Page 47 - HaMizrachi # 22 Rosh HahHana - Yom Kippur 2020 USA

MIZRACHI IN THE NATIONAL INSTITUTIONS THE PEOPLE AND THE LAND

Gael Grunewald

The Call to Israel

eeking to raise the morale of shofar, as people from all over the impure ‘corona beast’ is alerting entire
the Jewish people in exile, the world looked up to Eretz Yisrael, their communities around the world. Along
Sprophet Yishayahu describes the hearts sought the sanctity of the Land with the rise in anti-Semitism, the
days when the Children of Israel will and at great personal sacrifice and transition to remote work and distance
return to the Land of Israel: “And in risk, they came to an uninhabited land education, we are seeing a growing
that day, a great ram’s horn shall be to instigate the redemption with their interest in aliyah to Eretz Yisrael.
sounded, and the strayed who are in own hands.
the land of Assyria and the expelled As Head of the Rural Growth and
who are in the land of Egypt shall The medium shofar, the regular Development Division of the World
come and worship the L-rd on the shofar, is the pioneering shofar, the Zionist Organization, I have received
holy mount, in Jerusalem” (Yishayahu natural voice, the national emotion dozens of enquiries from various
27:13). This is how the Prophet con- that calls on every Jew anywhere in aliyah organizations seeking places
nects the sound of the shofar and the the world to be part of the State of that can absorb hundreds of families.
return to the Land of Israel. In Musaf Israel. Families, lone soldiers, young Entire communities seek to move their
on Rosh Hashanah, we ask: “Our G-d students see our small country as their lives to the Land of Israel.
and the G-d of our fathers… blow a national home and leave their country,
great shofar for our freedom” and thus their homeland and their father’s This Rosh Hashanah, let us pray with
we connect the sound of the shofar to house, immigrating to Eretz Yisrael the utmost intention that G-d will
the national freedom of the people of and realizing their dreams of national blow a great shofar for our freedom.
Israel. belonging. Both as individuals and as a whole,
may we know how to transcend the
Rabbi Kook, who saw pioneering as The third shofar, the little shofar, is here and now and succeed in serving
a value and a mitzvah, explains that blown only if there is no kosher shofar, G-d out of the desire to cling to
Redemption has three shofarot: large, i.e. when there is no great shofar, no His ways. May we merit to live in a
medium and small, and on Rosh longings for the Holy Land and no generation in which G-d’s revelation
Hashanah, we specifically ask, “blow ordinary shofar, the natural desire in the world is only through the great
the large shofar for our freedom.” to connect to the flag and national shofar and not through pandemics and
anthem. Then and only then does the the like.
The Shulchan Aruch also distinguishes wrong shofar, the enemies of Israel,
between three shofars. One, the best come and blow in our ears the sound
shofar for Rosh Hashanah is from that awakens us to redemption.
a ram’s horn. Second, if there is no
ram’s horn, all shofars are kosher. The shofar of an unclean animal
And the third type of shofar, from an sounds the voice of Mashiach and
unclean animal or a non-Jew’s shofar, does not give the Jews of the Diaspora
is prohibited but if one blows one of respite. Starting with Amalek, through
these, he has fulfilled the obligation. expulsions, riots, the Holocaust and
the travails of our own times, this
Rabbi Kook compares these three year we have heard the sound of the
shofarot to the three ways of coronavirus shofar that arouses us to
redemption: spiritual aliyah, national the Land of Israel. Gael Grunewald is Head of the Rural
aliyah and aliyah out of necessity. Growth and Development Division
The global pandemic is changing of the WZO, former Director of World
There were generations when aliyah our priorities and the sound of this Bnei Akiva and one of World Mizrachi’s
to Eretz Yisrael was through the great invalid shofar coming out of the representatives in the National Institutions.

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