JERUSALEM (VINnews) — During a special Knesset session marking Herzl day, the day that Herzl was born, (10th Iyar 5620) Prime Minister Bennett spoke in the Knesset and quoted chareidi rabbis including the 5th rebbe of Chabad, Rabbi Sholom Ber Schneersohn, who opposed Herzl’s initiatives.
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Bennett said that a “prominent chareidi rabbi” wrote in 1900: “We mustn’t listen to them on this matter to reach our redemption with our own hands. To go out of the exile by force. We aren’t allowed. All of our hopes and expectations are that Hashem should bring us Moshiach in our days and our redemption will come through Hashem Himself.”
Bennett gave his own interpretation to the words of Rav Sholom Ber and said that they mean that “we don’t need to act but rather to pray and to believe that things will happen by themselves.”
Bennett also quoted the rabbi of Lodz, Rabbi Eliyahu Chaim Meisels, who he said “placed a cherem [ban] on all of the Zionists.”
Bennett continued stating that “in this context we need to view the historic intervention which Herzl led, bringing us from passiveness to initiative. I believe in this way, I believe in less grumbling and more getting up and taking responsibility even at very difficult moments.”
The prime minister added that “I am a believing person. My faith in Hashem means that on the one hand I believe in Hashem but this does not exempt us in this land, in this world from doing all that we can to influence reality. In the end I have trust in what Hashem will decide, but we need to recognize that in our human comprehension things appear to be bad, there is not insurance that everything will work out well.”
Bennett angered Chabad chasidim by portraying the 5th rebbes words in this way. The chabad site COL responded by stating that “Bennett forgot to mention in his speech a number of important details and who in truth did prevail historically: Herzl wrote in his diary (1895) that he is unsure about which land to choose to establish the Jewish state, the land of Israel or Argentina, and similarly in his book the Jewish state he left the matter unresolved. He also entertained the idea of ‘mass assimilation’ of Jews as a possible solution to antisemitism and only later reneged and called this a ‘mistaken thought’.”
With all of Herzl’s faults, he proved to be correct as well as the Religious Zionists. An honest approach to history would require the chareidi world to modeh al ha’emes.
I have heard from my rebbi that we were not supposed to initiate the capture of eretz yisroel but now that they did(the secular) we need to support it because it’s פקוח נפש.
Let us not forget that the 3rd Lubavitcher Rebbe z”l established the “Tzemach Tzeddek” Yeshiva in the Old City, and that the fifth Rebbe’s son, Yosef Yitzhak z”l, established the self-sustaining community of Kfar Chabad. Living in (and off of) the Holy Land, was not the issue; rather, coercing the nations to agree to a Jewish State (which, as we see from history, led to “armed struggle” to force the matter, a “modus operandi” that the “Palestinian Arabs” have also adopted.
When you look at what was done on the ground, actually, it’s quite the other way around. Herzl ran his mouth, wrote books and got together a party. (And, to the end of his life, thought that a Jewish homeland would be better set up in Uganda or whatever, and only because of the Ostjuden “schnorrers” was he forced to bow to their wishes.)
Meanwhile, the Rashab didn’t just talk – he purchased an area (Beit Romano) in Chevron in 1908, expanding the Jewish settlement there.
Maybe Bennett prefers to ignore that because he’d rather that all of Chevron remain in the hands of the descendants of the Arab pogromists who destroyed that kehillah in 1929…
Bennett seems to really wanna brown-nose the secular folks who have brought nothing but destruction upon yiddishkeit. Mind you, chabad has seen this damage first-hand via kiruv. Chabad could have used that as an retort rather than this herzl story.
We want Mashiach now
Come back when Habad closes 770 Eastern Parkway and makes aliyah.
The Chabad site did a worse disservice with their lame answer.
Nothing to be upset about. Bennett stated his hashkafa and Chabbad contributed with some worthy correction. We need to remember that we live in different times and גדולי הדור דאז made decisions based on conditions back then. Both sides have a point. B”H soon we’ll all be on the same side. Together we will find the right way.
!עם ישראל חי
Of course he is correct. Hashem helps those who help themselves.
Please readers __ Read the history books instead of reading and believing the anti-Zionist shmutz and sheker. They lie , fabricate , revise and distort without shame. They claim righteousness while imitating gangster broadsides and news fakes.
Zu nevelah vizu treifah
Bennett said nothing but the truth here , and I’m anti Bennett in everything else.