Hyehudi.org

Secret Intelligence Leaks vs. Basic Common Sense

By Ron Unz

The Unz Review

August 29, 2023

Historical Examples

During 1940 the determined efforts of President Franklin Roosevelt to involve America in the war against Hitler’s Germany were blocked by the overwhelming opposition of the American people, running at 80% according to some polls. A group of young Yale Law School peace activists had launched the America First Committee and it quickly attracted 800,000 members, becoming the largest grassroots political organization in our national history. The leadership of the AFC included many of our most prominent business and journalistic figures, and famed aviator Charles Lindbergh, one of our greatest national heroes, served as its top spokesman.

With American antiwar sentiment so seemingly strong and resolute, various political stratagems were employed to reduce it. In late October 1941, just few weeks before the attack on Pearl Harbor finally settled the issue, FDR announced in a nationwide radio broadcast that he had obtained a German map that revealed the secret Nazi plans to seize control of Latin America, which Hitler would then use as a base to attack the United States as part of his bold plan of world conquest.

Our President declared:

Hitler has often protested that his plans for conquest do not extend across the Atlantic Ocean. I have in my possession a secret map, made in Germany by Hitler’s government – by the planners of the new world order. It is a map of South America and a part of Central America as Hitler proposes to reorganize it…This map makes clear the Nazi design, not only against South America but against the United States as well.

Probably millions or even tens of millions of Americans believed FDR’s words about that direct threat to our national security and therefore softened their resistance to our country’s involvement in the European war. But as historians have long since acknowledged, the map was a forgery, probably produced by FDR’s own close British collaborators. In an earlier private conversation with the British ambassador, FDR had warned that his secret activities with the British would probably lead to his impeachment if they were revealed.

I think few Americans at the time were willing to publicly accuse our President of such major falsehoods, but from a distance of more than eighty years, what strikes me is the sheer absurdity of FDR’s accusation. Germany had no significant navy and had been stymied for over a year by the barrier of the English Channel, only 18 miles wide. Yet apparently a large majority of the American media and the American public were willing to believe that the Germans could easily cross the thousands of miles of the Atlantic Ocean and gain control of the countries of South America, whose total population was considerably larger than that of Germany itself. So the excitement of being privy to a secret intelligence document seems to have triumphed over rational thought in the minds of many people, including eager journalists.

FDR’s illegal efforts to involve us in a totally unnecessary war outraged many of our Military Intelligence professionals at the time, but they were bound by an oath of secrecy, and their views only became known years or decades later when they published their books and personal memoirs. Extensive archival research by Prof. Joseph Bendersky fully uncovered their extremely bitter contemporaneous sentiments, and he noted the “fierce delight” they took in FDR’s eventual death: “Finally, the evil man was dead!”

• American Pravda: Secrets of Military Intelligence
  Ron Unz • The Unz Review June 10, 2019 • 12,500 Words

Just after the end of the war, Gen. George Patton, one of our most illustrious military commanders, told his colleagues that he intended to resign his commission so that he could begin a nationwide speaking tour to provide the American public with the true facts about the war that they had just fought. Patton soon died in a highly-suspicious vehicle accident, and decades later his self-confessed American assassin revealed that he had killed Patton under direct orders from top figures in our own government.

• American Pravda: Was General Patton Assassinated?
  Ron Unz • The Unz Review August 22, 2016 • 2,400 Words

Government officials have long recognized that secret information, even if heavily distorted or completely false, can be used to effectively shape media coverage. Many journalists and pundits are always eager to receive leaks, confidential tidbits that they are willing to make the centerpiece of their one-sided stories, thereby allowing themselves to be manipulated.

A perfect example of this process occurred during the run-up to the Iraq War, when leaks of secret intelligence information from Bush Neocons were widely promoted in such elite media outlets as the New York Times and the New Yorker. This persuaded our gullible citizenry that Saddam Hussein was on the verge of developing nuclear weapons and also planned to attack our country with anthrax and other deadly biological weapons, while seemingly being in cahoots with Osama bin Laden, his regional arch-enemy. As I described a decade ago, most of Congress and the American people fully accepted such obvious nonsense, resulting in our disastrous Iraq War, which began the destruction of much of the Middle East:

Continue reading…

From LRC, here.

