Saturday, November 17, 2012
Red Alert to Klal Yisrael
11:44 AM | 
Posted by
Rabbi Chaim Coffman |
By Rabbi
Moshe Sternbuch
The
following was written during the war in Gaza, when Eretz Yisrael was under
attack from its enemies.
The Jewish
people are witnessing miracles in Israel. The missiles fired at us have the power
to level buildings, yet miracles took place and we were spared from mass destruction.
Even the most secular newspapers report that there is no way to explain these
events according to natural law.
While the
word "miracle" has been liberally splashed around by the media,
neither the secular nor the religious press grasped the vital message of the
hour. The situation arouses an urgent and critical obligation for each Jew to
ask himself: "Why is Hashem performing these miracles for us? How should I
be conducting myself in these extraordinary times?"
If we do
not deal with these questions immediately this current security crisis could
escalate into the most dangerous period in Jewish history. Hashem performs
miracles for the Jewish people so that we will become more aware of His Presence
in our lives. In recent days, He has made perfectly clear that He alone wields
power in the world and that no missile can harm so much as a hair on the head
of a Jew without His consent. Every rocket has an address that He predetermines,
though the terrorists may believe that they can aim at a particular target.
Miracles
are Hashem's alarm bells, "a red alert" that we must wake up and
become truly conscious of Hashem's hashgachah of our daily lives. If we ignore
these messages and conclude that miracles are just a natural part of living in
Israel, the tables will quickly turn. We will in fact be handed over to natural
law, and the missiles inexplicably will begin to hit their targets with greater
frequency. And that means that the lives of our fellow Jews – our brothers and
sisters living in Israel – are in mortal danger.
We must
learn this lesson from the story of the meraglim (spies). When they returned from
Eretz Yisrael they claimed this land was a place where miracles were apparent
on a daily basis, and therefore an extremely high spiritual level would be
demanded of those who dwelled there. There was no way that Klal Yisrael as a
nation could maintain such a level, and therefore the spies, who were all
Gedolei Yisrael, ruled that the people should not enter the land.
The opinion of the meraglim was brought before
the Sanhedrin and they concurred with their ruling. It may seem, on the
surface, that their reasoning was sound, and logic dictated that it was unwise
to enter Eretz Yisrael. Yet we see from the grave punishment incurred by that generation
that they could not have been further from the truth. What was the mistake in
their reasoning?
The answer
is simple. If Hashem told us to enter Eretz Yisrael, He obviously knew that we
would ascend to the spiritual level necessary for a nation that sees miracles
on a daily basis. For this reason, the claim of the meraglim was heresy, and we
suffer from its bitter consequences to this very day.
In more recent times, Rav Yechiel Yaakov
Weinberg once told Rav Sternbuch about a meeting of secular non-Jewish and
Jewish professors to discuss the authorship of the Torah. Their conclusion was
that while the Torah was far too complex to be man-made, they were not ready to
attribute it to a Divine source that
they knew nothing about. Like the meraglim they perceived the significance of
the Divine influence, but refused to follow through by accepting the full
import of this conclusion.
During the current military operation, we are
facing the very same challenge. Hashem
is sending us a message that we must make real changes in our lives and raise
our level of consciousness of His Presence, to the point where we are worthy of
such supernatural treatment. If we rise to the occasion and raise our level of
emunah as a result of these miracles, then we will pass the nisayon (test), and
it is very likely that Moshiach will arrive shortly.
Chazal
offer us practical advice in this area, and write that reciting a hundred
brachos every day and saying Amen yehei Shmei Rabba has the power to annul
decrees. Reciting Tehillim is important, but we need to make sure that our
tefilah is also said with the proper kavanah. Everyone should take upon
themselves to do something small to raise their level of emunah.
We must consider ourselves warned by the lessons
of our history: If Hashem shows us miracles and we do not respond by
strengthening our emunah, His mercy turns to fury and we are handed over to the
forces of natural law. We dare not speak about what this could lead to, but we
all understand the ruthless nature and implacable hatred of the enemy we face.
Now is the time, while Hasehm continues to
shower His miracles upon us, to recognize His hand in our lives on a national
and individual level, to turn to Him in tefilah and teshuvah, and eagerly watch
the redemption unfold before our eyes.
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2 comments:
I don't understand what it means, "was written during the war in Gaza". Which one?
SZ Jessel
It means it was written during the first Gaza war two years ago, when the Rav spoke about it. Still valid today as it was then
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