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Reading through this interesting discussion, I doubt that I’ll ever be able to fully understand Hashem’s ways but that doesn’t and shouldn’t stop me from trying to piece together the pieces of the puzzle that He has put in my hands and make as much sense of them as I can. אין עוד מלבדו שום כוח ורצון בעולם והכל מלא רק אחדותו הפשוט יתברך שמו so Hashem is the One Who has done, is doing, and will do every minute detail of everything that happens. So here are some more pieces that haven’t come into this discussion and I’m interested in the knowledgeable olam’s insights into them.
1. R’ Amram Blau, ztl, gave an interview a few years before he was niftar in 5735/1975 (published as Mishnas Rebbe Amram), including several interesting points. He was already in his 20s during the few years of De Haan’s period of activity in Yerushalaim and even if he wasn’t yet the major figure he later became, he was probably already an astute observer of events.
a. The British didn’t like De Haan that much because as a top legal scholar he was able to out argue and outfox the British legal experts and prevent them from doing many of the things they wanted to do.
b. De Haan advised the Eida HaChareidis and its representatives on the British-run Jerusalem City Council to ally with the Mufti’s faction rather than with the moderate Arab elements who were more willing to cooperate with the Zionists. Rav Hutner, ztl, famously said that in the early days, before the Zionists became dominant, the Mufti got along very well with the Old Yishuv. Said Rav Hutner, it was only after the Zionists took control over Jewish public life and started threatening to throw all the Arabs out of their homes that the Mufti turned against all Jews and did all the terrible things he did.
c. De Haan arranged for a telegram to be sent [presumably to the Colonial Office in London, R’ Amram didn’t say] protesting against Zionist interference in religious life. This telegram was signed by Rav Yosef Chaim Sonnenfeld, ztl, and [in R’ Amram’s lashon] להבדיל אלף הבדלות the Mufti and the Pope in Rome. Does anyone know any specifics about this telegram, which R’ Amram said would certainly have appeared in the newspapers of the time?
2. Concerning De Haan’s personal development, an interesting source is the biography written by Yehuda Meshi Zahav ע”ה (may his neshomo have whatever tikunim it needs) in his early years. I think in there he says that De Haan kept prominently on his desk a sign reading ובא לציון גואל ולשבי פשע ביעקב. Once he met Rav Sonnenfeld he became a totally devoted chassid but even devoted chassidim might not find it so easy to quickly discard all their earlier baggage of thoughts and desires.
Again, I’m interested in any insights people have concerning these points.

The real question should be why are people like George W. Bush, Mitt Romney, John Bolton, Michael Cohen, Rex Tillerson, and many others voting against Trump, people whose conservative credentials are not at all in question and some of whom have worked closely with him. Bolton was quoted in the Modia as saying that Putin plays him like a fiddle. Cohen, who was his lawyer for many years and saw first hand how he operates, writes that Trump has turned the DOJ into a torpedo to be used against his enemies. Many other of his former staffers say it’s important to get him out of power. He has largely succeeded in totally overturning the constitutional system of checks and balances designed to deny from a president the absolute power he craves. Even if he remains sympathetic to us (and he is notoriously volatile in his loyalties), who’s to say that some less friendly figure might later manage to come into power and use that freedom from checks and balances in ways that we might not find so agreeable. Many many conservative Republicans consider Biden, with all his failings and dangers, the lesser of the evils. Watch out.

Can someone explain why George W. Bush, Mitt Romney, John Bolton and Cindy McCain, among many other republicans, are voting for Biden?

Sayag LeChachma – you wrote “first of all, wikipedia? You do know it’s editable, right?”

1) Wikipedia is not entirely hefker, if something gets posted without a source their referees don’t considerable reliable it gets taken down. The things I quoted from there were backed up by articles published in respected journals. If you have anything from credible sources that shows that Trump is indeed a reliably truthful person you can and should post it on Wikipedia to clear his name.
2) And if you were to be convinced that he is indeed the baal sheker muvhak that those sources suggest, would the possukim I cited and the many many Chazals that talk about sheker be relevant to a decision as to whether to support him, and if not why not? Please enlighten us.

