The Rishon LeTzion Rabbi Eliyahu Bakshi-Doron has called on Islamic religious leaders to withdraw all religious rulings allowing and even encouraging suicide attacks. He said that these rulings are the spiritual basis for yesterday\'s horrific attacks in the United States. His colleague Chief Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau has called for Israel to organize an international forum against terrorism. The rabbis held special prayer sessions today for the victims of yesterday\'s attacks, and Rabbi Bakshi-Doron called for the recitation of the entire Book of Psalms this coming Rosh HaShanah (next Tuesday and Wednesday).
Arutz-7 reporters spoke to Rabbis Nachum Rabinowitz and Shlomo Riskin today, in a quest to understand the \"Jewish historical\" view of yesterday\'s cataclysmic events. \"Is this similar to the Tower of Babel? Is it the war of Gog and Magog? Does it symbolize the coming of Messiah?\" - these were some of the possibilities raised in various quarters, and placed before the rabbis for their responses, which are summarized below:
Rabbi Rabinowitz, the head of Yeshivat Hesder Birkat Moshe in Maaleh Adumim:
\"This week\'s Torah portion mentions that the hidden things are of G-d, meaning that we must not try to figure out things like this, as His thoughts are not ours, and we don\'t always understand how He runs the world. However, the verse continues that there are other things that we can try to understand. When troubles befall us, if we relate to them as happenstance, then we are left open to the curse mentioned in the next verse. On the other hand, G-d gave us a gift that we can not only act with determination for the future, but are also able to grant significance to events that happened - by reaching conclusions from these events that help us improve our ways. If people understand that they must react appropriately, then even the worst calamities can be used for good things later. For instance, if Hitler had done something like this when he first took office, it could be that World War II and the Holocaust would have been prevented [assuming that this would have alerted the world]. … We cannot say that this was the purpose of yesterday\'s attacks, but we can say that we and the whole world should open our eyes and see the enemy for what he really is... It\'s clear that this colossal tragedy cannot be justified merely as a signal for the world to open its eyes - but after the fact, we must certainly use it to arouse serious thought and to understand that we have an enemy who threatens not only us but chiefly the whole world. This enemy acts as if he believes in one G-d, but in reality, he is only evil and hatred, and we must fight him with the correct understanding of who he really is. But as long as we keep saying that we need a little more forbearance, patience and restraint - well, we see what happens.
\"Whoever says that this is definitely the sign of Gog and Magog, or the like, is either a rogue, because he knows that he truly doesn\'t know what will be (but is trying to fool us), or else he is foolish, because he thinks he knows how exactly G-d runs His world...\"
Rabbi Shlomo Riskin of Efrat, speaking from Manhattan:
\"Yesterday morning, I was sitting in a NY office, explaining that the evils of this century - first Nazi fascism, then Stalinist Communism - began against the Jews, and then continued against the rest of the world. I had just said that the third scourge of the century is Islamic fundamentalism - which today is against Israel and tomorrow will be against the entire free world - and then, as if on queue, someone opened the door and told us about the explosions in the World Trade Center, and then a few minutes later about the Pentagon, and that was the end of our meeting... There is a tremendous sense of American vulnerability. Americans, and the Jews here as well, have always thought of the U.S. as being invulnerable. Just as the shofar is a wake-up call, this was too - and to the American government as well. I don\'t think that we\'ll hear anymore about even-handedness or [Israel\'s] overreacting and the like; I think that this will wake everyone up to realize that we must destroy terrorism wherever it rears its ugly head, whatever it takes to do so - otherwise the world will be overtaken by Islamic fundamentalists, by the core of the most evil thing imaginable.
