In 28 years, I will be….
Posted using ShareThis
Posts
20 hours ago
Sunday, 12 April 2009
THE REDEMPTION FROM EGYPT AND TODAY'S REDEMPTION
Posted by Mordechai Friedfertig
12 Apr 2009
[Opening words from Rabbi Shlomo Aviner's radio program]
1. Similarity and DifferenceWe are fortunate that we have merited the Redemption from Egypt and the Redemption we are currently experiencing. There is both a similarity and a difference between these two Redemptions, as our revered teacher Ha-Rav Kook explained in the article "The Pesach of Egypt and the Future Pesach" which appears in the book "Maamrei Ha-Re'eiyah" (pp. 164-166). The similarity is the great wonder is which each of the Redemptions occurred. In Egypt, we were slaves, downtrodden and persecuted, and we were instantly transformed into an exalted, strong and courageous Nation. This is an historical wonder which has no parallel. The same applies to our Redemption: we were in Exile, a Nation scattered and separated among the nations, downtrodden, expelled, suffering pogroms, persecutions and the Holocaust. There are no words to describe the suffering we experienced. And we were suddenly transformed into a free Nation in our Land: a courageous Nation, a wealthy Nation, a Nation of Torah – an unbelievable wonder. This is similarity but there is also a difference. The Redemption from Egypt was performed "in haste" (Devarim 16:3). The Gemara in Berachot (9a) emphasizes that we were redeemed in an instance, a miracle of miracles. But the prophet Yeshayahu (52:11) writes regarding the Redemption of our time: It will not occur in haste. It will occur slowly, with difficulties, problems and complications. Our Redemption even goes backwards at times, occurs slowly, not a miracle of miracles, through natural means. Nature moves at its own pace, without revealed miracles.
2. Which Redemption is Greater?It would seem that the Redemption from Egypt was greater with its revealed miracles and wonders. After all, our current Redemption seems like a pauper riding on a horse. Our Sages teach however that this is not so. They say that the future Redemption is much greater than the Redemption of Egypt. The Mishnah in Berachot 1:5 relates that Rabbi Elazar Ben Azaryah said: I am like a man of 70 years, but I never merited proving why one is obligated to mention the Exodus at night until Ben Zoma explained: It says in the Torah (Devarim 16:3), "In order that you shall remember the day when you came out of the land of Egypt, all the days of your life" – "The days of your life" refers to the days; "All the days of your life" refers to the nights. Ben Zoma's proof is from the word "all." The Sages disagree and say that the extra word "all" refers to something else: "'The days of your life' refers to this world; 'All the days of your life' indicates the time of the Messiah." According to their opinion, we mention the Exodus from Egypt in this time and in the days of the Messiah, but not at night. Ben Zoma says to the Rabbis: But the prophet Yirmiyahu says: "Therefore, behold, days are coming, says Hashem, when they will no longer say, 'As Hashem lives, who brought the Children of Israel out of the land of Egypt,' but 'As Hashem lives, Who raised and returned the seed of the house of Israel from out of the northern lands and from every country into which I had driven them, and they will dwell on their own Land'" (Yirmiyahu 23:7-8). We thus learn that in the days of the Messiah, we will not recall the Exodus, because the future Redemption will be so great that its light will hide the miracle of the Exodus. The Rabbis answer that these verses from Yirmiyahu do not mean that the remembrance of the Exodus will be forgotten, but the great miracle of liberation from the oppression of the kingdoms of the world will be the main remembrance, and the Exodus will be the secondary one (Bereachot 12b). Ben Zoma and the Sages therefore both agree that the future Redemption will be greater than the Redemption from Egypt. The only dispute is whether the Exodus from Egypt will be mentioned in the days of the Messiah.
3. The Future RedemptionWhy is the Future Redemption so much greater than the Redemption from Egypt? – After all, the Exodus from Egypt is the miracle of miracles and our Redemption is through a natural process. This recalls the letter of Ha-Rav Yaakov Moshe Charlap to Maran Ha-Rav Kook, found in the book "Hed Harim": I am disappointed by the Zionist movement. I greatly value the building of the Land and the return to Zion but we lost out on the miracle of miracles on account of them, since a person receives from heaven what he expects. Now that we have toiled to build the Land, we have lost out on the strength of miracles and only receive weakness. But – Ha-Rav Charlap says – I have seen that his honor does not agree. Maran Ha-Rav Kook responds to him in his letters (Igrot vol. 3, p. 20): His honor must be very careful regarding this thought that you had. The Redemption which comes "Kim'a Kim'a - slowly, slowly" is the strength of fortitude and not weakness. In truth, miracles show us that Hashem has the ability to perform anything beyond nature. But the Redemption through nature – through man - is greater. Hashem is not under "pressure." Hashem does not want to transverse nature. This is the strength of fortitude. Hashem performed the Redemption from Egypt and we were like babies for which everything was done. Now, we are no longer babies. The Master of the Universe brings the Redemption through us. There are therefore difficulties and complications. This is does not mean that it is not the Redemption, but because this is the Redemption through natural means. It is not that we are not on the right path. We are on the right path, but we are not at the end.
From : Torat HaRav Aviner
LEARNING TO WAGE WAR
Haaretz has an interview with three Duvdevan soldiers recently awarded medals of bravery for... sparing civilians. It's quite a story.
