God's love

 "As His creating word calls forth the sun, and summons the light of the world, so has God's love appointed Israel as the bearer of the light of spirit and life, and as the bearer of Torah. O that you would be mindful of such a high task! O that you would allow heart and spirit to be infused by the spirit of the Torah and allow your life, in word and deed, to be but a copy of the contents of this Torah! You would thus surrender yourself to God in love just as He summons you in love." Horeb 628

Soviet subversion model

Soviet subversion model: Demoralization (15-20 years) Destabilization (2-5 years) Crisis (2-6 months) Normalization ("indefinite")

"The main emphasis of the KGB is not in the area of intelligence at all. Only about 15% of time, money, and manpower is spent on espionage and such. The other 85% is a slow process which we call either ideological subversion or active measures ... or psychological warfare."

"As I mentioned before, exposure to true information does not matter anymore. A person who is demoralized is unable to assess true information. The facts tell him nothing, even if I shower him with information, with authentic proof, with documents and pictures. ...he will refuse to believe it... That's the tragedy of the situation of demoralization."

–Yuri Bezmenov [1983], former Soviet agent who defected to Canada.

Seder at KAJ in Washington Heights

they are only concerned with the [well-being of the] body

from the Sentry

Hagaon Rav Yehudah Cohen shlita, Rosh Yeshivas Yakirei Yerushalayim, recently spoke about what is transpiring in the Israeli yeshiva world, he said; “This situation of the corona has confused gevulos olam, ba’avonoseinu harabim. Only one thing is left ‘saru maher min haderech asher tziveesim asu lahem maseichah’ [maseichah in Ivrit is a mask], [the message is] if you have a mask you have everything, if not you have nothing. With this one starts in the morning modeh ani lifanecha, and with this [he says] krias shma al hamitah. This is the aseres hadibros, this is the Torah, the mitzvos, everything. 

What about limud haTorah? ‘Im lo brisi yomam va’laylah chukos shamayim va’aretz lo samti’, without Torah the world has no existence … 

I attended a meeting last week of Roshei Yeshivos in Bnei Brak, together with officials of the Ministry of Health. They said openly; the percent of infection at home is higher than anywhere else… The bocherim are begging and crying; allow us to go [to yeshiva], and they are not listening to them, [they are not permitting them] to go learn…

Rav Chaim of Volozhin writes in Nefesh HaChaim that not only is the existence of the world dependent on learning Torah, but the world’s situation is dependent on the amount and quality of Torah learning in Yisroel. Therefore, if we see that the world is full of sickness and problems, it stems from bittul Torah, for abundance [of good] comes exactly in proportion to Torah learning of the am segulah… 

This they forgot, they are only concerned with the [wellbeing of the] body… Thousands were infected with corona, and Baruch Hashem from tens of thousands of bochurei yeshiva nothing happened from the corona… On the other hand hundreds and thousands of pure souls went lost to aveiros. Who will [be able to] give judgment for this? It’s okay to take care of the body, but what about the neshamos?...

All are busy with the coronavirus, from the morning until late at night. But no one is talking about this; what about the Torah? What about the lomdei HaTorah? How can am Yisroel survive without limud HaTorah?

In Chodesh Adar when it all started, I said to myself, Ribono Shel Olam, thank you, the days of mashiach are coming. And that should have happened. But the Yetzer Harah, who is the Satan, took charge of the entire show. Everything became one issue; how to take more and more care [of the health]. What about the shuls? What about yeshivas? What about shiurim? What about yaldei Yisroel? What about them? The media people are uninterested in these matters, they don’t speak about it…”

One example of spiritual deterioration; a Sephardi bocher, a serious ben-Torah who has already completed all of shas, was forced to go home when his yeshiva closed. At home he had a wayward brother. With the extended time they were spending together, he was negatively influenced and has now gone astray as well.

And now the new “capsulot” system for the yeshivas has been announced for Elul zman. The capsule arrangement is extremely difficult, and last zman a large percent of bocherim left the system mid-zman. In the best case scenario of the new system, an estimated 20% of the bochurei hayeshivas will not have a yeshiva from the onset. 

It is interesting to note that in the capsulot yeshivas the bocherim must wear masks only when davening and learning, and not when in the dining room or dormitory. One wonders if the Ministry of Health has come to an agreement with the virus, and it has promised to stay out of the dining rooms and dormitories, and only when engaged in “dangerous” activities such as devarim shebikedushah one must take precautions. Or perhaps the intended message is; critical matters such as eating and sleeping must be tended to at all costs, however “extras” such as davening and learning can only be done if and when all precautions are taken.   