משה ארבל: “קניון עזריאלי הוא הבסיס הגדול ביותר של צה”ל”

שר הפנים והבריאות: “לפני שנטפלים ללומדי התורה, צריך לטפל גם באבטלה הסמויה בצה”ל” • על מי שלא לומד בישיבה: “כיפה שחורה לא פוטרת מגיוס, אבל מי שתורתו אומנותו לא צריך להיות עבריין פלילי” • “ראש עיר סיפר לי ששלושה מבני משפחתו נרצחו כי הוא ראש עיר. זה לא הגיוני”

חרדים 10

י”ב אלול התשפ”ג / 29.08.2023 10:54

שר הבריאות והפנים משה ארבל השיב הבוקר (שלישי), בראיון ליקי אדמקר וישראל כהן ברדיו ‘קול ברמה’, לביקורת נגד חקיקת חוק הגיוס – וטען כי עדיף שצה”ל יטפל ב”אבטלה הסמויה”, כלשונו, הקיימת בשורותיו.

“לפני שנטפלים ללומדי התורה, צריך לטפל גם באבטלה הסמויה בצה”ל. קניון עזריאלי הוא הבסיס הגדול ביותר של הצבא”, אמר ארבל.

המשך לקרוא…

מאתר חרדים 10, כאן.

From here (oh, the dire need today for this kind of talk):

Part I. Joining the Thirsty

Confusing The Satan

On Rosh Hashana we blow the shofar again and again. And although we’re hungry; we want to go home and eat already but we stand in shul listening to the baal tokei’a blowing the shofar much more than is required by the Torah. We have tekios before mussaf, a lot of them. And then more tekios during mussaf; and then again another set of tekios after mussaf.

What’s that all about? Aren’t we overdoing it? That’s the Gemara’s question(Rosh Hashana 16b): לָמָּה תּוֹקְעִין וּמְרִיעִין כְּשֶׁהֵן יוֹשְׁבִין וְתוֹקְעִים וּמְרִיעִין כְּשֶׁהֵן עוֹמְדִים – Why do they make tekios so many times? It seems so unnecessary! We fulfilled the mitzvah before mussaf already – you can’tdo a mitzvah twice!

Now listen to what the Gemara answers: כְּדֵי לְעַרְבֵּב הַשָּׂטָן – We do it in order to confuse the Satan. It’s the Day of Judgment and there’s a malach Hashem standing there ready to prosecute us. That’s his job today and he has many claims against us – we’re human beings after all, and human beings do things; and we’re being judged now for those things. And the prosecutor comes to the courtroom with a lot of files, a lot of evidence. There’s a lot he has written down about our past year. And that’s not good; it’s quite scary.

So what saves us? How do we come away from the Yom Hadin safely? So the chachomim tell us it’s by blowing extra tekios! We confuse the Satan by blowing more than we have to.

Poisonous Fruits

Now that needs to be explained because the Satan is not a foolish man. He’s a malach, a very wise malach who’s not easily confused. You’re not going to trick him by repeating some tekios, you can be sure about that. And so it’s a puzzle; what does it mean that we confuse the Satan with extra shofar blows?

So we’ll preface the answer with a possuk in our parsha. Moshe Rabeinu, al pi Hashem,  is warning the Am Yisroel to stay far away from sin and he says like this: פֶּן יֵשׁ בָּכֶם אִישׁ אֽוֹ אִשָּׁה אוֹ מִשְׁפָּחָה אוֹ שֵׁבֶט אֲשֶׁר לְבָבוֹ פֹנֶה הַיּוֹם מֵעִם הַשֵּׁם אֱלֹקֵינוּ – Perhaps there is someone among you, a man, a woman, or a family or tribe, whose thoughts stray from Hashem our G-d (Netzavim 29:18).

It’s talking about someone who has an inclination to follow after his own thoughts and because of that he’s veering away from the ideals of Hakodosh Boruch Hu. He’s a ma’amin; he believes in Hashem and he’s a shomer torah u’mitzvos but there are certain attitudes that are simmering in his mind. שָׁלוֹם יִהְיֶה לִּי כִּי בִּשְׁרִירוּת לִבִּי אֵלֵךְ – “I’m going to go the way my mind sees,” he says.

And in case you would think that it’s not too serious, the Torah says, שֹׁרֶשׁ פֹּרֶה רֹאשׁ וְלַעֲנָה – it’s a root producing gall and bitter fruit (ibid.) “מַפְרֶה וּמַרְבֶּה רֶשַׁע בְּקִרְבּוֹ – He planted bitter seeds in his mind and now there are poisonous plants growing there” (Rashi, ibid.).

