Rabbi Shraga Feivel Mendlowitz ZTVK"L
From Artscroll's Reb Shraga
Feivel: The Life and Times of Rabbi Shraga Feivel Mendlowitz, the
Architect of Torah in America, pp. 331-332, 335-336,
On Friday, November 29, 1947, the United Nations debated the issue of partitioning the British Mandate for Palestine into two countries, one Arab and one Jewish. Reb Shraga Feivel prayed fervently for partition. He had no radio in his house, but that Friday he borrowed one and set it to the news, leaving it on for Shabbos. He waited with such tense anticipation to hear the outcome of the U.N. vote that he did not come to shalosh seudos. When he heard the U.N.'s decision to establish a Jewish state, he stood up and recited the blessing - BARUCH HATOV V'HAMATEV - Who is good and Who does good...[3]
On Friday, November 29, 1947, the United Nations debated the issue of partitioning the British Mandate for Palestine into two countries, one Arab and one Jewish. Reb Shraga Feivel prayed fervently for partition. He had no radio in his house, but that Friday he borrowed one and set it to the news, leaving it on for Shabbos. He waited with such tense anticipation to hear the outcome of the U.N. vote that he did not come to shalosh seudos. When he heard the U.N.'s decision to establish a Jewish state, he stood up and recited the blessing - BARUCH HATOV V'HAMATEV - Who is good and Who does good...[3]
Four days after the United
Nations vote, on 19 Kislev, Reb Shraga Feivel spoke in Bais Medrash
Elyon, to present his talmidim with a Torah perspective on the event. He
began by emphasizing that in the absence of prophecy
no one could interpret the U.N. declaration with any certitude.[7]
Nevertheless the whole tenor of his remarks reflected his hope that the
moment was a positive one for the Jewish people.[8] He described three
aspects of the final redemption: the redemption
of the Land, the ingathering of the exiles, and the return of the
Divine Presence to her proper place. The redemption of the Land is the
first of the three...
In a similar vein, he also explained why the secular Zionists might have been chosen to play such a fateful role in the history of the Jewish people... Divine Providence might have arranged that the secular Zionists play a major role in the redemption of Eretz Yisrael precisely in order to maintain their connection to Klal Yisrael.
In a conversation with the
Satmar Rav, shortly after his talk on the U.N. declaration, Reb Shraga
Feivel was subjected to the sharpest criticism for his "Zionist
leanings." Later he told his family, "I could have answered
him Chazal for Chazal, Midrash for Midrash, but I did not want to incur
his wrath, for he is a great man and a tzaddik." He added with a
twinkle, "And besides, he has a fiery temper"..
.
.
[3] In 1948, after the Arabs
attacked the newly declared Jewish state and soldiers were falling on
the battlefield, several roshei yeshiva taunted Reb Shraga Feivel for
having recited the blessing. Reb Shraga Feivel
turned to Rabbi Aharon Kotler, who agreed with him that the favorable
U.N. resolution was indeed worthy of the blessing. Rabbi Nesanel Quinn.
Reading further in the biography, we see some of Reb Shraga Feivel's reasons for being a Zionist:
Without losing sight of the
antireligious nature of the leaders of the yishuv in Eretz Yisrael, he
nevertheless saw the creation of a Jewish state as an act of Providence
and as a cause for rejoicing. At the very least,
there would now be one country in the world whose gates would be open
to the thousands of Holocaust survivors still languishing in Displaced
Persons Camps in Germany and Austria.
Reb Shraga Feivel gave voice
to the ambivalence with which religious Jews around the world greeted
the creation of an independent Jewish state in Eretz Yisrael nearly two
millennia after the destruction of the Beis
Hamikdash by Titus army. On the one hand, there was the recognition
that the new state led by those raised in ideologies hostile to Torah
was not the return of the Davidic kingdom for which they had prayed so
long. Yet coming a scant three years after the
greatest tragedy in modern Jewish history, it was hard not to hope that
the new state was a harbinger of a new life for the survivors.
In a famous parable, Reb
Shraga Feivel compared the new state to a breech birth. When a baby is
born normally, head first, Reb Shraga Feivel said, the delivery is
easiest and safest for the mother, and augurs best
for the future development of the infant. In the context of the
establishment of Jewish political sovereignty in Eretz Yisrael, a
head-first birth would have been one in which the great Torah leaders
the true heads of the nation led the way. But even in a
breech birth, despite the danger to the infant, one can still hope that
it will live and be healthy. Perhaps Chazal were referring to the
legs-first manner in which the new state was born, Reb Shraga Feivel
concluded, when they said (Yalkut Shimoni to Amos,
549), In a generation that rejects Hashem, expect the footsteps of
Mashiach,
Four days after the United
Nations vote, on 19 Kislev, Reb Shraga Feivel spoke in Bais Medrash
Elyon, to present his talmidim with a Torah perspective on the event. He
began by emphasizing that in the absence of prophecy
no one could interpret the U.N. declaration with any certitude.
