B"H

THOUGHTS ON ANIMALS

 

Dear Friends:

The hardest thing is little Moishele, crying over his mother's body. 

"IMA! IMA!"  

Who can bear it?  It tears you apart. 

 

ABBA! ABBA!  Our Father in Heaven!  We cannot take it anymore.  They have spit on us and trampled on us and carved us up for two thousand years!  And they are laughing now, because we are crying.  HELP US ABBA! 

The entire episode is barbaric, like 9/11.  What did they accomplish?  Destroy!  Destroy! Destroy!  There is no point to it, an orgy of blood with no meaning whatsoever! And then, we remember where they come from: pe're adam, [1] a wild donkey of a man.  Our rabbis tell us that Ishmael, progenitor of the Moslem race, is more donkey than man, a human face with an animal's "soul."  So we begin to understand who is perpetrating these subhuman acts.  Let no one claim there is a philosophy, a justification, that anything is being gained. There is nothing here but bestiality.

Do they need Eretz Yisroel and Jerusalem, G-d forbid? 

Eretz Yisroel stands for sanctity and Torah; that is why it was given to us.  Pe're adam do not know what spirituality is.  All they know is blood!  They hate us for one reason alone: they know that the Children of Israel are close to G-d.  They killed our brothers and sisters because they are trying to kill G-d, just as the Generation of Babel built a tower from which to attack Him millennia ago.  They are trying to wipe kedusha off the face of the earth so that only the beasts remain to pursue their lusts, and they desire to be king of the beasts. 

That is the state of the world today.

 

The question remains: What do we do about it? 

Let's make no mistake, it's our problem.  Our world is increasingly populated by these animals.  Our rabbis have informed us that, in the days before Moshiach, the last Exile would be at the hands of the children of Ishmael, and it is happening right now. 

So what do we do?

Psalm 118 says: "[The Nations] encircle me like bees, but they are extinguished as a fire does thorns; in the Name of G-d I cut them down."  The Brisker Rav is reported to have predicted, on the basis of this line, that one day our enemies would kill themselves to "sting" us! [2] People say there is no defense against suicide bombers, but the Psalm says there is: "the Name of G-d!"  If the Children of Israel live with the Name of G-d on our lips, then these "unstoppable" enemies will be "extinguished."  

Do we not say every day, "G-d has redeemed Jacob and rescued him from a power mightier than he"?  Our enemies may be "mighty," but our Helper is the Ruler of all creation! 

 

Yes, my friends, G-d is still running His world, and He is waiting for us to return to Him!  Please forgive what I am going to say, but I think tough times demand tough thoughts. 

We are told that G-d runs the world mida keneged mida; we reap what we sow.  Noah's world was drowning in immorality, so a flood drowned the world.  Today we live in an animalistic age, and we are being punished with animals. 

Recently a worker at a Long Island store was trampled to death at 5 a.m. by crowds breaking down the doors and surging in to find bargains!   We are living in a world gone mad for material things, and the tragedy is that we Jews are catching the disease!  A nation of prophets is exchanging our holy calling for a pot of red red porrage!  So a nation of animals rises against us!

My friend, Reb Reuven Cohen, Rosh Kollel in the Holy City of Kiriat Sefer, recently brought to my attention a sefer called Ohr Yesharim, which quotes the Baal Shem Tov discussing conditions during the End of Days, just before the coming of Moshiach.  Here is the relevant passage:

"Before Moshiach comes, there will be a period of great abundance. The House of Israel will become wealthy and grow accustomed to spending large sums of money to maintain an expensive lifestyle. They will slowly cast away the habit of getting by with the bare necessities. But a period of difficult years will follow, when making a livelihood will be difficult and great poverty will strike the world. But the Jewish people will have already lost the ability to get by with the barest necessities; the needs of Am Yisroel will be great, and they will not have any source to provide all that they have become accustomed to having. This will be the birth-pangs of Moshiach."

My friends, we must be on guard against attaching ourselves to the world of materialism, because it leads only to destruction.  Animals know only materialism, but we are created "b'tzelem Elokim," in the image of G-d, Who has no material aspect whatsoever.  Am Yisroel are the children of prophets and royalty! 

If we want to save ourselves from the animals then we must make sure we are not acting like animals! 

How do we accomplish that?   

I recently heard the following from the eminent Rabbi Yaakov Landau in Lakewood, New Jersey.  In Parshas Toldos we read that Esau married the daughter of Ishmael. [3] Thus was formed the coalition of enemies which threatened the life of Yaakov, just as the coalition of Esau's and Ishmael's descendants today threatens the life of the children of Yaakov. 

How did our Father Yaakov save himself? 

He hid for fourteen years in the Yeshiva of Ever and learned Torah! [4]

That is how he survived the attack of those who were stronger than he.  He teamed up with the Ruler of the Universe by immersing himself in His Torah!

My friends, the night of Exile is very dark.  The blackness seems to engulf us.  In the darkness of this night we weep along with a little boy who cries, "Ima, Ima."  How can we ever dry our tears?

Soon our Father in Heaven will dry our tears.  Soon, we will be happy again, even happier than our primeval parents in the Garden of Eden, because we have tasted the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge and found it bitter.  Our own knowledge is worthless, but we have tasted the sweetness of the Torah.  Only that sustains us.  Once we embrace the Torah and give up the ways of the animals, then the "Avenger of blood will ... judge the corpse-filled nations." [5]  Then "our mouth will be filed with laughter and our tongue with glad song." [6] Then the Creator will revive the dead and little Moishele will be in his Ima's arms again. 

There is a reason Chanukah comes now: precisely to get us through the darkness.  Look into the Chanukah flame and you will know that G-d will not forget His children. 

The sun will shine again. 

TATI, WE NEED YOU TO RESCUE US NOW!  DON'T WAIT A SECOND LONGER!  WE WILL GIVE YOU NACHAS THIS TIME!  PLEASE SAVE US, TATI! 

Let us learn, my friends, from little Moishele: let us all weep.  The Gate of Tears is never closed.  If we all cry out to our Father in Heaven the way Moishele cries out for his Ima, then He will surely have mercy on us and send the Redeemer soon, in our days, this year!  Kain, y'hi ratzon!

 

- Roy S. Neuberger

 

© Copyright 2008 by Roy S. Neuberger