A Welcome Challenge

Rav Yosef Elefant of the Mirrer Yeshiva had an important message for the Motzaei Shabbos session of the recent convention of Agudath Israel of America: There is an opportunity at present in Eretz Yisrael to bring back thousands upon thousands of our fellow Jews to Torah observance that has not existed since the Yom Kippur War 50 years ago.

Behind the scenes, he argued, there is an earthquake currently taking place, with the collapse of all the ideals, beliefs, and systems that formerly provided secular Israelis with a sense of both security and identity — in particular the IDF, which not only was unable to prevent 3,000 Hamas terrorists from crossing the border from Gaza, but, in many cases, did not reach southern kibbutzim and communities under attack for over six hours.

Nor would this be the first time that out of disaster came a national religious awakening. Something similar happened in 1973, when Israel was caught completely unprepared for the assault of Egyptian and Syrian forces on Yom Kippur. Even though the complete war plans of the attackers were in the files of the IDF Intelligence — a remarkable achievement — they were never shared with the relevant commanders and proved of no use when the war broke out. (See Uri Kaufman’s new book Eighteen Days in October: The Yom Kippur War and How it Created the Modern Middle East.) The unfounded confidence of the intelligence branch, AMAN, imperiled Israel’s very existence, and demonstrated for many the danger of placing one’s exclusive faith in men of flesh and blood.

And a similar shattering of the idols has taken place today. Rav Elefant related what he had heard from his close friend and neighbor, Rabbi Tuvia Levenstein, the southern regional coordinator of Lev L’achim, whom I also interviewed and quoted a few weeks ago. On a visit to the refugees from Sderot in a Dead Sea hotel, the parents begged him to send yungeleit to teach their children. Singers and magicians they had had aplenty. But now, they clamored for learning Torah.