Anti-Zionism is now sadly the mainstream Charedi position.
We said so here:
Why is Eitan Cabel a leftist? Because it’s what’s left over from his Yeshiva days. Why do Charedi MKs vote with the Arabs? Rabbi Elazar Menachem Shach. Who encourages the state to expel Jews from their land and hand it over to their non-Jewish enemies (the definition of ‘Mesirah’, and then some)? The Rabbis (some).
And:
Rabbi Teitelbaum’s position “has become the establishment one, with mild practical exceptions, such as voting. Thank God, there are also increasing anti-establishment currents by now.”
An excerpt from a Cross-Currents account of how it happened, aptly titled The Day That Satmar Became Mainstream:
Reb Yoilish zt”l saw the victories of the Six Day War as the hand of the sitra achra let loose. He went so far as to prohibit his chassidim from approaching the kotel ma’aravi which had been freed by the kochos ha-tumah. The olam ha-yeshivos may not have accepted all of the Rebbe’s hashkafot, but, in general, his pronounced and total antipathy toward medinas Yisroel became mainstream.
While we might differ as to the permissability of benefiting from the State, we do not challenge the contention – at least openly – that we consider ourselves to be legal aliens in its confines. We vote in its elections to protect ourselves rather than to try to exert real influence – even at those times when political conditions offer us real power [the Begin years when there was a prime minister who was more than sympathetic]. We draw ourselves further and further into isolation – ostensibly because the external world has become more dangerous. But is that the real reason? Or is it possible that we subconsciously realize that we are incapable of offering practical solutions to the inevitable dilemmas and challenges of self-government and therefore prefer to retreat into a ghetto and wait for mashiach. We were challenged by the Six Day War and came up short.
Comment: Stop equating Zionism and the state!
If every other Jew had a weapon in 1939, the Holocaust might have been prevented.
High time preference is embodied in the timeless quip by Keynes:
In the long run we are all dead.
This is not a cop-out against saving, but a Bohemian, “apres nous le deluge” and anti-Jewish outlook. The truth is that in the long run, we are eternal, through children and the messiah and good deeds. The story of the carob tree and Choni comes to mind. Judaism is anti-nihilist, but also, as Yeshayahu Leibowitz says, “anti-delusional“.
Yeshaya 40:6 tells us how to gain eternity:
A voice says, “Call!” and it says, “What shall I call?” “All flesh is grass, and all its kindness is like the blossom of the field.
The grass shall dry out, the blossom shall wilt, for a wind from the Lord has blown upon it; behold the people is grass.
The grass shall dry out, the blossom shall wilt, but the word of our God shall last forever.
Even in this world, most outlive the short run. As Ron Paul says, “those who spend beyond their means are destined to spend within their means”.
תא שמע הא דאמרו רבנן בפ”ק דראש השנה דף י”ח שהיו כותבין בשטרות בשנת כך וכך ליוחנן כהן גדול לאל עליון, וכששמעו חכמים בדבר אמרו למחר זה פורע את חובו ונמצא שטר מוטל באשפה, וביטלום ואותו היום עשאוהו יום טוב (פירוש נחשב להם לנס שיכלו לבטל דבר שנתפשט מנהגו בטעות בין המון העם שמנהג כזה הוא קשה כהיום לבטלו, דיותר יבטלו ההמון א’ מעשרת הדברות, ממה שיבטלו מנהג טעות שלהם, או תקנה אחת אף על פי שנתקנה שלא בחבר עיר, כמו שכתבתי בארוכה במאמר המנהגים עיין עליו, ולפיכך נחשב להם לאותם חכמי הדור ההוא כאלו נעשו להם נס שעלתה בידם לבטל כתיבה זו מהשטרות ולפיכך עשאוהו יום טוב)…
מקור: ספר משנת חכמים לרב משה חגיז בהיברובוקס, כאן (עמ’ 98-99)
(שיניתי ר”ת.)