Sayag LeChachma – Wikipedia or not, are you claiming that Trump is so committed to being truthful? His own sister, a retired federal appeals judge, says he’s totally untrustworthy. I don’t know, there might be valid reasons to support him, but don’t glorify him or make him out to be anything other than a very very big b’dieved. Regarding the other points I made, the ACA, global warming and the Republicans who oppose him, I would like to see substantive discussion about their merits and think they need to be discussed rationally, because many many lives are at stake. My own theory, only a theory, is that Hashem is rewarding him in this world for those genuine good deeds he’s done, אל תתיאש מן הפרוענות. Another point: NYS prosecutors are in possession of lots of hard copy evidence of serious financial crimes he’s committed (apart from testimony of his former lawyers and associates) for which others have served significant prison time. He knows about these things and has devoted a good part of his presidency to corrupting the justice system in order to keep himself out of jail. Is that someone we want to have in charge of the country? Again, I’d like to see serious rational discussion of these issues.

on chabad.org there’s a complete set of shiurim from Rav Yehoshua Gordon ztl where he reads every possuk and every Rashi with very knowledgeable explanations spiced with interesting stories

For those thinking of moving to Eretz Yisroel, make sure you have a viable chinuch option that doesn’t involve “Chareidi” schools that have been taken over by the anti-Torah Misrad HaChinuch which is dictating curriculum, teacher hiring, hashkofo, etc. They’re using all their governmental power to ensure that the coming generation grows up with as little yiras Shamaim as possible, Hashem Yishmereinu. A lot of French immigrants have been horrified to discover what’s happened to their children’s yiras Shamaim in the schools the immigration agencies assigned them to. Beware.

Even R’ Amram Blau, ztl, possibly the greatest opponent of Zionism, accepted the legitimacy of using basic government services — utilities, streets, etc. — as he said, someone being held in prison however much he opposes the legitimacy of prison authorities is totally entitled to stay alive by eating the food they serve him. I think he also accepted the need to obey traffic laws and the like. What he opposed was accepting any money for education, which gave them the power to dictate curriculum. And this the Bennet Education Ministry has increasingly been doing, sending in “supervisors” with the power to fire teachers and cut off school funding who’ve been forbidding teaching things like the works of the six days of Creation or the 39 malachos of Shabbos as being too confusing for young children, as if generations of centuries of Jewish children have grown up confused. This is a very deliberate plan resulting from the Trachtenberg Commission of some years ago who realized that if unchecked the Chareidim are soon going to make up a very large proportion of the Jewish population and the best way to stop this is by seizing control of their minds at the youngest ages and eliminating as much chinuch for emuna as they can.
IMHO we need to strengthen our emuna that Hashem is behind all of this and testing us to see who really believes in Him, similar to the 80% of the Jews who didn’t want to leave Mitzraim and were killed during the plague of darkness. There’s a lot more to be said about this, but these are some main points.

I’ve heard that bookmakers in Las Vegas are giving odds on Trump’s likelihood of surviving a year in office. Does anyone know what odds they’re giving?

Don’t have time to read over everything. One point to keep in mind is that many if not most of those who perished in the holocaust were deeply religious Jews who wanted nothing other than for their children to continue in their derech. When the children reached Eretz Yisroel, most of them were denied any kind of religious education and to their great distress were not allowed to say Kaddish for their parents, and were even in many cases punished if they did manage somehow to say Kaddish. This is only a small part of how the children were forcibly secularized, even though they knew that their parents certainly wanted them to stay frum.

One thing people are forgetting is that he did a lot to prevent nuclear weapons materials from falling into the hands of AlQueida and the like. It’s hard to know if they would have gotten a hold of such materials without his efforts but it’s known that they were trying very hard and almost succeeded a few times and he persuaded a lot of countries to increase their protection.

Rav Yisroel Yaakov Fischer, zatzal, many of whose rulings were widely respected, poskened that voting was an issur of ye’hareig v’al ya’avor, since the Bagatz has ruled that in order to take the loyalty oath required to be seated in the Knesset one has to believe that the laws of the state have supremacy over any other laws, including Torah laws, chas v’shalom. Rav Moshe Sterbuch, shlita, once pointed out that ye’hareig v’al ya’avor overrides all other considerations and gave an example that if a group of a thousand Jews is surrounded by a far larger force of goyim and the goyim demand that the Jews choose on of their number to give over to the goyim to be killed, and if they don’t give one Jews over the goyim will come and kill the whole thousand, chas v’shalom. Still, it’s asur to give over one Jew to be killed under any and all circumstances, even in a case like this where the one Jews they would have given over and all the others will get killed.

My understanding is that in a time of gezeiras ha-shmad, i.e. when goyim are trying to force Jews to violate the Torah just for the sake of violating the Torah and giving up Judaism, then it is required to give up one’s life rather than violate any mitzva or halacha however minor it may seem (the example given is if goyim wear red shoelaces and Jews wear black shoelaces, then in a time of gezeiras ha-shmad a Jew is required to give up his life rather than wear red shoelaces). If, however, the goy needs the labor of a Jewish prisoner or slave-laborer on Shabbos for his own benefit, but doesn’t otherwise care if the Jew keeps Shabbos on his own time or not, and it’s not a time of gezeiras ha-shmad, then the Jew is allowed to work on Shabbos. But the halachos (Yoreh Deah 157) are more intricate than I’ve been able to present them here so don’t do anything without learning them carefully and asking a Rav. May Hashem protect all of us from being subjected to such trials.