The fundamental challenge is that Palestinian murderers and planners of mass murder aren't identified as soldiers, as international law requires, nor do they act from military installations. They act from within the civilian society all around them. Which means, either you kill them with some civilians near them, or you don't harm them for fear of doing so, or you figure out how to pinpoint them in their kitchen, say, and nab them while sparing the other family members in the same kitchen. This is the policy Israeli chose for the West Bank, though it's the hardest of the three. A special unit, Duvdevan, was set up to do just that. Since no other army in the world knows how to do this, there weren't any international manuals or training camps, so Duvdevan had to learn on its own, by trial and error; initially, back in the first Intifada, there were too many errors. But the determination to succeed (understandable, given the alternatives), combined with an ever-rising level of professionalism, has forged a unit unparalleled anywhere, that in most cases succeeds:
A.: "There was an alley in the marketplace - all the stores were open and you hurry through the passageway, in order to maintain surprise and not to be 'burned' [identified] along the way. We broke into the house. He didn't understand where we had come from. Mabruk was sitting on the floor. He immediately jumped on his wife, using her as a shield."
R.: "Half a meter away was an M-16 with a magazine of ammunition inside. Ostensibly we had full legitimization to shoot him, because he was endangering us. But his wife was near him and he wasn't holding the weapon in his hand, so we didn't fire. There was a room there of two to three square meters, with his wife and a lot of children inside. He's an older man, but nobody's fool. He only had to roll over to reach the weapon. All he had to do was turn around with the weapon on automatic and mow down three or four soldiers. A less experienced soldier, who has not been trained for this mission, would have opened fire and killed several children.
"A.: "The guys remained calm. The weapon was on the floor. One of us took it from Mabruk. We attacked. He went wild, but we handcuffed him. In the end, the trick was to use selective firing. The fighters identified a woman and children and didn't shoot. It's a matter of a momentary decision. Now another complicated stage begins - leaving the refugee camp with him. It's already 10 A.M. Lots of people are outside. All the punks in the neighborhood had already heard that we came. He had collaborators and friends who would have fired on us as we were leaving. We got out of there very cautiously with the guy."
Sometimes the wanted men escape:
When they broke into the house, the man's wife was inside. "Although the house looked terrible afterward, the woman was not hurt," says A. "Her only injury was from being punched by the wanted man before he escaped. He apparently suspected her of informing on him."
Inevitably, sometimes people get killed - Israeli soldiers, for example:
In another operation, in February 2008, the same fighters arrested Majdi Mabruk, the head of the Popular Front in the Ein Beit Ilma refugee camp in Nablus. Among other things, Mabruk managed to smuggle an explosive belt into Tel Aviv, to be used to launch an attack on Yom Kippur in 2007; the device was confiscated by security forces. During the manhunt, another terrorist, his partner, killed Paratroops commando fighter Ben Zion Henman. In another incident, while trying to arrest Mabruk, an officer from the Givati commando unit was shot in the neck.
At the time, I wrote about Hanemann's death here.
Interestingly, according to the article, the IDF doesn't generally want to kill these murderers, preferring to arrest them and interrogate them for further information, even though this means that sometime in the future they'll probably be freed, either as part of that bogus peace project we keep hoping will lead somewhere (I certainly do), or in return for a kidnapped IDF soldier at the rate of 1:1000. I was also tickled to see that an important impetus for developing the methods of Duvdevan came from that well-know IDF consultant, Amira Hass:
About five years ago, Maj. Gen. Gadi Eisenkot was serving as the commander of the IDF forces in the West Bank. Eisenkot, now the head of Northern Command, then called the military approach in the West Bank "an M-16 instead of an F-16." The ability of the IDF to reach the operatives everywhere, to pull them out of their hiding places by the hair, he claimed, is a far greater deterrent to the terror organizations and the Palestinian population than mass shows of Israeli strength.
The West Bank commander based himself on a surprising source: articles by Amira Hass in Haaretz, in which senior Palestinian operatives said that they felt a certain "professional respect" for the enemy only when the soldiers engaged in face-to-face combat with them. The Palestinians considered the use of tanks and helicopters as a demonstration of cowardice on the part of an enemy that surpasses them in its military capability.
taken from:Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations (http://yaacovlozowick.blogspot.com/)
IDF TESTS ARROW II MISSILE DEFENSE SYSTEM
IDF Makes Technological Advancements for Missile Defense System
07 April 2009 , 17:00
Arrow Missile. Photo: IAF Website On Tuesday (April 7), the IDF carried out a test launch of the Arrow II Missile Defense System; this system is a part of a program that is designed to improve security methods in Israel and in the United States. During the test, a missile that simulates a possible threat to Israel was launched and shortly thereafter, the system's radar identified the missile and sent the data to the Data Management Center, who then fired the Arrow in order to intercept it.
During the test launch, representatives from the Ministry of Defense, the U.S. Department of Defense, and representatives from relevant industries, were present. Sources from within the Ministry of Defense clarified that the success of the project constitutes an important step in the long term plan to develop operational capabilities that are able to provide a solution to the threat of ballistic missiles being launched at Israel.
The Minister of Defense, Ehud Barak, was briefed regarding the results of the test launch and said, "This is a project that is important for the State of Israel. The integration of the Arrow System together with the 'Iron Dome,' which also produced successful results during a test launch last week, will provide the best protection for immediate strategic threats. The security apparatus works intensively in order to provide a defense system against missiles and thus to ensure the safety of Israeli citizens."
Two weeks ago, there was a successful test launch of the Iron Dome, which is designed to provide protection against short-range missiles and rockets such as Qassams and Grad rockets, while the Arrow system is intended for long-range, ballistic missiles that can come from enemy countries.
taken from the IDF site (http://dover.idf.il/IDF/English/News/the_Front/09/4/0701.htm)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
