Rosh Yeshivas Telz
It is the nature of any living and healthy organism to expel any
polluted blood. This is the way the organism heals itself and protects
its internal health and purity. Similarly, the Jewish Nation expels
assimilators and alien influences, and in that way guards its internal
purity, spirit and pristine essence as were set by the Creator.
This expulsion process can be followed, starting with the Sadducees
and the Catholics and ending with the followers of the Reform and
Enlightenment Movements of the past century. It applies even to those
who pictured themselves—and also large sections of the nation
saw in them — as being the nation's leaders and pacesetters.
Healthy Judaism that is loyal to its sources, despite all the ridicule
and mockery aimed at it from its opponents, continues to survive
indefinitely.
They are stronger and more courageous than we are. They are the
majority whereas we apparently are She'eris Yisroel, which can
be misunderstood as a mere undesirable remnant of the past. By all
appearances, the future belongs to them.
The truth is, however, the opposite. We are, boruch Hashem, are
the She'eris Yisroel, which is truly understood as those
surviving and persisting eternally. They are constantly in the midst
of the process of decline and becoming extinct. They struggle within
themselves about their sealed fate and are tormented with spiritual
distortion, until they are expelled from Klal Yisroel. They are
the true Nidchei Yisroel.
This process of expulsion pains, tortures and racks She'eris
Yisroel since every Jewish neshomoh is precious to them.
Also those waging war to "improve and beautify" Jewry's stature in the
world, nonetheless sense they are gradually being expelled from the
Jewish Nation. They and especially those coming after them, belong to
the camp of future non-Jews, or even to the camp of antisemites
already now.
Although they are proud of their being Modern Jews, and arrogantly
regard the "backward" Jews as needing to be educated in order "to
transform them into civilized people," deep down in their hearts they
fear their own future. A profound struggle is taking place between
their inner Jewish instinct and their specious ideologies. This
instinct pecks away at their subconscious and forewarns them about the
danger of spiritual destruction that their lifestyle is leading them
to. This internal struggle characteristically moves them in two
contrasting directions: on the one hand it intensifies their desire to
fight against the truth gnawing inside their hearts, while the other
hand, at least occasionally, it awakens within them reflections urging
them to repent. These thoughts deter them from doing many things and
force them to take steps that are in complete contradiction to their
outlook on life.
Our Sages (Shevet Mussar ch. 25, Malbim Tehillim 17:2,
75:5) succinctly define this struggle and self-contradictory behavior
as, "Reshoim are constantly repenting." On the other hand, as
mentioned, this itself aggravates and toughens even more their open
fight against true Judaism. The Novi Yeshaya (57:20) expresses the
state of mind of the reshoim in the posuk, "But the
reshoim will be like the driven sea that cannot rest, and whose
waters disgorge mire and mud." This internal restlessness sometimes
causes them to carry out abominable acts, which are a direct result
from an internal conflict, of pangs of conscience.
Each person believes that "his" truth must win, and this belief awards
him the power to fight and to even sacrifice himself for this
truth.
We behold a process of distorted perceptions, followed by
disappointments, which lead to new mistakes that soon bring further
disappointment with scrambling to other mistakes, or even returning to
the previous mistakes.
Culture has gone bankrupt. Consequently, they grab onto a dubious
idealistic scrap that has remained and is called democracy. After they
realize that the "Democratic World" doesn't concern itself with us or
with justice at all, they move on and grasp communism. That ideology,
however, greets them with a "fine gift" of false charges and murder.
They then straightaway run to find refuge and hope in other delusions
and false hopes. It is difficult to preclude all the false hopes,
which are as many as the amount of our disappointments, and are as
wide and deep as the sea of our misery.
The Novi (Yirmiyahu 9:2) has already foreseen this tragedy and
argued: "For they go out from evil to evil, but they do not know the
word of Hashem." Rashi explains: "`From evil to evil'—meaning
from one sin to another." The obvious question is why does the Novi
write, "they go out" when "they went" would be more appropriate? The
Novi means to say that they left one aveiroh because they were
disappointed from it, but that disappointment didn't lead them to the
truth. Instead, it leads them to another aveiroh, to another
mistake, and they still didn't realize the Divine truth.
It is difficult for a person to discern the truth when he mistakenly
believes in a mistake. It is even more painful to see that when he
shakes himself free from the mistake, he searches for another
avodoh zorah, without even wanting to realize the truth.
"If you turn away from sin, O Yisroel, says Hashem, you will return to
Me, if you remove your abominations from before Me, then you will not
wander" (Yirmiyahu 4:1). If you do not want to do
teshuvah and abandon your idols as long as you believe in them,
I am nevertheless asking from you that, "If you turn away from
sin"— if anyway you become disappointed and turn away from
them—"You will return to Me"—at least turn to Me at that
time. When the day will come and you "remove your abominations" it
should at least be "from before Me"— in order to recognize that
I am Hashem, so "you will not wander"—so you will not continue
to wander from mistake to mistake.
Although extremely painful, the following question must be asked: Why
do we find so few Jews returning to the truth? Why do we not see that
the bitter disappointment from the idols of, "My strength and the
might of my hand made me all this wealth" ( Devorim 8:17), from
the different forms of assimilation either personal or national, and
from "the kindness of nations is a sin" ( Mishlei 14:34), lead
our nation to the truth?
The reason is that we suffer from short memory. If Jews from past
generations had seen these lightning changes of history that we have
experienced they would surely have recognized the real truth. In the
past, changes occurred at an extremely slow pace. Two or three
continuous generations could live while embracing futile illusions,
and the return to the old mistakes came after one hundred or a hundred
and fifty years.
However, today the various types of avodoh zorah have collapsed
within a period of twenty-five to thirty years. Memory is so short
that what we recognized yesterday as an ideology that we should not
follow has been forgotten today. Because of this short memory, people
wander and return to their past mistake.
Today we are exhausted, dejected, embarrassed and ashamed,
disappointed in all the different man-created types of idols. We are
wallowing in our blood, forlorn, withering and fading away. We are
without any present, and the future is shrouded in gloom. Now it is
for us a "time of love" (Yechezkel 16:8)! We are now prepared
to hear the howling truth. Now the time has arrived about which the
novi writes: "Behold days are coming—the word of the Lord Hashem
Elokim when I will send hunger into the land; not a hunger for bread
nor a thirst for water, but to hear the words of Hashem" ( Amos
8:11). That time will be the final end for the different types of
avodoh zorah, and the idols of Don and Beer Sheva (see Amos
7:5) will fall and not rise again.
The yahrtzeit of HaRav Block zt"l was 28 Teves.