Nevertheless the whole tenor of his remarks reflected his hope that the
moment was a positive one for the Jewish people. He described three
aspects of the final redemption: the redemption of the
Land, the ingathering of the exiles, and the return of the Divine
Presence to her proper place. The redemption of the Land is the first of
the three. The Sages (Megillah 17b) explain why the blessing over
fruitfulness of the Land (Birkas Hashanim) comes before
the blessing for the ingathering of the exiles. The prophet Yechezkel
says, And you, mountains of Israel, shall shoot forth your branches and
lift up your fruits to My people Israel, for they are soon to come
(Yechezkel 36:8). In other words, the physical
rebirth of the Land and its release from foreign domination is the
prelude to the return of the exiles. (See p.x )
Reb Shraga Feivel suggested
that the present moment paralleled the return of the exiles from
Babylonia under Ezra and Nechemiah, which had come about only through
the permission of a gentile ruler, King Cyrus. Just
as Cyrus in his time had his own reasons for allowing the Jewish exiles
to return to Jerusalem, so the nations of the U.N. no doubt had
interests of their own that they sought to advance by allowing a Jewish
state. But, in the final analysis, the heart of
a king is in Hashems hands; He directs it where He wants (Mishlei
21:1).
Reb Shraga Feivel followed
his comparison of the U.N. and Cyrus to its logical conclusion. While
agreeing that the Torah leaders of the past two generations had been
absolutely correct in directing their followers
to have nothing to do with the Zionist movement, the question of the
hour was: What should the Torah world do now after having witnessed
Heavenly intervention? To that question, there could be only one answer:
It was incumbent upon all bnei Torah to do everything
in their power to ensure that the voice of Torah increase and be heard
in the new state:
It is our duty to participate
in the building of the State, physically and spiritually!The choice
is in our hands. Will we make ourselves a high wall and go up, as they
failed to do in the days of Ezra? If causeless
hatred prevails among us, the arousal of Divine favor from above could
all be lost. We must be the pioneers of Torah. We must form a nation
worthy of the Land, a nation of Torah.
The thrust of his remarks was
that the future of Eretz Yisrael would be determined by the response of
religious Jews to the new opportunity. If they rose to the challenge,
he suggested, it would be possible to create
a land filled with Torah.
Reb Shraga Feivel noted that those who failed to take advantage of Cyrus permission to return to the Land are severely criticized in both the Gemara and the Midrash (Shir Hashirim Rabah 8:9). The Sages give the following interpretation to the verse in Shir Hashirim: If her faith and belief are strong as a wall we shall become her fortress and beauty, building her city and Holy Temple, but if she wavers like a door, with fragile cedar panels shall we then enclose her. The Talmud (Yuma 9b) comments that if Israel's faith had been strong like a wall and the people had unanimously followed Ezra back to Eretz Yisrael, they would have been privileged to have the full glory of the Shechinah in the Second Beis Hamikdash, just as it had been in the First. But since only a small minority followed Ezra, the Shechinah was lacking in the Second Temple. Instead of being like silver, which never rusts, the people were likened to cedar, which warps and rots. Those who remained in Babylonia, writes Rashi (to Yuma 9b), prevented the Shechinah from returning to dwell in the Second Beis Hamikdash. Reb Shraga Feivel strongly implied that the Jewish people should not miss such an opportunity a second time by remaining aloof from the fate of the Land or being reticent about going there.
Reb Shraga Feivel noted that those who failed to take advantage of Cyrus permission to return to the Land are severely criticized in both the Gemara and the Midrash (Shir Hashirim Rabah 8:9). The Sages give the following interpretation to the verse in Shir Hashirim: If her faith and belief are strong as a wall we shall become her fortress and beauty, building her city and Holy Temple, but if she wavers like a door, with fragile cedar panels shall we then enclose her. The Talmud (Yuma 9b) comments that if Israel's faith had been strong like a wall and the people had unanimously followed Ezra back to Eretz Yisrael, they would have been privileged to have the full glory of the Shechinah in the Second Beis Hamikdash, just as it had been in the First. But since only a small minority followed Ezra, the Shechinah was lacking in the Second Temple. Instead of being like silver, which never rusts, the people were likened to cedar, which warps and rots. Those who remained in Babylonia, writes Rashi (to Yuma 9b), prevented the Shechinah from returning to dwell in the Second Beis Hamikdash. Reb Shraga Feivel strongly implied that the Jewish people should not miss such an opportunity a second time by remaining aloof from the fate of the Land or being reticent about going there.
