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And Lavan Tried to Destroy Us All We always speak about the physical destruction of the Jewish people, as weshould, but it's time we address a far greater danger to Jewish survival, and that is our spiritual destruction. We have survived pogroms and even the Holocaust, but the loss of Jews Through assimilation that is ongoing in our time is often barely noticed.While murdering a Jew is certainly a most horrific crime, the spiritual destruction of a Jewish soul can even be more devastating. That's because physical destruction is only in this world, while spiritual destruction can be everlasting and even affects us in the World-to-Come. While the Egyptians aimed at destroying us physically, Chazal tell us that ourblood brother Lavan aimed to destroy Yaakov spiritually. He tried to destroy Yaacov's faith and belief in the Creator. And so while we must always remember the physical destruction of Jews, both in Europe and in Israel, we must not forget the terrible spiritual destruction the Jewish people have suffered and are still suffering. Thousands of Jews have been led astray by "Jews for J' and other false movements that claim to represent authentic Judaism. Intermarriage has reached epidemic proportions and the basic beliefs of Judaism have been distorted and falsified. The Israeli secular Supreme Court has blurred the distinction between Jew and Gentile and the sanctity of our Holy Shabbat. A rabbi has dared question the authenticity of our exile in Egypt, while others have questioned the authenticity of our holy Torah as being G-d given to Moshe Rabbeinu. At a time that we pray for Heavenly mercy, our very pillars of survival are being undermined from within by those who wish to falsify and distort authentic Judaism! Chazal have told us that our greatest destroyers will come from our own people.And so today, when our enemies are out to destroy us physically, we are also under attack spiritually by our own Jewish brothers who spread lies and hatred toward those who dare follow the holy Torah without compromise. When we try to help them and show them how their so-called spiritual leaders are misleading them, they denounce us as Jew haters, in order to prevent their people from listening to our message.A father who lost his dearest and only child to the "Jews for J" movement,found that they had brainwashed his son by convincing him that his father ctually hates im, in order to prevent the young man from speaking to his father. They used the age-old tactic of killing the messenger rather then the message. The tactic of many of our fellow Jews today is to stigmatize and spread hatred of hareidi Jews. That tactic will ultimately fail because"words coming from the heart penetrate the heart." Let us realize that it isn't only venomous language that divides our people but it's the spreading of false beliefs that is the underlying cause of our division. The message of love for all of our Jewish brethren will surely penetrate their clever smoke screen of false accusations. Yes! While we invite all four sons to join our Passover Seder, we must tell them that there were two requirements for us to be taken out of our Egyptian exile. Firstly, we had to destroy the Egyptian sheep that represented their god, and then we had to pledge our allegiance to G-d by circumcising ourselves. And so while we invite the wicked son to our Seder we must tell him the truth, "If he had been there, he wouldn't have been redeemed!" That's because without these actions we were not worthy of being freed! G-d took us out of Egypt on condition that we keep the Torah and mitzvos. Abrogate its laws andwe put all Jews in great danger since we are all brothers and responsible for one another! |
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