You are not a duck

On becoming the eagle we were meant to be

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Mesirut Nefesh

The Gemara (Avodah Zarah 9.) teaches that the world will exist for six thousand years. The first two thousand years are called תהו (void) because there was no Torah in the world. The following two thousand years are called the years of Torah. The final two thousand years is the era of Moshiach because Moshiach will come then." The first two millennia of Torah began when Avraham Avinu was 52 years old. Why don’t the two thousand years start from the time Avraham recognized Hashem (which is at the age of 3, 40, or 48, as discussed above)? The Satmar Rebbe zt'l answered that when Avraham was 52, Nimrod threw him into the fiery furnace at Ur Kasdim because he refused to worship idols. The value of Torah is when it’s kept with mesirus nefesh. Avraham believed in Hashem earlier, but when he was 52 years old, he kept the Torah with mesirus nefesh. That’s the beginning of the two thousand years of Torah. During the Communist regime, it was difficult to find a mohel in Russia. One Russ...
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What are we waiting for?

Anyone who regularly reads the words that come just before the Shema during Shacharit and does not come to Eretz Yisrael is not adequately focusing on those words.  Clear as day, we read: ותוליכינו מהרה קוממיות לארצנו (Speedily lead us upright to our land).   Think about what   קוממיות means.  Translated as "upright," it means a lot more than that. It means standing up proudly and independently, something a Jew can only do in Eretz Yisrael. Those waiting for HaShem to take them to the Promised Land on a magic carpet are in error.  He has already provided the means; all you need do is book a flight on El Al and you will speedily arrive in our land. And a few words after we pray that HaShem lead us upright to our land, we say the Shema. The implication is clear: Only by going to our land can we properly appreciate the meaning of the essential  declaration of our faith.
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The Fast of Gedaliah: Did we get the message?

So we just fasted to commemorate the murder of Gedaliah ben Ahikam.  After Eretz Yisrael had been virtually emptied of its Jews following the destruction of the First Temple, Gedaliah was appointed governor over the remnant that remained. Following his murder, those remaining Jews dispersed as well. We fast in mourning over the exit of the last Jews from our land, even while some may question the propriety of this fast since the establishment of the third Jewish commonwealth in Eretz Yisrael more than seventy years ago. In any case, the appropriate way of honoring Gedaliah would be to pack our bags and return to our land. Somehow we continue to linger in exile, cynically dismissing the obvious significance of the Fast of Gedaliah, together with the 10th of Tevet, 17th of Tammuz, and Tisha B'Av fasts.  Clearly, these four fasts of destruction are meant to remind us of the supreme value of Eretz Yisrael and of our sacred obligation to dwell in it.
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