The Satiated and The Thirsty

Now, what is the example that the Torah brings of a man who is planting poisonous ideas in his head? It’s important information to know so that we can stay clear of the danger. So the possuk says like this: His sin is that he’s  סְפוֹת הָרָוָה אֶת הַצְּמֵאָה, he’s joining together those who are satiated with those who are still thirsty.

Now these are very mysterious words; “He’s joining the satiated with the thirsty.” We can say them but we don’t understand them. And yet we must understand them because whatever they mean, whatever that man is thinking, it’s quite terrible because the Torah says:לֹא יֹאבֶה הַשֵּׁם סְלֹחַ לוֹ – Hashem will be unwilling to forgive him, כִּי אָז יֶעְשַׁן אַף הַשֵּׁם וְקִנְאָתוֹ בָּאִישׁ הַהוּא – the wrath of Hashem will fume and His vengeance will inflame that man, וְרָבְצָה בּוֹ כָּל הָאָלָה הַכְּתוּבָה בַּסֵּפֶר הַזֶּה וּמָחָה הַשֵּׁם אֶת שְׁמוֹ מִתַּחַת הַשָּׁמָיִם – and there will come upon him all the curses written in the Torah and Hashem will wipe away his name from beneath the sky (ibid. 19).

All the curses written in the Torah?! Fuming wrath and vengeance?! What did this person do already? We’re expecting to hear something very big now, something terrible.

The Wicked Good Citizen

And so the Gemara (Sanhedrin 76b) says like this: What did he do? He was walking, let’s say, past a Chinese fruit store and he saw a fruit lying on the sidewalk. An apple fell off the bin and in another minute someone will pass by and kick it into the gutter. So this Jew bends over, picks up the apple and puts it back on the bin.

Ohh wha, that’s a good citizen! Maybe he should get a special commendation from the mayor, a key to the city? Could be. But about him the Torah says: לֹא יֹאבֶה הַשֵּׁם סְלֹחַ לוֹ – Hashem will not want to forgive him for what he did. Not only that He won’t forgive him; He won’t desire to forgive him.

Hashem won’t even desire to forgive him?! What did this man do wrong already? He did a good deed! He picked up the apple and put it back on the bin – that’s all he did.

The answer to that puzzle is “he added those who are already satiated onto those who are still thirsty.” It means like this: The Jewish nation is a nation that is thirsty for mitzvos; the other nations on the other hand are satiated. And by putting that apple back into the bin, by fulfilling the mitzvah of hashovas aveidah to a gentile, you’re equating the “satiated nations” with the “thirsty” one.

Thirsty for Mitzvos

Don’t think hashovas aveidah is just something we do for the sake of the upkeep of society. Our sages are teaching us a secret here, a secret that applies to all of the mitzvos bein adam lachaveiro. When we go out of our way to do a mitzvah – whether it’s returning a lost object or giving tzedakah, whatever it is – we do it because there’s a special mitzvah to honor the Jewish people; the nation whose desire for avodas Hashem is never quenched.

Now, that’s not the whole story of the Am Yisroel, but it’s one of the important differences between us and the nations of the world. Am Yisroel are tzmei’im l’avodas yotzram, they’re thirsty for mitzvos, while the gentiles are satiated; they’re not interested.

The Jew is busy all day long with mitzvos. Poshute Jews are keeping the Torah everywhere. A frum Jew gets up early in the morning to go to shul and then a few hours later he’s back in shul again. Old people, bochurim and little children are going to shul. Back and forth, back and forth. Shachris, mincha, ma’ariv – he davens and he learns a little bit too. He puts a nickel in the pushka whenever he gets a chance.

All week long the Am Yisroel is busy with mitzvos – nobody is looking to dodge any mitzvos – and then Shabbos comes. Everyone is preparing for Shabbos; women and young girls are standing over the stove for hours l’kavod Shabbos – a very great mitzvah! The Jewish stores are crowded; long lines filled with people paying big sums of money – and for what? For the mitzvah of Shabbos!

Thirsty for Alcohol

Are goyim busy with mitzvos all day long?! They don’t even fathom the idea of such a thirst. The goy sees the Jew walking back and forth to shul a few times a day and he doesn’t understand what’s happening. “Where is this crazy Jew going back and forth, back and forth, all day long?”

He doesn’t understand! He goes to church once a month and the priest says, “All your sins are forgiven,” and finished. Don’t think that the Catholics or the Protestants, even the religious ones, are the same as you, only that the religion is different. Don’t make any mistake about that! There is a very wide chasm between you and them. Even if they do some things, they’re zaht – they’re overfed; they’re not thirsty for mitzvos.

