A THOUGHT- PROVOKING INTERVIEW WITH

RABBI GEDALIAH RABINOVICH,

THE MANSTRICHER REBBE

 

This interview was first published in Hebrew in the BaKehila newspaper in Israel
and has been provided to Shuvoo by Rabbi Gedaliah Rabinovich.

 

 

On the Eve of Tish’a B’Av, 5765 (2005):
The Admor of Manstritch speaks of Baseless Hate and the Impending Expulsion:

 

THE TIME HAS COME TO ADMIT IT:

THERE IS A MIXED MULTITUDE IN OUR MIDST!

 

THE ANNIVERSARY OF THE DESTRUCTION OF THE TEMPLE TAKES ON NEW MEANING THIS YEAR: HUNDREDS OF JEWS – MEN, WOMEN AND CHILDREN – WILL BE SITTING ON THE GROUND, RECITING LAMENTATIONS , ONLY 24 HOURS BEFORE THEY ARE EXPELLED FROM THEIR VILLAGES AND DRIVEN OFF THEIR LAND *

 

IN AN EYE-OPENING, POINTED TALK WITH THE ADMOR OF MANSTRITCH, RABBI GEDALIAH RABINOVICH, WHO HAS BECOME THE MENTOR OF MANY EVER SINCE HE SETTLED IN JERUSALEM’S RAMAT-SHLOMO NEIGHBORHOOD A FEW YEARS AGO, POINTS TO THE CONNECTION BETWEEN THE DESTRUCTION OF THE TEMPLE THEN, THE EXPULSION DECREE TODAY AND THE CONDITIONS OF THE HAREIDI PUBLIC IN ERETZ-ISRAEL --  * ZION ON TRIAL

 

 

The Admor of Manstritch, as interviewed by Benjamin Lipkin:

 

It is at present the eve of Tish’a B’Av. In this connection, it has been said of the strength of the Jewish People, that a nation that mourns the destruction of its Temple though two thousand years have passed since then – is an eternal nation. What is the magnitude of the mourning and the destruction on the eve of Tish’a B’Av 2005?

 

I would say that if we are aware of the destruction and of the factors that led to it, we must not only bewail it but also understand and internalize why it took place. Our Sages say (in the Babylonian Talmud) that the Temple was destroyed because of baseless hatred. The Jerusalem Talmud, on the other hand, adds something that sheds light on what actually took place there. It says: “They were enamored of riches, but not of one another”. All hatred of whatever type must be motivated. The term “baseless hatred” indicates that this hatred was improper, for it had no aim. It wasn’t “baseless”, or for nothing, in the simple meaning of the term. The love of wealth, so our Sages explain, was the hidden interest behind that hatred that led to the destruction of the Temple. It appears that even now we can point unwaveringly to a link between the reason for the Temple’s destruction and what is transpiring in our very midst today. We witness an array of financial interests of various kinds that generate disagreement and dispute between different sectors of the people, different ethnic communities, between one Jew and another.

 

Can it be said that this phenomenon, which is known to have accompanied our people throughout their Exile, has become more intense in the recent past?

 

That is a good question, but it should first be noted that there is an opinion that this characteristic is beneficial in that it is what has resulted in Jewish survival throughout the ages. The Jewish People is a stubborn people. Simply put, the Jews are a difficult people. They know how to look out for their own interests, they do not tend to compromise. They fight fiercely against anyone trying to obscure or obliterate their individuality or their nature. This opinion claims that this is a positive characteristic in that it has led to the eternal nature of the Jewish People throughout the generations.

 

What then is the fault in this characteristic, that leads to the destruction of the Temple, and, once again, has any change in it taken place in recent years?

 

I would make a clear distinction between what took place during the fifty years following the Holocaust, up until ten years ago, and what has taken place in our midst during the past decade. The terrible shock of the destruction of European Jewry channeled the Jewish masses towards unity. It was an unconscious decision taken by the embers, Jews who had personally lived through the very worst of horrors together with those who were there in time see or at least to hear from their loved ones the disasters that had occurred. We slowly came to feel that “this is what is left”. We are Jews and we must survive. This feeling was shared by every Jew, though no one was actually able to put his finger on it. It found expression in the various Jewish communities that lived together, despite differences in status, in ethnicity, in beliefs and in opinions. In the last ten years, the bonds have begun to fall apart. Fifty years seem to have sufficed for the Jewish People to take its leave, as it were, of the lesson of the Holocaust.

