Tuesday, May 2, 2017

Is There A Pshat?

Rav Soloveitchik said decades ago [in his Chamesh Drashot] in explanation of why he became a Mizrachi-ite:

אם אני מזדהה כעת עם המזרחי, שהוא בניגוד למסורת המשפחה שלי, אין זה אלא, כפי שהבהרתי מקודם, שאני מרגיש, כי ההשגחה פסקה כיוסף נגד אחיו, ושהיא משתמשת ביהודים החילוניים כשליחים לבצע את תכניותיה הגדולות בדבר ארץ ישראל קדושה. אני גם מאמין, כי לולא המזרחי לא היה כעת מקום לתורה בישראל.

Anybody who believes in G-d has to believe that He decided that secular people would build the land. But the Holocaust was also with Hashem's hashgacha [I am not comparing the medina and the holocaust]. The destruction of the Beis Hamikdash is from Hashem. EVERYTHING is hashgacha. But how does that determine how Hashem "paskened"? Maybe Hashem has great tzaar from the fact that there is so much chilul Hashem in Eretz Yisrael. Maybe not. I don't know - but how does anyone know for sure? All we know is that there are great kiddushei Hashem in this country and also many chilulei Hashem. 

But the last line gets me. " ... Without the Mizrachi party there would be no Torah in the Jewish people." That is beyond the scope of my puny brain. ALL of the major yeshivos at the time this was said were not affiliated with the Mizrachi. Not the Mir or Ponovitch or Chevron or any of the Chasidishe yeshivos. What was he talking about?? Torah only appeared on the Mizrachi map years later with the explosion of the hesder yeshivos. I don't mean disrespect because Rav Soloveitchik was a gaon olam and knew far more Torah when he was fifteen than I have learned in three times that many years. He was a giant. He is responsible for much of Torah in America and all over the world today. But I don't understand. So if anyone has a pshat then they can tell me.