B"H

THOUGHTS BEFORE YOM KIPPUR

Dear Friends:
      We are approaching Yom Kippur.
      Will our prayers be accepted? Will G-d grant us another year of life?
      The world seems on fire. The mayor of New York has warned of an imminent terrorist threat to the transit system. In Kashmir, the earth swallows thousands. The ocean invades Louisiana. All over the world, natural and man-made crises seem to be increasing, coming ever closer to us.
      On the Shabbos before Yom Kippur this year, we read Parshas Vayeilech. Moses, on his last day, is speaking to his beloved people. "I know that after my death you will surely act corruptly, and you will stray from the path that I have commanded you, and the evil will befall you at the end of days."¹
      What is "the evil"?
      The Baal ha Turim tells us it refers to the War of Gog and Magog, the war "that will precede the Messianic era."² The War of Gog and Magog will be a war between the Western and the Moslem Cultures,³ in other words: the exact situation in today's world!
      The Baal ha Turim also tells us that, in the End of Days, when Israel is groaning from the troubles that Yishmael (today's Arab nations) will inflict upon us, "G-d will hear" our cries (as He heard our ancestors' cries in Egypt), and "if you turn to Him in repentance, then salvation shall befall you…."⁴
      In other words, if we turn to G-d in repentance, then salvation, and not evil, will "befall" us in the end of days.
      My dear friends, can there be any doubt – especially when we read such words, written many hundreds of years ago by a sage steeped in the mysteries of the Torah – that the "end of days" is here? Every day the entire world groans under the troubles Yishmael inflicts upon us. Nowhere is the pain felt more than in our beloved homeland, Eretz Yisroel, but not only in Israel is the pain apparent. In New York City, the heart of "Golus," the mayor warns us to be careful on the subways, and, all over the world, the natural order is shaking.
      So, my friends, on this Yom Kippur eve, when our individual lives and the life of the world hang in the balance, I would like to suggest that there is only one solution, only one direction we can take. As the Baal ha Turim explained to us some seven hundred years ago, "If you turn to Him in repentance, then salvation shall befall your walls."
      Despite the desperate nature of today's world, there will come a time soon when we will return as One Nation to our Holy Land of Israel and Our Holy City of Jerusalem in peace and tranquility, with the banner of Torah leading us.
      May this year be the year in which we see unity among us, Jerusalem rebuilt, peace in our hearts toward each other, peace in our land and peace in the world. May this be the year in which salvation "befalls us" and all evil disappears from the world!
      With blessings, 
                                                                                                  Roy S. Neuberger

[1]Deuteronomy 31:29
[2]Baal ha Turim on Deuteronomy 31:29
[3]According to the Malbim on the Prophet Ezekial 32:17
[4]Baal ha Turim on Deuteronomy 31:29