 

Why was it that this specifically was the lesson of the Holocaust? The divisions within the Jewish People were seen to be the spiritual reason for the outbreak of the Holocaust.

 

Not really. After it was over, when the flames and the horrors had subsided, the influence of the Holocaust was a restraining factor. Jews appreciated the fact that they had remained alive, as they appreciated the miraculous salvation whereby the Almighty had left the Jewish People alive. Over the last decade this restraining influence has become steadily weaker and has even disappeared. No longer are there any brakes to slow down the effect of disagreements which split the nation. Observant Jews have begun to fight amongst themselves. This is bad, but every Jew is invited to look at things and realize just how true this is. It is difficult to say today that the reason for the Holocaust no longer exists. It is difficult to claim that the main lesson of our distancing ourselves from the reason for the destruction has been internalized. On the contrary, a steep deterioration has taken place in this very field, and every individual and every community feels the results of this deterioration.

 

A MIXED MULTITUDE IN OUR MIDST

 

This year there has arisen a turning-point in the social picture the Rabbi has described. The morning this interview is being published is only four days before the implementation of the plan to uproot 1,700 families from their homes in Gush Katif. How are we to view what is going on in this respect – from a perspective of the eve of Tish’a B’Av?

 

I am about to speak very strongly, however I’ll attempt to explain what I am saying. This may seem to contradict my earlier calls for unity, but it points to a very serious step being taken before our very eyes, a step we have to think about. The Jewish People is at present trying to cope with a situation where there is a “mixed multitude” in its midst. We are speaking of Jews who, from the point-of-view of halacha, are truly Jews. They were born to Jewish mothers and their Jewishness cannot be disputed. Nevertheless, their personalities, the way they conduct themselves, the steps they advocate – shows that they are a mixed multitude.

 

How is it possible to determine that any particular Jew is part of a mixed multitude? What is the criterion? The injustice he supports? What injustice turns a Jew into part of a mixed multitude?

 

Here is an inverse example: Much has been written in halachic works about giyyur, conversion to Judaism. Our sages even talk of “a convert who has converted”. Why do they use this term, rather than “a non-Jew who has converted”? Because a convert is actually a non-Jew into whom a Jewish soul has been born, and so he is willing to accept the yoke of Torah observance with all that that implies. For this reason he is accepted into the Jewish People and comes under divine protection. Who is part of a mixed multitude? A Jew who alienates himself from anything that appears Jewish; he identifies in every way with non-Jews; he is in constant search for the magic formula that will appease the non-Jews; he is immersed in a non-Jewish culture; non-Jewish values are his values. Such a Jew is not satisfied with blindly following non-Jews and whatever they represent. He scorns things that are Jewish, shakes off any Jewish connection he may still have – he nullifies the slightest trace of Jewish faith or enthusiasm. In this way, he reveals his profound and fierce hatred for whatever represents to him a whole Jew. This is the mixed multitude.

 

How does the mixed multitude phenomenon connect up with the impending uprooting of Jewish settlement in Gush Katif?

 

Let us try to imagine just why they chose the Jews of Gush Katif and the destruction of their lifework. Why does the entire system – the media, the legal establishment, the police, the army, government institutions – treat the Jews of Gush Katif with such scorn, such antagonism? These are not hareidi Jews. The residents of Gush Katif serve in the army, they are productive, they work hard to make a living, and even export their produce and market it throughout Israel and the whole world. Why treat them with such hatred, with so deep a feeling of rejection and distaste? It is because the mixed multitude view these Jews, the settlers of Gush Katif, as the spearhead of the Jewish People. They integrate in their daily lives both Torah and Eretz-Israel. They learn Torah and are extremely observant, they undergo severe personal danger in settling Eretz-Israel. They study Torah and work the land. They are the complete and absolute antithesis of everything the mixed multitude advocates and represents.

 

How can this insight, besides the diagnosis it includes, be channeled into a lesson for each and every individual?

 

The message is clear. In light of this terrible revelation of the ascendancy of the mixed multitude in our land, to the extent that they can realize their dream to expel those Jews so brutally, we must take upon ourselves a holy obligation. In my humble opinion, the present imperative is for all observant Jews to unite. It must be clear to all of us that the war being waged is not against the people of Gush Katif or the settlers of Yesha, but rather against  us as Torah-observant Jews. For us to win this war, we have to unite and leave behind us all partisan considerations, whether personal, communal or ethnic. This message links us to the things that are imminent – the reason for the exile and the disaster that has taken place in the last ten years. The time has come to pick up the pieces and work for the complete unification of the Torah-observant population.

