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The older I get the more I want to know "What is Yahadus really all
about?" IMO, one can know a lot of halacha, a lot of gemara,
etc., and still not possess an overview of what Judaism is all about.
IMO, RSRH gives one insights that help one acquire a Torah outlook.
<br><br>
On Shabbos I read Rav Hirsch's essay Adar VI in The Collected
Writings of RSRH. As I read it, I found it time and time again an eye
opener. I have posted this essay at
<a href="http://www.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/rsrh/adar_vi.pdf" eudora="autourl">
http://www.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/rsrh/adar_vi.pdf</a> . Below are
some selections from the essay. YL<br><br>
<font size=3>All this is depicted in that dire prediction of Israel's
future. The Children of Israel are seen in the "enemy country;"
they are charged with the theft of the very ground beneath their feet, of
the very air they breathe. They are "despised;" they have
forfeited that which should have been "their wisdom and their
insight in'the eyes of the nations,"
</font><font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=3>the ideals that should have
shown to the nations of the earth how the Name of God shines upon Israel
and that should have won Israel the respect of the world. They preferred
to compete with the cavalries of the nations, with the armed might of the
princes, with the politics and the political sagacity of the sovereign
states. They attempted to vie with the others on a level not permitted
them, when in fact it was their mission to teach the nations by their own
example, in life and history, that such trappings of material power are
secondary, transitory and wanting. <br><br>
</font>And so the Children of Israel lost the respect of the nations,
with whose physical prowess they were never meant to compete. Because
they regarded the very core of their existence as merely
"accidental," they were repaid measure for measure in that
their existence truly became
"accidental"<font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=3>
</font><font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=3>in the midst of an arrogant
mankind, armed with violence, which could only see that the exiles who
accidentally had been scattered among them lacked the foundation upon
which they, the nations of the world, had built their glory and
greatness. There is among the nations no eye which appreciates that quiet
grandeur, that everlasting might which should shine all the more brightly
during the dark periods of Israel's history; an ideal which-if only the
exiles themselves had perceived it as their one true remaining
treasure-would have placed Israel as a shining light upon the horizon and
would have presented even these remnants to thinking men as the miracle
nation, worthy of their respect. <br><br>
</font>The nations, aware that Israel does not have what they consider
the trappings of power, do not understand the greatness which Israel does
in fact possess. Therefore Israel finds itself "despised" in
enemy country, without personal and civil rights, scorned as a lowly worm
among earth's creatures. The Biblical prediction portrays the Children of
Israel as "rejected" everywhere, a foreign body, disruptive,
troublesome, an obstacle to the unity of the host nation, intruders whom
the nation, must literally eliminate or disgorge if it is to regain
its balance. <br><br>
The Jews are the only element that cannot
be absorbed by the state; they are a problem for which political wisdom
cannot find a solution, <font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=3>an entity
which no political authority can encompass. <br><br>
</font><font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=3><snip><br><br>
</font><font size=1>(</font><font size=3>"let
</font><font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=3>it
</font><font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=3>be written that they be
destroyed"-Esther 3, 9). The purblind policy of Haman was to demand
a royal decree authorizing him to exterminate the Jews. Antiochus sought
to attain the same objective with a sword in his right hand and with all
the cunning of seduction in his left, appealing to the senses and
befuddling the mind. That which cannot be exterminated physically by
murder could well be vanquished morally by diabolical, gentle seduction;
a policy that persistently employs both violence and temptation to
achieve its ends may be sure of success. This is indeed the policy which
has poisoned the air breathed by the unfortunate exiles over hundreds and
even thousands of years. <s> </s></font>Haman's example is followed only
from time to time if someone's patience has worn thin, or if a Haman runs
afoul of a Mordecai and seeks to slake a base thirst for revenge or an
even more sordid avarice under the guise of concern for the welfare of
his country. By and large, the atmosphere in which the history of the
exiles unfolds follows the pattern set by Antiochus. The unfortunates
have been subjected to the pressures and the ridicule of crude force on
the one hand, and the satanic smile of seductive temptation on the other,
in the hope that they will be destroyed physically and morally at the
same time. <br><br>
And then the Roman-Christian world took a certain book from the hands of
that very despised and rejected nation which had been marked for
destruction, and hailed this book as a promise of the world's redemption
and of their own deliverance from the corruption of paganism. The
adherents of this creed even began to worship a son of these exiles as
their divine savior, and to revere that book and that son as the
foundation of all future civilizations and of the advancement of
salvation on earth. Then they felt they could no longer dismiss out of
hand the suggestion that the origin, the destiny, the history and the
teachings of these scattered exiles had been attended by a
"special Divine element." At that point the urge to
destroy the Jews was given an intellectual rationalization: the
"Divine" element that had been manifest in these exiles had
become a thing of the past; the Jews themselves had cast
<font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=3>it
</font><font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=3>aside and therefore God had
scattered them among the nations, "to break My covenant with
them." <br><br>
</font>At one time, it was claimed, the Jews had indeed been the Chosen
People, whom God had blessed and found worthy of bringing about the
salvation of the world. But now they are the pariahs whom God Himself has
despised and rejected. He Himself has canceled His covenant with them and
marked them for destruction. Therefore those who hate, oppress and
persecute the Jews are performing a sacred task that is pleasing to God.
("They that rule over them bring them misery in the name of
God"-Isaiah 52, 5). That spirit which might have salvaged the fate
of the Jews had turned the hatred and persecution of Jews into a
religion. thus cutting off even the last hope of the exiles. <br><br>
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