B"H

THOUGHTS BEFORE TISHA B'AV

      Sunday is Tisha B'Av, the low point of our Jewish year.
      I usually confine these thoughts to once a month, but I felt impelled on this momentous day, for the sake of our Holy Nation, to express something more.
      Last week I read a headline saying that a major church group in the United States was attempting to boycott Israel by threatening to sell its large stock holding in defense contractors who supply Israel with weapons. This led to some thoughts about our upcoming Fast Day.
      It occurred to me that it is important to have two ideas in mind on Tisha b'Av. I say this, I hope, with humility; my words are directed to myself as well as anyone else who may read this.
      The first thought I believe we should have in mind as we pray on Tisha b'Av is that we are in imminent danger.
      I spoke this week to an eminent rabbi who has just returned from leading a group to Eastern Europe. One thought overwhelmed him: after hundreds of years of incredible greatness, the holy Jewish presence in Eastern Europe is GONE! There are basically NO JEWS left today! Hundreds of years evaporated almost overnight!
      My friends, I am sorry to say that it could happen (G-d forbid!) here! We must know that our entire world is threatened, and we should pray with that in mind. The Destruction of our Temples is not a thing of the past! We are praying for our own survival, the preservation of everything that is precious to us! I am constantly reminded of the words I heard in the name of the Holy Baba Sali Zt"l, who was asked how it was that the Sephardim had largely escaped the Holocaust. He is reported to have answered, "Because they don't talk in shul."
      Prayer is our umbilical cord to Life. We are praying to live.
      Again, please don't think these words are addressed to you as opposed to me. I need these words myself, and I say them over with the thought that we all need strengthening in these chaotic times.
      Thought number two: it is all predicted.
      I want to repeat what I wrote last week for the Month of Menacham Av. At the same time as we contemplate the imminent and ubiquitous danger to our entire way of life, we would do well to remember that everything we are seeing in today's world has been predicted in our Torah and explained to us IN ADVANCE by our Torah sages.
      I mentioned in last week's email the incredible commentary of the Malbim¹ on the words of the Prophet Yechezkel. The Malbim gives us the key to understand the Post-9/11 world.
      As I understand the Malbim, we are currently living in what is called "acharis ha yamim," the End of Days. The Malbim describes the final war in history, the War of Gog and Magog, and it seems clear that this war has already begun. He describes a time when the descendants of Esau – represented by the European Nations and the church associated with the European culture – are going to join forces with the descendants of Ishmael – the Moslem Nations – in order to try to annihilate (G-d forbid... and He will forbid it!) the smallest nation, the tiniest minority, the Children of Israel!
      Look around! This is today!
      In England, the children of Ishmael bomb the children of Esau and the children of Israel are blamed!
      In Israel, we fight for our lives against brutal murderers and the Presbyterian Church accuses us of "oppression"!
      Yes, the children of Ishmael and the children of Esau are joining forces to annihilate us!
      But something is going awry in their plan. The Malbim tells us that this coalition arrayed against us is going to collapse because their religions will not be able to tolerate each other. Before they are able to carry out their diabolical plans, their unquenchable hatred will cause them to destroy each other instead of us!
      And so we see the tragedy of the Twin Towers, War in Afghanistan and Iraq, bombings in Madrid, London, the conflict spreading throughout the world!
      We are in a dark world, but everything is predicted in the Torah.
      If we can cry for our Nation, cry for the pain of Yerushalayim and Eretz Yisroel, cry for the anguish of our People, cry for help to Our Father in Heaven, He will certainly respond to our tears.
      May it be His will that soon, from the darkness of the present world, will emerge the most powerful light ever seen on earth, the light of Moshiach ben Dovid, the light of a reborn Israel, the light of a new Temple that will stand forever in Jerusalem, the light of the Children of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob reunited forever in the presence of the Shechina, a world reborn in the perfection of the original creation!
      May we see it soon in our days!
      May Tisha B'Av soon – this year! – become the Season of our Greatest Joy!

Roy S. Neuberger

¹Again, I express my deepest gratitude to my beloved friend, Rabbi Amos Bunim, for having brought this commentary to my attention. These are the words of the Malbim, writing 150 years ago, on the passage in Yechezkel (the Prophet Ezekial) beginning at 32:17