Rabbis: Arab Unrest Signals Messiah’s Coming
ISRAEL — Are Arab leaders being punished for religious persecution? Prominent rabbis offer explanations for Mideast uprisings.
Prominent rabbis from the Lithuanian ultra-Orthodox sector have offered their own curious interpretations for the upheaval that is spreading through the Middle East, stating that the events are a clear proof that a higher power is at work.
The cellular portal Haredim, which offered a collection of responses on the matter, quoted Rabbi Aharon Leib Steinman, the leader of the ultra-Orthodox Lithuanian sector in Bnei Brak, as blaming the instability in the region on contemptuous attitudes towards Torah study.
“Recently it appears that there is a powerful effort to destroy and agitate the world of the Torah, through various attempts to prosecute kollels and yeshiva students,” Steinman said. “When you try to agitate the world of the Torah, God agitates the world.”
Steinman explained that the sages of the Talmud teach that there is a connection between Torah study and the existence of the world.
“God does great and strange things in the world, to make them deal with the (disasters) instead of looking for ways to mind those observing the Torah and the mitzvot,” he said. “Because if they don’t study, it will continue to move closer to us.”
Carmel fire as punishment?
Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky, an unconventional Lithuanian leader who is believed to have mystic powers, offered a different explanation. “It is evident that many unnatural things are happening,” he said. “People have come to me and said that it’s ‘Gog and Magog’ (Armageddon). We cannot know. But it’s probable that any unrest that God creates shows that the Messiah is coming, and that we must begin to prepare for it and become stronger.”
Another prominent rabbi, Michel Yehuda Lefkowitz, is certain that God is causing the turmoil in order to put the people in their place.
“God goes and humiliates (those feeling) sinful pride,” he said. “At first there was this little fire here, and a state that thought that it is big and strong suddenly needed help from the entire world. Not a war, nothing special, just a small fire.
”When they continued to think that they are smart, and see everything and understand what to do and how to do it, God came and disturbed the nations, and here they are, scared again because they could not predict such a big thing, and again they do not know what to do,“ he added. ”God is laughing at them, waiting to see when they will understand and become wiser.”
The one who does not see that God is running the world, Lefkowitz concluded, is not evil, but a fool.
Peleh
But what doe the Rebbe say?
elisha
i gained respect for rav chaim kanievsky from this article because when the litvishe gedolim are in their own natural habitat they are wanton to diagnose blame like groise chachomim its childish foolish and a direct abuse of intellectual and spiritual influence
but he did not play those games
the truth is our rebbe did this all time time ALOT of diagnoses when armies camp around the borders of israel during 1967 he didnt start blaming the frei or the tziyonim instead he ENCOURAGED a mitzvah stronger bisimcha and said it will help
what i heard is there are bochurim that stopped seder entirely (by mistake) for a week just to HELP the situation
High Horses
”God is laughing at them, waiting to see when they will understand and become wiser.” –
The majority of Jewish leaders have little to no meaningful understanding of Torah, so they wouldn’t know an act of G-d if it punched them in the face. G-d laughing at them would be the equivalent to laughing at a blind man crawl around looking for his walking stick, even though its in your hand.
Instead of sitting on their high horse this Rabbi should be going out an teaching Torah to the ignorant, this way they would understand G-d’s work. Outreach should not be the sole possession of Chabad.
CR
Lots of “I love me very much, you should too” navel gazing by this rabbit-pack of so-called “gedeilim”. Meanwhile, R’ Kanievsky recently gave audience to a certain Mena’eif who had the Chutzpah to write a book about “taharah”. And both he and R’ Shteinmann signed onto the Cherem against Rabbi Steinsaltz’s gemara translation instigated by the Valboniker Masmid (VDL) 22 years ago but are strangely silent about the siyum today. How anyone can take these Aver-Bateilim seriously today is beyond me.
Nothing of any significance here. Move along to something important.