As Arafat expanded his killing machine by attempting to smuggle a ship-load of fifty tons of arms into Gaza, something extraordinary took place in Jerusalem. Rabbis and Jewish leaders from the former Soviet Union and almost every Jewish community in Europe, along with others from North and South America, Australia, South Africa and even India, met at the second Orthodox General Assembly. Israel's many factions of Orthodoxy participated, representing Shas, Aguda, Mizrachi and every possible view of Torah Judaism. Eliezer Sheffer, the assembly's organizer, almost single-handedly made the impossible possible. Orthodoxy is by no means monolithic, nor should it be. Its strength results from its diversity. Rabbi Yehuda Hanasi, the redactor of the Mishna, the major component of the Oral Law of Judaism, often included singular opinions, even though they opposed overwhelming majority views, in order to maintain pluralism within the parameters of Halacha. His achievement assured continued Torah study and practice to this very day. Granted, the Jerusalem event was not Messianic, but any semblance of Jewish unity today is a miraculous step forward.
Strife, however, is not pluralism, but the work of Satan caused by enmity and envy. Violence against Israel and the growing acceptance of anti-Semitism around the world should dissuade our people of the usual compulsion to strife. The proverbial question Jews face today and have faced for the last two thousand years continues to pop up: If Jews are G-d's chosen, why then would He permit the nation He elected from all others to be the subject of unabating persecution? Surely, after the Holocaust, a compassionate G-d would have said "enough." Yet wars and terror are the result of a specific transgression our people, unforgivably, continued to perpetrate against each other.
The transgression of sinat chinom, enmity, is our unconscionable sin and remains historically embedded in the collective Jewish psyche. The first Temple was destroyed and Israel was exiled because Jews were guilty of the three worst sins: immorality, bloodshed and idolatry. The Temple was rebuilt and sovereignty restored after seventy years. Israel repented and G-d forgave. The second Temple, however, was destroyed because of causeless enmity (isn?t that what all hate is?) and we still remain without a Temple, still suffer the pangs of terror and destruction, because we Jews fail to do teshuva, repent. In contrast, Jewish unity, which in matters of survival should be all-inclusive, is the essential weapon against all forms of adversity.
I am neither a prophet or the son of one and, as Rabbi Tarfon in the Mishna lamented, "and we have no one capable of giving rebuke." Neither I, nor anyone else in this day of spiritual paucity, has that right, but common sense dictates that we can no longer afford continued divisiveness and strife in our midst. I traveled to Jerusalem several weeks ago to participate in the Orthodox General Assembly and in a conference which included Jews of varied religious belief. I found the Orthodox Conference inspirational and meaningful, but it pleased me to be part of another gathering that brought together Jews of even greater diverse thought ?who is like Your people Israel, one nation on earth (II Samuels 7:23).? As Hashem is One so must we be. The singularity of our people applies principally to our nationhood, but it allows multiple diversity, which produces a kaleidoscopic tapestry of sheer beauty and glory.
?Some with chariots, and some with horses, but we ? in the name of Hashem, our G-d, we call out (Tehillim 20:8).? ?We? means all of us, as one. Arafat chooses guns and rockets. David, the author of Tehillim, taught the principle of ?we? as the antidote to weapons of destruction and to the hateful enemies who choose them.
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Rabbi Grossman is the Chairman of the Board of Religious Zionists of America and a former President of the Rabbinical Council of America.
Strife, however, is not pluralism, but the work of Satan caused by enmity and envy. Violence against Israel and the growing acceptance of anti-Semitism around the world should dissuade our people of the usual compulsion to strife. The proverbial question Jews face today and have faced for the last two thousand years continues to pop up: If Jews are G-d's chosen, why then would He permit the nation He elected from all others to be the subject of unabating persecution? Surely, after the Holocaust, a compassionate G-d would have said "enough." Yet wars and terror are the result of a specific transgression our people, unforgivably, continued to perpetrate against each other.
The transgression of sinat chinom, enmity, is our unconscionable sin and remains historically embedded in the collective Jewish psyche. The first Temple was destroyed and Israel was exiled because Jews were guilty of the three worst sins: immorality, bloodshed and idolatry. The Temple was rebuilt and sovereignty restored after seventy years. Israel repented and G-d forgave. The second Temple, however, was destroyed because of causeless enmity (isn?t that what all hate is?) and we still remain without a Temple, still suffer the pangs of terror and destruction, because we Jews fail to do teshuva, repent. In contrast, Jewish unity, which in matters of survival should be all-inclusive, is the essential weapon against all forms of adversity.
I am neither a prophet or the son of one and, as Rabbi Tarfon in the Mishna lamented, "and we have no one capable of giving rebuke." Neither I, nor anyone else in this day of spiritual paucity, has that right, but common sense dictates that we can no longer afford continued divisiveness and strife in our midst. I traveled to Jerusalem several weeks ago to participate in the Orthodox General Assembly and in a conference which included Jews of varied religious belief. I found the Orthodox Conference inspirational and meaningful, but it pleased me to be part of another gathering that brought together Jews of even greater diverse thought ?who is like Your people Israel, one nation on earth (II Samuels 7:23).? As Hashem is One so must we be. The singularity of our people applies principally to our nationhood, but it allows multiple diversity, which produces a kaleidoscopic tapestry of sheer beauty and glory.
?Some with chariots, and some with horses, but we ? in the name of Hashem, our G-d, we call out (Tehillim 20:8).? ?We? means all of us, as one. Arafat chooses guns and rockets. David, the author of Tehillim, taught the principle of ?we? as the antidote to weapons of destruction and to the hateful enemies who choose them.
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Rabbi Grossman is the Chairman of the Board of Religious Zionists of America and a former President of the Rabbinical Council of America.