Page 23 - HaMizrachi Yom Yerushalayim - Shavuot 5782 USA

y heart rejoices
in Hashem, my
horn is exalted in
“MHashem, my mouth
is broadened against my adversaries, for I
am happy in Your salvation. There is none
who is holy like Hashem, for there is none
besides You… Hashem puts to death and
brings to life, lowers to She’ol and raises
up” (Shmuel I 2:1–6). It is our obligation to
be cognizant of the miracles that Hashem
has done for us in recent days: manifest
miracles and a shining countenance
turned by Him to His nation, Israel, the
Rabbi Shalom Noach Berezovsky
(PHOTO: SHIMSHON WEISS/ likes of which dozens of generations (PHOTO: MICHA BAR-AM/DEFENSE MINISTRY’S IDF ARCHIVE)
WIKIMEDIA COMMONS) were not privileged to see. We must not
be ungrateful for the good done for us by Hashem, for He now has
performed for us a dual miracle.
First, that wicked Haman of our times [Nasser], may his name be
blotted out, wanted to annihilate all the Jews, and Hashem performed
a miracle, and there was a reversal, for it was the Jews who mastered
their enemies and annihilated all the horses of Pharaoh’s chariots and
his cavalry in scant hours, and fear of the Jews descended upon them.
Israel saw the great hand with which Hashem had stricken Egypt, and
they had faith in Hashem, for even those far from faith – and anyone
with a brain in his head – acknowledge that there was nothing natural
about this victory, which Hashem performed most marvelously. No
army has yet achieved such achievements in which mighty forces
collapsed before it in mere hours.
(PHOTO: BAMAHANE MAGAZINE/DEFENSE MINISTRY’S IDF ARCHIVE)
The second miracle was in the revelation of His love for the nation
of Israel, although it is unworthy and undeserving, for we have been
repossessed of the remnant of our Temple – the Kotel HaMa’aravi, which
our Sages said the divine presence never departed, as is stated: “Behold,
He stands behind our wall” (Shir HaShirim 2:9) – after nineteen years of
being distanced from this holy place. And we have been repossessed of
the holy places: the Me’arat HaMachpelah, those resting in Chevron, and
Kever Rachel, places where no Jew set foot the past nineteen years – and
woe be to children who are exiled from the graves of their fathers and
mothers. Now they are under our control, and we stand amazed and
shocked by the great revelations that Hashem has revealed to us – “and
how could I repay Hashem?” (Tehillim 116:12)

“And I said, ‘I have been driven from before Your eyes,’ yet I shall
continue to look toward Your holy sanctuary” (Yonah 2:5). I was mindful (PHOTO: MICHA BAR-AM/DEFENSE MINISTRY’S IDF ARCHIVE)
of this verse nineteen years ago when the Old City fell to the Arabs
and again no Jew could approach the site of our Temple. Some two
thousand men gathered in the sanctuary of Yeshivat Me’ah She’arim,
and we sat on the ground and cried. I thought then that we had arrived
at the height of divine repudiation, for even after the best of the nation
and some six million Jews were annihilated and He wrathfully severed
the entire horn of Israel, as long as the Kotel HaMa’aravi was in our
possession and we had that holy place, where a Jew could pour out his
words before his Father in heaven, we still had the strength to endure.
Yet how dreadful was this repudiation, for Hashem removed us from
His presence as if He no longer wanted us. And woe to children who
are exiled from their father’s table, like that prince who can carry on
through the suffering even when his father disciplines him with all
sorts of severe torment, but when his father, the king, drives him out
of the king’s sanctuary, can find neither solace nor strength. At that (PHOTO: BAMAHANE MAGAZINE/DEFENSE MINISTRY’S IDF ARCHIVE)

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