I’ll tell you what they’re thirsty for. You walk in the streets early in the morning in a gentile neighborhood, a respectable upper class Catholic neighborhood, and lying stretched out on the ground is a good Catholic. He’s drunk and he’s been sleeping on the street all night. I walked in the Catholic neighborhoods forty years ago and I saw that many times. Drunk all night, fast asleep in the gutter; and then he gets up in the morning, staggers home, and tells everybody, “Ooh wah! What a time I had last night!” He’s proud of himself.

It wasn’t even considered a chisaron. Many people admired him; they were jealous of him. It was an exploit! He would tell his friends about it: “Did I ever tell you about the time that I slept drunk in the gutter the whole night?!” A goy is satiated with drink; other things too. He wants mitzvos like he wants a hole in his shoe.

Working for Tuition

Did you ever see a Jew lying drunk in the street at night?! Maybe today you could, but forty years ago you couldn’t. Does a Jew go to the pub and drink after his day at the office?! He’s busy with better things; he’s learning with his children. He’s wiped out from a long day in the office but he sits down to chazer over the Gemara with his boys.

And what’s he doing in the office anyhow? He’s there for mitzvos! It costs big money to raise a Jewish family today! People are spending tremendous sums to bring up their children b’derech haTorah! We’re trying very hard to get vouchers; at least the I.R.S. should recognize what we’re paying for tuition and give us a rebate on our income tax.

The Reform Jews are fighting against us – they don’t want us to get deductions because once we have an opportunity to get rebates on our school expenses, then maybe more and more Jews will send their children to yeshivos. The Reform is afraid of that. But no matter what, rebate or no rebate, the Am Yisroel is paying the money anyhow; we’re spending tremendous sums on schar limud. Only a thirsty nation would do such a thing!

No Comparison

Even our little children are צְמֵאִים לְמִצְווֹת, they’re thirsting for mitzvos. Go out in the streets in the morning. You see boys and girls everywhere waiting for the buses. The little boys with the tzitzis and yarmulkes and payos – all mitzvos – and the girls in skirts, tznius girls. They’re going to the Beis Yaakovs, the yeshivos. And the little boys are in the cheder all day long sitting and learning Eilu Metzios, all kinds of dinim; when you have to return a lost article, how to return it. Little boys, not even bar mitzvah are learning the details of the mitzvos.

Does the Italian send his children to places where they learn the mitzvah of hashavas aveidah? No; he’s sending his children to public school or to the gentile private schools where they’re learning kol davar ossur. What they study and practice in those schools, I don’t want to even say the words in a shul. That’s the thirst of a goy.

There’s no comparison between the gentile and the Jew – no comparison at all! And if you compare them by how you act and how you think when you’re passing the Chinese fruit store, then you’re committing a very terrible sin. For a Yisroel, achicha, yes, you bend over and pick it up. אֲבֵדַת אָחִיךָ — the lost object of your brother in mitzvos you’re michuyav to return. A nation that does mitzvos, so we do mitzvos for them – it’s an honor they deserve! We’re thirsty for mitzvos and we deserve tremendous honor because of that. But the gentiles? They don’t want to do any mitzvos, so we don’t go out of our way to honor them with our mitzvos.

Part II. Appreciating the Thirsty

Follow The Government

Now I don’t want you people to go away and make a calumny against me that I said you shouldn’t return lost articles to gentiles. I never said such a thing. Suppose you find a lost article, a wallet. You open it up and you see the name James Walsh inside.  James Walsh, not a Jew. And so you’re considering, “Do I have to return it?”

Well, if the police ordinances require that any lost article must be returned, so a Jew is as loyal a citizen as anyone else – a good Jew is even more loyal to his country than a gentile citizen; so you obey the city ordinances and you take Mr. Walsh’s wallet to the police station. That’s well and good. If the government says you must, so you follow the government; דִּינָא דְּמַלְכוּתָא דִּינָא – it’s a law.

And even if it’s not a law, if you tell me that you pick it up because you want to show that Jews are good people, darkei shalom, all right, maybe. Let’s say there are goyim standing around, all right, pick up the apple and put it back in the bin. Be a nice fellow so that the goyim will say, “You see that; the Jews aren’t so bad after all.” Absolutely it’s a mitzvah to raise the honor of the Jewish people in the eyes of the goyim.

