[Avodah] What is galut

[Michael Makovi]

Was: [Areivim] Mi Ke'amcho Yisroel...

>Galut is a state, not a location. You can even be in galus while doing
>avodah in the beis hamiqdash. Galus Yavan was entirely during the
>2nd bayis.
>Tir'u baTov!
>-Micha

But to play devil's advocate, Rabbi Henkin in Equality Lost, in his
essay on recognizing Hashem in history, says that those who, in the
effort to reconcile our return to haAretz with the identity of those
who accomplished it, say that we are still in galut, thereby empty the
word galut of meaning.

I don't see how we can call the 2nd Bayit period "galut", unless we
follow Rav Hirsch following Ohr Hashem (and Abarbanel too?) that there
was really only one long exile, punctuated by a short intermission.
But if one sees it as two distinct exiles, then what was galut yavan?
You have galut bavel and galut roma, bli galut yavan.

Galut is most certainly NOT a mere state of mind. Galut means exile,
lack of eretz yisrael, lack of statehood. Obviously, we lack a Temple
and the like, so there is still an element of galut. But all the same,
there is an element of geula. To say that we are in galut without a
"but", is just as wrong as to say we are in geula without a "but".

Anyway, while on the subject of this essay of Rabbi Henkin's...

Rabbi Henkin never says (as far as I recall) whether he believes this
is the beginning of our geula (but he possibly hints at an affirmative
answer, when he says Hashem is returning us to prevent our
destruction/dissolution/cessation/assimilation in(to) chutz
laAretz/galut). What he does say, however, is that one way or another,
it is Hashem's doing, and he compares it to King Whatshisname the
rasha for whom Hashem did a miracle and let him expand the terrority
the northern kingdom. Rabbi Henkin says, the challenge then was to
acknowledge Hashem's hand while nevertheless not saying that if Hashem
did a miracle for him he must be worthy and righteous - the same
challenge we face today regarding the chilonim who built the country.

(At the same time, Rabbi Henkin hints this could very well be not the
final geula, for he notes that only one king later, Assyria conquered
Israel. After the northern kingdom's people refused to avail
themselves of the removal of the blocks to the Beit haMikdash, their
indictment, and Ninevah's zerizut to teshuvah indicting our
stiff-neckedness...and so too today could it happen if we aren't
careful.)

Mikha'el Makovi