 

Isn’t it too late for such a call?

 

How can a believing Jew even utter the phrase “too late”?  We believe.  We are commanded daily to believe in the coming of the Messiah, and even though he tarries, we are to await his coming and believe in it.  So here you ask if it isn’t too late? It is certainly not too late. On the contrary, the sooner we internalize this message and act accordingly, the fewer problems we will encounter. We must not forget that it is our obligation to oppose the mixed multitude that wages a fierce war against us. This is the way to win. Furthermore, we have to rid ourselves of the reason for our two-thousand-year Exile. For we are at present on the threshold of our Redemption.

 

SIGNS OF IMMINENT REDEMPTION

 

How are we to reconcile your statement that we are on the threshold of our Redemption with your description of the serious nature of what we are experiencing today: disagreement breaking out amongst us and the existence of a mixed multitude that strives to fight us, Torah-observant Jews, in particular and unfortunately even achieves considerable success?

 

We find in our Jewish sources two clear signs of impending redemption. This is not my opinion, but rather statements worded clearly in our holy sources. The first and most central element is the Ingathering of the Exiles. Recent statistics shows that in a short period of time, a matter of a few months, the Jewish people residing in Eretz-Israel will be a majority of the Jewish People worldwide. This wonderful situation where a majority of the Jewish Nation lives on Jewish territory is a situation we have never since the days of the First Temple.

 

Those statistics show that this process is taking place not because the Jews are multiplying in their Land, but rather because of the severe assimilatory processes affecting us in the lands of the Diaspora.

 

The fact remains that the present situation is one in which there is no future for the Jews of the rest of the world.  European Jewry – there is nothing whatever to say.  But this is true of other places throughout the world as well. Even today, the number of Jews in Eretz-Israel is greater than the number of Jews in America, which used to be the largest of the Jewish diasporas. This is true of everywhere else as well. And this is not a trivial matter. The fact that the majority of the Jewish People lives in Eretz-Israel is a clear sign of the Ingathering of the Exiles. This is the flowering of the wilderness the Talmud  talks about in Tractate Sanhedrin.  There is no greater proof that the Redemption is imminent.

 

How are we to reconcile the great disaster the Rabbi mentioned before with the imminent coming of the Redemption? Is it conceivable that when a majority of the Jewish People lives in Eretz-Israel and this indicates the Ingathering of the Exiles, over twenty settlements are evacuated of their Jews at one and the same time?

 

Let me quote from the Tikkunei Zohar Hadash.  It says there that just before the Redemption there will be great anxiety, and the Almighty will created worlds and destroy others, and that at that very moment the world will be subject to a rule of “the left hand rejects”, to be followed by a rule of “the right hand beckons”.  The Vilna Gaon says of this in his commentary that in those days the Jews of Zion will be fleeing like exiles who flee their country. This is a clear statement, frighteningly clear, evidently indicative of what is going on today.

 

So perhaps we should merely sit back and watch passively at what is transpiring before our very eyes, because both the positive changes and the negative elements are all signs of impending Redemption?

 

No. We must appreciate the fact that we are in the middle of a process that has its ups as it has its downs. This is precisely what the phrase yeitei v’la ahamineih “he will come, but I will not see him” means. We wished the Redeemer would come and that we would not miss him. We now have to cope with the mixed multitude dwelling in our midst. We must work for unification of the Torah-observant population of all the various types and streams. This is what we must do now.

 

THIS IS THE REMEDY FOR THOSE WHO FALL BY THE WAYSIDE

 

This call of the Rabbi for the unity of all the movements of Torah-observant Jews may well encounter, first and foremost, the structured resistance expressed only recently in a practical manner as the expulsion from Gush Katif draws nearer. On the one hand, the vast majority of Hareidi Jews is adamantly opposed to this entire plan; on the other hand, the Hareidi camp has not really shown signs of active identification with the settlers. They fear that this proximity may obscure the differences in principle between the Hareidi camp and its National Religious counterpart, and that they are obliged for purposes of education and values, and also substantively, to keep themselves separate.

 

Let me tell you a well-known story about that. Everyone knows the question about the prophecy of the End of Days where it says: “And the wolf shall dwell with the lamb”. So what’s new about this? In Noah’s Ark did not carnivorous animals dwell together with others? Is this the so-called miraculous innovation of the End of Days – a return to the period of Noah’s Ark? The answer is as follows: when outside a stormy flood poured down to destroy everything on earth, there is no problem to have the wolf lie down near the lamb. The innovation of the Messianic Era will be that even when there is peace and quiet, the wolf and the lamb will co-exist. There is a flood going on outside right now. A great storm. This is the time when both the wolf and the lamb can live in peace and brotherhood.

