When speaking in public or writing I try not to repeat myself, although the same article or essay can contain different messages depending on the circumstances at the time.
At this time, all eyes are glued on what is happening in our state, our Medina. The Jewish people are fighting to defend our religious and historic rights to our homeland in this hostile, belligerent, malicious, hateful, virulent, fanatical part of the world.
But the story does not end at our borders. For whatever the dangers facing us in our holy land, the sword of Islam is far wider than the distance between the “river and the sea”. Murderous Islam, leftist and righteous extremists, perfidious Western Christian “friends” etc., are showing their fangs with increasing arrogance, audacity and self-confidence as they engage the Jews and Jewish institutions in their lands.
When this crosses the critical line where their numbers influence governmental policy makers, we will begin to see uncomfortable results like the limiting of Israeli consulates which issue visas for entering Israel and increasing difficulties in making aliya and repeats of anti-Jewish freedoms. “Well, it can’t happen here”, you might say! Are you sure?!
As it appears to me, Hashem has given the Jews in galut a lifetime (seventy years plus) to pack and come home. According to what I am told by friends and relatives there are already bureaucratic difficulties in the aliya process which did not exist just a few years ago.
The following allegory here is of a family that cannot see that their demise is closing on them like the tentacles of an octopus. They could have been saved, but once the gates of common sense are closed and Newton’s first law of motion “inertia” sets in there is no way to turn the clock back.
Sukkot – An Allegory
Reb Yisrael and his sons erected their succah adjacent to the kitchen door of their palatial home in one of the Five Towns, as they had done for many years in the past.
But this year was different. Reb Yisrael had just learned from his rabbi that one of the reasons for residing temporarily in a succah is in case that one’s destiny was decided on Rosh Hashana to be expelled to galut, the departure from the comforts of home into the succah could be considered to be that galut.
Reb Yisrael, his wife and 4 children left the warm comforts of their beautiful home and entered the succah with the knowledge that, by taking up temporary residence therein, they would be absolved of any galut-related sins.
As the family continued to reside in the succah, they got so used to the pleasant smell of the schach (branches used to roof the succah) and the pretty pictures on the walls and the overhanging decorations, that they decided to remain there even after the chag! Even though they were able to peer into their permanent home with its luxurious amenities, electrical gadgets, and state-of-the-art under-floor heating units, thick hanging drapes, lush carpets and much more, they showed no interest in returning there.
As odd as it may seem, the family became accustomed to the crowded, cold interior of the succah. Their relatives and neighbors tried to point out the irrationality of what they were doing, but the very idea that this was galut did little to encourage the family to return home.
When their rabbi came to visit, it was surprising that he encouraged them to remain in the succah rather than to return home; because it was in the succah that the family felt comfortable and closely knit.
In the meantime, several strangers noticed that the previously brightly lit home was vacant, and they decided to move in as if it was indeed their own!
Reb Yisrael and his wife and children saw the strangers living in the house; but in veneration for the succah, they stubbornly bonded with the thin walls and dried-out schach and refused to leave.
The whole thing was so absurd. To leave such a beautiful home for the feeble, fallible construction of the succah, despite the fact that their beautiful home was beckoning them to return was beyond the understanding of any rational person.
Then came the stones thrown by the local antisemites who wanted to rid the neighborhood of this succah eyesore. Reb Yisrael and his family dodged them one by one and steadfastly remained in their fragile dwelling, rationalizing these acts as irrelevant nuisances.
Then came the terrible night when one-third of the succah was torched by the local bullies.
Reb Yisrael and his family were aware of what was happening, but their minds had become so warped that no amount of reasoning could move them.
To them the succah was home and their home was galut.
Eventually the succah came crashing down, killing Reb Yisrael and his entire family in their beloved galut!
Chag Chag Samai’ach,
Rabbi Nachman Kahana is a Torah scholar, author, teacher and lecturer, Founder and Director of the Center for Kohanim, Co-founder of the Temple Institute, Co-founder of Atara Leyoshna – Ateret Kohanim, was rabbi of Chazon Yechezkel Synagogue – Young Israel of the Old City of Jerusalem for 32 years, and is the author of the 15-volume “Mei Menuchot” series on Tosefot, and 3-volume “With All Your Might: The Torah of Eretz Yisrael in the Weekly Parashah” (2009-2011), and “Reflections from Yerushalayim: Thoughts on the Torah, the Land and the Nation of Israel” (2019) as well as weekly parasha commentary available where he blogs at https://NachmanKahana.com