But if you put it into the bin and you’re thinking, “I’m doing the mitzvah of hashovas aveidah, this is what the Torah means.” so you’re doing something terrible.

Passing By

What’s so terrible? It’s a wickedness to give to a non-Jew the recognition, the honor, that the Torah reserved only for the people of Israel.  And לֹא יֹאבֶה ה’ סְלֹחַ לוֹ – Hashem will refuse to forgive him because he has committed a crime, a very great crime against the greatness of the Am Yisroel. שֶׁהִשְׁוָה כְּבוֹדָן שֶׁל אוּמוֹת הָעוֹלָם לִכְבוֹדָן שֶׁל יִשְׂרָאֵל – He made equal the satiated, the ibergezetigt, with those who are thirsty always for mitzvos.

And therefore, sometimes you just have to pass by. After all, there’s no law that you have to bend over to pick up the apple. There’s no such thing that when you pass by a fruit stand, you must pick up the apple and put it back, no. And therefore when no one is watching you’ll just have to pass it by. Because as good as it is to raise the honor of the Jewish people in the eyes of the gentiles, it’s even a bigger mitzvah to raise the honor of the Jewish people in your own eyes!

I myself make it a point to pass by! I wouldn’t pick it up. I make it a point to keep on walking and I remind myself, “Only for a Yisroel, for a tzamei lamitzvos, there’s a mitzvah.”

Now, we’re not disparaging anyone else. We’re polite and kind to everyone. We follow all the laws of the land and we have nothing against anyone. Only that we’re talking here about a matter of especial esteem for those who deserve to be honored. We’re talking now about how we have to go above and beyond for a poshute Jew – because he’s not poshut at all!

Knocked Out by Love

And the mitzvah of hashovas aveidah is just one example of how we do that. It’s one opportunity to demonstrate how greatly you value the importance of a Yisroel: for him you’re moichel on your time, on your kavod, on the tircha and you bend over and pick up the apple. And you think, “I’m doing a mitzvah d’oraysa of returning a lost object to a brother—a brother b’mitzvos, a person from the nation that goes overboard for mitzvos.”

And so we come back now to the puzzle that we began our talk with tonight. What does it mean that the Satan is confused when he sees that we’re standing up again by mussaf and blowing shofar? How do the extra tekios protect the Am Yisroel on the Day of Judgement?

The answer is like this: It’s not the mitzvah that saves us;it’s the chibah of the mitzvah; it’s the love of the mitzvah that “confuses” the Satan. שֶׁהֵם מְחַבְּבִים אֶת הַמִּצְווֹת – Because he sees that they love mitzvos; they love mitzvos very much.

Gaining His Respect

That’s the one thing that knocks the Satan out entirely. When he sees that we’re standing up now to blow shofar again – “What’s going on?! They blew already!” – then all of his claims become muted; they’re made quiet. When he sees that the Am Yisroel just can’t get enough of mitzvos – they did the mitzvah already but they’re thirsty for more – that knocks him over. He still has claims against us, but he does it with a different niggun. He says it with respect now; the Satan has a newfound respect for us.

And therefore, even though the Satan will not yield his duty – he has to carry out his mission to be melamed chov on Am Yisroel – but when he sees that we’re חוֹזְרִין וְתוֹקְעִין, that we’re blowing shofar again, that causes him to be quiet. He gets confused. He knows exactly what he wanted to say, but all of a sudden his arguments fall apart. The foundation of his whole argument against us becomes confused because he sees he’s dealing now with the nation that is hungry for mitzvos.

Emulating the Satan

Now, I told you once before that one of the purposes of malachim is that they should be a model for us. That’s why we say every day in davening about the angels praising Hashem. We talk about it at length; in the bracha of Yotzer Hame’oros and then in Kedusha. It’s because we’re supposed to study that and learn from them how to praise Hashem.

And since the Satan is a malach Hashem too – we have to know that he’s a model for us too. Not only do we see that the malach is knocked out by this attitude of the Am Yisroel, but we see that it’s an attitude that matters. If it’s so big that this malach is confounded and all of his arguments against the Am Yisroel fall apart, then it’s something we have to learn to appreciate.

Greatness Amid Suffering

There’s a tale, a story in the Gemara (Shabbos 33b) about Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai. Rabbi Shimon was once sentenced to death by the Romans because he had criticized the Roman government. Now, when the Romans pronounced a death sentence on a person it wasn’t like in New York; it was serious business. So when Rabbi Shimon heard about this he did the smartest thing; he ran away with his son and hid in a cave. For twelve years they sat in the cave hiding from the Romans.

