day has no logical explanation.
All the men sitting in the bet knesset have total faith in the God of the Jewish nation, though most were not religious practitioners.
I believe that in the eyes of our Father in Heaven, their spiritual level is far, far higher than those who practice the Halacha but without absolute faith in HaShem.
A short story to demonstrate religion without faith:
A man was climbing a high mountain, when night fell and the pouring rain resulted in zero visibility. He slipped and began falling to certain death. Suddenly he put out his hand and grabbed a branch jutting out from the mountainside, and found himself suspended between heaven and earth.
He began to pray or salvation. A thunderous voice emerged from nowhere. "Do you believe in Me?" HaShem asked."I believe with every sinew in my body that You can save me", he answered.
"In that case," thundered the voice, "LET GO!"
The following morning, they found the man dead, hanging from the branch. He had died of hypothermia, when between him and solid ground was a distance of only one meter.
Shabbat Shalom
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