|
|
|
|
Rabbi Avi Shafran
[posted with permission of the New York Jewish Week and Am Echad Resources]
"Ultras Urged by Rabbis to React to Middle-East Terror" would have been a descriptive, if somewhat irresponsible, headline for the event.
And "Agudath Israel Leader Calls on Thousands to 'Fan Sparks into Flame'" an equally accurate and equally sly subheader for a report about the gathering that attracted more than 2000 traditionally Orthodox Jews to downtown Brooklyn on Thanksgiving evening.
For despite the ongoing slaughter of Jews in Israel and elsewhere - and that very day's murderous attack on an Israeli-owned hotel in Kenya and a voting hall in northern Israel - not a word of threat, hatred or revenge was heard at the massive gathering. These were fervently religious men and women, to be sure, but fervently religious Jewish ones.
The substantial hall at the Brooklyn Marriott hotel was packed to capacity, with the overflow crowd in a large lobby area that had been outfitted by Agudath Israel of America, the event's sponsor, with screens on which the proceedings were projected. Many hundreds more participated at a distance, through a broadcast on a Jewish radio station and electronic transmission to fifteen cities across the country.
After reciting Psalms in unison on behalf of the embattled Jewish community in Israel, the gathering settled down for nearly three hours of heartfelt addresses, during which those in attendance sat rapt and attentive.
Rabbi Yaakov Perlow, who is known as the Novominsker Rebbe and serves as Agudath Israel of America's "Rosh" or "Head," went right to the point. "We' re here," he began, "because we are living in a serious situation, unparalleled since the days of the Second World War." What Jews need to do today, he asserted was both to share in the pain of our brothers and sisters in Israel and "to search our own souls about what the situation demands of us."
It was less than a day before the start of Chanukah, and Rabbi Perlow likened the Jewish people to the Holy Temple, and Jews' potential for holiness to "a pure container of oil." We need, he declared, to fan the spark that lies in the heart of every Jew into a bright flame, and to allow it to cast light."
That "inner spark," he noted, can express itself in tears, in setting regular times for Torah study, in improved prayer, in better observance of the Sabbath and other Jewish laws. But it must, he insisted, express itself.
The dean of students of the respected Beth Medrash Govoha yeshiva in Lakewood, New Jersey, Rabbi Matisyahu Salomon, delivered the next address. His focus was firmly on prayer.
All the tragedies and challenges the Jewish community faces, he asserted, our fear of terrorism and war, must lead us in one direction: to connect with the divine.
We don't sufficiently understand, he went on, what prayer really is; we don't fully appreciate its potential to empower our spiritual development, its ability to change us into different people.
And prayer, he reminded his listeners, is not something done only at the set times for synagogue services. Whether faced suddenly with a dire situation in Israel, or a personal challenge in our lives, each of us, he maintained, must stop immediately and pray.
A Chassidic leader, Rabbi Elya Fisher, dean of the Kollel of Ger, was next to address the gathering, and spoke about the merit of maintaining a high state of morality and holiness in an often immoral and unholy world.
There are, Rabbi Fisher explained, not only physical "birth pangs of the Messiah" but spiritual ones as well, challenges every bit as difficult as anyone's to those who must face them.
The final address of the evening was delivered by guest speaker Rabbi Yissocher Frand of the Ner Israel yeshiva in Baltimore, who painted a vivid picture of what it means to live, as all Jews in Israel do, in constant fear of unpredictable, murderous attacks.
Most of us, he noted, are not on the level of being able to achieve the ideal of constantly keeping other Jews' pain in our immediate consciousness. But each of us, he suggested, can adopt a daily pause to imagine how a Jew in Israel must feel going about the mundane, but to him potentially dangerous, things we do each day.
And, he went on, we must change our lives in concrete ways in response to the challenge of the current crisis. Whatever we may choose to do differently, he declared, we must do something. And he challenged his listeners to discuss resolutions with their families.
Those were the calls to arms voiced that evening, calls not to conventional (and surely not "unconventional" - at least in the common usage of the word) arms, but to the deep power that Jewish tradition ascribes to the Jewish people's prayers and deeds.
And as the crowd flowed out of the hotel, it was clear that the evening's words had found their mark. Hundreds of small conversations blended into one another, sending unmistakable notes of appreciation, reflection and resolution, like beautiful music, into the wintry air.
(The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of Tzemach Dovid)
AM ECHAD RESOURCES
Past issues are available on their site.
[Rabbi Avi Shafran is director of public affairs for Agudath Israel of America and serves as American director of Am Echad]
|
|
|
|