 

Has such a unity call really got a chance? Isn’t a hope for a general unification of Torah Jewry being too naive?

 

I would like to reply with a question of my own: Why in Chicago was I able to recite my daily prayers in a synagogue where the rabbi was a follower of the Satmar Rebbe and the congregants belonged partly to other hasidic courts, others wore knitted kippot and were considered part of the Mizrahi? They all prayed in the same synagogue on Shabbat. Why has such a phenomenon been possible throughout the Diaspora, and only here in Eretz-Israel it is impossible? And as far as a loss of identity and an obscuring of differences are concerned, on the contrary: could such a unification movement not serve as a restraint preventing the spiritual falling by the wayside of so many?

 

How can such unification of Torah Jewry cure this “falling by the wayside” disease?

 

First of all, history testifies to this. The need for unity in Torah-observant communities came about as a result of the realization that this is the way to repel the strongly-blowing winds of the Enlightenment. Jews who had lived for years in isolated support of their particular circles without having met or even seen any other Jews and without being aware of any other option within Judaism realized that Jews faithful to their tradition could only withstand the ominous winds by achieving unity and presenting to Jewish youth a multifaceted Judaism faithful to the Almighty and to His Torah. But not only history calls for unity, pragmatism does so as well. Today, with each community isolated and cut off from others, a youngster who falls by the wayside knows that if he leaves the communal framework he was born into and in which his family life conducts itself, he is to all intents and purposes rejecting Torah and its commandments. There is no center ground. Were the entire Torah-observant camp unified, even a would-be individualist wanting to break out of the natural limits he finds all about him would know that the Torah is many-faceted. A lad belonging to one hasidic court or to a certain group of mithnagdim would be able to adopt a different stream without crossing over entirely and rejecting Torah observance in accordance with the present norm of “either you do as you are told or you are an outcast”.

 

And in the framework of that worry for youth falling by the wayside that may possibly find an alternate framework, is there no fear of obscuring one’s own nature at the heart of society?

 

Let me answer that question with a story. I was a Rosh Yeshiva in the USA when the Vietnam War ended. When the war was over, the American government announced the end of the compulsory draft. I well recall the worries of the heads of yeshivot throughout the United States. What’s going to be? They asked out loud at the emergency meetings they initiated. The Torah world which had begun to flourish was in danger of collapse, they feared. The strong stream of youth towards our holy yeshivot might come to an end. I said to the heads of the yeshivot who spoke to me at the time: “Have you no faith in the Almighty? Don’t you believe He is capable of seeing to the continued flourishing of the yeshivot? Is the very existence of the Torah world in America dependent upon the government’s compulsory draft for fear of which our youth stream to the yeshivot? The Torah world is deeply rooted in the USA, it  flowered and flourished even without a compulsory draft.  Today I am convinced that Torah-observant unity can have no negative effect whatever.  On the contrary, it will strengthen the Torah world economically as well.

 

What economic consequences can it have?

 

An entire world of holy yeshivot and Torah institutions survives in the United States and elsewhere on the face of the earth without relying as a dependent upon government budgeting. In Eretz-Israel, which at present is forced to cope with the mixed multitude phenomenon we have already discussed, what logic can there be to a situation where most of the Torah institutions and holy yeshivot rely upon government favors? Why has the time not come to find the required funding ourselves? This can only be achieved by a broad, vast show of strength, a common front of the entire Torah-observant community. For such a result, no one is called upon to stop praying in his own nusah or to stop keeping the customs of his forefathers.  Each person and what he is accustomed to. They are all beloved, they are all chosen, they are all holy and they all perform, in awe, the will of their Creator together.

 

Rabbi, do you foresee a time when all of Torah-observant Jewry presents a joint Knesset candidate list?

 

Political parties do not interest me. The Knesset itself does not interest me, nor does politics. What I have just said has no political message or implication. I’m talking about the community inward. The time has come to internalize the words of the Jerusalem Talmud with which we opened this discussion – about the reason for the destruction of the Temple. They were enamored of wealth rather than of one another. The time has come for us to put aside our particular interests which cause unnecessary and bring closer the coming of our Redeemer swiftly and in our days.