Over This We Mourn

BS"D

"Over This We Mourn"

By Binyomin Feinberg

8 Av, 5780 °° July 29, '20 Erev Tisha B'Av (Parshas Naso)

Communal Protest of Evil:

Firstly, on occasion of the fast day of Tisha B'Av, starting tonight, Wednesday night, we refer our esteemed readers to a previous post, https://firstamendmentactivist.blogspot.com/2020/04/ongoing-idf-religious-persecution-under.html, citing the Talmud, tractate Gittin 58a (in section C).  The incident cited there relates how the absence of communal protest over interpersonal wickedness triggered the Churban Bais HaMikdosh (

We also know that "Middah Tova Merubah," i.e. Divine Reward is far more generous than Divine Retribution is strict.  As much as failure to properly protest persecution could destroy the Bais HaMikdosh, how much more potent is properly speaking out in rebuilding it. In this day and age, despite the multitudinous hazards of technology, we are blessed with the capacity to speak out against rishus (evil) like never before. We cannot force people to listen, but many, many certain would.  (We hope and pray that these posts as well humbly serve as at least a modest example of what can be done by concerned individuals to combat rishus, even on the other side of the world.)

"What can I do?" many ask. It's related from one of the Torah sages of the previous generation that it's not that G-d gives tasks to the capable; rather, he graces those who take the initiative to undertake vital causes with the capacities they'll need to succeed.

In "Kovetz He'oros" on Yevamos, Aggada, chapter 10, the world-renowned disciple of the saintly Chofetz Chaim (d.1933 CE), Rav Elchonon Wasserman (martyred by the Nazis, y.s., in the Holocaust), distinguishes sharply between threats to the Jewish People that endanger our physical survival - as was Nazism, and threats to our spiritual survival - as was Communism. The former are in the category of a "ma'aseh HaShem," demanding our spiritual efforts, including repentance and prayer. The latter -  threats to our spiritual existence - demand our vigorous efforts to resist in the physical plane.

Reb Elchonon relates how the saintly Chofetz Chayim regretted that he didn't actually launch a physical revolution against the virulently anti-Jewish 

What's striking is how nowadays even a few individuals - of average capacity - can access the wherewithal to lauch a global "Awareness Revolution" - all without shooting a single bullet. By identifying potent stories of courageous individuals, and leveraging related current events, one can publicly expose all sorts of evil being perpetrated by powerful abusers, state, corporate, and individual offenders.

We also know that IF we do our small part properly, G-d often - eventually - provides us with the wherewithal to accomplish far beyond what we originally dreamed we could.

°°°

And now, for some of the latest news on innocent girls being targeted for the Israeli military draft: 

On Sunday, we posted these, regarding a Ukrainian immigrant Ba'alas-Teshuva being targeted by Maitav, Kesanya Z.: 

 

Subsequently, we learned that Batsheva D., a religious girl not even 17 years old, was recently targeted 

She had innocently called the Draft Office to learn standard procedure to apply for her religious exemption from the female draft. On the spot, the army recruiter nonchalantly instructed her to come directly to a scheduled religiosity "interview," a "Rayon Dat."

Volunteers who assist girls in these matters over the past couple of years note that this is the first case in which they've seen such blatant and early-stage deception of a 16 year-old religious girl by Maitav; not only had she not stepped into the Draft Office, or even mailed in her religiosity verification affidavit.- she had not even visited the Rabbanut to obtain her religiosity affidavit to begin with - and nevertheless got summoned to a Rayon Dat.

°  Explaining the "Method behind the Madness," one of the senior volunteers observed that by initiating the Rayon Dat process early, the Israeli government places any resistant girls into the "draft-complication" process ("histabchut") earlier on as well.

°  It's important to realize who's being targeted here. It's not the girls who comply with the Rayon Dat, but specifically the most upright - those who don't (reminiscent of the proverbial paradigm: "No good deed shall go unpunished").

°  Additionally, at an earlier age, the Rayon Dat can be administered when girls are more susceptible to being tripped up, duped into enlisting, or intimidated into enlisting.

°  Moreover, this "zerizin mak'dimin" schedule will grant the Army Draft Office more time before draft age (18) to try to emotionally and psychologically wear down the girls and their families, thereby broadcasting to the weaker ones that it's not worthwhile to even bother "fighting City Hall." 

Bear in mind that the Israeli military has a huge amount of funding at their disposal to seek out and identify - and then effectively stalk and traffic - these teenage girls, relentlessly, by virtue of the fungibility of foreign aid obtained under pretext of national security and legitimate defense needs.

°  This "Head Start" headhunter initiative could also be seen as part of the broader Maitav effort to whitewash the Rayon Dat phenomenon.  The very notion of Rayon Dat, in such cases, is actually an extralegal maneuver. It's been put into practice without benefit of due process of law. Otherwise put, If you can't make it Law via legislation, do so by procedural innovation.  This extralegal dexterity also helps avoid conflict with the concern over implementation of procedures against the will of the people, because the people won't even know what hit them until they've already become accustomed to it, and unfortunately resigned themselves to the Rayon Dat directives as a done deal.

°°°

May we soon witness the Final Redemption in the merit of helping expedite it.

~~~

"... And if someone, like Pinchos, is one among a multitude, and every man is against him when he dares to speak out for truth and to fight for the Law -- the more lonely his stand, the greater the number of his adversaries, the more powerful is his word, the mightier his deed."