The Galut Years: HaRav Nachman Kahana on Parashat Mas'ai

BS”D  Parashat Mas’ai  5774 Rabbi Nachman Kahana My personal prayer to our Father in Heaven: Avienu Sh’be’shamayim. You are the essence of perfection, in need of nothing – least of all my counsel, so let these words be for the protocol in my personal file, if for nothing else. Twice in Your world, the earth opened its bowels to ingest the evil wrought by lowly man. While Hevel’s life blood was flowing from the murderous blows of his brother Kayin, and was devoured by the ground, You called out to Kayin (Bereishiet 4,10) מֶה עָשִׂיתָ קוֹל דְּמֵי אָחִיךָ צֹעֲקִים אֵלַי מִן הָאֲדָמָה: What have you done? Your brother’s blood is calling out to me from beneath the ground! And again, when the earth opened to ingest the rebellious Korach, Datan and Aviram who so brazenly challenged Your directives. Today, we are witnessing a reverse phenomenon. On our side of the Gaza border, the earth opens its bowels to release the most evil, vile and sinister dangers to Am Yisrael and the civilized world – the depraved men of Hamas. They have absconded with tens of millions of dollars which were earmarked by European and American donors for food and development and used them for digging deep tunnels – some even 7 stories underground – to penetrate under army bases, settlements, childrens’ kindergartens and kibbutz dining rooms. These tunnels – and there are hundreds of them along the border – are intended to spread terror, murder and kidnapping as a stepping stone to the destruction of the Jewish State. The State of Israel is fighting a battle to protect the civilized part of the world from the murderous Yishmaelic-Islamic non-culture of death. My suggestion is, in fact, not original. It appears in Your holy Tanach. Yishayahu (chapter 24) voiced Your prophetic words concerning the future enemies of Yisrael who will hide in the ground, when he said: יח) וְהָיָה הַנָּס מִקּוֹל הַפַּחַד יִפֹּל אֶל הַפַּחַת וְהָעוֹלֶה מִתּוֹךְ הַפַּחַת יִלָּכֵד בַּפָּח כִּי אֲרֻבּוֹת מִמָּרוֹם נִפְתָּחוּ וַיִּרְעֲשׁוּ מוֹסְדֵי אָרֶץ: יט) רֹעָה הִתְרֹעֲעָה הָאָרֶץ פּוֹר הִתְפּוֹרְרָה אֶרֶץ מוֹט הִתְמוֹטְטָה אָרֶץ: כ) נוֹעַ תָּנוּעַ אֶרֶץ כַּשִּׁכּוֹר וְהִתְנוֹדְדָה כַּמְּלוּנָה וְכָבַד עָלֶיהָ פִּשְׁעָהּ וְנָפְלָה וְלֹא תֹסִיף קוּם: ס כא) וְהָיָה בַּיּוֹם הַהוּא יִפְקֹד יְקֹוָק עַל צְבָא הַמָּרוֹם בַּמָּרוֹם וְעַל מַלְכֵי הָאֲדָמָה עַל הָאֲדָמָה: 18 The one who runs away from the sound of the terror will fall into the pit; the one who climbs out of the pit, will be trapped by the snare. For the floodgates of the heavens are opened up and the foundations of the earth shake. 19 The earth is broken in pieces, the earth is ripped to shreds, the earth shakes violently. 20 The earth will stagger around like a drunk; it will sway back and forth like a hut in a windstorm. Its sin will weigh it down, and it will fall and never get up again. 7 Pachad (fear), and the pachat (pit), and the pach (pitfall, snare), are upon thee, O inhabitant of Ha’Aretz. There are two Gazas: the one above the sands and an equivalent one below. May the upper Gaza meet the underground Gaza, and with it may tens of thousands of our deadliest enemies be destroyed. I see the handsome faces of our holy soldiers who have given their lives for Am Yisrael, and contrast them with the ugly, snarled look of the Hamasnik as he holds a Kalashnikov rifle in one hand and an Arab child in the other for protection. Dear God. We have long believed erroneously that the Germans and their allies had reached the depths of human depravity. However, there is no recorded instance of any of them who sacrificed his life to kill a Jew, while we know that there are thousands of Hamas and other Islamic believers who have and would blow themselves up in a bus or mall in order to kill a Jew. When I see these people, I understand why You saw fit to destroy the generation of Noach and the cities of Sodom and Amora. No one knows better than You that this war is merely a prologue to a much bigger world war. There is no way to prevent it from happening. The Islamists who don’t actually believe that You exist, use You as a weapon in their compulsive drive for world conquest. I conclude with a fervent prayer to You, our Father in Heaven, that Your miracles continue to protect Your children in Eretz Yisrael. And that You open the eyes and the consciences of your children still in the galut to come home where they will be under the protective wing of Your holy Sh’china. (The Galut Years) This Shabbat we will conclude the reading of the Book of Bamidbar. The fourth book of the Chumash begins in the second year of our sojourn in the desert and concludes 39 years later with the proud Jewish nation standing on the eastern bank of the Jordan River, waiting to enter the Promised Land. There is total blackout of the 38 intervening years of our sojourn in the desert. The message is that life in the galut is enclosed by parentheses, because they are really not an essential part of the God-Jew dialogue. Also, those 38 years were years of sadness and mourning when 16,000 men would die every Tisha Be’Av. Not very different from the sadness and mourning our people have experienced in the 2000 years of our galut. This lesson has yet to be learned by the vast majority of even religious Jews in the galut. In contrast, the Jews of France and other countries of Europe are beginning to sense that something is amiss. Shabbat Shalom, Nachman Kahana Copyright © 5774/2014 Nachman Kahana