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HaRav Yitzchok Hacker shlita Talks About War
The story of the Megillah comes to teach all of the coming generations that what took place is not what we see with our eyes. What actually took place in Iran and everything connected to it is truly not what we see and think. Only with time will we understand why it all came about and how it was all for the best.
We are in the midst of a war. There are those who seek to utilize this situation in order to draft yeshiva students into the army. In the past they also attempted to draw yeshiva students into military service, so how did they prevent this?
HaRav Hacker: I believe that it took place in the war of 5708 when we were faced with the threat of the fedayeen, the incited, bloodthirsty Arab rabble, who circulated among the orchards surrounding Jewish enclaves and murdered. During this period, the army approached the Rav of Ponovezh to supply the yeshiva students with whistles and have them circulate in the neighborhoods of Bnei Brak. If they discerned Arabs of the fedayeen, they were to at least warn the populace by blowing their whistles or have people rally to the defense, but the Ponovezher Rov refused this out of hand, not even as far as to supply students with whistles....
Mass demonstrations are taking place throughout the Western world, this time, for a change, not under the anti-Semitic slogan of "Free Palestine" but rather "Hurray for Bibi." Yes. Throngs of Iranian demonstrators are celebrating, throughout the streets of the major cities of the world, the elimination of the disgusting murderer, Ali Khamenei and the top echelons of his associates. They are praising Netanyahu at the tops of their lungs.
Iranian expatriates who succeeded in fleeing the vicious rule and found sanctuary in Western countries cannot contain their glee at the removal of this abominable creature from the world whose hands are besmirched with the blood of tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of citizens who did not toe the rabid line of his regime.
It seems that whoever viewed these ecstatic cheers should be equally pleased that finally, at long last, there was someone who eliminated this murderer, the one who created the central base of the "axis of evil" in the entire world.
But in the world of today, not everyone exults, and we don't mean just those who were partners to this Iranian demon, such as Hizbullah, Hamas and the Hutities.
This is the second of four articles we plan about HaRav Moshe Feinstein that were first published in 1996, exactly 30 years ago.
This 13th of Adar marked the 40(10)th yahrtzeit of the legendary gaon and tzaddik, the poseik hador, HaRav Moshe Feinstein zt'l.
Not To Forget
Reb Moshe taught that in order to be sure that one not forget what he has learned, he has to realize the chashivus of what he learned. A person does not forget what is choshuv to him.
Many people remember well the first half of the posuk, Torah tzivo lonu Moshe, which teaches us that the entire Torah shebichsav veshebe'alpeh is from Moshe from Sinai, implying that it's all from Hakodosh Boruch Hu and that it is true. It is, however, equally important to remember the second part of the posuk which says that the Torah is a yerusha to the family of Yaakov.
How precious is a yerusha! If we realize how dear it is to Klal Yisroel it would be easy to remember it.
HaRav Shmuel Birnbaum zt"l, the Mir rosh yeshiva in Brooklyn, once paid a visit to Reb Moshe on the lower East Side. He had to discuss a matter concerning the klal.
Rain and Kinneret Watch by Dei'ah
Vedibur Staff
Our weekly report of the rain and the level of the Kineret
- Winter, 5786.
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Opinion & Comment
The Role of a Ben Yeshiva: A Shmuess for Parshas Vayakheil
By HaRav Sholom Schwadron zt'l
Where are You Coming From?
The posuk (Shemos 35:1) says, "And Moshe congregated the entire community of bnei Yisroel . . . " Later on (posuk 20), when Moshe Rabbenu had finished speaking to them, the posuk says, "And the entire community of bnei Yisroel left Moshe's presence." The gaon and tzaddik HaRav Eliyohu Lopian zt'l, asked why, since the Torah has already told us that the entire congregation gathered before Moshe Rabbenu, is it necessary to tell us again that it was the entire congregation that left him. What does this apparent redundancy come to teach us?
When discussing this parsha (which in an ordinary year is usually read right at the end of the yeshivos' winter zeman), HaRav Lopian used to say that if one sees someone in the street swaying back and forth and unable to walk in a straight line, it is clear that the fellow has come out of a tavern where he drunk too much liquor.
Lehavdil, when a bochur leaves yeshiva at the end of a zeman, it should be just as clear to everyone who sees him that he has come from yeshiva. It should be possible to see that he has spent the past months ascending in Torah, in yiras Shomayim, and in fine character traits.
This is why the posuk stresses that "the entire community left Moshe." After they had all come to him and he had repeated to them the parsha concerning the construction of the mishkan, they left with the holiness that had rested upon each one of them recognizable. One could see that they had just left Moshe Rabbenu's presence!
When a bochur leaves yeshiva and goes home, said HaRav Lopian, the luminescence that comes to rest upon him in yeshiva has to be noticeable in his conduct at home and elsewhere!
A Staggering Influence
The gemora in Yoma (86), relates that Rabbi Ma'asyo ben Chorosh asked Rabbi Elozor ben Azarya in Rome, "Have you heard the four categories of atonement which Rabbi Yishmoel expounded?" The latter replied that there are really only three categories, each of which has to be accompanied by teshuvah. If a person transgresses a positive commandment and he repents, he is forgiven immediately, as the posuk (Yirmiyohu 3:14) says, "Return wayward sons" [Rashi -- and "I will heal their waywardness" immediately (Hoshea 14:5)]. If he transgressed a negative commandment and he repents, teshuvah puts punishment into abeyance and Yom Kippur atones . . . however, if someone has caused the profanation of Hashem's name, teshuvah alone cannot hold the punishment in abeyance, nor can Yom Kippur atone, nor can suffering wipe out his sin. The three of them together can [only] hold off punishment, and the person's death atones, as the posuk (Yeshaya 22:14 says, [I swear] "that this sin will not be atoned for [with exile], until you die" . . .
Opinion & Comment
What the Turks Should Teach Egged
by B. Kahn
What some members of the secular public in Israel don't understand, has been understood a long time ago abroad, especially in Moslem countries.
Last week, the Israeli media was aghast about the news of a bus with separate seating which Egged began to operate between Ashdod and Bnei Brak.
The line operated for one day, and was canceled immediately, after Egged was intimidated by the tremendous pressure of the leftists and the senior officials of the Transportation Ministry, among them Minister Yitzchok Mordechai (who claims he is traditional). But what the secular leaders in Israel don't understand, people in other countries understand quite well. Newspapers reported last week that some Turkish citizens hailed the separate seating in the Israeli busses.
According to Ma'ariv "the Foreign Affairs Ministry received a telegram which said that the separate seating on the busses is being hailed in Turkey, and one of the papers even gave the news a headline spread across the entire page. This paper, which is generally anti-Israeli...stressed that this time, Israel has adopted a considerate and sensitive approach to religious demands."
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