by Rabbi Yair Hoffman
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On January 30th, 1933, seven and a half months before the Chofetz Chaim passed away (September 15th, 1933), Hitler yimach shmo was appointed the Chancellor of Germany.
At that time, Rav Moshe Londinski zt”l (1862-1938), one of the three Roshei Yeshiva of the Chofetz Chaim’s Yeshiva in Radin, inquired of the Chofetz Chaim, “What will be the fate of our brethren in Germany and in Poland?” Rav Londinski pointed out that Hitler y”s had been talking about destroying the entirety of Klal Yisroel for years.
The Chofetz Chaim responded that it is impossible for someone to succeed in wiping out Klal Yisroel in all the lands of the exile and he cited the pasuk (Bereishis 32:4-9) “’If Esav comes to the one camp and attacks it, the other camp will escape.”
At that point, Rav Moshe Londinski zt”l realized that the danger was quite grave. He asked further, “If Heaven forbid, he succeeds in wiping out European Jewry, who and where is the other camp that will survive?”
The Chofetz Chaim answered, “This too is a pasuk, it is in the beginning of the Navi Ovadiah (1:17), “And on Mount Zion there shall be a remnant, and it shall be holy..”
Rav Londinski left the Chofetz Chaim’s presence with his hands shaking on the future destruction of European Jewry, but he was assured that the Holy Land will be spared and no sword of the Nazi menace would pass before it.
Indeed, the beginning of the end for the Nazis y”s was when they set their eyes on Eretz Yisroel in 1942 and planned to conquer it and murder the half million Jews living there at the time (including the author’s mother).
They even brought a German SS officer, Walther Rauff, to Libya, who would do advance work for the Einsatzkommando unit which expected to join him and help murder the Jews of the Middle East once it was under full Nazi German control.. He was the one who had pioneered the using mobile killing vans in Nazi-occupied Soviet Union. Rauff had reached Tobruk on July 20th of 1942.
Rav Yitzchok Zilberstein shlita uses this statement of the Chofetz Chaim to encourage Yeshiva bochurim to remain in Eretz Yisroel during this rough period.
The author can be reached at [email protected]
Thank you, Rabbi Hoffman. Very powerful.
Thank you Rabbi Hoffman for your courageous column. Thank you for understanding what the Jew on the street feels , and most importantly , for speaking well about Eretz Yisrael.
Do you believe that the United States is a safe place for Jews? It may appear that way now, but it will not be so in the near future. Anyone who thinks otherwise should remember that German Jews thought the Germany was safe, Spanish Jews thought that Spain was safe. They all fooled themselves. Those who believe that Jews can remain safely in the U.S. are also fooling themselves
Rabbi Hoffman,
Whatever the Chofetz Chaim said is pure Torah, we know that. We also should not twist his holy words for our own agendas. It is a fact that Israel at this time is not a safe place. No one should encourage anyone to go to Israel.
Let’s all calm down and let each of us do what is best for our families with the guidence of daas torah
Hashem, will fight our wars
Of course, the CC’s statement at the time is totally irrelevant to these times, post-Zionist invasion and cataclysmic mess the Zionists made there, where that Zionist paradise has been statistically the least safest place on Earth where Jews live.