Next Year in Jerusalem

“Next year in Jerusalem” is the proclamation that concludes our Yom Kippur prayers. Year after year, the cry echoes out in synagogues from Brooklyn to Toronto to Paris to Manchester to Moscow, Melbourne, and Mexico City. This is because the tshuva of the Jewish People can only be complete when we return to Jerusalem.

Please note the wording that our Sages prescribed for us. We don’t say “Next year in Jerusalem if the government is to my liking.” We don’t say “Next year in Jerusalem if I don’t have to serve in the army.” We don’t say “Next year in Jerusalem if the Mashiach comes and brings me there.” We say “Next year in Jerusalem” without any pre-conditions.  

The longing of every Jew should be that, the minute he can, he should want to pack up his belongings and come to Jerusalem. Returning to Jerusalem is what our Yom Kippur tshuva is all about. Returning to Jerusalem is what Judaism is all about. According to the Torah and the Prophets of Israel, the Jewish People are to return to Jerusalem. Nothing could be clearer. We do this by saying goodbye to foreign lands and coming home to Eretz Yisrael.

Today, thank G-d, after 2000 years of exile, we have a Jewish airline to take us home. Today, thank G-d, most Jews have the money to buy a ticket. Today, thank G-d, there are agencies that help with plane fare, housing, job placement, learning Hebrew, tax breaks, and other benefits. Today, thank G-d, there are beautiful apartments and houses in the Land of Israel. There are synagogues on almost every street. There are more Torah learning, shuls, yeshivot, heders, and Torah giants in Israel than anywhere else in the world. Today, thank G-d, Jerusalem is a modern, rebuilt city. And the State of Israel is one of the superpowers of the world.

There’s no reason to wait for Mashiach’s arrival. G-d has made our return to Israel possible for everyone who wants to come. Already, G-d has returned millions of Jews to Israel without Mashiach. Of course, we all hope and pray that Mashiach will come any moment now, but his coming is like icing on the cake. G-d has already worked things out so that we can come home to Israel even before Mashiach comes. This is a clear discernible reality. It is obvious for anyone who wants to open his eyes and see it.

It’s like the old joke about the guy who climbs onto the roof of his house to escape the waters of the flood, and cries out for G-d to save him. When a boat comes along to rescue, he refuses, saying that he is waiting for G-d to save him. When a helicopter hovers overhead and lowers a rescue basket, he refuses to climb in, saying he is waiting for G-d to save him. After he drowns and is brought up to Heaven for Judgment, he complains that G-d didn’t save him. “Who do you think sent the rescue boat and the helicopter?” G-d asks.

"Who do you think sent the helicopter?"

G-d has rebuilt the Land of Israel in a miraculous fashion. G-d has built modern cities, suburbs, highways, industry, technology, agriculture, tennis courts, swimming pools, movie theaters, and everything else that a person could want. G-d has given us the ability to but plane tickets, and He has set up all kinds of organizations to help with the move. All He wants us to do is come. Not by waiting for Mashiach to fly down from Heaven in a winged chariot and wave a magic wand that will morph us to Israel with a fairytale poof! G-d wants us to act, on our own, to make the proclamation “Next year in Jerusalem” real.

G-d has made it as easy as He can. Now it is up to us. 

We realize that because living a Torah life in Israel is the greatest mitzvah, it is also the most difficult. Not everyone has the means, circumstances, and ability to carry it out. But the message of "Next year in Jerusalem" should be in everyone's hearts, and we all must do everything in our power to help restore, return, and rebuild the Jewish Nation in Eretz Yisrael now.    

May the Almighty inscribe all of His People in the Book of Life, and may the cry, “Next year in Jerusalem,” fill all of our hearts with true longing to return home to the place we all belong.

Thank G-d For Getting Me Out of America

Ladies and Gentlemen, there is only one G-d. There are not two, or three G-ds, or personalized G-ds to fit your beliefs and pleasures. Unlike ice cream, the real G-d doesn’t come in different flavors to fit your tastes.

The one and only real G-d is the G-d who chose the Jewish People and gave them His Torah and the Land of Israel. Someone, like the President of the United States, who says that he believes in G-d, but that the Jews don’ have a legitimate right to Judea and Samaria, he does not believe in G-d. Maybe he believes in some Walt Disney fantasy of G-d, but it isn’t G-d. The one and only real G-d gave the Land of Israel to the Jews.

