The enemies of the Torah world would have us think they represent the will of the nation. But what were a million people doing at the Kosel last month, if not trying to feed their starving souls?
I experienced an especially joyful Succos holiday this year and it was the secular people of Israel who made it so. While a gang of Torah-haters who are wielding power in the government (for the time being) have caused much pain and anxiety recently with their relentless persecution of chareidi Jewry HaKadosh Baruch Hu arranged that I come into contact with the real people who they purport to represent. These aren’t people who live by Torah and mitzvos; they are in fact the ones commonly known as chilonim. Yet encountering these people during the Ten Days of Teshuvah and Succos lifted my spirits and showed me there is reason for hope.
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At two a.m.on motzaei Tzom Gedaliah I was at the Kosel. It was an amazing sight — the Kosel plaza was packed with people as if it were midday. So many had come to recite Selichos you could hardly move. And the lion’s share of them weren’t even frum according to our accepted definitions of the term — which brings the accepted definitions into question.
The great mashgiach Rav Shlomo Wolbe ztz”l related that one of the pre-Holocaust mussar giants was asked to define “religious” and “irreligious.” He replied “Not everyone who looks religious is really religious and not everyone who looks irreligious is really irreligious.”
Many Israelis like to say they wear an invisible kippah. And apparently these invisible-kippah-wearers came out in droves that night to spend time at the Kosel — in many cases just to hang around. But nevertheless they chose to hang out at the Kosel rather than any other venue. Why the Kosel and why at such a late hour? What drew them here?
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