Rabbi Kahane: Yom Kippur

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http://rabbikahane.wordpress.com/2010/08/30/yom-kippur-mission-of-the-prophet-in-these-times-as-well/

Yom Kippur: Mission of the Prophet – in These Times as Well

On Yom Kippur it is the custom to read the Book of Jonah during the Mincha service, since the repentance done by the people of Ninve is supposed to awaken us on the current Day of Atonement. Many people forget, however, that before Jonah even arrived at Ninve to prophesize, he underwent an experience that carries for us an important example for today and for Yom Kippur as well.

The sages tell us that there are several types of prophets who are obligated to receive the death penalty. One of these is the prophet who “suppresses his prophecy”. That is, he has received a prophetic vision and is commanded to reveal it, but refuses to do so. Jonah came dangerously close to falling into such a category – fleeing the Land of Israel so that the “Divine Presence” will no longer rest upon him, and thus no longer be able to carry G-d’s message. The sages tell us that all this stemmed from Jonah’s love for the Jewish People. Jonah knew that the gentiles of Ninve would heed his call to repentance. Consequently, this might awaken the wrath of G-d against the Jewish People, since they, in contrast to the gentiles of Ninve, did not heed the words of the prophets and repent. He therefore chose to flee from his obligation to warn the people of Ninve, lest they “show up” the Jews.

Despite this love, and despite all his good intentions, Jonah was wrong. The role of the prophet is to speak the word of G-d, whether the message finds favor in his eyes or not, or if saying it endangers his life. It is irrelevant whether or not he has the most seemingly logical justifications for NOT saying the message. Speaking the truth can be very difficult, as Rabbi Kahane, HY”D, in his last article in the “Jewish Press” wrote, “You think it is pleasant to speak painful truths that cause pain to those who refuse to listen and who then react with pain and hate against the one who speaks? You think it is easy to be the messenger that brings forth the reaction, ‘Kill the messenger?’”

What this means is quite simple. A Jew who elevates himself to the level of a prophet has established a very special connection to G-d. But it is not enough. For a prophet to be a prophet, he must go out to the people and speak the word of G-d. Rabbi Kahane would convey this principle by quoting Eliyahu in Kings 1, chapter 10: “I am left all alone as Hashem’s prophet”. The Rav asked: Was it really so? Was Eliyahu the only prophet not killed by Achav and Izevel? What about the 100 prophets mentioned only a few verses before that were hidden in a cave? The Rav would explain by saying that Eliyahu was teaching a tremendous lesson for all to learn: A prophet hiding in a closet is not a prophet! The whole point of a prophet is to go out to the people and speak the truth without fear. Eliyahu WAS the only prophet around because he was out there fearlessly chastising the Jewish People at the time. Thus, Jonah, regardless of the reason he had, betrayed his special mission.

This is a vital lesson of Yom Kippur, for all the “Bnei Torah” and “Bnei Yeshiva” and rabbis who are also in a certain sense leaders or prophets of the generation. So many choose to sit quietly, afraid to attack the Hellenistic left and thus save the Jewish State from them. All these years they have refused out of fear to state the simple “Halacha” and real solution to the basic and burning Yishmaelite problem – whose status is so obvious according to Torah law that no honest rabbi could differ with it. The problem is that in public, everyone is suddenly silent. All these leaders are in a sense “prophets who withhold their prophecy” – for they know the Divine truth yet refrain from saying it. How we are now suffering from this silence!

May it be G-d’s will that on Yom Kippur the first to repent will be those who are supposed to be the spiritual leaders of the nation. May they warn and chastise the Jewish People and no longer become a partner to the sins of the generation by way of their silence, and as a consequence, the Jewish People will repent and bring the Redemption.

