|
Chapter 17 -- Establishment of the State of Israel
On the 5th of Iyyar, 5708 (May 15th 1948), when the State of Israel was declared, they came to tell our master, may his merit protect us. It is told that they had never before seen such an outwardly emotional expression on his face as he would normally keep everything concealed inside. However, when they informed him of the announcement, they recognized great excitement on his holy face, and he said "Indeed, I felt something of the feeling of Yom Tov."
Rabbi Menachem Edelstein, zt"l reported that our holy Rabbi said then that this is "atchalta d'geulah" (the begninning of the process of redmeption). He said that the founding of the State will never again be nullified until the coming of our righteous Mashiach. He also said: if it weren't for the establishment of the state, many from among the Jewish people in the diaspora would assimilate, and Am Yisrael would lose even more children than what Hitler (may his name be blotted out) succeeded to destroy; however, through the establishment of the state, many in the world are rising up to maintain their Jewish identity at any price and not assimilating.
And in truth it is known that already at the time of the First World War, when the gentiles of Poland began to cruelly pluck elderly Jews from the streets of Warsaw, our holy Rabbi was already saying that this is a sign from Hashem that the Jews need to entertain the idea of migrating to the Holy Land of Israel.
We can say clearly: the great happiness of our Rabbi wasn't due to the external act of declaration (of independence) or to the external matter of physical sovereignity over a piece of territory, but rather from the fact that here there is an awakening and sign on Hashem's part to bring our redemption closer, namely to bring us closer to Him, to hasten the Godly revelation amidst the Nation. For this purpose we are obligated to correct ourselves, and to establish a regime that will be based on Torah and Mitzvot, namely on faith and love of our fellow.
We understand from what he wrote in the introduction to "Panim Me'irot": "The matter of the redemption, and the coming of the Mashiach who awaits us, speedily in our days amen, this is a matter of the ultimate heights of complete perception and knowledge (of the Divine), as it is written, 'and a man will no longer teach his neighbor to know G-d because everyone will know Me from the great to the small.'; but rather with complete knowledge will come the complete bodies, as it is written in the book of Isaiah (75): 'One who dies at the age of 100 years old will be called a youth.' And when the children of Israel will be complete with perfect knowledge, the wellsprings of widsom and knowledge will increase on the borders of Israel and will flow out to all the nations of the world, as it is written (Isaiah 11): 'The whole world will be filled with the knowledge of Hashem.' And as it is written: 'they will stream to Hashem and to his goodness.' And this increase of knowledge is a matter of the expansion of the kingdom of the Mashiach over the nations, to the exclusion of the physically crude multitude, whose imagination only clings to the power of the fist, and who therefore imagines the expansion of the Kingdom of Israel to be a physical one over the Nations for the purpose of claiming a just reward and in order to pride themselves over all other living beings; and what can I do to them if Chazal already rejected all of them and those like them from the community of Hashem, in saying 'one with pride, says the Holy One Blessed be He, cannot dwell with me in a single dwelling."
* * *
In spirituality, the time of giving is separate from the time of receiving
He also wrote (in the "Ma'amar L'Siyum HaZohar"): It should be known that spiritual matters are not like material matters, where the giving and receiving come together. In spirituality, the time of giving is separate from the time of receiving. At first, something is given from Hashem to the receiver, and this only gives him the opportunity to receive, but he hasn't yet received anything until he will sanctify and purify himself appropriately, and then he will merit to receive the thing. And much time can pass from the time of giving until the time of receiving. Accordingly, this generation has already arrived to what is written, "and fill the land with knowledge of Hashem," etc. but this is from the aspect of giving only. The aspect of receiving certainly hasn't yet arrived. Only when we will be purified and sanctified and we will learn and arrive at the desired measure, then the time of reception will arrive, and what is written will be established, that the land will be filled with knowledge of Hashem.
It should be known that the redemption and the perfect perception (of the Divine) are close to one another, and the proof is that everyone who is drawn to the secrets of the Torah is drawn to the Land of Israel; and we are not assured that "the land will be filled with knowledge of Hashem" except at the end of days, namely, at the time of the redemption.
And thus, like the case of perfected perception, we have not yet merited the time of receiving but rather the time of giving only, by the strength of which we were given an opportunity to come to perfect perception. This is also the matter of the redemption which we have not merited to receive, though it has been given. Because the fact is that the Holy One, blessed be He, has taken our Holy Land out of the hands of foreigners and returned it to us, and with all that we still haven't received the Land into our domain, because the time of reception has not yet arrived....as we still do not have economic independence, and there is no national independence without economic independence.
And beyond this, there is no redemption of the body without redemption of the soul, and most of those in the Land are held captive by the alien cultures of the nations and they do not appear ready for the religion of Israel and the culture of Israel, as their bodies are also held captive by foreign powers. And from this perspective, the land is still found in the hands of foreigners. The proof is that no one is excited at all about the redemption, as it should be at the time of redemption after two thousand years. And not only that, but those still in exile make no effort to come to us and to enjoy the redemption, but rather a large segment of those who were redeemed and already dwell amongst us, yearn to annul this redemption and to return to the lands of their dispersal.