[Regarding the Messiah and Gog-and-Magog] I must admit that this was my first reaction when I looked out the window and saw the smoke billowing, and people jumping out the windows, and the terror on the faces of all the high-powered brokers, etc. Undoubtedly it is a clash of two cultures, one that trains its youth to study and to live in freedom and to revere life, and another culture that trains its youth to become suicide bombers. The first understands compromise, and the other only believes in fanatical all-or-nothing. This is very frightening. I will speak about this in Israel next week, but in short: The world that G-d created is not yet complete, and our task, Israel\'s, is to perfect it. To some extent, we are the litmus paper of where the world stands, as I alluded to at the beginning [regarding the century\'s three scourges]. Our job is to act against these evils, because otherwise, we leave the world open to the worst forces of evil unimaginable. Our belief is that once we - primarily the Jews, and also all freedom-loving peoples - take the requisite steps, then G-d will complete the process. We hope that yesterday\'s unspeakable events bring the U.S. and Israel closer [to this end].\"
Arutz-7 reporters spoke to Rabbis Nachum Rabinowitz and Shlomo Riskin today, in a quest to understand the \"Jewish historical\" view of yesterday\'s cataclysmic events. \"Is this similar to the Tower of Babel? Is it the war of Gog and Magog? Does it symbolize the coming of Messiah?\" - these were some of the possibilities raised in various quarters, and placed before the rabbis for their responses, which are summarized below:
Rabbi Rabinowitz, the head of Yeshivat Hesder Birkat Moshe in Maaleh Adumim:
\"This week\'s Torah portion mentions that the hidden things are of G-d, meaning that we must not try to figure out things like this, as His thoughts are not ours, and we don\'t always understand how He runs the world. However, the verse continues that there are other things that we can try to understand. When troubles befall us, if we relate to them as happenstance, then we are left open to the curse mentioned in the next verse. On the other hand, G-d gave us a gift that we can not only act with determination for the future, but are also able to grant significance to events that happened - by reaching conclusions from these events that help us improve our ways. If people understand that they must react appropriately, then even the worst calamities can be used for good things later. For instance, if Hitler had done something like this when he first took office, it could be that World War II and the Holocaust would have been prevented [assuming that this would have alerted the world]. … We cannot say that this was the purpose of yesterday\'s attacks, but we can say that we and the whole world should open our eyes and see the enemy for what he really is... It\'s clear that this colossal tragedy cannot be justified merely as a signal for the world to open its eyes - but after the fact, we must certainly use it to arouse serious thought and to understand that we have an enemy who threatens not only us but chiefly the whole world. This enemy acts as if he believes in one G-d, but in reality, he is only evil and hatred, and we must fight him with the correct understanding of who he really is. But as long as we keep saying that we need a little more forbearance, patience and restraint - well, we see what happens.
\"Whoever says that this is definitely the sign of Gog and Magog, or the like, is either a rogue, because he knows that he truly doesn\'t know what will be (but is trying to fool us), or else he is foolish, because he thinks he knows how exactly G-d runs His world...\"
Rabbi Shlomo Riskin of Efrat, speaking from Manhattan:
\"Yesterday morning, I was sitting in a NY office, explaining that the evils of this century - first Nazi fascism, then Stalinist Communism - began against the Jews, and then continued against the rest of the world. I had just said that the third scourge of the century is Islamic fundamentalism - which today is against Israel and tomorrow will be against the entire free world - and then, as if on queue, someone opened the door and told us about the explosions in the World Trade Center, and then a few minutes later about the Pentagon, and that was the end of our meeting... There is a tremendous sense of American vulnerability. Americans, and the Jews here as well, have always thought of the U.S. as being invulnerable. Just as the shofar is a wake-up call, this was too - and to the American government as well. I don\'t think that we\'ll hear anymore about even-handedness or [Israel\'s] overreacting and the like; I think that this will wake everyone up to realize that we must destroy terrorism wherever it rears its ugly head, whatever it takes to do so - otherwise the world will be overtaken by Islamic fundamentalists, by the core of the most evil thing imaginable.
[Regarding the Messiah and Gog-and-Magog] I must admit that this was my first reaction when I looked out the window and saw the smoke billowing, and people jumping out the windows, and the terror on the faces of all the high-powered brokers, etc. Undoubtedly it is a clash of two cultures, one that trains its youth to study and to live in freedom and to revere life, and another culture that trains its youth to become suicide bombers. The first understands compromise, and the other only believes in fanatical all-or-nothing. This is very frightening. I will speak about this in Israel next week, but in short: The world that G-d created is not yet complete, and our task, Israel\'s, is to perfect it. To some extent, we are the litmus paper of where the world stands, as I alluded to at the beginning [regarding the century\'s three scourges]. Our job is to act against these evils, because otherwise, we leave the world open to the worst forces of evil unimaginable. Our belief is that once we - primarily the Jews, and also all freedom-loving peoples - take the requisite steps, then G-d will complete the process. We hope that yesterday\'s unspeakable events bring the U.S. and Israel closer [to this end].\"