Our friend Rabbi Lazer Brody of Lazer Beams wrote today,
"who froze the building in Judea and Samaria? The US Government? The European Union? The Israeli government? Wrong! Hashem froze the building; The Building Freeze is surely a harsh judgment, but within the cloud is a silver lining. Hashem is obviously not letting us build our homes, because we're not doing enough to build His home, the Beit Hamikdash. How do we do that? We strengthen our emuna and return to Hashem - it's that simple."
And a commentor on the video of Rabbi Brand promoting visiting Har HaBayit wrote,
"regarding this video: it is misleading. okay, so they got a frum rav to go up, so what? the guy picks a leaf off a tree. what is that supposed to be? it makes us look bad. as reb gutman stated and quoted in the first piece, the majority opinion is to not go up. i don't see why posting this video is helping anything, except creating tension and maybe confusion. those who advocate going up are not only creating halachic issues but also creating more tension with our enemies, inciting them to more violence. this we need? i think there should be a video that counters this video to show the emes!!!"
...So lets put these two thoughts together. Dear commentor, if you strengthen your emuna and return to Hashem, then a video that counters and shows the emes (according to you) will...appear?
Our esteemed colleague Rabbi Brody could sit in his home in Israel and pray and have emunah that people will do teshuva and return to Hashem. He could pray and have emunah that people will learn the holy thoughts of his teacher, Rabbi Shalom Arush, shlita, directly from the Torah. Or he could AND DOES go out and teach Torah, give classes, and travel around the world to share the path to Hashem. He could AND DOES work hard to translate Rabbi Arush's teachings from Hebrew to English, so people can access them directly and easily.
Our commentor can think there should be a video that 'counters and shows the emes', or he can make one (or encourage someone else to, or pay someone else to, or find one and share it).
The Lubavitcher Rebbe could have sat in 770 with his chassidim and prayed and had emunah that Jews dispersed throughout the world would reconnect with Hashem, learn of Torah and figure out how to do mitzvot. Or he could AND DID send his chassidim to virtually every community in the world with Jews to teach them Torah, teach them how to do mitzvot and live as Jews.
This is still the physical world. Thought, speech, and deed. I can meditate on the light of Chanukah, and there's value in that. I can speak of the miracles of Chanukah, and there's value in that. But until we light the lights, there is no light of Chanukah (no matter how much I meditate upon it or speak about it.)
Thursday, December 17, 2009
// 12/17/2009 //