Parashat Re’eh and Shoftim 5782
By HaRav Nachman Kahana
At the quickly approaching new year 5783, we all are apprehensive at what might be in store for world Jewry and Medinat Yisrael: global anti-Semitism, Islamic hatred, the flip-flop policies of the US, and more.
It is my fervent belief that during this coming year we will witness a meaningful advance in our destiny to the final geula and the restoration of our classic Torah-centered society in the Holy Land.
As the day for signing the agreement with the false, cunning, deceptive, fraudulent, Islamic Republic of Iran approaches, there is a feeling of apprehensiveness in the air. Our political and military leaders are uneasy at the pettiness that the US displays at the stated threat by Iran to nuke the State of Israel.
Evil’s Destruction
In last week’s parasha, Re’eh, the age-old, ethical-philosophic problem of defining right and wrong and what is good and what is bad is unequivocally and unambiguously resolved:
See (acknowledge), I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse; The blessing if you obey the commands of the LORD your God that I am giving you today; and the curse if you disobey the commands of the LORD your God and turn from the way that I command you today to follow false deities which you have not known.
“Good” is defined as “the commands of the Lord your God,” and “bad” is the negation of those commands. I suggest a corollary to this definition of good vs. bad. Any act that benefits the Jewish people is “good”; an anti-Semitic act is “bad”. Any act that supports what the Torah (Bible) says is good; an anti-Bible one is bad. An activity or resolution intended to foster the Jewish people’s return to all the lands as promised in the Torah is “good”; an act intended to distance the Jewish people from re-establishing our sovereignty over the Holy Land is, by definition, “bad”. Any person or nation that supports “bad” acts or policies is by definition “bad”.
During the last several years, we have been witnessing the sudden and dramatic downfall of many evil anti-Jewish, anti-Israel leaders – many of them by the hand of their equally evil citizens. It makes for fascinating news.
The Torah states (Bereishiet 25:16)
אלה הם בני ישמעאל ואלה שמתם בחצריהם ובטירתם שנים עשר נשיאם לאמתם
These were the sons of Yishmael, and these are the names of the twelve tribal rulers according to their settlements and camps.
Yishmael’s rise to power was through his twelve children, each of whom ascended the throne of some country in the area of Eretz Yisrael.
We are witnessing today the dramatic and, in historical terms, “sudden” inability of twelve hostile and malevolent Yishmaelic states to engage Israel in military aggression. Iraq and Syria are cannibalizing their own people. Egypt is a bankrupt state with one million more mouths to feed every eight months. Lebanon is a bad joke. Jordan depends on the hundred million cubits of water that we supply them every year. Yemen is bleeding to death. Saudi Arabia, Libya, Algeria, Turkey and Morocco are each in turn vying to enter into agreements with Israel. And very shortly, Iran/Persia as the twelfth hostile and malevolent Yishmaelic state will go the way of Achashverosh and Haman. How HaShem will do it makes for fascinating theories.
It has all the trappings of a Divine production where HaShem, as the ultimate playwright, brings the global audience to the edge of their seats in eager anticipation of the next scene.
However, moving as these events appear to be on the front pages of newspapers and on TV screens, they are only the shadow of what is actually transpiring. The real story is as follows.
The prophet Yeshayahu says (24-21,22):
והיה ביום ההוא יפקד ה’ על צבא המרום במרום ועל מלכי האדמה על האדמה; ואספו אספה אסיר על בור וסגרו על מסגר ומרב ימים יפקדו
In that day the LORD will punish the powers in the heavens and the kings on the earth below. They will be herded together like prisoners bound in a dungeon; they will be shut up in prison and be punished after many days.
The 12th-century renowned Bible commentator, RaDaK (Rabbi David Kimchi of Narvona, France) echoes earlier sources (including the Zohar, midrashim and many more) that prior to HaShem’s destruction of evil leaders and evil nations, He destroys the heavenly spiritual forces that empower those entities (guardian angels, if you wish).
In chapter 7 of the Book of Daniel, it is recorded (in Aramaic):
In the first year of Belshazzar King of Babylon, Daniel had a dream and visions passed through his mind as he was lying in bed. He wrote down the substance of his dream.
Daniel said: “In my vision at night, I looked and there before me were the four winds of heaven churning up the great sea. Four great beasts, each different from the others, came up out of the sea. The first was like a lion and it had the wings of an eagle. I watched until its wings were torn off and it was lifted from the ground so that it stood on two feet like a human being, and the mind of a human was given to it.
