Parsha Pearls: Purim

 Be Killed Rather Than Violate the Oaths
They Can’t Admit Eretz Yisroel is a Dangerous Place
He Who Creates Danger and Then Saves You From It
Following Daas Torah

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We are unfortunately witness to a similar phenomenon today among Jews, many of them religious and some even Torah scholars, who go and settle in the Zionist state, thinking that it is a safe and secure haven, an ideal place to build yeshivos and religious communities in which to raise their families. The terrible danger hovering over Jews in the Holy Land today is obvious and is recognized even by the non-Jewish world. Everyone knows that the State of Israel is the most dangerous place in the world for a Jew to live. Surely, then, wise Jews who have studied the Torah and Talmud should realize this.

But denial of the Zionist idol is the supreme test of our generation, and our entire redemption is hanging in the balance – the Gemara in Sanhedrin 98a states that moshiach will not come until the “low government” is gone from Israel. Admitting that the Zionist state is a place of terrible danger for Jews, and that its army provides no protection but rather puts Jews in even greater danger, involves a certain degree of rejection of the Zionist idolatry, as well as acceptance of the Torah, its principles of reward and punishment, and the words of the prophets. Therefore, although the danger is an objective fact, it is very difficult for many Jews to reach this realization. May G-d help all of us to strengthen our emunah and see the truth!

… This is all the more true in the case of the Zionists, who have brought danger upon Jews and have not really saved the Jews at all. Thousands of Jews have died fighting in their wars, and innocent souls continue to perish all the time, may Hashem have mercy. The danger created by the Zionists is unfortunately still as present as ever! (Al Hageulah V’al Hatemurah, Chapters 38-41)

…This is the meaning of Chazal’s statement (Megillah 7b) that a man must drink until he cannot distinguish between “cursed is Haman” and “blessed is Mordechai.” He must get to the point where he mixes up the words and says “blessed is Haman” and “cursed is Mordechai.” And even then – even when it seems to him that following the gedolei hador will lead to curses for the Jewish people and blessings for its enemies, he must have faith and follow them.

In our times we are witness to a classic example of this. The gedolei hador warned the Jewish people against the Zionist plan to establish a state, quoting the terrifying admonition: “If you keep the oath, good, but if not, I will declare your flesh ownerless like the gazelles and deer of the field” (Kesubos 111a). Yet when the Zionists went ahead and established a state, that tragedy did not materialize. True, the state has brought on a cycle of wars and violence in which 14,000 Jews have lost their lives, and even one lost life is a good enough reason why the state should not have been established. But this is still nothing on the scale of Chazal’s warning.

Today, the gedolei hador instruct us that giving up the state is the only path to safety. The Satmar Rebbe writes in Al Hageulah V’al Hatemurah, siman 44: “Even now, if they were to give up their state and their government, there is no doubt that they would take Hashem’s anger away from the Jewish people… Every minute that they hold on to their power, they are offending the Creator, blessed be He, with violation of the oaths and rebellion against the nations, which the holy Torah has forbidden and for which we have been warned of a severe punishment.” Many people read these words but think they know better. To them, it is obvious that giving up the state today would place the Jewish people in danger.

The Purim story teaches us that we must have emunas chachamim. What the chachamim say is dangerous is dangerous, and what they say is safe is safe, even if it looks to us otherwise. When we keep to the terms of the exile in which Hashem placed us, we are under His protection, but when we violate those terms, we are vulnerable.

Tags: Elieser Aschkenasi*  Maharal von Prag * Joel Teitelbaum * Zionist Entity

Parsha Pearls: Purim – Torah Jews