And someone who says, like the Arabs, that they believe in G-d, but that Israel is their enemy, then they don’t believe in the real G-d either. G-d loves the Jewish People. Someone who truly loves G-d also loves His children. Someone who doesn’t love the children of G-d, really doesn’t love G-d. As Rashi states, the enemies of Israel are the enemies of G-d.

Tower of Babel

Yesterday at the United Nations, the President of the United States declared war against G-d. It reminded me of the Tower of Babel and the “Generation of the Dispersion,” when all of the peoples gathered together to declare war on G-d.

When you proclaim that the Jewish People do not have legitimate rights to Judea and Samaria, you are saying you do not believe in the Bible. You are saying that you do not believe in G-d. You are saying that your personal belief and historical understanding  are above what G-d believes and wants for the world. Like the people who built the Tower of Babel, you are saying that you are above G-d. In effect, you are declaring war on G-d.

This week’s Torah’s portion, “Haazinu,” states: “When the Most High divided among the nations their inheritance; when he separated the sons of Adam; he set the boundaries of the nations according to the number of the Children of Israel. For the L-rd’s portion is His People; Yaacov is the lot of His Inheritance” (Devarim, 32:8).

When G-d created the world, He divided it among the different peoples. He gave Russia to the Russians, Egypt to the Egyptians, America to the Indians, and Israel to the Jews.  

How sad! Here, a few days after the Jewish People prayed two days straight on Rosh Hashanah for the benefit of all the nations of the world, the President of the United States, at the United Nations of Babel, wedges a knife in the back of G-d’s children. Just a few days after the Jewish People prayed that the fear of G-d spread to all peoples over the earth, the peoples of the earth, led by America’s new President, spit in G-d’s “face,” by spitting on his People, in the Tower of the United Babelonians.  

This, of course, does not come as a surprise. Rashi, in his very first comment on the Bible, tells us that the Bible starts with the story of Creation, and not with the laws of the Torah, in answer to the gentile peoples of the world, who will claim in the future that the Jewish People stole the Land of Israel – so the Torah states right off that the same G-d who created the world, also gave the Land of Israel to the Jews.

For my part, I thank G-d with all of my heart and soul that I live in the Land of G-d, and not in the land of the haters of G-d. If I lived in America, I would be so embarrassed to be an American today that I would stay locked up in my house, too ashamed to show my beard in the street, lest a gentile think that I agreed with the President. Then, in the darkness of night, I would sneak off to the airport to get on the first plane to Israel, where the Jewish People belong.

As we say in our prayers during the Days of Awe, “May the day come soon when all wickedness will vanish from existence like smoke, when You will remove from the earth the government of those who purposefully plan evil.”

Amen.

Jews the World Over - Forgive Me!

The Rambam teaches that repentance and Yom Kippur only secure forgiveness for transgressions against G-d; as, for example, when one has eaten a forbidden food or indulged in illicit intercourse. However, transgressions against one’s fellow man, like cursing one’s neighbor or stealing something from him, are never forgiven until the injured party has been compensated and appeased (Laws of Repentance, 2:13).

The Rambam emphasizes: “Even if a person only annoyed another in words, he has to pacify the latter and entreat him till he has obtained his forgiveness” (Ibid).

This is an especially tough one for bloggers whose words go out to all corners of the globe. Go find the person you offended in cyberspace!

Now, I am sure I have offended many fine people who live in faraway places like Brooklyn and Toronto and Manchester and Australia and the Jews of Timbuktu. To mention only a few. So I would like to take this opportunity to ask for your forgiveness for the things that I have written that have caused you embarrassment, discomfort, and emotional and spiritual pain.

While my intention was purely educational, to alert my cherished brothers and sisters to a better, holier way of life, my sarcastic, bombastic, and often exaggerated style surely offended not a few, and for this I ask your forgiveness.

To judge my readers fairly, many simply have never had the privilege to learn Torah; or to have learned Torah in its proper perspective; and many are respectfully following the teachers who taught them things that I have taken exception to in this blog.

Whatever the causes for our disagreements, I apologize for presenting the Torah and the teachings of our Sages in a way that offended you. I am sorry if anything I wrote caused any of my brothers and sisters to have negative thoughts about the Torah, or about the Land of Israel, or about religious Jews, or about G-d.

As for me, I whole-heartedly forgive anyone who wrote something nasty or offensive about me in a Talkback. You don’t need to ask forgiveness – I forgive you carte blanche without your asking.        

It is my prayer to the Almighty that you, and all the people of the Brit, be inscribed immediately in the Book of Life for blessing, prosperity, salvation, and peace.