Our Reaction to the Tragic Events

Ais tzora hi l’Yaakov.

Although the zman did not begin yet, the tzora, the milchama in Eretz Yisrael is the reason why we’re gathering for this short shiur. Many requests for a shiur were made, so we are hoping to share some words of chizuk and understanding with the olam. Hopefully this tzara should pass quickly.

This shiur is dedicated l’zechus Nissanel ben Esther who would like to make this shiur as a zechus for the captives, that they should see a safe return quickly. It should also be a zechus for the safety of all the soldiers who are involved in the fighting, including two of his cousins, Yuval ben Orna and Gil Ben Nechana, together with all the other Yidden who were involved in the fight. Hakados Baruch Hu should bring his wrath upon our enemies.

Now in every tzara that a person faces, you have to know that it’s always orchestrated by Hashem. HaKadosh Baruch Hu b’chvodo u’b’atzmo is the one who brings enemies to attack us, directs them, guides them, to exactly who, to exactly what, and to exactly when. And HKBH definitely does work mida kneged mida. Rambam writes in every time and every place, in every episode that we experience with Hashem, we must know that it’s a mida kneged mida and HKBH wants us to see that, study that, correct our behavior, and get back on the road to where we have to get.

One of the first lessons that Hashem taught us, most amazingly, sadly, all of us – even myself – does have faith in the vaunted intelligence services of Israel (not Eretz Yisrael). The intelligent services of Israel. When I was a child, I used to read weekly stories about The Shin Bet, Shabak, the Tzahal, the special forces. I remember as a child, every Shabbos morning, me and my brothers would reenact the milchama. Weekly I represented Israel and all my brothers represented the enemies. And it was three against one, and I would get to stand on one step higher than them because I was only one, and the war games began. It ended up a lot of times with crying, with my father Z”L, coming in and stepping in to make the peace. And then it started again next week. L’maaseh you read stories about the powers of the Israeli government. They themselves tell you how great they are, how amazing they are, how advanced they are, how high tech they are. Their spy system that they have; the awareness that they have, what’s going on by their enemies is above and beyond anything you could imagine. And there’s no country in the world that’s like us. I remember as a kid thinking, yeah, Israel, could definitely take on Russia! You know, I mean. Now I think they could because Russia turned out to be a paper tiger, but if even Ukraine could take on Russia, Israel, could for sure take on Russia.

And I’m thinking to myself, the humiliation, the degradation. They build this wall around Gaza, it’s not just stam a little wall, a little mechitza. It’s a wall that has high tech. It’s a wall that has observations. Sound systems to be able to tell what’s going on in the ground. This is the most amazing world you can imagine. And everybody living in the Gaza, the South could sleep good at night. And many times I’ve read how the people in the South say, “we hear digging underneath our feet.” “Ah, we’re on top of it. We’re watching it. Don’t worry about it. Uncle Israel is watching it, and if we’re watching you, you could sleep peacefully.” And then the last war that happened – shocks. We discovered underneath the whole Gaza there was mamish tunnel systems. Under the noses there and they’re popping up like flies from the floor. You think you learn their lesson, right? You think now it’s never going to happen again? The humiliation first is this wall. So what do they do? They either get a sniper to shoot out the observation lights, or the things that are observing what’s going on by the Gazans. They sent these little drones, over each one of these BOOM. And bombed them all out. You think how long should it take Eretz Yisrael to find out about it? They didn’t find out about it! It was such idiots. Such negligent fools, like I’ve never heard of in my life.

And then they managed to climb with the huge bulldozers, not a little bulldozer like they did that you use in the garden. Humongous bulldozer. Eretz Yisrael brings to the to the battle throws down some big buildings. They put bombs on the walls, breached the walls, then drove through them with these huge bulldozers, made havoc, huge openings so that thousands of people could pour through with cars, machines, trucks and not just one. You think it is just one little shtetl. No, they’re all over the place. It’s pashet – the bizayon – if you ever again trust the Israeli Government, so at best you’re an absolute fool. And at worst, you’re a cofer gamur! I wouldn’t trust them to watch my suitcase. They wouldn’t know what to do. They’re clueless. They talk a good game. They go to world things they have on computers, high tech, such a bizayon like I’ve never seen in my life. Now you think, OK, you have to moichel them, they never got bizyonos before; they were on top of the world. So they never thought such a thing could happen. These brilliant people could never imagine.

