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The following is from Dr. Mendel Hirsch's commentary on the Haftoroth.
Dr. Hirsch was the eldest son of RSRH. The selection below comes from his
commentary of the Haftorah for Shabbos Chol Moed Pesach pages 592 -
593.<br><br>
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<font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=2>(</font>
<font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=3><i>Written in </i>1896 I.L.)
"So that even if to-day, through some miraculous chain of events,
Palestine were to be placed at the unconditional disposal of the Jews,
and they could return to the "Land of their Fathers" and found
an independent state there: nothing, nothing at all, would be gained as
long as <i>the </i>causes have not disappeared which once brought about
<s> </s>the downfall of the state and the destruction of the Temple, yea
which made that downfall unavoidably necessary for the preservation of
Judaism and thereby Jewry. A Jewish National body without Jewish spirit
would be, and remain, dead; a Jewish State, that does not, in making the
laws of the Torah a reality, present a picture of the realisation of the
eternal laws of justice and love of one's neighbour based on the sound
foundation of purity of morals, would be a still-born creation, and
irretrievably doomed, to dissolution, even as it was thousands of years
ago. But this is just </font><font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=3>by
</font><font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=3>way of parenthesis!
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