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Repentance as a Nation: The Key to Redemption – Rabbi Meir Kahane
September 12, 2013 at 1:18pm
“If you follow My statutes... I will bring peace in the Land... and if you do not listen to Me... I will bring upon you disaster” (Lev. 26:14, 16)
The Torah is Israel's strength. When they guard it, G-d strengthens them to overcome the nations, and only through that strength do the nations recognize Israel's might and submit to them peacefully. Now, dear friend, heed a great principle for our age, when the Messiah's footsteps are so near. Place it over your eyes and heart – perhaps G-d will have mercy. The period in which Gog goes forth to war against Israel will be a terrible time of fear and dread on earth. If Israel are unworthy of redemption “in haste”, redemption devoid of terrible Messianic birthpangs, G-d in His great mercy, will try to delay, so as to avoid bringing the world redemption “ in its time”. Like a merciful father, G-d extends His deadline again and again in hopes of His children repenting and returning to Him, so that He, in turn, can return to them instantaneously, in glory and majesty.
Ponder my words well. Perhaps they will influence your emotions and understanding, dear reader, to hurry and cry out to our people, to tell them how to save themselves from awful, avoidable suffering. G-d said, “Oh that my people would hearken to Me and Israel walk in My ways – I would soon subdue their enemies” (Ps. 81:14-15). I have already explained that if Israel would only listen to G-d, He would bring redemption literally in a moment, for He is ready to take revenge on Gog and the nations instantaneously. G-d also said, “Oh that you had hearkened to My mitzvot! Your peace would then be like a river” (Isaiah 48:18) Avodah Zarah 5a teaches, “If only [hebr. 'im'] you would follow My statutes (Lev. 26:3): 'Im' can only connote supplication. It thus says, “Oh that My people would hearken to Me” and, “Oh that you had hearkened to My mitzvot!” G-d entreats Israel, so to speak, to repent and do acts of self-sacrifice, for only this will prove their faith and trust in G-d – and through such acts G-d will hasten redemption.Our sages said (Torat Kohanim, Bechukotai, Parsheta 1): “If only you would follow My statutes”: This teaches that G-d yearns for Israel to toil in Torah. It likewise says, “Oh that My people would hearken to Me”; “Oh that you had hearkened to My mitzvot!” and, “If only their hearts would remain this way, in awe of Me... for all time, so that it would go well with them and their children forever” (Deut. 5:26).
These verses surely refer to mitzvah observance, yet to bring redemption much more is required. The source continues: 'If only you would follow My statutes”: Might this refer to mitzvah observance? When the verse adds, “And be careful to keep My mitzvot” (Lev. 26:3), that connotes mitzvah observance. What then am I to learn from the first part of the verse? That we must toil in Torah.We learn a major principle here. G-d does not suffice with mere mitzvah observance. Rather, He demands toil, hard labor, even psychological grief. He demands that we keep the difficult mitzvot which require faith and trust in G-d. Generally, these are the chukim, the statutes, which are hard to fathom and which oppose the will of man, who is ensnared by his weak, limited intellect. G-d says, “If you would only follow My statutes.” If we follow the ways of the Torah, even regarding the difficult chukim; if we do not just study them mechanically but engage in difficult, discouraging toil, in faith and trust in G-d, which is what G-d yearns for, then He will bring redemption instantaneously.
G-d fiercely longs to sanctify His name, profaned daily by the nations, but He demands that Israel sanctify His name first through complete and perfect faith and trust in G-d. They must take hold of dangerous, frightening mitzvot which leave them isolated and alone, with the nations opposing them, for only this can prove their real trust in Him. Then, when they have sanctified His name in this way, He will go forth in His wrathful revenge against the nations who profane His name, and will thereby save both Israel and Himself, so to speak.
Thus, complete and perfect deeds of trust in G-d sanctify His name, blot out the terrible chilul Hashem inherently associated with fear of the nations, and pave the way for majestic redemption “in haste”. What, then, are these deeds? I shall enumerate them, dear friend, and you should engrave them on your hearts and proclaim them loudly in the streets to the Jewish People, before G-d's great and awesome punishment visits us, Heaven forbid!
1. Those Jews who dwell in the impure exile, thereby scorning the Pleasant Land and its holiness, profane G-d's name by their very habitation under the yoke and sovereignty of the nations. Through their dependency on the nations, they transform them and their false religion to masters over Israel, to whom Israel must lift their eyes. G-d will not bear this chilul Hashem. He will not tolerate the assimilation and the influence of the alien culture on Israel. These destroy their souls and introduce foreign thoughts into the Jewish People and their Torah.This conquest of Jewish bodies and souls is a chilul Hashem, and also prevents the Jewish People from being a chosen, special people who dwell alone in their holy, special land. G-d, therefore, decreed that Israel had to leave Egypt and go up to Eretz Yisrael, and that otherwise, it would be their burial place.The first exile is an omen for the last. G-d will not give in regarding Israel's scorning the Land. When it comes time for G-d to punish the nations for their sins, raining down upon them His wrath, He will “turn their hearts to hate His people, to scheme against His servants” (Ps. 105:25). All this will be in addition to the tragedy He will unleash upon all Jews who live among the nations, when He takes revenge on the nations for all their sins through the collapse of lands and peoples. G-d's liquidating the exile through Israel's leaving it and going up to Eretz Yisrael is a major part of His removing the chilul Hashem and sanctifying His name.
2. The impoverished regime, whose conception and birth occurred in the alien culture of the nations, and who denies the Torah of Moses, has refused to apply the authority and sovereignty of the people and G-d of Israel upon all parts of Eretz Yisrael for fear of the nations. This constitutes a chilul Hashem, a rebellion against and degradation of the holiness of Eretz Yisrael, large parts of which have remained under the control of the nations. A condition for complete redemption through Kiddush Hashem is control and sovereignty of the G-d and of the people of Israel over all portions of Eretz Yisrael in our hands.
3. For many hundreds of years, Jews lifted their eyes to the Holy Temple, about which was decreed, “Any alien who comes near shall die” (Num. 18:7). Here was the Holy of Holies where only the Kohen Gadol could enter once a year. The presence at this site of impure Ishmaelite heathens who wholeheartedly hate the Jewish People is blasphemy. The impoverished regime is handing over to the impure Ishmaelites ownership and authority over the Temple Mount and simultaneously preventing G-d's people, Israel, from ascending to the permissible places. Let all ears be spared hearing about this! For this shall Zion sit in sackcloth, in somber mourning. Could any chilul Hashem be more severe, more degrading? What can one say, knowing that the cause of all this is the heretics' fear of the nations and absolute lack of trust in G-d? Israel are turning the Divine blessing and kindness associated with the beginning of redemption, which are a Kiddush Hashem, into an unprecedented nightmare, a sordid, abominable chilul Hashem. G-d's wrath looms over us, and woe to the insult to our holy mountain! We bear a holy duty to remove the cursed Ishmaelites from the site of our Temple and to remove the disgrace of their mosques which daily anger G-d, if we hope to save our souls from the day of wrath.
4. The call of the hour is to “drive out all the Land's inhabitants” (Num. 33:52). Woe to us for having dealt treacherously with the Land and it's owner, G-d! Through our fear of the nations, we have refused to conquer the Land by banishing the enemies and revilers of Israel, the lowly Ishmaelites. How much innocent blood has been spilled in the Holy Land through murderers being allowed to remain in it!
G-d is imploring us, His beloved, chosen sons, to agree to accept what He desires to give us. The Messiah is knocking at our door, his footsteps can be heard in the streets, and the voice of the G-d of Israel calls: “Return to Me – the word of the L-rd of hosts – and I will return to you” (Zechariah 1:3). Hasten! Hurry! In glory! Today! At this very moment! “Today, if you hearken to His voice!” (Ps. 95:7). Yet if, G-d forbid, we miss our chance, and the moment arrives from which there is no turning back; if, Heaven forbid, G-d brings the last stage of redemption “in its time”, with Messianic birthpangs and tragedies the likes of which we have never known, then it will come, suddenly, out of the blue.
This is the choice, the only choice. All the rest is worthless and of no avail. Time is running out. The decision is in our hands.
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Compiled by Tzipora Liron-Pinner from 'The Jewish Idea' of Rav Meir Kahane, HY"D

