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9:37 PM (1 hour ago)
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Rav Eidensohn, thanks for posting my previous message. Hopefully it
was of benefit.
In other news, R Yaakov Shapiro of Bayswater, Long Island, NY ? , SIL
of R Yerucham Gorelick, just wrote a 1300 page book against Zionism
called "The Empty Wagon" and seemingly it went for a second printing
within a month or two.
Zionist sympathizers are of course not happy, and one spin throws bad
accusations at him.
I forward the information to you for your decision and action, and I withdraw. I only add that I believe that if appropriately pursuing this will hurt the cause of anti-Zionism, so be it.
ברוב הוקרה וברכה
update 5 towns jewish times
‘The Empty Wagon’: A Review Of R’ Yaakov Shapiro’s Attack on Zionism
By Rabbi Yair Hoffman
Rabbi Yaakov Shapiro’s “The Empty Wagon” is one of the most controversial books to hit the Orthodox world in decades. Its 1,373 pages deal with the reaction to the Zionist movement within the Orthodox Jewish world and attempt to debunk much of what the Torah community believes about Israel’s modern history.
Most interesting to me is Rabbi Shapiro’s claim throughout the book that the Six Day War was not “miraculous” at all and involved no nissim whatsoever. Rabbi Shapiro attempts to back this up through Internet searches, citations of a few U.S intelligence reports, and quotes from the Satmar Rebbe, zt’l.
I choose to believe other sources, especially Rav Chaim Shmulevitz, zt’l, the Mirrer rosh yeshiva.
In Az Yashir we read the reaction of the nations in the aftermath of the exodus from Egypt: “Then the chieftains of Edom were startled; as for the powerful men of Moab, trembling seized them.” Rav Chaim Shmulevitz, zt’l, notes that this pasuk seems to be revealing some great chiddush or insight. Yet is it not obvious that when faced with open miracles people are startled and tremble? (Hagaddah of the Roshei Yeshiva of Mir, p. 226)
Rav Chaim Shmulevitz answers that it is not. It is the nature of people not to change themselves even after seeing open miracles. “This explains why people around us now are not changing after seeing the open miracles of the Six Day War,” adds Rav Shmulevitz. This shmuesswas delivered in June 1967 in the Mirrer Yeshiva in Yerushalayim. The Mir experienced an open miracle when a bomb that crashed through the ceiling did not explode.
So there we have it. Rav Chaim Shmulevitz, zt’l, says straight out that there were open miracles. He also explains exactly why Rabbi Shapiro refuses to recognize the open miracles of the Six Day War.
So who do we go with: Rav Chaim Shmulevitz, zt’l, or the author of this book?
Reb Dan Waldman, who fought in 1967, recollects the following:
“We had 200 planes. They had three entire air forces. Rabim b’yad me’atim — we had 2.5 million Jews; they had four entire nations. There were numerous miracles.
“There was no feeling like it in the world. I remember soldiers saying that they will not liberate Yerushalayim from Shaar HaAshpa [Dung Gate]; they went in through the Lions’ Gate. Everyone realized that these were open miracles — chareidim in Bnei Brak and even the most secular people.
“Hashem won us this war not in six days but in six hours. There were such nissim. The Jordanians knew that our planes were bombing those of the Egyptians. They sent a message to Egypt. Hashem made it that they changed the codes the previous day and did not inform the Jordanians. This was Yad Hashem. The complete destruction of the Egyptian Air Force in hours. This was Yad Hashem.”
On a personal note, my entire family and I were in Yerushalayim at the time, and my parents, aleihem ha’shalom, never stopped talking about what happened in Yerushalayim that week. My mother and uncle were hit by shrapnel on their way to the bunker we stayed in while being shelled. The entire nation, both religious and irreligious, experienced nissim and niflaos — from the soldiers who liberated the Koselto the Jewish families in the bunkers.
Thus, the author’s abnegation of the opinions of gedolei olam, the bomb in the Mir miraculously not exploding, the experiences of soldiers and run-of-the-mill citizens, and my parents’ personal experience, leaves me with an unpleasant aftertaste.
Throughout the book, Rabbi Shapiro attempts to demonstrate that the strongly anti-Zionistic view of the Satmar Rebbe, zt’l, was the same view of the gedolim of the past and the yeshiva world. In this reviewer’s opinion, his analysis is fundamentally flawed. To say that this premise is grossly inaccurate is a serious understatement.
