Parsha Va’etchanan 5768 — Consolation After Expulsion, After the Cruelty, Arrogance of Israeli Governance?

In the beginning of Parsha, Moshe Rabbeinu recalls for the B’nai Yisrael how he entreated Hashem for permission to cross the Jordan River but that his request was denied. Instead, he was consoled by viewing the Land from Mount Pisgah. (L’lmod Ul’Lamed – Parsha Va’etchanan, page 161)

And after the destruction of the First and Second Beit HaMikdash, the starving, the famine, the presecutions, there was comfort and consolation that one day, the B’nai Yisrael would be redeemed and returned to our former state; a people in it’s land with it’s Beit HaMikdash for all time.

But three full years after the Expulsion? Shabbos Nachamu? One wonders how long it really took B’nai Yisrael to console ourselves after each of the destructions, the persecutions throughout our history. The wounds of the expulsion to all caring Jews, the magnitude of which still boggles and bewilders the mind, was followed a year later by Lebanon conflict in the summer of 2006, the effects of which we are still feeling as a result of the regime’s self-styled, meaningless “award” of UN “peacekeepers”, as well as the continuing Kassam blitz of Sderot, Ashkelon and the southern border towns — both events in historical retrospect are directly connected to the spectacle before the world of Jew expelling Jew. 3 years later, the disbelief and the hurt are too fresh, too raw, too festering.

Many of us fought 3 years ago against the regime’s expulsion with all of our being that our brethren be not harmed, that their lives not be uprooted, destroyed, placed in limbo or pain; that they not be hounded and persecuted by the evil ones amongst us who brainwash and pit Jew against Jew.

Many of us, far too few of the B’nai Yisrael, fought on the frontlines, or close to them, and continue to fight against these vile individuals who, having stolen every piece of property and asset that our brothers had, continue to slander our fellow Jews, called them “spoiled brats” and recently put the onus for the Gaza Arabs discharged from their jobs as a result of the expulsion upon the shoulders of the expelled. These false, bogus accusations and blood-libels were psychologically projected onto us by the very ones who continue perpetrating a systematic cover-up of the facts;

• (1) That our brothers have to date, 3 years later, received scarcely a fraction of their rightful, legally-mandated compensation (restitution for all that was stolen from them at legalized gun-point),
• (2) That virtually no one of the expelled has been resettled. To this day, many of the former Gush Katif residents, relocated to temporary housing, for which rent has been set off by the government against the restitution which was to have been used to defray resettlement costs, are threatened weekly, or monthly with further eviction,
• (3) That the regime continues its institutionalized slander of the term “settler” — the noblest title for Jews who are linked, connected and inseparable from The Land of Israel.

We sought, and fought, with our hearts, tefillohs, strength and even our pocketbooks that our brothers would and should have as we have — that he is like me — V’ahavta L’rei’cha Komocha. We, too few of us, literally put our lives on hold to aid our brethren against the evil regime, the hard-hearted Israeli “leaders” and “authorities” who hate, despise and show total disdain for Torah and Ahavat Yisrael and who pursue their own self-enrichment, self-interest and agenda at our expense. The Olmerts, Peres’, Ramons, Sheetrits, Bibis, etc. show utter arrogance, disdain, neglect and disregard for the electorate they claim leadership of and enable enforcement of laws against.

And three years later, we continue to care for our beloved Gush Katif brethren while remembering what our brethren in the North endured because of a regime who sees Jews as expendable, whose obvious byword is; mercy for the cruel and cruelty to the merciful.

We have fought; physically, with our tefillos, with our kindness and have cried rivers over the catastrophe of expulsion. We feel deeply, from our hearts for our brethren from the North who suffered as a result of the long-range Iranian and Syrian-made rockets launched by Hezbollah during the Lebanon conflict as well as for our brethren who suffer continuous Kassam bombardments even now, today. How can we be consoled while our Gush Katif brethren are still unsettled three years later and while the Fatah and Hamas are in possession of our land? How are we comforted while hundreds of thousands of our Jewish brethren in both the North, despite Olmert’s bogus victory claims, and in the South continue to live unprotected under threat of Kassam and Katyusha onslaughts? Meanwhile, the teflon Olmert, who holds the governed with contempt, battles to evade prosecution and loss of office due to his myriad of corruptions.

We find that an evil Ehud Olmert can’t get over his dream, his lust to complete the job that Sharon started — to build on the expulsion from Gush Katif and the 4 Shomron towns, even if dressed with a different name “peace (sic)” or spin other than unilateral consolidation, convergence or realignment.

Having said all of the above, we are further faced with divisiveness during the very time, the very season that our unity is a necessity.

But perhaps there is Nachamu, even now.

We haven’t heard much about Arik Sharon over the past 2 1/2 years, although he must have felt really empowered, immortal 3 years ago at this time. He thought that he won, that he had vanquished an enemy; Torah and religion. But the Yad Hashem had other ideas. And Sharon is not the lone subsequent casualty of divine retribution. Time will reveal the others. And so we see, just as with the Chassidim, who under Nazi duress began to dance, that the Jews will yet survive the downfall of vile, corruptible post-zionist governance.

“Mir Villen zei Ibber Leiben, Ibber Leiben, Ibber Leiben, Mir Villen zei Ibber Leiben…” “We will outlive you!”

Every believing Jew belongs taking part in the battle for right, for Jewish morality, for Eretz Yisrael to his fullest and beyond, to the extent that he can. Every believing Jew must be his own leader within the body of B’nai Yisrael, but without the contentiousness of a million generals. We must knife through the apathy, the indifference, the “business as usual” and the fear of the regime.

We and Hashem will win out in the end. “Nachamu, Nachamu Ami yomar Elokeichem” — “Comfort, comfort my people — says your G’d.”

B’Ezrat Hashem, may it be that this Tisha B’av just past be the last Tzom for B’nai Yisrael.

May we, the B’nai Yisrael be zocha that our brethren — the refugee families from Gush Katif be permanently settled and be made totally whole, that our dear brother Jonathan Pollard and captive Gilad Shalit and the other MIAs be liberated alive and be returned to us in ways befitting Al Kiddush Hashem and that we fulfill Hashem’s blueprint of B’nai Yisrael as a Unique people — an Am Segula, not to be reckoned with as with “the nations” and may we be zocha the Moshiach, the Ge’ula Shlaima, as Dov Shurin sings; “Yom Hashem V’Kol HaGoyim”, the Ultimate Redemption, bim hay v’yameinu — speedily, in our time”, — Achshav, Chik Chuk, Miyad, Etmol!!!