B"H PARSHATH VAYIGASH - 5761 Yitzhak Kolakowski ------------------------------ In memory of Rabbi Binyamin Zev Kahane, hy"d ---------------------------- This past Sunday morning, we all woke up to the sad news of the death of Rabbi Binyamin Zev Kahane, the son of the holy martyr Rabbi Meir Kahane, zt"l, hy"d. Rabbi Binyamin and his Rebbetzin, Talia, were murdered by Arabs on their way home from Yerushalayim to Kfar Tapuach, were they lived. Last month I had the zechuss to meet Reb Binyamin, hy"d, when he spoke in front of over a thousand people in Brooklyn for his father's yartzeit. Although I only met him once, I felt I had known him a long time from reading his weekly Divrei Torah, called "Darka Shel Torah" - "The Way of the Torah", which you can read on-line at www.kahane.org/parsha. From what I saw of him, he was a quiet, soft-spoken man, who simply gave a drasha concerning current events in the light of the Torah. If he was a "terrorist" or a "racist", then all Rabbis are. He simply wanted to continue in the way his father taught him, to love every Jew, to love Hashem and to place His Torah above our own will. How can Israel be trying to make peace with Arab terrorists who have the blood of so many Jews on their hands? The sheer brutality of the Arabs is clear with each of their cowardly attacks on our people. Here, Rabbi and Rebbetzin Kahane were killed right in front of the eyes of their five daughters (their son, Meir, was at school at the time). As I write this now (on Sunday night), their daughter, Tzivia bas Talia, is fighting for her life in the hospital. Rabbi and Mrs. Kahane join countless other victims of Arab terrorism. If only Israel would have listened to Rabbi Kahane, his own life would not have been lost. Indeed, it was the Israeli government which made six more orphans among our people. It was Barak who made this possible. May Hashem take revenge for the spilt blood of his servants. I can't believe that I won't be able to read any new Torah teachings from Reb Binyamin's "Darka Shel Torah". His last article was about Hannukah, it was called "The Power of the Precious Few". It ended on a note that Hannukah is a time to rekindle the fire of our faith in G-d, for with it we can defeat any enemy. We can apply this teaching to our own life. Indeed, emunah, even a little bit (one "pach"), can be the thing we need to defeat our enemies (especially our inner enemies, our yetzer hara). ------------------------------------------------------- "Let the high praises of G-d be in their mouth, and a two-edged sword in their hand; To execute vengeance upon the nations, and chastisements upon the peoples; To bind their kings with chains, and their nobles with fetters of iron; To execute upon them the judgment written; it is the glory of all His saints. Hallelukah." (Psalms 149:6-9) Here is our revenge against Kahane's murderers. By learning his Torah teachings we bring his spirit greater into all the worlds than it could have ever been in life. (Tanya: Iggereth HaKodesh 27) This is our revenge, showing that the Plishtim could not stop up the wellsprings of Torah. ------------------------------------------------------- "AND ISRAEL DWELT IN THE LAND OF EGYPT" Parshath Vayigash 5761 (Comments on 'The Exile Self-Destructs for the "Comfortable" Jew' by Rabbi Binyamin Kahane, hy"d) ----------------------------------------------------- The Kli Yakar writes concerning the last passuk in this week's parsha, " And Israel dwelt in the land of Mitzrayim in the land of Goshen (which became the Jewish area of Mitzrayim); and they gripped on to it" that the passuk is a negative comment, that the Jews were only supposed to be temporary residents in Goshen, but they got too comfortable, and were punished for this. "And they immersed themselves to such an extent that they did not want to leave Mitzrayim, until Hashem had to take them out of there with a strong hand. And those who did not want to leave, died in the three days of choshech." In 1994, Reb Binyamin Zev Kahane, hy"d, wrote the following comment in "Darka Shel Torah" for Parshath Vayigash about this Kli Yakar: "We are simply coming to say that this particular exile has come to an end. The doors of many exiles have been opened, including those whose doors became symbols like Russia and Syria. Every Jew has now been given the chance to get out. We have reached the final stage in the elimination of the exile. He who refuses to seize the moment and leave quickly will find his fate as those who refused to leave Egypt." This is so in many senses. In addition to the obvious literal sense which Rav Kahane was refering to, we must leave Mitzrayim spiritually, lest we be destroyed in its darkness. It is not enough to physically leave Mitzrayim, we cannot take Mitzrayim with us into Eretz Yisrael, as so many try to do. This is why there is so much trouble in Eretz Yisroel, because too many people want to bring Mitzrayim into Eretz Yisroel. They want to bring darkness into the land of light. Moreover, in previous generations, we Jews did not have freedom to keep much of the Torah. Our ancestors in this past century wanted so much to serve Hashem, but were prevented from doing so. They were stuck in Mitzrayim against their will. Today we have so much freedom and so little difficulty in keeping mitzvoth, yet despite this we want to stay in the straits of Mitzrayim, i.e. we want to act in the ways the last generation was forced to act rather than the way they wanted to from the deepest parts of their heart. "The doors of many exiles have been opened...Every Jew has now been given the chance to get out." We have been given by Hashem in this generation so much freedom, we have a far greater obligation than our forebearers to take advantage of this freedom, being more religious than the previous generation. This is the test we have in this generation, the test of freedom (a freedom which dims the freedoms which tried our ancestors). We have the choice to take advantage of this freedom or not. We have the obligation to be more frum than the last few generations in America, BECAUSE WE CAN! We have to leave this notion that we have to be like the last generation, who could not keep the Torah completely as we can. In the past generation we were stuck in Mitzrayim, now we are free to be frum. We cannot know if tommorow we might not have this freedom. If we do not take advantage of this freedom to serve Hashem, Hashem might take it away from us, seeing we might (h"v) not be ready for this freedom. So get out of the spiritual Mitzrayim while you can. Be as frum as you can. Reb Binyamin warns, "He who refuses to seize the moment and leave quickly will find his fate as those who refused to leave Mitzrayim." May we all merit to not be comfortable in the filth of Mitzrayim, not even the semi-holy impurity of galusdik ghetto of Goshen. May we all merit to leave both the physical and the spiritual Mitzrayim right away. May the world have true peace, the peace of the "Darka Shel Torah" for "Derakehah darkei Shalom" - "Her (the Torah's) ways are way of Peace". Peace, not piece. ---------------------------------------------------------- GUT SHABBOS.