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http://rabbikahane.wordpress.com/2010/08/30/yom-kippur-next-year-in-jerusalem-maybe/

Yom Kippur: Next Year in Jerusalem, Maybe
Posted on August 30, 2010    by rabbikahane
The synagogue if filled from end to end.  Every seat is reserved, every inch of space taken up.  The Yom Kippur Neila service is drawing to an end.  A day of repentance, prayer and charity fades to a close.  A congregation, elevated for a day at least, watches as the Shofar is raised and a long clear, vibrant blast fills the hall.  Five hundred voices cry out spontaneously –

L’Shana Ha’Ba’ah B’ Yerusalayim!  “Next year in Jerusalem!”

The crowd files out to begin yet another year of bitter exile amidst television and Miami Beach.

The synagogue is dark and hushed.  A few candles flutter in the corners, their flickering flames lighting the pained and saddened faces of the congregation sitting on low benches waiting for the Tisha B’Av services to begin and the mournful tune of the Eycha – Lamentations – rises softly, punctuated by the sobs of the mourners for Zion.  Every mind is shattered as the picture of the beloved homeland, bereft of its children, comes to mind.  Every pious Jew sitting in the room sighs and dreams of the day – may it soon come – when G-d will allow him to, once again, kiss the soil of the homeland – courtesy of a three-weeks American Jewish Congress guided tour, and then back home again to the painful fleshpots.

The dream of settling in Israel is a basic part of the Jewish faith.  It is an obligation but it is more than that:  “It is a dream.  How many seas would the tears of our ancestors have filled as they wept for the privilege of returning to Zion?  How piercing would have been the totality of their cries as they prayed to the yoke of nations and bring us upright to our land!”

Who can begin to fully quote the letter of the obligatory law to settle in the Land of Israel as expounded by our rabbis and who can adequately describe the acceptance of the spirit of that obligation by our ancestors, the dreamers of Zion?  What would they not have given for the opportunity of returning and walking four cubits on its soil?  How they would have flocked to the airports and harbors as the great vision approached fulfillment!

