If this is what we've been waiting 2000 years for…

This is probably kefira

This is not the geulah. For sure. But it’s not exactly a normal golus situation either. About 95% of the Jews in the world live either in Israel or North America, where, for the first time for 2000 years, the vast majority of Jews can practice our religion freely and without more than trivial suffering.

A universal draft, a cut in funding to charedi institutions, a few rockets from Gaza, some anti-Semitism and crime in America, the atheistic or heterodox ideologies keeping most Jews from making teshuvah, even Iranian nuclear ambitions — these may be problematic but are nothing compared to the suffering Yidden have endured for the last two millenia.

There has been never another time when a Jewish family could manage to have 10 or more kids, have them all survive, and have all or nearly of them stay on the derech and raise their own families without the scourge of war or disease or pogroms or expulsions. Even if the public image of the religious is often low in Israel, the situation there is objectively better: the fact is that even the vast majority of Jews in Israel marry other Jews and have Jewish children — which unfortunately is not the case in the US.

I find it interesting that Israel was founded in 1948, the same year (in the Jewish calendar) as Avraham Avinu’s birthday. Of course, Hashem first promised the land to Avraham. So the existence of the Medina is just a beginning, as Avraham’s birth was, and there are still all kinds of problems, but Jewish life for nearly all Jews today is qualitatively more free and secure than at any other time since the golus began.

Oy, popa. ‘Sgotta be annoying.

I know how you feel- I’m home sick today, which is why I’ve been lurking here nonstop and refreshing the page every five minutes the whole stupid day.

I’m starting a new thread- details to come.

PS: What have we waited 2000 years for in particular?

Ohhh…. gotcha.

Well, I for one don’t hold with Israel being “what we’ve waited for for 2000 years”- I’ve been waiting for Moshiach, personally.

However, I do believe that the State of Israel has brought some great things to us, such as increased ability to learn Torah (something taken for granted until it was threatened recently), access to the kosel and other mekomos kedoshim, and a place for Jews, ALL Jews, to live if they so choose. I don’t believe that these are yemos hamoshiach, but I don’t believe that they’re sinful or anything either.

That is why I’m going to be a semi-passive observer to Yom Haatzmaut- I might wear blue and white if I remember, and I will have nothing negative to say whatsoever to my friends who do observe it more than I do. I wear an American flag tshirt on July 4th, also. Israel is a country that is close to my heart because of all of its Jews and its uniquely Jewish character (even if it’s not as perfect as you’d all like it to be). But I won’t celebrate it as more than a regular anniversary day.

yytz- we were able to do that under the Ottoman empire as well. What day did we celebrate for that then? Or under the British? It was only after the independence that we had to be afraid of terror attacks. Should I celebrate that now we get rocket fire?

Gamanit: Life in eretz Yisrael in Ottoman and Turkish times was not always a bed of roses. Access to many mekomos kedoshim was either forbidden or extremely dangerous. The kosel was a tiny area, filled with garbage and up against a house, that was very difficult to access. In the Ottoman times, at the very least, there was certainly a draft (while we all know of people who changed their names at Ellis Island, we don’t hear about those who changed their names to avoid the Ottoman draft) to an army which was a lot more of a sonei Yisrael than the Israeli army, believe it or not (and the fact I have to point that out is a bit sad). The Chevron massacre and massacres in Yerushalayim, Tzfas, and elsewhere all took place in the times of the Ottomans and the British.

We won’t have perfection until Moshiach, so since we know that, why blame Israel so much? At least Israel gave us some benefits like I mentioned above, and is a country of Jews. Kol Yisrael areivim zeh lazeh- why shouldn’t I celebrate with 6 million of my fellow Jews that they have such a uniquely Jewish place to be? (And yes, it is uniquely Jewish, even if it’s not as Jewish as many would like it to be.)

The frequency of attacks is greater now. The damage is less, but that’s due to rachmei shamayim, not easier circumstances. The second point is simply incorrect. The chasmonaim still paid taxes to the greeks.

What is ‘this’? why would someone think now is ‘yemos haMashiach?’

“If I get to olam habah and see its no better than this, I’ll complain: I already had this at Achashverosh’ palace.”

This is what popa meant by “I would become a christian”.

drovi: Did you read what I wrote? There was access, but not anything like we’ve got now.

I’m sure I’m not the first person to make this observation, but it’s ironic that people of a more right-wing hashkafa both 1) tend to insist on an all-encompassing Hashgacha Pratis (everything is bashert, there is no such thing as a coincidence, etc.), and 2) believe that there is no religious significance whatsoever to the foundation or existence of the State of Israel. These beliefs conflict, no? (I’m not criticizing the strong version of hashgacha pratis — I believe in this myself.)

The Satmar Rebbe after the 1967 war even claimed that it was Satan, not God, who allowed the Israelis to recapture Yerushalayim. Other gedolim, such as R’ Yaakov Kamenetsky, disagreed with him and ascribed the event to God, even though they were not sympathetic to the Medina in general.

If God is so great that He’s totally beyond human comprehension, then why couldn’t he accomplish some of his goals through people with secular ideologies? After all, settling in Eretz Yisroel has been described as equivalent to all the other mitzvos. (Sifrei Devarim 80).

Yes, claiming that all the events surrounding Yom Ha’atzmaut are part of the ischalta d’geulah is troubling. My point though was that your view that the state of Israel is a ‘letdown’, per say, is slightly ungrateful for the reasons I mentioned.

99.99999999% of gedolim/rabbanim/etc… all hold the Satmar Rebbe was 100% wrong. It is unfortunately becoming cool in some circles to actually state that the SR’s shittah is actually the majority opinion, when clearly it is not so.

PBA, it is Talmidei Chachomim who know — from ma’amorei Chazal and later Gedolim. Amazing how much you and others were indoctrinated by the Satmar and their fans!

I see, so he was misquoted. Maaseh Satan does not mean what yytz thinks, ascribing power to satan comes from christian theology. Satan does the job given to him by Hashem only. I was just reacting to that misunderstanding.

Yes, it was, because we have reached such a depth of depravity in this world, that Hashem SURELY has to bring us the Geulah, because the world cannot stand like this for much longer. And because of the sickness of this world, perhaps b’Chasdei Hashem we will be the ones who are zochim to live to see Yemos haMoshiach, and not just his ikvisah.

i’m a little late but..

“I would have become christian”

popa_bar_abba

Incorrigible; semi-retarded; eccentric; perhaps a man; possibly christian; somewhere between mean and average; sometimes only a bit over the top; arbitrarily cynical.

🙂