“K A H A N E”
The magazine of the authentic Jewish IdeaSeptember – October 1987 Elul-Tishrei 5748
VIEWPOINT
5748“If you walk in My statutes and keep My commandments and do them. I will give peace in the land and you shall lie down and none shall make you afraid…
But, if you will not hearken untoMe and will not do all these
commandments… and will set my face against you and you shall be smitten before
your enemies…” (Vaykira, 26)
The litmus test of Jewish religious truth – of the existence of G-d
and the validity of His commandments – lies in the reality of Reward and
Punishment. If there are indeed,Truth
and Falsehood, Good and Evil, then it must be that there will follow in their
wake, Life and Death. The truth of
Judaism rests on the reality that there is a real and Omnipotent G-d who has
given us, who has compelled us to accept a Law of truth and life. Who demands from us obedience and cleaving to
it. Who promises us life and reward if
we do, indeed, follow Him but who just as emphatically, guarantees us terrible
punishment and tragedy if we do not.
The G-d of Israel is not some plastic Santa Claus dispensing only
the goodies we so desire, bestowing the artificial “love” of modern man that
sees Him overlooking every abomination and ignoring every sin and crime in a
Hollywood-Garment center version of a tolerant and live-and-let-live world we
have created so that we can live tranquilly with all the abominations we care
to wallow in. There is Objective
truth and G-d proclaims it. And there is
punishment and tragedy for those who willfully ignore the definite, objective
commandments of G-d.
That is the foundation of a people that stood at Sinai and had the
mountain raised over them as G-d proclaimed: “If you accept My Law, good; and
if not, here shall be your graves.”
As the year 5748 begins, the fortieth year of the State of Israel,
that fateful fortieth year of a period of grace and warning to the Jewish
people to return unto G-d before awesome catastrophes strike, let us thing and
rethink our ways. G-d is not some
plaything created in the image of materialistic man. It is He who has created us and it is
He who has not abdicated His role but who rules and runs the world, whom steers
the ship of the universe.
The State of Israel that rose out of the fires and gases of the
Holocaust, was the result of the Almighty’s fury at the nations who knew Him
not, who rejected with contempt the concept of a G-d of Israel and who, by
their oppression and contempt for the people of G-d showed their contempt and their desecration for the G-d of
Israel. Their contemptuous trampling on
the Jews was a contemptuous trampling on the G-d of the Jews . It was Hillul Hashem – desecration of the
Name – par excellence!
That and not Jewish merit or goodness created a Jewish state after
1900 years. It is not we who deserved
it, but the gentile with his mocking cry, “where is your G-d,” who did. And Jewish tradition makes it clear that a
redemption that is not brought about through Jewish merit will be first
received by prolonged and terrible agonies.
It will not be the glorious and magnificent and SWIFT redemption that
could be ours, if we deserved it.
And so, just as the first and second destructions of the Jewish
state were preceded by a final forty years of grace, of Divine warning to the
Jew to return to G-d, to His commandments, just as there was a final, last gasp
opportunity given by G-d to His people in the hope that at the last moment they
would throw off their abominations and cleave to His commandments, so is it
with us and with this third Jewish state.
Forty years. It is the
fortieth year for a state that has lost its Jewish way, its Jewish head. For a Jewish people throughout the world that
has cast off its authentic Jewish truth and either opted for nothing Jewish or
adopted the counterfeit frauds of Reform-Conservatism or all the other “wings”
that fly off in all directions, except the right one.
Forty years. Perhaps a few more, but the principle is clear. Time runs out for the Jew before the worst of
horrors wipes out the Exile totally and brings awesome tragedy on Israel, too-
before the coming of the final redemption.
We know the truth. We know
the frauds we grasp unto our souls. Let us jettison
our baggage of fraud and vanity. Let us Return,
for our own sakes and for those we love.
For the People of Israel! Let us return in this fortieth year as
time flies away and so little of it is left.
“Thus saith the L-rd of Hosts: Return unto Me…and I will return unto you, saith the
L-rd of Hosts.”
5748. Forty years. They tick away.
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