The question is are we doing as much as we can to bring him. According to the Mesillas Yesharim one fundamental principle is to remember why we want him, not so that our lives will be better or so that the goyim will treat us better. We should want him because when he comes everyone will recognize how great Hashem is and how He rules each and every minute detail of the world with total absolute justice. If we would focus on this and forget about all the other reasons, that could only help bring him sooner.

All the davening is very important. I want to suggest two segulos that everyone can do almost all the time and which might well save lives.

1) Saying the name of Avraham Avinu’s mother is said to protect from danger — Amaslai bas Karnevo. Rabbonim have told me that it can be said even in unclean places and with an unclear body or hands.

2) Before Lt. Birenbaum, ?”?, went to fight in WWII, Rav Hutner, ??”?, told him to say Psalm 91 and in particular verse 7: ???? ???? ??? ????? ????? ???? ?? ???, A thousand will fall from your side, and ten thousand will not approach your right side.

?? ????? ????? ?? ??? – every Jew has a part in every other Jew, so if one person is doing these things at a moment when one some other Jew needs the protection it can help. Please spread these ideas as widely as possible, the more people who do it can only help.

I’m not going to try to go through all the posts here. The one thing I’d like to suggest is that everyone try to look at accounts written by people, especially women, who’ve had near death experiences and see what they learned about tznius issues during their experiences in the next world, which is where we’ll all be spending eternity. There’s one by a Toldos Aharon woman from about 25 years ago, who lived by TA standards and still had a hair-raising time. Look at three things and you won’t do aveiros … before Whom you will inevitably (without any possibility of escape) have to give a din v’cheshbon. True, I should pay attention to this myself.

If this is any help: There’s no way of knowing for sure but this has the sound of a tikkun from some previous gilgul. In any case, one essential eitza is pouring your heart out to Hashem day and night, as if He were actually sitting in front of you (which He is). He’ll help.

1) A few years ago I saw that one high Israeli security official told the Kenesset that we have to thank the Creator that 90% of planned terrorist attacks had been stopped. How were they stopped? Because moderate Arabs informed on their fellow Arabs to the Israeli security forces. It’s very much to our advantage to encourage moderate Arabs, even if we don’t agree with them completely. This happens in other places too, as when Muslims informed on fellow Muslims who were planning a chemical explosion on a flight from London.

2) All the arguments that it’s insensitive to hold prayer services so close the point where Muslims did so much damage leave me concerned that the Arabs could similarly claim that it’s insensitive for Jews to daven in Ma’aras HaMachpelah after what Boruch Goldstein did there.

2) It’s not to our advantage to set precedents for restricting religious freedom.

I have been told by several people (one of them a close talmid of Rav Shach, zatzal, now a well known Rosh Yeshiva but I don’t want to mention his name without his permission) that Rav Shach, zatzal, said that l’shita he agreed with the Satmar Rav a hundred percent, just that he felt that l’maaseh it was impossible to follow it in the present time. The Brisker Rav and his children went further and opposed any form of participation in the Medina, including taking any kind of money for Torah education.

Concerning Rav Hutner, zatzal, in an article in the Jewish Observer of Oct 77 (written by Rabbi Yaakov Feitman based on talks by Rav Hutner) he placed a lot of blame for the Holocaust very directly on the Zionist movement. To say that quoting R’ Elchonon, zatzukel, is irrelevant because he was niftar before the Medina is to my mind questionable. R’ Elchonon writes in print (Kovetz Maamarim) that the leadership of the Zionist movement were Amalekim no less than the Yevsektsia in Stalinist Russia and that the Land will inevitably vomit them out. His son R’ Simcha, zatzal, refused to join calls to participate in elections in spite of great pressure that was put on him to do so (and himself always made a point of being abroad during elections). IMHO the burden of proof rests on someone who would claim that R’ Elchonon would have changed his opinion once the medina came into existence, would he have held that the spiritual forces of Amalek would have abandoned the movement once it became a medina? Concerning the Satmar Rav, even if he was a “solitary voice” (which is far from the case), he enjoyed enormous respect from all the gedolim for his unshakeable honesty, courage and kedusha, in spite of the ferocity with which he opposed them on many issues. One last point, even though for many people on both sides of these questions the questions have indeed become “stuck in concrete”, I don’t think that excuses reasonable people from attempting to carry on reasoned discussion of the issues in an attempt to ascertain the truth of the Torah as seen by gedolim.

From bitachoncoaching it sounds like such a warning was genuinely given, the question is how to react to it. It should be put to gedolei ha-dor and see what they say to do. They are our eyes and ears.