Please take note that no one could ever declare/chant/yell (in a public forum, at least): "kill the <favorite target>" -- unless that <favorite target> is "Jews".
Have you noticed that Israel is being called an "apartheid" state? I looked that up, just to be sure I understood the charge (from the Cornell Law site) :
Apartheid refers to the implementation and maintenance of a system of legalized racial segregation in which one racial group is deprived of political and civil rights.
Hard to know how that applies to a country whose population is about 20% Arabic (aka Palestinian, as they are they same people in so called occupied territories, they just didn't abandon their homes), has currently 10 members of the Knesset who are Muslim Arabic, and even one supreme court justice -- Khaled Kabub -- who is a Muslim Arab.
What is the take away for all this? I think there are a few takeaways from this. First: None of this makes any sense in a natural world. There is only one possible explanation: HaShem runs the world; down to the most minute details. Second: Yes, HaShem holds us to a higher standard. HaShem has many agents, and the Torah requires us to respond with normal hishtadlus. On the other hand, the Torah also requires us to look into ourselves and address the root cause of the problems that have left us vulnerable. Addressing those issues has nothing to do with the veneer of "nature" in which we live to be able to fulfill the mitzvos of our Holy Torah.
One small example: there was a rally a few days (weeks, years, etc... depending on when you are reading this) ago in Washington, DC. Nearly 300,000 Jews, from all walks of Torah observance. Completely peaceful. By that I mean that no outside groups came to disrupt. Given the mood of the public and the violence in other areas and even the next day in DC itself; that is nothing short of an open miracle.
How did I participate? I asked
R' Fuerst on the Sunday before the rally if it was a good thing. My
thought was that getting too much in the public eye is often not good
for us. R' Fuerst said that he couldn't say, but he added: "I'll say one
thing. Anyone sitting and learning is doing more for Klal Yisrael than
any rally."
On Monday morning, I mentioned that statement to a chavrusa who was going to the rally. His reply demonstrates why we are good chavrusos: "So, that means you are taking the day off to learn?" Yikes! I hadn't thought of R' Fuerst's statement as a p'sak, but I couldn't really argue with his inference. So that's what I did. Who knows what has what effect in shamayim. The IDF is on the front lines. I have a colleague who works in intelligence for Israel. Nearly 300,000 Jews, from all walks of Torah observance came together to make a public stand of support of Israel. I -- and I am sure many, many others -- sat in beis medrash and learned. Which brings us to the title of this TftD:
We Are All in This Together -- עם ישראל חי
A couple of lessons from my day of learning: It was scary, actually, because I had never had taken a whole day of unstructured time to learn. One thing I saw was how quickly the yeitzer hara gets to work. I first confirmed with my wife that she was on board and we didn't need my last day off of the year for anything else. As soon as all the barriers had been cleared, I immediately started thinking of why I couldn't take that particular day off. As the list grew, I asked myself why I hadn't thought of all that before. I concluded it was the yeitzer hara and so immediately contacted my boss to tell him I was taking the next day off. Now I was committed and there was a certain calm. I also discovered that, while I actually can -- Baruch HaShem -- sit and learn all day, I had grossly overblown expectations of what I could accomplish in a day. I am all the more anticipating my retirement so I can get to work already!
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