NEW YORK (VINnews) — Rabbi Elchanan Poupko, well-known author and Rebbi, joined VIN News to discuss the war in Ukraine, and how the frum Jewish community should respond.
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Rabbi Poupko discussed these topics:
- What is the proper hashkafa regarding this war?
- Why are hundreds (maybe thousands) of Jews–including orphans–stuck in Romania and not allowed to leave?
- The amazing achdus displayed by Jewish organizations to help Jews survive and escape Ukraine
- Should Jews pressure the US government to do more to help Ukraine?
- How should we feel about Ukrainians getting attacked, in light of their vicious antisemitism and heinous behavior against Jews in the Holocaust?
- Why should we focus more on Ukrainians than other victims of human rights abuses and genocide?
- Did President Biden miss a huge opportunity to defeat Putin?
Now frum Jews need to be told how to ‘respond to the War’? They can’t think for themselves? Thousands murdered in cold blood. Cities bombed. People tortured. 4 million homeless refugees. And frum Jews need to be told what to do?
Saddest thing I ever read on VIN.
To “Anonymous,” I wish to reply that as a frum Jew, I do indeed need help in knowing how to respond, and am not ashamed of asking. This does not mean, G-d forbid, as apparently you imagine, however, that I am not horrified and often rendered sleepless by the “thousands murdered in cold blood, the cities bombed, the people tortured.” On the contrary. Please know that seeking wisdom does not signify a need to be told how to feel–my heart does indeed respond without instruction. It does mean that I seek Torah wisdom and insight regarding what I as a citizen of both America and of the Jewish State–and as a Jew whose grandparents escaped the pogroms in the Ukraine before World War II–how to intellectually try to comprehend events that are incomprehensible. What can I do, and what must my community, and my nation do, in response to the cruelty we are witnessing.? How to absorb the daily news without becoming desensitized? How do we maintain our humanity while witnessing in real time, on our computer screens, inhuman amorality?
Seeking wisdom is not shameful.
Thank you to the interviewer for his impassioned questions and to Rabbi Poupko for his deeply felt historical analysis.
We do not take revenge; Hashem does. In Av Harachamim we beseech Hashem to avenge the blood of His people. This Nikmas Dam is what we may be witnessing in Ukraine. Our job as Jews is not to display Schadenfreude, to be gleeful at what might be Hashem’s retribution. Our posture is to show compassion and be helpful where we can. Hashem exhorted the malachim not to sing Shira because His creations were dying. That is the model
Rabbi should teach russian berl lazar and broods not to support Putin killing Ukrainian Jews and goyim it’s terrible what their doing and insulting to Hashem