This is an additional message prompted by the seriousness of the current situation.
Following the first day of Rosh Hashanah I was enveloped by a spirit of ominous forboding. It was partly the lack of shofar and it was partly … an amorphous black cloud which enveloped me, as if dark forces of great magnitude were over the horizon.
I was not planning to write about this, but then I saw that Rabbi Moshe Sternbuch Shlita”h had issued a dire warning just before Rosh Hashanah, after Selichos. He was not explicit, but he used the words, “bitter, bitter, bitter” and then broke down in tears.
My friends, I think it is appropriate to tell you what is on my mind.
The Chofetz Chaim spoke about three wars before Moshiach: the First World War, the Second World War, which he predicted, which he said would make the first war look like “child’s play.” And then a third war, before Moshiach, which implicitly will make the Second World War look like child’s play.
Before we left Golus Mitzraim, Egypt was destroyed. The foreign culture which had trapped our ancestors for so long was obliterated and we stepped out of it into a new world at Har Sinai.
I think it is clear that the world of our present Golus is going to suffer the same fate. The world of Moshiach will not just be “better” than Golus. It will be a totally different world in the sense that the tumah of the present world will have to be erased. And since the present world is synonymous with tumah, that means that the present world, the world as we know it, cannot continue to exist in the days of Moshiach.
I don’t think that we are the slightest bit prepared for this. I don’t think we are at all embracing the truth and magnitude of this. I don’t think we are prepared to let go of this world of luxury to which we have become so accustomed, the world of Edom which we have embraced with both arms. I feel as if we are blind, because we don’t want to open our eyes to what is ahead. But it cannot go on. There is a disease which is eating us up and we do not even realize it, or maybe we do realize it and we just don’t want to accept it, so we deny it.
I will tell you something which I am not sure I should say, but I am going to say it.
On the plane coming to Israel last week, there were constant minyans of people davening maariv and saying Selichos. This went on and on, as many people wanted to daven. The aisles and kitchen areas were blocked to such an extent that, for extended periods, people could not use the lavatories. The crew eventually locked the bathrooms.
I am sorry, my friends, but there is something wrong here. These are religious people and they have to daven, but they do not have to torture their brethren and make a bad name for Torah. Significantly, Rabbi Elyashiv zt”l paskened that it is a chillul Hashem to daven in the aisles and that one should daven in one’s seat b’yechidus.
This is just a microcosm, my friends, a snapshot, but it is a symptom of a world in which so much is wrong that one doesn’t know where to start. The sickness is everywhere and we do not want to face it. In the culture of Edom, people do not care about each other, and we have caught the disease.
There is a reason that anti-Semitism is becoming accepted all over the world. There is a reason that a Jew hater (voted for by many Jews) is the mayor of New York. There is a reason that violence is becoming the norm, especially violence against us. It is going to explode. I have known this in my insides for decades. Even before I became religious, I knew that this society was going to blow itself up. I just heard that the head of the U. N. issued a warning against artificial intelligence because the robot brain could start an atomic war.
Is this plausible? Of course it is plausible. The monster is about to go out of control.
And what can we do?
The Chofetz Chaim and other tzaddikim promised that those who cling to Hashem and reject the surrounding culture of tumah will survive in the last war before Moshiach.
I have no new suggestions. All we have are the holy Torah values which have enabled us to survive all the catastrophes up to now. All we have is honest self-examination, teshuva, tefillah, begging Hashem to save us and hoping that we will survive whatever is coming.
My friends, I am sorry, but I believe what I am saying is correct. We need derech eretz. Derech eretz kadmah l’Torah. We need to be good to each other. If we don’t live with derech eretz, we are not going to make it. Derech eretz isn’t an extra. Derech eretz is the path to life. We are in a desperate situation and, unless we open our eyes and take it seriously, the future is desperately ominous. I wish I could be more hopeful, but the signs are very bad.
Hashem loves us so much more than we love ourselves!
May He have mercy on us and save us!
