Page 3 - HaMizrachi Tisha bAv 5783 USA
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FROM THE
Editor
A Time to Weep, or a Time to Act?
mmortalized in history as the crying out “Eicha,” “How could it be?” We After two millennia of helplessness, the
founder of Mizrachi, Rabbi Yitzchak asked and asked again; we asked ourselves, Jewish people are no longer powerless.
Yaakov Reines’ defining quality was we asked each other and we turned our We are no longer barred from settling our
Ihis love for the people of Israel – and eyes upwards and asked Hashem: “How Land or from bearing arms to defend our-
the tangible pain he felt when other Jews can it be? How can our people suffer this selves. No law forbids the Jews of the Dias-
were suffering. When Jews suffered at the way? How can our Land, our holy city, lie pora from protesting the corrupt United
hands of gentiles, Rav Reines felt physical abandoned and alone?” Living in fear and Nations in the streets of New York City or
pain; his face became flushed, his body powerless to stop the pogroms and mas- from marching with pride and strength
shook, and he would repeat, over and over sacres that cast a constant shadow over in support of the Dee family through the
again: “we must do something!” At times our people, all we could do was lament streets of London.
he would gather his family together and and sigh, “How could it be?”
say in bitterness: “We must act, we can’t sit The only obstacle, and it is not a small
on our hands! The “gedolim” sin by remain- Though we will continue reading Eicha one, is our own passivity – of which I too
ing passive and not crying out!” Though until the final redemption comes, I am guilty. We’re busy with our jobs, our
Rav Reines frequently didn’t know what wonder if this response to Jewish suffer- children and our local communities. Who
to do, he felt passionately that we must ing is out of date, heretical as that may has time to protest antisemitism?
do something (Rabbi Meir Bar Ilan, From sound. Writing 100 years ago in the pages But in the words of Rabbi Aharon Kahn,
Volozhin to Jerusalem, 367). of HaMizrachi, Rabbi Yitzchak Nissenbaum
challenged his readers to change their Rosh Yeshiva at Yeshiva University, “How
As we approach the heavy day of the 9th of attitude towards Tisha B’Av and Jewish can we eat ketchup and ice cream while
Av, we remember the suffering of so many suffering: “The call of ‘Hashiveinu’ at the our brothers’ blood is running through
Jews throughout the world. While the rest end of Eicha, of ‘bring us back to You and the streets?” So long as Jews are suffering,
of us move on with our lives, the families renew our days of old,’ has burst forth so long as terrorists murder innocents in
of terror victims live with indescribable throughout the Diaspora. Our Land no Israel and hoodlums beat up Chassidim in
pain, pain that never goes away. Think longer sits alone and abandoned. And so the streets of Brooklyn, how can we justify
also of the family of Aryeh Wolf hy”d, the now we must call this megilla by a different remaining silent? As Rav Reines would
kind hearted Camp Simcha counselor name: not Eicha, ‘How could it be?’ but say, the time has come to do something.
murdered by an antisemite in Baltimore rather Ayeka, ‘Where are you?’ Every Jew The question is, how long will it take for
this past August while installing solar must hear the voice of G-d calling out to us to act?
panels (suspiciously, the police have iden- us: ‘Where are you? Where are you, son
tified the killer but haven’t arrested him). of Israel? It is no longer time to hide! The
And remember, too, the soldiers and terror time has come to leave your hiding places,
victims who survived attacks, but suffer to go out to battle, united in strength to Elie Mischel
in silence from the injuries that have left build up our Land… Ayeka?” (HaMizrachi, 7
them forever maimed or disabled.
Menachem Av, 1921). Rabbi Elie Mischel
For close to two thousand years, Like Rav Reines before him, Rav Nissen- Editor
we responded to this baum believed it was not enough to wring
pain by
our hands and sigh in sadness when we
hear tragic news. “There are hundreds of
thousands of Jews who are absorbed
in their own personal affairs…
Our great struggle, even
greater than the struggle
against our external ene-
mies, is our struggle against
our own people’s passivity Rabbi Elie Mischel
concerning our national life” is the Editor of HaMizrachi magazine.
(HaMizrachi, 19 Elul, 1921).
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