Part 2: THE LOAN
For turning their backs on their own heritage, the covenants that were between them and God, God also turned His 'back' (so to speak) on them. Things were so bad, it is said that they went down to the 49th level of uncleaniness --and there are only 50 levels!
(If that doesn't give you hope...)
So when they began calling upon His Holy Name again. The Almighty gave them a loan. I'll split the sea -cause a great miracle for the world to behold that I am with you. But afterwards you must prove that you are deserving of it.
As one kabbalist pointed out, its also another great miracle that Yom HaAtzmaut /Independence day falls on the same day as the 7th day of Passover -the day of celebrating the splitting of the sea.
Which brings us to the situation that we have today. Slowly slowly with the birth of the Haskala movement, the Jewish people began once again to chase after a different way --the European way. Many began to reject their own heritage. Then came the holocaust. I won't even begin to talk about the horrors there. No doubt the Jewish people in Europe were crying out for salvation. Many who had rejected their Judaism in the hopes of being accepted by the non-Jewish world received a figurative slap in the face when they understood that they were not accepted. In fact, despite many Jews attempting to intermarry, the nazis searched through various document down several generations to find our who they consider still Jewish.
A way out was needed. Zionism was born. There were two types: the type who wanted Israel to be a little Europe within the middle east. All like minded Jewish people were welcomed. The second type was a bit more tolerant of religious Jews and thought they could all be a part of the new little Europe within the middle east.
In other words, no thoughts of returning to the land for the sake of reviving the covenant with God. No God in the picture at all!
That's not a good way to start paying back a loan.
The old Jewish community that was already in Israel welcomed the new influx of Jews. Anything was better than dealing with the massacres at the hands of angry Arab mobs. In fact, when Israel got its independence, the whole town of Tsfat -Mahmoud Abbas's home town when he was a youth, up and moved to East Jerusalem in an attempt to consolidate in case Israel would take revenge for the 1929 massacre in a nearby town.
On top of that, all the Arab lands around Israel started sending their own Jewish population to Israel. Why should they contend with the Jewish population, let them go to their own land!
So, a new group of Jews: dark, very different in culture, long haired, and very religious began to show up in the new little Europe within the middle east. Plus they were penniless -what money they had was confiscated before they were kicked out of Yemen, Morocco, Algeria, Iraq, etc.
The Zionists of old dealt with these new immigrants. Not very nicely. Another touchy subject. Suffice it to say there was now a "lower class" to do the menial work a country needed done.
Another strike against paying back that loan.
What will be if that loan is not paid back? What will be if Israel doesn't get its act together? Clearly the world is attempting to get rid of the whole Jewish state by demanding that they make suicidal concessions in the name of peace.
There was always some one from within the religious groups who saw this and tried to payments going.
Enter Rabbi Kook...
To be continued...
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