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28 Nisan 5759 - April 14, 1999 | Mordecai Plaut, director Published Weekly
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Opinion & Comment
Thinking About the Antireligious Minority
by Paltiel Roodyn

Recently, an article in the Yated Ne'eman described an attack by secular activists on a religious school in Tzoran in central Israel. We read that the Pe'elim/Lev L'Achim movement has set up a new school in this apparently predominantly secular area. The article described how the leader of the crowd of secular demonstrators surrounding the school refused to allow a Beis Yaakov teacher with her twenty- five three-year-old girl pupils to enter the school building. "Leave, or we will kill you!" one of the protesters is reported to have shouted.

The teacher afterwards told the Yated correspondent: "I don't know where I got the courage to do such a thing, but I clutched the girls' hands and charged right through the gate. We just made it to the door when a barrage of stones spattered the wall all around us."

The events seem almost unbelievable. How can Jewish men (not anti-Israeli Arabs) actually throw stones at an innocent and defenseless teacher with her three year old girl pupils?

However, this incident is unfortunately not an isolated one. Some months ago the Beis Yaakov movement asked if they could use two purpose-built kindergarten buildings in Ramot Bet in Yerushalayim which had been standing empty for several years. After a lengthy battle with the educational authorities, they managed to obtain permission to use the buildings. However, on the first day of school, the entrance to the kindergarten was surrounded by a group of some two hundred men, women and young people, who shouted and booed at the parents as they entered the school with their children.

The parents demonstrated the same sort of courage which was shown by the brave teacher in Tzoran. Ignoring the shouts, they walked right through the crowd and took their children into the school.

We may well ask the same question asked by the writer of the article about the incident in Tzoran: "When and where did this incident occur? Sixty years ago in Nazi Germany?"

Surely we are duty bound to give careful consideration to these shocking happenings in Eretz Yisroel. We must ask ourselves why it is that when we sit on the buses in Eretz Yisroel we hear again and again so-called impartial commentators asking why "Yeshiva bochurim do not serve in the army." We hear over the bus radio commentators telling the passengers that "the chareidi community are parasites who are taking everything from the State of Israel and not giving anything back." We have to suffer when we see large anti- Torah posters pasted on the sides of buses. We read that the gedolei Torah have issued a statement headed by the words: "This is a time of great trouble to Yaakov." Are we indeed in Nazi Germany sixty years ago? The answer to this question is a resounding "No!" We are not living in Nazi Germany -- we are living in Eretz Yisroel, the Holy Land of our ancestors.

Two thousand years have passed and HaKodosh Boruch Hu has lifted the gezeira on our people after the terrible Holocaust. HaKodosh Boruch Hu has decisively reopened the gates of Eretz Yisroel and we can now come here with relative ease in our thousands and tens of thousands. We can now all enjoy the spiritual beauty of the holy air of Eretz Yisroel. We can visit the Kosel and pray standing close to the remnants of our holy Beis Hamikdash.

Here we can lead true Torah lives and listen to the shiurim and words of wisdom of our great Torah sages. Here we can rejoice in the fact that it is openly agreed that some thirty thousand young men are devoting their entire lives to the study of the Torah, while their wives their eishes chayil -- proudly help them.

The Torah community in Eretz Yisroel is also intimately connected through family and marriage with great Torah communities in chutz la'aretz, so that it is as if we have become one worldwide great Torah community centered in Eretz Yisroel. In the former Soviet Union, yeshivas and kollelim flourish, taught by rabbonim and avreichim from Eretz Yisroel and from the Torah communities in chutz la'aretz. Is this, then, Nazi Germany of sixty years ago?

And yet the question remains and demands an answer. Why are we being subject to such wicked attacks from so-called "secular Jewish activists?" First, we must agree that the "Jewish secular activists" are only a minority -- even a tiny minority -- of the Jewish community in Eretz Yisroel. They have loud voices because they control a large and important part of the Israeli communications media. However, in actual numbers they are relatively insignificant.

The vast majority of the so-called "secular" nonobservant Jewish community in Eretz Yisroel in truth has very little objection to the chareidi population and their lifestyle. On the contrary, we cannot help feeling that deep down they have a certain admiration for the chareidi approach. They have no desire at all to try to stop the practice of Yiddishkeit. Maybe they do not want to observe all the mitzvos of the Torah, but they know in their hearts that the religious chareidi community forms the backbone and the foundation of life in Eretz Yisroel.

To take an example again from the new Beis Yaakov kindergarten in Ramot Bet. After it became clear that the Beis Yaakov movement had won its fight to use the empty kindergarten buildings, the angry crowd of demonstrators disappeared and did not return. Instead, the Beis Yaakov children settled down happily to learn in their new buildings. Next door to them are two other kindergarten buildings where the so-called "secular" kindergarten children learn. There is no friction or antagonism between the two groups at all. The two schools learn happily side by side, and the neighbors seem to get nachas from seeing the little children learning and singing near each other.

Where is the dispute forecast by the secular leaders? It does not exist. We see only harmony and happiness.

In order to answer our original questions, let us look into the writings of the gedolei Torah. HaRav Elchonon Wassermann, zt'l, in his sefer entitled BeIkvese DeMikshicha -- On the Heels of the Moshiach -- describes in exact detail the time in which we are now living. Rav Wassermann, zt"l, states that in our times we will find that the Jewish people will be divided into three groups. Two of these groups will be minorities, and one group will form the great majority of the Jewish people. The largest group, the great majority, stated HaRav Wassermann, zt"l, will be made up of Jews who are sadly ignorant of the Torah. However, deep in their hearts they will respect and love the Torah.

The second group of the Jewish people -- one of the two "minority groups" predicted by Rav Wassermann, zt"l, will be made up of the Torah true observant Jews.

The third and last minority group, states Rav Wassermann, zt"l will be made up of so-called anti-religious secular Jews who will openly adopt an anti-Torah attitude. Their battle cry will be: "Let us be like the goyim." Unfortunately, this last minority group will hold significant positions of power and will exercise much control over the media and the secular leadership. This is exactly the situation in which we find ourselves today.

However, we must comfort ourselves by reminding ourselves that the so-called "secular activists" are in fact only a small minority of the whole Jewish people. We must do our best to counterattack and nullify their dangerous arguments and criticisms.

In the end, however, the best remedy is to realize that in fact we have nothing to fear. We must remain stronger than ever in our love for the Torah min haShomayim. If we continue in this style of life in our true and sincere manner, then the first group, the great majority of the Jewish people who are today ignorant of the Torah, will surely come over to our way of life and join the chozrim beteshuva that are making such a significant contribution to the Torah way of life, ken yehi ratzon.


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