For those faithful to the Torah, the Jewish people and the Land of Israel, the most difficult feeling these days is a sense of frustration in the face of the incomprehensible gap between their self-sacrifice and the treatment they get in return from a (noisy, but small) part of the public and the state's systems.
The evil that is revealed – not for the first time, but record breaking each time – in the Feldstein affair or in the blood libel against Jabo, may God avenge his blood, can make a sane person lose his mind.
The way some of us deal with it is to try to deny the darkness that looms in front of us and to mumble that these systems actually have the best intentions (from there it goes on to "we need to do some soul-searching about why we are hated so much"). A contrasting method is to give up on the State of Israel, as a friend put it to me: "We raised our children to love the country, but we are abandoning them to the hands of the wicked."
Regarding the first form of coping, I suggest not trying to deny reality: we are facing certain people who intend to do harm. Period. When you spit at us, it is not rain. The consolation is that they are a small and fading group. These are a few thousand people who, unfortunately, still control important systems, but their power is diminishing day by day.
Regarding the second form of coping, it is important to understand: we are fighting for the State of Israel and the Jewish people, not for the Kaplan force. We do not "abandon our children" but encourage them to fulfill the greatest mitzvah that there is today. The past year has made it clear – for those who still need clarification – that the only hope for the Jewish people is a strong state connected to tradition and roots; and who will fight for this if not us?
We will fight with all our strength against the harmful elements, and our strength is increasing day by day. As for the question "How much evil can we put up with?" the answer is – as much as we have to! This is precisely what the concept of "redemption" means– to promote an imperfect world and an imperfect state into a more complete reality.
The critical mass of the nationalistic, traditional, and religious public is advancing at a rapid pace.
It is everyone’s personal right to decide if they do not want to be part of this process, but they and their grandchildren will regret it in the future. In contrast, "A Divine Voice is destined to explode on the mountaintops and say: ‘Let anyone who acted with God come and take his reward" [Vayikra Raba 27b].
Another example of how much we have to cope with is the haredi draft issue. It is a real problem, but it is being used by the left to try to divide the haredi and Religious Zionist sectors, and we have to cope with it by realizing that. Rabbi Lundin discusses the dilemma:
The burning question that national-religious rabbis are being asked these days is, "What do we do about the draft plan for the Haredim?" The honest answer is that there is not a lot we can do. We all would like to see the haredim also joining in the defense of the people of Israel physically as well as in the Study Hall, and most of us also understand that coercion in the current situation will not help.
In Parashat Chayei Sarah read last Shabbat, Eliezer – who is looking for a match for Yitzchak – meets Rivka at the "water well"; Yaakov and Rachel also meet there. The commentators explain that a "water well" is an expression of a source of water that is indeed drawn by a person, but begins from its own spring. Finding a spouse of course depends on our own search, but there is a need for an inner "spring", with the help of Heaven.
There are situations – more than in others- in life that we discern that not everything is up to us. The wisest thing in that case is to let the inner drive do its thing. The processes in haredi society flow slowly, not at the pace or in the way we would like, but they are happening. Drawing water in this case will be expressed in encouraging recruitment in various ways, such as the haredi preparatory programs and the haredi brigade that is currently forming.
You will see that in a long process, the moment will also come when the haredi public will come and say to the people of Israel, as Rebecca did: "Drink, and I will give your camels to drink as well". In haredi society, there are enormous wells of kindness and love; in the meantime, we are waiting. With love for all Jews.