[Avodah] What is galut

[Micha Berger]

On Sun, January 13, 2008 2:11 pm, R Michael Makovi wrote:
: 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.

Arguably, one of the differences between R' Teitchal and the rest of
Hungarian O was that he saw history as a source of devar Hashem.
Defending this thesis is a large percentage of Eim haBanim Semeichah.
Vayo'el Moshe instead talks about the role of the sitra achara in
history, and thus you can't know what is Hashem pointing the way, vs
Hashem letting other forces challenge us.

: 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.

WADR, ask Chazal, not me.

Both the four leshonos of ge'ulah as well as Dani'el's statue are
explained in terms of 4 goliyos: Bavel, Paras uMadai, Yavan and Edom.

The fact that galus Yavan occured while we were in Israel ties in well
to many vertlach told about Chanukah -- that Purim was an existential
threat, but Chanukah was a threat to Yahadus, not our physical
wellbeing.

Galus is defined first and foremost as the absence of the Shechinah,
not the absence of Jews from Israel.

...
: 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)....

R' Reines, RYBS, ROY, etc... do not define their RZ stance in terms of
messianism. The fact that R' Kooks' thought now has the plurality in
MO and DL circles doesn't mean it necessarily holds sway among the
leadership.

SheTir'u baTov!
-micha

-- 
Micha Berger             One who kills his inclination is as though he
micha at aishdas.org        brought an offering. But to bring an offering,
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Fax: (270) 514-1507      parts to offer.        - R' Simcha Zissel Ziv