Fifty years ago and one day before this outbreak – exactly – the exact same thing happened. They were sleeping. It was Yom Kippur and Golda Mayer that rusha merusha, what she was (may she rest in pieces), came, got a call. She gets a call from none other than King Hussein himself from Jordan. And he says, “Goldela, I need to tell you something. Tomorrow the war is starting.” “What? What War?” “Tomorrow the Egyptians are going to attack you. I know this for 100% fact.” You would think that she would drop to the floor and say, “Shkoyach.” Maybe she even say, “Ribono shel olam save us!” But she never said, “Ribono shel olam save us!” She refused to say the words, “Hashem” out of her lips. So know what she did? Hashem was meishiv, took her, took her made her to be an idiot and she said, “We can’t do any attacks. We can’t preempt it, because if we’ll preempt, America will be very upset at us.” At least call up the people and because on the other side of the of the of the border there was a couple hundred thousand soldiers. Then they get a call from none other than the son-in-law of Sadat, the President of Egypt, who was making the war, he had a son-in-law named Musharraf. And Eretz Yisrael in their brilliance got him to be a spy for them. And he gives him a call and he says, “Tomorrow at 6:00 in the afternoon, you’re gonna be attacked.” What did he do? Hung up the phone, and the guy says, “You know, this guy just told me?” You should say, “Shrek, let’s turn the world over!” He said, “He must have become a double agent.” What? What kind of stupidity is that? He’s a double agent. And then he did nothing. And the next day they were attacked from three sides. At least three countries, three big countries: Mitzrayim, Syria. Mamish chashuva medinas attacked us, and it was bizyonos noraos. They had nothing to say. They had no weapons, they couldn’t fight.

I read a write up: A guy became baal teshuva. He said they sent me out in a plane that had no protection whatsoever. Are you a rasha merusha? How do you send the guy out on a plane to go into a thing that is pashut he doesn’t have weapons to protect himself against weapons that they had! They had SAM missiles and Israelis knew that they had SAM missiles. You send the plane that can’t protect itself. The guy was shot up. The guy lost a foot. He ended up in a Syrian hospital and they cut off his foot. And the guy became baruch Hashem Baal Teshuva. Pashuteh the thoughts of this! You realize you’re in the hands of not stam some nincompoops, but incompetent shotim! It was mamish a whole Knesset of shotim!

So yesterday I’m waiting: Let me hear who called Uncle Bibby and told him, “Guys, there’s something big happening.” Oh, so what happens? Get a call goes on the news that Mitzrayim, Egypt, who last time his attacking force, called him up. They want to let you know something very, very big is happening in Gaza. Prepare yourselves! You know what he says? Two things: One, “we’re busy in the West Bank, there’s a lot of unrest in the West Bank, we have to take all our soldiers and put them in the West Bank to fight the war.” “So I’m telling you this is bigger than big!” You Shoteh! That’s what you are. So what does the guy come up with yesterday? What did he say? “FAKE NEWS! I never got the call!” An hour later, Egypt cmes out and says, “Mr. so and so is the one that called him, and this is what Mr. so and so told him.” The fake news! You Shakran! You kasman that you are! You nincompoop! You are as good as Ehud Barak was You’re all good, for one thing: For the ashpa, for the garbage dump!

Now every Yid puts their Emunah – and not only Emunah but bitachon – if you don’t have Emunah and Bitachon that government a normal person would never travel to Eretz Yisrael. You never! Because you are surrounded with enemies. You look on your faces and you see the sinus mamish maves in them! Gornisht. They own the place. They run the place. Oh, we’re sneaking into Shechem in the middle of the night and we arrested 3 guys. We found out what house they were hiding. Whoop-e-do!

But here they built this whole city in Gaza; they built up this mock city, that they’re going to attack, and they practice for months and months. Not underground; not in the woods someplace; but in the open territory! And the nes is that Eretz Yisrael had no idea. Israelis never found out such a thing was happening. It was going on for months. They have such good intelligence. Know what Hashem said? “Im Hashem lo yishmor ir, shav avlu bona bo.” If you think, first of all, that they have any koach, Hashem is going to show us: Not that they have no koach, they don’t know what to do now! Even right now, they’re sitting around, they messed up, “Oh! We’re gonna teach them a lesson. What are you gonna do? We’re gonna demolish the place. We’re gonna knock the buildings out.” You know how many times you’ve knocked buildings down? During the last Intefada you knocked the whole bunch down, for three days, for 5 days. And you said, “Now they are wiped out. They’re wiped out!” What did you wipe out now? They’re all wiped out already! Now he said, “We’re going to wipe them out for generations to come!” You tippish, you’re going to be gone, and that guy’s going to be sitting on the kisa hamalchus. Who do you think you are? Get on the floor. Run to the kosel. Beg Hashem for rachmanus. Do teshuva. You have no power whatsoever.