Rabbi Aaron Samuel Tamares (1869-1931)

A recent post by Alan Brill discusses Rabbi Aaron Samuel Tamares, a 19th century figure who seems like a Torah Im Derech Eretz personality in many respects. Here are some excerpts and a link to the post. Originally, from Grodno, R' Tamares studied at Volozhin. He was a very sensitive person who focused on the dignity of man and the ways of peace. At first R' Tameres joined the Zionist movement when he saw it as a possibility for liberation of Jews but became disillusioned with it when he came to see it as materialistic and violent.

Brill:

"Tameres was the emblematic image of the rabbi who would seek the leniency for the poor widow who cannot afford another chicken or who allowed an elderly Torah reader to not be corrected to save his honor."

"Rabbi Tameres attended the fourth Zionist congress in 1900 and started his slide away from political nationalist Zionism seeing it as just another form of materialist political machinations and self-justifying violence. He became a life-long pacifist preaching that the way of Torah is ethics, peace, humanism, and spiritual growth. According to Tameres, 'for us, the Jewish people, our entire distinctiveness is the Torah and Judaism; the kingdom of the spirit is our state territory.' Tameres called himself 'the sensitive person' who feels the pain of the world.'"

Some quotes from Rabbi  Tamares:

We approved the naturalistic outlook... that it throws the primary blame for war upon the class that holds power. For however much the ugly clay of war may be imbedded in the hearts of the mass of people, yet those who busy themselves with this nice material, moistening and shaping it for their goal and bringing it to completion—these are surely “the ruling classes.”

Regarding Zionism: 

From that point on the children of Israel became “political,” and the Torah became merely a kind of constitution, similar to those constitutions from “cultured nations” that we today know all too well: on paper, drafted and signed, but in practice, the complete opposite. Corruption begets corruption. The corruption of the ethical sense, which followed in the wake of the invasion from without by the spirit of “political nationalism,” soon brought them to request that a king be set over them also, “like all the nations surrounding them.

The Jews remember always that their God is the God of Truth and Justice who shattered the yokes of their oppressors. They must plant deep in their hearts absolute faith in the power of Truth and Justice to triumph finally…this idea, when firmly rooted in their hearts, will itself serve to defend them from all violent and lying persecutors.

Every single human being on the face of this earth was created and endowed by the Lord with the capacity to look after his own life….and to worry about death and perishing; each was created for his own sake. The breath which the Lord breathed into the nostrils of Rueben is for the sake of Rueben. It is for him to live and exist and not be a bloody sacrifice for the sake of someone else.

The culture of creation in the Book of Genesis: Life, tangible life, the life of the blood and the spirit, this is the need which must first be sought. The life and secure existence of the individual: these are the basis of life on this earth; from them all comes, and in them all is included!

This is the implication of “I am the Eternal” that concludes the mandate, “You must love your neighbor as [you love] yourself” (Leviticus 19:18). Look toward the Eternal, toward the Source of all existence, the First Cause, and you become aware that you and your neighbor are equal in God’s eyes; that insight validates the commandment. The power of Torah to incline human beings toward the good derives from its putting us directly in touch with the Creator of all, the Source of goodness and generosity, thus rekindling the spark of our Divine awareness.

Even a cursory examination of the singular purpose our nation is destined to fill, namely, the purpose of spreading Torah, can cause the hypnotic power of nationalism to dissipate, and we can gaze without fear into the eyes of the nations who are so proud of their territories and monarchies.” Since National Territories have been the cause of mass slaughter, a crucial mission of Jews in the world is to prove, by example that a people can survive and thrive without a National Territory. There is an alternative to survival by the sword.

The Jew will always seek to return to Israel and live there; Israel is vital and extant in his memory and in his very veins, it is this Israel which he has preserved in his memory at all times, it is this Israel that he yearns to see with his eyes…. Between this ancient Zionist yearning and the new Zionist yearning lies a chasm of difference, both in theory and in practice, both in the reason for this yearning and in its goals.
The political Zionists yearn for a land upon which our nation shall be “a nation like all other nations”—whereas our people yearn for a land upon which our distinctiveness from all other nations shall be further emphasized…The new Zionism hopes to revive in Zion what ostensibly died in exile: Namely, they wish to create in this Jewish homeland and in the heart of Jews, this coarse feeling of sovereignty, of which they had been divested in exile.

The blog post shares an interview with Everett Gendler, a translator of R' Tamares' writings and a pacifist himself, who explained R' Tamares' encounter with Zionism as follows:

"Later, at age 31, Tamares attended the fourth Zionist Congress in London in 1900 as a delegate. He was appalled to find what he saw not so much as a movement to liberate people but a movement to liberate territory. After a year of silently absorbing this discovery, he found the courage to denounce Zionism publicly because he saw that its goal was to be another European Nationalist Movement, rather than follow the Jewish mission of Torah and ethics. This independence of spirit and his fresh outlook you find throughout his writings."

Full post here:

https://kavvanah.blog/2020/07/26/interview-rabbi-everett-gendlers-translation-of-rabbi-aaron-samuel-tamares/