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<BLOCKQUOTE
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<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>R'n SB wrote:</DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE
style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: blue 2px solid"><FONT
style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" face=Arial color=#000000 size=2><BR>:
Can anyone honestly say, after seeing Israel export fruit and vegetables to
<BR>: the world, when comparing the situation here to what it was 120 years
ago - <BR>: when it was a land of swamps and desert, that something hasn't
changed?</FONT></BLOCKQUOTE>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>and in Avodah Digest, Vol 25, Issue 116 dated 3/31/2008 RMB
wrote::</DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE
style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: blue 2px solid"><FONT
style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" face=Arial color=#000000
size=2><BR><BR>(Tangent: Obviously, Agudists can. Anti-Zionists will agree
something<BR>changed, but they will say it's the introduction of a nisayon.
But the<BR>neutral non-Zionist can say that it's not a fundamental
change.)</FONT></BLOCKQUOTE>
<DIV></DIV>
<DIV>>>>>></DIV>
<DIV>I don't agree that this is a fair statement of what Agudists believe.
I consider myself an Agudist and, like most Agudists, I believe that something
HAS changed in Eretz Yisrael. And no, the flowering of flowers, of fruits,
of vegetables, and of yeshivos and kollelim is NOT just "the introduction of a
nisayon." </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Rather, we do live in a time when we can hear the footsteps of Moshiach
approaching, and we do live in a time where we can see many the fulfillment of
many ancient prophecies, the beginning of kibbutz galuyos and the first
stirrings of the Ge'ulah. When you see Yerushalayim built up and
full of Yidden, when you see the desert turning green and the farms producing
bountiful harvests, it would be very difficult for a Torah Jew not to see that
miracles are happening before our eyes.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>What happened was that there was "something in the air" and the Zionists
picked up a whiff of it and ran with it -- in the wrong direction. Away
from Torah, rather than back to Torah.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Those secular Jews who participated in the physical work of rebuilding
Eretz Yisrael no doubt have a huge zechus and will have great schar for
it. At the same time, those secular Jews who tried to eradicate
Torah -- especially the rabidly anti-religious socialist Ashkenazi elite --
will have to answer for all the evil that they have done. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>As for Religious Zionists -- they have been and are a very mixed
bag, as some of them have aided and abetted some of the worst
activities of the secular Zionists, while others are talmidei
chachamim and tzaddikim, among the most idealistic and admirable Jews
of our time. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>My father once said to me (I have mentioned this before) that there
was nothing wrong with Mizrachi that wouldn't be corrected by Torah learning,
that whatever was wrong with Mizrachi -- laxity in mitzvos, or in tznius
-- stemmed from amaratzus and a lack of Torah knowledge, and that when they
began to seriously learn Torah, these faults would be corrected. Many
years later he reminded me of that conversation and said, "Do you see the
talmidim of Mercaz Harav, how careful they are with halacha, how medakdek
bemitzvos, how their wives are so tzniusdik? It's just what I said, they
are talmidei chachamim and their Torah observance is impeccable." I'm not
saying that he agreed with DL ideology, but he certainly considered them to
be part of the Torah camp.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Today even many of the DL are anti-Zionist by the standards of yesterday's
"Zionism." They no longer worship the army and the government, after Oslo
and Gaza. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>To see that something wondrous has been happening in Eretz Yisrael over the
past century, and to see simultaneously that there is something rotten about the
present government, is not a contradiction at all. It was always a mistake
to conflate Zionism with ahavas Eretz Yisrael. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>The Zionist enterprise has been ohr vechoshech mishtamshim be'irbuvyeh
(like so much human activity!). Yes, there is a nisayon involved in the
return to E'Y -- many nisyonos -- but the flowering of Jewish life is not "just"
a nisayon. It is also a Divine gift. It is a sign that the Jewish
people has not been abandoned and forgotten after all these centuries of galus,
it is a Divine smile, a hint and a promise that the Geulah is coming.
</DIV>
<DIV><FONT lang=0 face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2 FAMILY="SANSSERIF"
PTSIZE="10"><B><BR></B><BR><B>--Toby
Katz<BR>=============<BR></B><BR></FONT></DIV></FONT><BR><BR><BR><DIV><FONT style="color: black; font: normal 10pt ARIAL, SAN-SERIF;"><HR style="MARGIN-TOP: 10px">It's Tax Time! Get tips, forms and advice on <A title="http://money.aol.com/tax?NCID=aolcmp00300000002850" href="http://money.aol.com/tax?NCID=aolcmp00300000002850" target="_blank">AOL Money & Finance</A>.</FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>