Somebody called me, “Should I come home now?” I said, “You went to Eretz Yisrael before Sukkos? What did you rely on? This government?! You’re a nut! But you went anyway, right? So you can stay. The same Hashem who was there a week ago is still there now. Hashem didn’t leave.

It’s pashut unbelievable. Such a blow! And they’re gonna study it and they’re gonna make commissions about it. They’re gonna come up with all kind of papers about it. Who’s at fault? Who wasn’t? The emes is you’re all at fault. We’re at fault because we believe in them. We really trust them. They have secret weapons and high tech weapons, and they can get to anybody and anywhere in anytime. I mean, it’s just cookoo. They can’t save their own country. They come in 100 yards. Shoot a couple of fire crackers, turn around and go right back in. They came in with thousands of people. They went through house to house. Very organized. Went from house to house killed parents. Took the kids. Sometimes killed whole families, so they decide who they’re going to take, which is unheard of. And you have to take them. They have to pull them in the car. Somebody showed me a picture of how they put took people and put them in the car. It wasn’t buses; it wasn’t airplanes. It was regular simple cars. And that the Israelis couldn’t do a stitch! Now, if I saw those pictures, you could be sure everybody in the government saw those pictures. Why don’t they send up the simplest helicopter? They don’t have one plane in this country. These people! They’re not even a country. They have nothing! They turn you into blind people.

I’d see a couple of these arabs running around there, you see you would shoot them up. No! It took them over a day to get started. And then we sent the first day Special Commandos. 37 officers were killed, top officers, and who knows how many other people!? They won’t admit it. It’s amazing to me. They went through house to house.

I was reading it yesterday, pashut. People were saying their experience. There was one family that came in to pashut. Mother, the father, with three kids, and about 5 people came in. So we’re taking you in. So the mother said first, “let me sew you up. I see you were wounded on his hand.” So she put a bandage on. She put a little cream on and then she said, “Why do you sit down and have something to eat? Sit down and eat.” And you know what they said afterwards? “You know, we’re gonna let you go.” They went out of the house. Unbelievable. They asked the guy, “Why do you think Hashem saved you?” “I have no idea!” I know why! Because Hashem didn’t want them to die yet! Hashem showed in the mayhem these animals, these inhuman beasts, they called this name inhuman beasts, Manish. Unbelievable.

And then there was another person who they took the daughters away and made their daughters call the parents and tell them they’re gonna marry us off to their people like the ISIS did. I’m thinking Shrek. You know, when you get call like that and you see the pictures of what they did, they pulled women, they pulled a lady, 85 years old in a wheelchair, they took her off. They put her in a golf cart and they drove off.

And then there was the city of Sderot that has a frum neighborhood that recently put in a gate, so that on Shabbos no chilul Shabbos. No driving. These kind of places, even if people are frum, but they drive on Shabbos, so they’re just driving on Shabbos openly. They decided not having driving on Shabbos, so they put the gate. Terrorists came all to the gate. All of a sudden, he didn’t have their bulldozers. They couldn’t think of bombing the gate, so they turned around and drove away. Is that min hashamayim? That’s min hashamayim!

So a person has to understand that there were tunnels now that came out of also. It’s just like so overwhelming the humiliation, the degradation. If I would meet a guy from the officer, I’d say, “look, if I were you, I would take a sack and cover over your head and never take your mask off – a COVID mask for the rest of your life. Buz aleicha! You should be ashamed of yourself! You don’t realize, you didn’t chop, you have nothing – mamish less than nothing, and it’s a nes you pashut convince people to rely on you, to be somech on you, to support you.

You went to war, so Eli Beer pashut from Hatzala, he had to empty out his entire stockpile of medical equipment to the army. I said, “What is this, a Yeshiva? This is an army. An army has ambulances, should have thousands of things, but they had nothing. It was mamish like Polishe susim! Mamish like nothing. They were not prepared and all that. You know what he said? “We gave everything to the army. Now the army has everything that they need, but send more so we can restock!” OK. So he made his pitch, then the Arabs got hold of his website and they shut it down and none of his things were able to get through.