In response to those who
claimed that Providence would not have made the United Nations the
instrument to make such a gift to the Jewish people, Reb Shraga Feivel
compared the current phenomenon to the events of Purim.
In that miracle, the Sages saw Hashem working His will through
Achashveirosh, clearly an unworthy person. Do Chazal not tell us, he
asked, that the first steps of the final redemption will go very slowly,
to be followed by a sudden burst of light, just as
the sun suddenly appears in the morning? (Midrash Shir Hashirim 6:10,
Yerushalmi Berachos 1:1, Yerushalmi Yoma 3:2.)
He did not deny that there
was merit in opposing views, nor did he think that his reading of events
was beyond question. To those close to him he admitted that others
might be right from a logical point of view, but
nevertheless maintained my heart tells me that our approach is the
right approach.
Of course, he did not let his
feelings alone guide him. In Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto's Daas Tevunos,
he found support for his view. There the Ramchal specifically describes
the period of Ikvesa d'Meshicha (the time
before the coming of Mashiach) as one in which Hashem does not guide
the world according to the normal calculations of reward and punishment.
At that time, events will take place regardless of the merit of the
generation.
And in the writings of his
beloved Reb Tzadok Hakohein of Lublin he found a hint that there would
be a time in which the aggressive stance of the Zionists would succeed.
After the sin of the spies, Moshe Rabbeinu warned
those who regretted their original lack of faith that they should not
attempt to go into Eretz Yisrael by force: vehi lo sitzlach, it will not
be successful. Reb Tzadok Hakohen adds, however, Now it will not
succeed, but there will be another time when it
will succeed. That will be in the time of the footsteps of Mashiach.
According to this account,
Reb Shraga Feivel was clearly in either the Messianic or non-Messianic
Zionist camp. Although most of his statements (the comparison to a
breech birth, the comparison to Cyrus, the quotation
from the Midrash and Yerushalmi that the final redemption will develop
slowly, his noting that the blessing over the land comes before the
blessing of the ingathering of exiles) imply that the State had to do
with the geulah, some of his statements (that now
there would be a place for refugees) imply that it did not. Probably he
was not sure about this; he speculated about the geulah aspect, but at
least he felt sure that the state was a good thing, an opportunity
granted by Hashem to the Jewish people. As far
as addressing the central question of Zionism the Three Oaths he does
almost nothing. The only thing he said that might be called an attempt
to address that question is the quote from Reb Tzadok.
What Reb Tzadok actually
writes (in Tzidkas Hatzadik 46, written 1848, first published in 1913)
is that the "mapilim" knew that their act was against the will of
Hashem, but justified it based on the statement of Chazal,
"All that the host tells you to do, you must do, except for leaving
(Pesachim 86b). They understood this to mean that for the sake of coming
close to Hashem, one may sometimes violate the command of Hashem; we
need not listen when He tells us to leave Him.
Despite these good intentions, they were punished severely for their
sin. But Moshe said to them, "And it will not succeed" - this time it
will not succeed - hinting that there would come a time, in the era
known as "the Footsteps of Moshiach," when such a
sin would have success.
In the Footsteps of the Moshiach, chutzpah will increase (Sotah 49b). That is the time when such a brazen idea to conquer the land in violation of Hashem's command will meet with some success.
In the Footsteps of the Moshiach, chutzpah will increase (Sotah 49b). That is the time when such a brazen idea to conquer the land in violation of Hashem's command will meet with some success.
In other words, he does not
say that the sin will be permitted in the footsteps of moshiach; he only
says that it will be successful then.
*
*
"On his deathbed, on
practically his last breath, he instructed that his son-in-law Rabbi
Alexander Linchner to go to Eretz Yisroel and "tut epes far de
Sfardishe kinder" (do something for the Sephardi children).
He knew the children were shipped off to secular kibbutzim, and their tefillin confiscated. Boys Town Jerusalem was born from the birth pangs of the Jewish state!
It is the largest yeshiva/vocational school in the world
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boys_Town_Jerusalem
It is the largest yeshiva/vocational school in the world
 |
BOYS TOWN JERUSALEM 18 ACRE CAMPUS |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boys_Town_Jerusalem
In other words, he knew
about the anti-religious forces in Israel but still considered the
state to be a major step towards the redemption, if not already a part
of it. And he voiced these views in public and
directly to the Satmar Rav."
Once again, history has proven him right!
PM
Once again, history has proven him right!
PM