[Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L

[Ben Waxman via Avodah]

On 4/23/2015 6:11 PM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote:
> But let me ask a related question. What are the observant now living
> in EY doing "to ensure the conditions that 'we could feel justifies
> to call it a Kiddush HaShem"?
I gave an answer on Areivim, but I saw a couple of things on Shabbat 
which warrant an Avodah response. The first is from Yoma 86:A, Rashi, 
B'Amor Lehem (my translation): "Evil comes to chassidim and chachamim 
because "They desecrated My Holy name" (note: Rashi is of course 
assuming that they didn't do any particular sin to warrant what happened 
to them). How did they desecrate (God's name)? In those places to where 
they were exiled, the non-Jews say "These are the people of God" and He 
can't redeem them. Conclusion: God's name has been desecrated." End quote.

Therefore the creation of the State is, in of itself,  a Kiddush Hashem. 
Rav Soloveitch tz"l wrote about this point in Kol Dodi Dofek and in his 
drashot for the Kinot, as did Rav Zvi Yehuda Kook tz"l.

However, I don't want to leave it at that. Rav Cherki (father of Shalom 
HY"D) wrote the following in this week's Shabbat B'shabato:

"And this leads us to a moral question: How can it be that with respect 
to the most significant event in all of history, the redemption, the 
existence or lack of good deeds has no effect at all? This tension 
between the inevitability of redemption and arbitrary choices made by 
man is what makes it necessary for the nation of Yisrael to observe all 
the mitzvot in detail, in order to avoid creating a dissonance between 
the need for justice (which appears in the covenant in the Torah portion 
of Bechukotai) and the values of the path of unification, which insists 
that G-d is always working to glorify His name, no matter what else is 
happening. And that is why the Haftarah ends with the adamant demand of 
the Holy One, Blessed be He: "I am your G-d. Follow My laws and maintain 
My just actions and perform them, and sanctify my Shabbat and let it be 
a symbol between Me and you, in order to know that I am your G-d." 
[Yechezkel 20:19-20]."

No one, not the most hard core DL around, says that there is nothing 
wrong with the State, that there isn't what that needs changing, from 
the level of how people get on a bus to the national agenda. In his 
hesped, Rav Cherki mentioned that his son Shalom went to the navy to 
help start a hesder unit for the navy, even though he knew that the 
religious level in the navy wasn't as high as it was in other units. He 
went there for the greater good, to help make the IDF a bit more Torah 
oriented, period. Rav Cherki went on to say that the answer to Shalom's 
murder was to add Kiddush HaShem.

Ben