There’s nobody here, there’s nobody can’t do anything. You can’t help anything. And that’s lesson number one from this army in this war. Hashem says, “Hashem ish michamah” There is one person in charge: ME! And Hashem says, “The only one you rely on is me. The only one who’s being shomer you is me. The only one who’s caring for you v’lo yanav v’lo yishon 24 hours! When Hashem says, “shomer l’amo Yisrael l’ad” Hashem is the only shomer l’am Yisrael. And he’s the one that you have to rely on. He’s all you have to turn to, and every time you rely on these Israelis, you’re being mevazeh Hashem. You’re being mezazel Hashem and you’re being over on lo yiheye Elohim acheirim al panay! If a guy asks me ever again, “Why don’t you fight in the war”” I’m gonna say, “Do I look that stupid? To go into a war which is fighting for Israelis you have to be a lunatic! You have to be such a lunatic because they’re not gonna help you. You’re going blind into battle, going blind into battle. It’s like the Russian soldiers going into battle. They took him out of prison. They turned back. They shoot. You have no choice. But they go fight for them. It’s meshugeh to fight for them. There’s no leadership. There’s no honesty. There’s no integrity. It’s all politics, these people, these people are lowlifes! Degenerates! They would sell their mothers for nothing. A few pennies. And Hashem finally taught them a lesson. That was the most important lesson. They were so caught off guard, it’s unimaginable the degree, level of stupidity. That’s number one.

Number two you have to know. You have to study when this thing happened. It didn’t happen in the summer. It didn’t happen some other time of the year. It happened on Yom Hashabbos Kodesh. And it happened on Simchas Torah. And one of the first terrible tragedies was that there was another simcha with music. Israeli Woodsock Festival: “The Rave”, where people came from all over the world. To sing, celebrate love, dancing and all other wonderful things on Yom Hashabbos Kodesh. Right near Gaza. And that was where they came; one of the first places they came, rachmana litzlan. And they just shot up 260 nefashos. They didn’t take them captives. Hashem said, “you are not even getting a chance.” 260 murders. Just shot down. I can’t imagine. And whoever fled, a lot of people ran, they chased them down. They hunted them down. There was no one to save them. There was nothing. Couldn’t one person call the police and say to the police, “Hello! We’re being attacked!” “(Israeli accent) We’re very busy saving the country. Go bother someone else.” They do nothing and how? How is it possible that the word shouldn’t get out? In America could such a thing happen? I don’t think so. But it happened on Shabbos Kodesh.

Now what’s interesting that they drove past a huge Yishuv of the Yeshiva of Tifrach with over 1000 people who were dancing. And singing on Simchas Torah Shabbos songs to Hashem. And for some crazy amazing reason there wasn’t enough people for them. They drove right past that whole Yishuv and left them to celebrate the rest of their Simchas Torah and they moved up. Can you believe that?

Another terrible thing they did was, is that they took young women and they were mevazeh them berabim. They pashut paraded them around in the most humiliating possible fashion. Paashut makes your heart turn over; your stomach turn over, that yiddisheh maidelech have to be subjected to such a thing. Also was an accident. Tremendous breach of tznius. Tremendous breach of Shabbos. And these things happen. Hashem says, “mida coneged mida.”

You have to wake up. You have to realize that things don’t happen in a vacuum. Now we’re not happy that things happened. We’re very sad. We’re crying for them, for the victims. You don’t care if they are frum or not frum. But we are sad for them. We hope they wake up. Most of the victims there were clueless. They didn’t know what they were doing. They didn’t know who what when where how. They had no appreciation for Yiddishkeit. I don’t think they were interested in appreciation for Yiddishkeit. It’s a tragedy of tragics. To read all these stories, every single maaseh: This one is saved; this one’s not saved. Here is two parents – they have twins. And they hid their twins in the house. And they went searching out, and they only found the parents and they killed the parents. 14 hours later, they found the twins in hiding. Hashem wanted those twins to live. How Hashem arranged that they shouldn’t cry out and they shouldn’t be hurt. It wasn’t their time to go. You have to feel their tzara .

Yesterday I got a call. From three people whose brothers were in the war, and each one of them was scared, frightened, because the morale of the soldiers now is at the lowest of the low, they realize that there’s nothing they can do. They don’t know where they’re going. They’re standing by the border of Gaza. Scared out of their pants. They’re not trained; what a couple weeks training, they, you know, face these dangerous monsters who are taka inhuman beasts. So a guy called, and I told him “Tell your brothers – they went off the derech – so tell them to get back on the derech They should mekabel to do teshuva and they’ll live. If not, who knows? Let them be mekabel to do teshuva. Now’s the time. There’s no atheists in the foxhole. Come back to Hakadosh Baruch Hu.”