Even though the Holy One, Blessed be He, took the land out of the control of the nations and gave it to us, we still have not received it, and we are not taking pleasure from it. Rather, the Holy One, Blessed be He, gave us the opportunity for redemption, namely to purify ourselves and sanctify ourselves and to receive upon ourselves the service of G-d in Torah and in Mitzvot for their own sake, and then He will build the Holy Temple and we will receive the Land under our control. Then we will sense and feel the redemption with happiness. But as long as we don't come to this, nothing will change, and there is no difference between the customs of the land now, and when it was still under control of foreigners. This applies to justice, to economics, and to the service of G-d. We have nothing but the opportunity for redemption.
What comes from our words, is that our generation is the generation of the days of Mashiach. And thus we have merited the redemption of our holy land from the hands of the foreigners. We have also merited to see the book of the Zohar revealed, as this is the beginning of what is written "and the land shall be filled with knowledge of Hashem, etc." And "a man will no longer teach his neighbor the knowledge of Hashem, because all of you will know Me from the small to the great." But with these two things we have merited only from the aspect of giving from the Holy One, Blessed be He, but we have not yet received anything in our hands, but rather we have been given the opportunity in this to begin the service of G-d, to occupy ourselves in Torah and Mitzvot for their own sake, from which we will merit to a great success as was promised to the generation of Mashiach, something all the generations before us did not know. And then we will merit to the time of the reception of both of these: perfect perception and the complete redemption."
Batsheva Reichbard (Rabbi Yehuda Ashlag's daughter) wrote in her book: "When my father heard of the arguments over the drafting of the declaration of independence, that many of those assembled didn't want to include the name of G-d in this declaration, he said that with this they caused tremendous damage, because there is no greater blemish than the desire to establish the State of Israel without G-d."
* * *
War of Independence
From the book of Rabbi Zalman Lemberg, Rabbi Ashlag's attendant: "The atmosphere in the Rabbi's Beis Midrash was such that the talmidim grasped with complete knowledge that his greatness was not less than the greatness of the Holy Ar"i. So great was the estimation of his greatness that they were greatly afraid of him with an awe of his exaltedness, as is familiar from the Holy book of the Zohar and in books of Chassidus. His talmidim knew that he guided the world, from the aspect of "the righteous decree and the Holy One, blessed be He, makes it so." For example, what he said in the midst of the (Israeli) War of Independence which caused the gentiles to leave Jerusalem.
In the days of the War of Independence, from day to day he would sit with his talmidim with a map of the land of Israel on the table, and he would show them exactly where the war would settle, where they would enter. Once he said that a particular place was not good. Rabbi Moshe Baruch Lemberg asked him if he should go and inform Ben Gurion, and he replied that there was no need, that they already new for themselves, and what needs to be will be. And indeed, as he predicted, so it was. And so from day to day our master would hint or tell explicitly what the next step in the war would be, and so it would occur exactly. And his chasidim understood that every step of the war would occur to their Rabbi internally, and the progression of his internal war directly influenced the external war.
..."'Do not be surprised by this, that the deeds of a private man can cause the world to rise of descend. Because this is the law, it shall not be violated, whereby the specific and the general are similar like two drops of water, and everything that occurs generally also occurs personally. And even more so, the specifics make up the generality. Because the general will not be revealed except after the specifics within it are revealed, according to the measure and value of the specifics. And certainly the private actions according their value, lower or raise the entire generality.'
"It was a specific situation during the War of Independence, during which there was a possibility to go to the Old City and attempt to conquer it, and really the soldiers of Israel tried to do this. Our holy Master said that nothing would help, because the time had not yet arrived for this. And so it was."
It is also told that in the days of the War of Independence there was much shelling. His talmidim asked him: when will the wave of shelling cease? He replied: At the moment when the read in the haftarah the verse "And the children of Ammon were brought to submission by the children of Israel." On the Shabbos of parashas Hukas, when we read this verse, the shelling increased considerably, and when that (specific) verse was read, the shelling ceased.
Rabbi Shalom Baruch Ashlag zt"l, the son of the Ba'al Hasulam, told: "When they conquered the Negev during the War of Independence, my father was very happy. I asked him why he was so happy, and he replied that now Jews will return to settle the Negev. I asked him: 'But, there isn't any water there!?' (the national water carrier had not yet been built.) My father replied: 'When Jews will go to live there, and will pray for rain, then rain will fall.' I asked further: 'But the Jews who will go to settle there are not religious!?' And he answered me: 'What the mouth says is not called prayer; prayer is called the demands of the heart.'"
from the book- The Sulam by rabbie Avraham mordechai gotllieb |
More info.
