Page 21 - HaMizrachi Pesach 5783 USA

On Mizrachi’s Mission

The responsibility for leading the fight lies with the timbrels, flutes, and harps,” with the notes of “the days
Mizrachi. The Mizrachi is the only Orthodox party that to come” (Yishayahu 2:2), with the dream that “the sun,
can gather around itself a respectable, organized Ortho- the moon, and eleven stars were bowing down to me.”
doxy. Already at the 1939 convention in Atlantic City I This movement must fulfill Samuel’s words: “The spirit
stated that the Mizrachi Organization must become a of the L-rd will grip you, and you will speak in ecstasy
powerful instrument not only for the building of the along with them; you will become another man”!
land but also for the building of the nation. For we find
ourselves faced with Achad Ha’am’s question: what (The Letters of Creation: Jewish Axioms and Education in
America, October 1944)
happens “if the nation is destroyed?”
The Mizrachi must be the great Orthodox party that I wish to speak here of the Mizrachi as a Torah move-
represents the interests of Yisrael Sava with dignity. ment, for otherwise neither the Mizrachi nor any other
And if this was true in 1939, before the destruction, Jewish movement has a future. Ignorance destroys
how much more so today, when the parchment has not only traditional, positive Judaism but even Jewish
been consumed but the letters fly free and must be heresy and rebellious sinfulness. Soon, we will have
rescued? Neither the Jewish radicals nor the formalistic neither Talmudists nor rebellious sinners, and the loss
Hebraists will save the historical Jew, Yisrael Sava, from of both of them upsets me. With respect to Torah schol-
destruction; only Torah-true Jews and the tradition ars, you understand: without them, a Jewish world
will do so. Great and expansive will be Orthodoxy’s is completely inconceivable to me. But I would want
work in all areas. rebellious sinners as well, because they demonstrate
(The Parchment Is Consumed, but the Letters Fly Free, Jan- best that Judaism is alive and that there is a Being
uary 1944) against whom to rebel. I think highly of the Wise Son,
as well as of the Wicked Son. I am always afraid of the
Simple Son (in general, one must fear a stupid person)
The difference between the Zionist Organization and
the Mizrachi is this: while the first can maintain its and of the Son Who Does Not Know How to Ask. Both
the Wise Son and the Wicked Son can build the Land of
financial-political apparatus without any ideology,
because there are certain factors like antisemitism, Israel. The Simple Son and the Son Who Does Not Know
How to Ask, however, will not succeed in doing so.
the Jewish sense of inferiority, fractiousness, and
anxiety that contribute to the upkeep of a dry party (Recognition of the Present and Vision for the Future, June
skeleton, the Mizrachi cannot expect the same. The 1945)
Mizrachi movement cannot count on negative factors;
it must have positive content, which is the opposite of Morai ve-rabbotai, happy are we that we merited to see
ignorance… that today the Knesset Yisrael can interpret “the great,
The Mizrachi ideology cannot harmonize with illiterate mighty, and awesome” according to its simple meaning,
piety. Zealotry that is not based on true Jewish axioms in the sense of physical and political might and heroism.
(not to speak of a deep, colorful worldview) absolutely This is an atchalta di-ge’ulah. Today, together with Moses,
cannot join the Mizrachi. Piety that constantly revolves we sing: “I will sing to the L-rd, for He has triumphed
around questions of shaving one’s beard during Sefirah gloriously; horse and driver He has hurled into the sea”
and eating American cheese or ice cream cannot relate (Shemot 15:1). The heroes of the Land of Israel sanctify
to a movement that dreams of redemption… G-d’s Name. But not for one moment can we forget that
“the great, mighty, and awesome” must become an
A political party must become a movement – not of expression and manifestation of a much higher idea,
traditionalists, conservatives, and status quo men, who and this idea must not be lost. Otherwise, it will turn
are bereft of vision and do not dream, but of pioneers into idolatry, the deification of the state. Therein lies
and trailblazers, visionaries and those endowed with the principal task of the Mizrachi.
ruach ha-kodesh. We must shatter the petty traditions
of ignorance, passivity, indifference and skepticism, (Jewish Sovereignty and the Redemption of the Shekhinah,
unwitting resignation and plain old cowardice. King- June 1948)
ship, redemption, and Torah are bound up with the ideal
of prophecy, with the music of the future, of the “lyres,

Left: The 1961 Semikhah class at Yeshiva University. First Row (left to right): Abba Bronspigel, Matisyahu Weisenberg, Rabbi Samuel Belkin, Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik,
Aaron Rothkoff, Jeremiah Wohlberg. Second Row (left to right): Yosef Blau, Alan Greenspan, Robert Klein, Naftali Friedman, Jerry Witkin, Simeon Schrieber, Bernard
Cohen, Jack Steinhorn, Raphael Weinberg. Third Row (left to right): Reuben Rudman, Ephraim Zimmand, Moshe Yaged, Milton Pine, Emanuel Federbush, Israel Rivkin.

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