Hakadosh Baruch Hu wants us to be mechazek ourselves, and if any fool thinks that he is going to go to Eretz Yisrael now to fight. Oh, he’s going to help them out. Like Ukraine, a lot of bright tipshim decided to go fight and put their lives on the line. These are battle hardened fellows who like cops and robbers. You know how many got killed? A velt of them. Most of them. They weren’t used to the terrain. They weren’t used to this fighting. They weren’t taka animals. They got killed over there. That’s not going to help you. What do you do? So the Rosh Yeshivas came up with an eitza. They said let’s be mechazik Torah. Cancel bein hazmanim. Right now in Eretz Yisrael this time period of the year is a major bein hazmanim for the yeshiva bochurim. Yeshiva bochurim literally go traveling all over the country to all ends in the country to go and have some fun before they start the zman. They cancelled it.

The gemora says that Dovid Hamelech broadened the boundaries of Eretz Yisrael. And he drove away the enemies from all the centers, the city centers, the big centers, and from then on, the Pelishtim, the Palestinians, the first Palestinians, stopped bothering Klal Yisrael. And over the time, they disappeared entirely from Eretz Yisrael. And the few that were left over ran into the deserts. And Dovid Hamelech’s success became a major talk of the day. The gemora says, “Rabbi Yeshua Ben Levi said, ‘What is meant by that which it says in the pasuk (Tehillim 122) omdos hayu ragleinu bisharayich Yerushalayim?’” It says our feet were standing in the gates of Yerushalayim. What does that mean? The gemora says that pasuk means “Mi goram leragleinu shehaya omdim bamilchama?” What contributed to our feet standing strong and solid without fear, without dread, without losses? What was the secret behind the milchama? How did they manage such successes without a lot of chayalim? They didn’t have a lot of soldiers and these guys weren’t trained special forces. How did these unnatural nitzchonos (conquests) happen? You know what it says? In the zechus of what was happening in Shaarei Yerushalayim. And what was that the Gemara says? Shehayu oskim baTorah. The whole nation was osek b’Torah. That was the secret of the success.

You have to know that this success in battle, the Rosh Yeshivas in Eretz Yisrael who stopped the bein hazmanim and got the olam hatorah and mitzvos to come back to the big batei knessios and batei medrishim, are the greatest contributors, because now we all know we’re lost; we’re in the hands of impossible fools. And they’re leading us to whatchamacallit. How is it shayich? II read a story the other day about a Tzadik in Europe, he was walking in the street and suddenly a bomb came, and a Yid came out of his store that he was mechalel Shabbos and he told him, “Come in my store. Get safe. I have a very strong roof!” He turned to me and said, “meshuga bistu?  You’re gonna save me? You’re the source of the whole sakana! You’re the last place I would go into.” He said, “I’ll stand next to that wall and be saved.” And he stood next to that wall and he was saved, taka. We think that these reshayim can save us. They gemora says, “You know what it was and you should know that the chayalim of Dovid Hamelech were ehrliche people the gemora says, they were big tadikim. They did no aveiros. They did teshuva. They were Boteach in Hashem 100% and still that had nothing to do with the contribution to their success. This gemora, I remember the first time I saw it and thought what a massive chiddush! As if the soldiers were like bums and degenerates. People who are anti-Torah and anti-Mitzvah. It’s OK. I understand why. But we’re talking about tzadikim. They went to war and they said if you have one aveira go home. If you have aveias as small as talking between Yishtabach and Baruch Hu they sent you home. You know what kind of pure Tzadik – We can’t imagine that. And did not contribute it to the success ki hu zeh klal. You know what did it? Kol ha’am hayu oskim b’Torah. That was the secret of the nitzachim. And that’s why you have to know: The reshayim of Eretz Yisrael who are trying to make sure all the Yeshiva bochurim go into the army and fight and argue and train themselves in high tech security systems and in computers. They’ll tell you that’s what’s saving us. What’s saving us is: Shaarei Yerushalayim, shekel ha’am hayu oskim baTorah.

Hakadosh Baruch Hu should help us. Hakadosh Baruch Hu should save us. He should save all these people who are clueless from themselves. He should open up the eyes of the reshaim, who, directing the traffic and undermining Hashem and undermining the Torah and instigating, and vilifying the Bnei Torah, and the ones who are the real protectors of Klal Yisrael Hashem should save us from all our enemies, internal enemies, so that we can see the true nitzachim, bimhara b’yameinu. Amen.