I write this as a traditional, observant Jew.  For myself I have written and spoken and pleaded a thousand times over to all Jews of America to leave and return to Israel – not for religious reasons – but for the elementary need to save their lives.  I believe in the marrow of my bones that the days of the Jew in the Untied States are numbered and that there is coming a storm of physical brutality that portends a holocaust.  What 48 prophets could not convince Jews to do, says the Talmud, Haman’s ring accomplished.  There is a Haman’s ring in the American Jewish future and for the sake of our children and grandchildren the time to evacuate is now.  I have said this and will continue to say this to all Jews.  But, for the observant ones there is another, an added; perhaps, an even more important reason.

Every traditional Jew must take a long and deep look at himself.  He must ask difficult and painful questions.  How is it possible to honestly pray three times a day to the Almighty to restore us to Zion when that restoration is ours at a cost of a few hundred dollars, courtesy of El Al?  What rationalizations can we invent to answer those who question our lamentations for Zion when the Jewish Agency is prepared to grant long-term loans for housing and transportation for those who wish to settle in Israel?  What can hide our shame as we fervently proclaim “Next Year in the Land of Israel” when next year has already come, when the gates of the Holy Land stand open, when the obligation to return can and demands to be fulfilled?

All this has nothing to do with the particular religious Jew’s attitude toward the government or State of Israel.  We speak here, not of political Zionism, but of the original and permanent obligation to go up and settle the Holy Land – an obligation that is clear and binding upon all – from the Mizrachi through the Agudat Israel to Amram Blau and the Neturei Karta.

What kind of Jews are we who profess a Judaism that builds up a dream in ritual and prayer – until it is at the very center of our aspirations – and then make a mockery of it in practice?  Those who are able to return and do not must cease to weep salted tears and put an end to insincere lamentations.  Let us rather admit that we have eaten too long at the fleshpots of galut – exile – and that the bribery of the good life has compromised and blinded us.  When a famous Rosh Yeshiva chided Ben Gurion on the secularism of Israel, the then Prime Minister cunningly replied: “Let the American religious Jews come here and put me out of office.”

He could well afford to be clever for he knew that most would not come.  The Catskills have overshadowed the hills of Jerusalem and the Rockaways conquered the Jordan and the Mediterranean.  Electric appliances have replaced the flame of sacrifice and the television set the Book of Lamentations.  In a sense it is symbolic of a general loss of ability to sacrifice on the part of the American Jew – and the religious one is little different.  It is a sad and dangerous thing.

From the religious point of view there is a double tragedy here.  What power lies in the hands of a dynamic religious immigration!  What a noble impression and Kiddush Hashem – Sanctification of the Name – it would create in the young Israeli mind if religious Jews showed the courage of their convictions!  What a Jewish State could be shaped out of a State of Israel!

Certainly it is difficult; to be sure there would have to be sacrifices in the economic standard of one’s life.  Yes, there is a language barrier and no doubt employment would be a problem for a time and life would not be quite as materially sweet as back home with the good life and the American Nazi Party.  But, since when has a religious Jew assumed that life was made to be sweet and that the Almighty placed him here so as to be comfortable?  Is the excuse of economic difficulty enough to justify, in the religious Jew’s mind, the rationale given him by the non-observant for violating even the rabbinical laws of Sabbath?  Is the Jew who tells us that economic need makes it imperative that his store remain open on the Sabbath since that is by far his busiest day, given dispensation?  Do we calmly accept the decision of people not to send their children to yeshivot because of the economic difficulty involved or do we call upon them to make that sacrifice that is needed for the great commandment of Torah study?

Yet, here, on a question that every authority in the past has conceded is a religious obligation we find the religious Jew ready to join behind the Hadassahs , the ZOA’s and the Bnai Births in their shabby attempts to transform the galut – the exile – of America into such tortured sophistry as “chutz l’aretz” (outside the land).  The very one who girds his loins for battle against all who seek to lighten some other halachic burden now suddenly descends into the intricacies of pilpul to explain that in reality Maimonides believes that the settlement of the land is only a rabbinical injunction (thus “merely” putting it on the same level as eating chicken with milk or doing business on the Sabbath); that one is free of the obligation if there is danger; that there are economic difficulties, ad infinitum.

No argument will blot out the shame of our craven surrender to materialism.  The words we mouth in our daily prayers; the slogans we shout at the conclusion of Yom Kippur and at our Passover Seder all become empty and meaningless words when we have no intention of following them.  It is up to the yeshivot to teach and to emphasize the religious obligation of a Jew to live in the Land of Israel.  It is up to the traditional congregation to take steps to implement it.  Mitzvat Yishuv Eretz Yisroel (the commandment to settle the Land of Israel) becomes more than merely another of the laws.  It becomes a mirror reflecting our weakness and hypocrisies.  Next Tisha B’Av it would do well for us to weep – not for the land but for ourselves.