The Samaritans always considered themselves as Jews. You know harbei mitzvos, there are many things that the Samaritans kept and sometimes even kept them more punctiliously than ordinary Jews did. And still they were enemies for 100s of years from the beginning of the second beis hamikdash. For four hundred and twenty years down to the Churban and 60 more years. That's 480 years, we were plagued by having imitation Jews, the Samaritans. At the time of the war on Beitar, the Samirtans declared to the Romans that they were not Jews. It didn't pay at that time to be a Jew. And at that time Rebbe Meir declared that the shechita of a Cusi was like the Shechita of a goy and he recommend that their wine be considered yayin nesech, like gentile wine. At first it was a novel idea to some Jews. It wasn't till a later generation that finally it was accepted.
Tape #52 R' Avigdor Miller, The Keg and The Serpent, 51:00
It's time to disown the Dati Leumi and Modern Orthodox.
Have you ever gone to a Chassidic tisch and seen Modern Orthodox people sitting there with their knit kippas? What about a simchas beis sho'eva? And Charedi bookstores, and foodstores? What about the communities that the Charedim built up like Monsey, Lakewood, Borough Park, Flatbush, the Lower East Side, London, Detroit, Cleveland, Jerusalem, and Meah Sharim. What about the mikvehs? What about the mohelim? What about the great majority of the kashrus supervisors? Who started the bikur cholim and the hatzalahs? Who started the publishing houses? Modern Orthodox people have derived enormous benefit from Charedim. How about our gadolim? R' Moshe Feinstein. They cite his teshuvos often. So too R' Shlomo Zalman Auerbach and Rav Elyashiv. What about R' Chaim Brisk? The Rabbi Isaac Elchanon Rabbinical Seminary of Yeshiva University is built off of his learning derech even as it takes the name of another Charedi gadol Rav Isaac Elchanon.
I recognize that term Charedi has taken on a new modern usage but you know what I mean. The Charedi world is much closer to the legacy of these gadolim than is the Modern Orthodox/Data Leumi world. It's like night and day really.
This is particularly the case when it comes to Zionism and the draft. The Chazon Ish, who the Modern Orthodox world also took from, said opposing the draft was a matter of 'yehareg v'lo ta'avor' – die rather than transgress. To the Modern Orthodox the army is a religious entity. R' Chaim Brisk said that the purpose of Zionism was to eradicate Torah Judaism.
For many decades Charedim have enjoyed an exemption from the draft. But now the Israeli court has outlawed the exemption and the Israeli government is coming to get us, Heaven forbid. And the Modern Orthodox are applauding. They have no sympathy even on young boys who are beaten and dragged to prison. Without the Charedim, or shall I say, the traditional Yeshivish and Chasidish communities, the Modern Orthodox world wouldn't be Orthodox at all. They owe such a debt of gratitude. For any olam habah that they were going to get they owe the Charedim.
And now they are stabbing us in the back. They don't need their parents anymore. They are independent now. They have their own schools, publishing, and courts. They have their own 'rabbinic' leadership. So they toss us in the garbage or more precisely in the prisons even as we declare that the culture of the military if not the very concept of it are traife to us. Suddenly, they don't honor the gadolim such as the Chofetz Chaim, the Fifth Lubavitcher Rebbe, R' Chaim Ozer, the Rogatchover Gaon, the Brisker Rav, R' Yaakov Kamenetsky, and so many others that opposed the draft. The Modern Orthodox read their biographies and draw inspiration from them, but don't heed their message about the army.
And now we have to disown them. No more davening in our shuls. No more joining in their minyans or going to their weddings. No more expressions of 'gut Shabbos' on the street. We shall cross the street. We will not even look at them. For the Modern Orthodox have become pursuers, rodfim. For decades we tolerated them, answered their questions, assisted them in their projects. But that was on the condition that they don't interfere with our lives. But now they are emboldened by their power of the secular state. They have joined the enemy like Josephus and other traitors that sided with the Persians, the Greeks, the Romans, the Spanish, the Tzars, the Communists and turned on their brothers. They are no longer our brothers. We'll cut them off and see how well they survive religiously. It's sad. We don't do it happily but it's something we must do. We'll see how well they fare with their secular religion, with their guns and their violence. We'll see how far they can go with their faith in tanks and muscles, with their swagger.
They may imprison us. In the end, they may kill us. But we will have served Hashem. We will go to Olam ha-Bah. They will endure eternal punishment for faltering in the end of days, for betraying their ancestors, for betraying the chochamim, for allowing their obsession with all matters military to override their loyalty to their people and to the Torah, for starting up with the gentiles against the directives of the wise men and trying to drag us into the mess that they created. Justice will come. It will not come from a court in Tel Aviv. It will come from up above and it will be awesome. The mighty IDF and its police will scatter like Egyptians.
Until then, we do what we must. We turn on those who have turned on us.
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