BS"D
27 Nissan, 5786/ Yahrtzeit of Rav Avigdor Miller ZT"L
Isn't It About Time We Do Something Differently?
Growing Authentic Leadership
Current events are to serve as a Divine wake-up call, not only individually, but also communally, as evident from the Rambam at the beginning of Hilchos Ta'anis.
We've seen many Divine wake-up calls, e.g.: COVID; the ongoing Ukraine War; the Simchas Torah pogrom; the Gaza war - leaving Hamas entrenched, despite over a thousand Israelis killed and about 20,000 plus seriously maimed; skyrocketing Jew-hatred fueled by the recent, ever-morphing wars in Israel and beyond; the first Iran War; the current Mideast War; the Lebanon quagmire; the global economic crisis surrounding the Strait of Hormuz; the ability of Iran to withstand the military might of the US and still pose an escalating ballistic missile threat, having evidently depleted Israeli interceptor missiles to dangerously low levels - while still being able to fire modern killer-cluster-warheads - all the while still posing a potential nuclear threat.*
[* This, despite the bombastic grandstanding of Netanyahu, who is claiming to have impeded another Holocaust - on Israeli Holocaust Forgetance Day - consistent with his arrogating of the Divine Role of Guardian of the Jewish People.]
This is before we even talk about all of the spiritual assaults to which we've been subjected in recent years, in the US, Israel, UK, and elsewhere -- be they self-inflicted, or superficially otherwise.
Each one of these should have awoken us - individually and communally. Have they? If so - how?
It's the Yahrtzeit of Rav Avigdor Miller ZT"L tonight (27th of Nissan). Ask yourself: When was the last time you saw your community leadership complying with the non-Politically-Correct Torah imperatives to intelligently articulate an uncompromising stand against the communal sins against which Rav Miller would rail? These include communal support for pro-sodomist, pro-abortion, pro-crime politicians, and tolerance of the same in Israel, and the drafting of girls into the immoral cesspool of the Israeli Army. (The fact that the IDF isn't as depraved as it used to be in his time is more due to the "Me-Too" movement than due to Orthodox political "leadership" growing a spine.)
How many communal "leaders" (lay, organizational, or otherwise) risk their positions and reputations to counter or protest the ongoing "community" support for politicians (of either major party) who support the types of moral subversion against which Rav Miller - and numerous other Gedolim - protested so heroically?
Case-in-Point: As we've discussed in detail on our weekly WSNR radio broadcast, LevinAt11, if the Orthodox community would have complied with the directives of Da'as Torah on issues of foundational morality and retzichah (murder) - by voting for values rather than selling out for government money - we would have been able to forestall passage of Physician-Facilitated poisoning of the "terminally-ill" - which passed this year in NY, and previously passed in NJ - by a single vote, being one Assemblymember from Passaic (thanks to Avi Schnall, as documented previously).
And the worst - by far - is yet to come, if we keep it up (like Canada), R"L.
As a child, my father had the merit to get ejected from his last Rabbinic position (in Edmonton, Alberta - yes, there is a frum community there). He taught us by example that principle trumps position, and "parnossah," the latter in truth being dependent on HaShem alone.
In Eretz Yisroel as well, do we see the frum politicians - who have formidable power in the current Israeli government - even talking against the moral subversion against which Rav Miller and Gedolei Eretz Yisroel alike fought - be it sanctioning LGBTQ, abortion-on-demand, the IDF subjecting "non-Chareidi" soldiers to inappropriate exposure to female soldiers, or drafting the next generation of Jewish mothers into the exploitative Army environment?
Please realize that every one of the issues enumerated here is something that should be a common ground priority for every single Orthodox faction. Authoritative Rabbis from across the spectrum concur on these basic issues. So why barely a peep, from almost all quarters (other than the No'am Party)?
"מאריך אפיה - וגביה דיליה."
Let's not complain so much about the ubiquitous Jew-haters, the fulminating leftists, and the Islamist radicals. Let's look in the mirror. THAT will certainly make a difference.
If you desire to do something tangible, and would like to help share in the burden of those who've taken responsibility to save neshomos of girls in jeopardy of being drafted into the Israeli Army - please donate today here. The holy work is B"H expanding, along with the needs.
How befitting for Yizchor money - to help ensure that these girls - who stand to compose the next generation of Jewish mothers - don't suffer the fate of the many tens of thousands of girls who weren't saved.
May we merit the Redemption the easier way - through communal teshuvah - rather than having the need to endure so many forms of yisurin.
Good Chodesh, and Good Shabbos.
Rabbi Noson Shmuel Leiter,
Executive Director,
Help Rescue Our Children
845.642.1679
Direct: 771.215.8892
Israeli Helpline: 03.721.3337
Tomim Tih'yeh [countering "New-Age" infiltration]:
Presentations on New-Age dangers: 605-313-6831 ext. 2
Heard weekly on New Jersey's WSNR Radio 620AM, co-hosting the renowned Levin At Eleven program, every Thursday evening, 11pm to midnight (ET).
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