And there before me was a second beast, which looked like a bear. It was raised up on one of its sides, and it had three ribs in its mouth between its teeth. It was told, ‘Get up and eat your fill of flesh!’
After that, I looked and there before me was another beast, one that looked like a leopard. And on its back, it had four wings like those of a bird. This beast had four heads, and it was given authority to rule.
After that, in my vision at night, I looked and there before me was a fourth beast terrifying and frightening and very powerful. It had large iron teeth; it crushed and devoured its victims and trampled underfoot whatever was left. It was different from all the former beasts, and it had ten horns…
As I looked, thrones were set in place, and the Ancient of Days (HaShem) took His seat. His clothing was as white as snow; the hair of His head was white like wool. His throne was flaming with fire, and its wheels were all ablaze. A river of fire was flowing, coming out from before Him. Thousands upon thousands attended Him; ten thousand times ten thousand stood before Him. The court was seated, and the books were opened…
Then I continued to watch because of the boastful words the horn was speaking. I kept looking until the beast was slain, and its body destroyed and thrown into the blazing fire.
Avraham Ibn Ezra, in his commentary to the Book of Daniel, explains the meaning behind the dream.
The fearfully strange animals refer to the descendants of Yishmael. And Ibn Ezra writes:
אגלה קצת סוד המלאכים הקדושים לאשר יבינו: והנה ראה כי השם יעשה משפט וישפוט כל הארץ והספרים יהיו פתוחים לפניו כדרך מספרך אשר כתבת ויכתב בספר זכרון לפניו ועם דבר המלאכים אדבר על זה והנה פירש שראה די קטלת חיותא שתאבד כל מלכות ישמעאל רגע אחד בימים מועטים
I will reveal a little of the secrets surrounding the heavenly angels. HaShem will make judgment on the world. The great books that recall all human actions will be open before Him. And an angel revealed to me that Daniel was shown how, in future times, HaShem will destroy Yishmael in a very short period of time.
The Islamic cry of praise of “AlaHu Akbar” for their fictitious god, when beheading someone unfortunate enough to fall into their hands, is the absolute negation of what a human being was created for. The leaders of Islam, beginning with the illiterate Muhammad, use what they call “ala” to further their political-military interests as a soldier uses a weapon.
The time will eventually come when the descendants of Yishmael, who have sown and reaped so much evil over these many centuries, will pass from the world.
May we merit to see it speedily in our time.
With Authority Comes Responsibility
A parent must be an example to his children; a rabbi to his community; a mayor towards his city, and a president to his nation. A nation that deems itself to be the world’s leader must certainly maintain high ethical principles. So, let’s go “beyond the horizon” to discover why the United States is in the downward spiral in which it now finds itself.
Like everything else in this material world, earthquakes have a scientific explanation, while the real reasons are to be found in the spiritual world.
The Talmud Yerushalmi (end of chapter 1 of Berachot) states that one of the causes of earthquakes is homosexuality. That is, as a reaction to human beings’ unnatural patterns of behavior, the earth reacts in an extremely unnatural way.
There are an increasing number of states in the US that have approved, or are in the process of approving, same sex marriages – the latest one being New York.
A seismograph or Richter Scale can tell us the magnitude of an earthquake, but only the Torah traditions are able to inform us of the magnitude of HaShem’s wrath caused by human misbehavior.
The other misfortune to have fallen on the United States, as the leader of the western world, is the economic downturn. The economic indicators can measure the severity of the catastrophe and can even explain what brought it about in economic terms (such as housing mortgages, etc.), but that again is the superficial appearance of what is really causing the misery.
As I have previously written, it is happening because the US is the world’s leader in pressuring the Jewish people to refrain from building and developing the lands promised to us by the Creator. The misery will continue and even worsen, if they do not reverse their anti-HaShem policy of tying our hands in Eretz Yisrael.
It is vital for the United States and the western world that this message be brought to the attention of their political movers and shakers. It is even more vital for them than for the people of Israel, because as in the words of Mordechai to Esther when she hesitated to do what was necessary for the survival of the Jewish nation (chapter 4,14):
For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to your royal position for just such a time as this?”
HaShem has brought the United States to the position of a world leader; but if it turns its back on the people of the Bible, we Jews in Eretz Yisrael shall find “relief and deliverance” from wherever HaShem will choose as the western world will decline and fall.
Shabbat Shalom
Nachman Kahana
Copyright © 5782/2022 Nachman Kahana
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