Now, you have to know that it was during those twelve years that Rabbi Shimon and his son became exceedingly great. What went on in that cave was tremendous. They didn’t want to wear out their clothing, so they dug a hole in the ground and they sat in the sand up to their necks all day long and they learned Torah. When they had to daven, so they climbed out of the hole and put on their clothing and davened. Then they took off their clothing and went back in the hole again. That’s how they spent twelve years.

It wasn’t an easy life – their bodies were full of sores from the sand. They had a lot of other tzaros too. But they became very great in shleimus! Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai and his son Rabbi Elazar b’Reb Shimon became very great men as a result. These twelve years elevated them immensely.

Destroying Civilization

Finally at the end of twelve years a message was sent to them m’shomayim: “The danger is over; you can go out now.” So they went back out to civilization and what did they see? They saw people, poshute Jews. They saw people who were farmers, people raising cattle, and they said, “What’s this? Milking cows?! You’re wasting your life with milking cows and planting fields?!” They didn’t understand! That people should give their time for anything but perfection, shleimus of avodas Hashem?!

So wherever they looked they were dissatisfied with what they saw. And because of their kedusha, wherever they looked with their holy eyes, it was destroyed. They took a look, they disapproved of what they saw and מִיָּד נִשְׂרַף, it was destroyed. They destroyed this field, they destroyed that field. They couldn’t tolerate what they were seeing.

So Hashem said, “You think I let you come out of your cave to destroy My world?! Is that how you look at My people?! Go back to the cave again! Go back and stay there!” And so, Rabbi Shimon and his son returned to living in the cave.

Appreciating Civilization

After one more year in the cave they finally came out again. It was erev Shabbos andthey saw an old man running. Now, old men don’t run. For an old man it’s hard sometimes just to bend over and tie his shoes, but here was an old man who was running. And in his hands he was carrying two branches of hadasim. So they said to him, “What are you running for?” He said, “I’m going home to bring flowers for Shabbos – l’kovod Shabbos.” So Rabbi Shimon said, “So why do you need two?” He said, אֶחָד כְּנֶגֶד זָכוֹר וְאֶחָד כְּנֶגֶד שָׁמוֹר. “L’kovod Shabbos, one sprig for the word zachor and one for the word shamor.”

When Rabbi Shimon saw that, iz ehr arois fun di keilim, he became so excited! “Oooh,” said Rabbi Shimon. “I change my mind now about the poshute Jews.” חֲזִי כַּמָּה חֲבִיבִין מִצְווֹת עַל יִשְׂרָאֵל – “Look how cherished the mitzvos are to the Jewish people. The poshute Jews are kodesh kadoshim,” said Rabbi Shimon, “because they’re thirsty for mitzvos. An old man running l’kovod Shabbos!”

And so nisyashev da’ato, the mind of Rabbi Shimon was appeased. Now he was satisfied with the Am Yisroel – not only satisfied; he appreciated them, he respected them. And now he didn’t cause any more trouble when he looked. Because wherever he looked, he saw greatness; wherever he looked he saw a nation that thirsted for mitzvos. They’re milking cows, they’re planting crops, they’re in their homes; whatever they’re doing, they’re living lives of mitzvos!

One More Level

What we see from this story is that Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, despite all of the shleimus that he achieved in that cave during those twelve years, nevertheless, he needed one more madreigah of perfection. And that was to recognize the gadlus of the frum Jew, even the poshute frum Jew.

Rabbi Shimon was already very great from his years in the cave but it wasn’t enough – he had to achieve one more thing, one more attitude of the mind. The apex, the crown of his shleimus – was to be impressed with the stature of the most simple Jew; to respect and admire the nation that is thirsty for mitzvos.

So we begin to see that even though you’re a sholeim; even though you’re moiser nefesh for avodas Hashem like Rabbi Shimon and his son. You’re succeeding in learning Torah — you’re even learning the deepest secrets of the Torah – nevertheless, there’s one more secret that you still have to learn. You must add to the list of your achievements, the very great perfection of recognizing the gedulas Am Yisroel – the nation that loves mitzvos. No matter how great you are in avodas Hashem, and how great you are in Torah knowledge, you must add this attitude of mind to your store of knowledge, the respect and honor for our fellow Yisroel.

Continue reading…

From Toras Avigdor, here.