Reply To: IDF’s New Haredi Division

“… he [Rabbi Shraga Feivel Mendlowitz] also explained why
the secular Zionists might have been chosen to play
such a fateful role in the history of the Jewish people.

In every Jew, he explained, there is a spark of kedushah (holiness)
– dos pintele Yid – which is his inheritance from the Avos [Patriarchs].

Every Jew is both an individual and as part of the collective body of Israel.
As long as he does not sever his bonds to the nation,
that little spark is not extinguished, no matter how numerous his sins.

Divine Providence might have arranged that the secular Zionists
play a major role in the redemption of Eretz Yisrael
precisely in order to maintain their connection to Klal Yisrael.”

SOURCE: Reb Shraga Feivel: the life and times of Rabbi Shraga Feivel Mendlowitz,
the architect of Torah in America (chapter 26, page 335) by Yonoson Rosenblum
for Artscroll / Mesorah, year 2001, based on Aharon Sorasky’s Shelucha DeRachmana,
ISBNs: 157819797X, 9781578197972, 1578197961, 9781578197965

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In a conversation with the Satmar Rav, shortly after his talk
on the U.N. declaration, Reb Shraga Feivel [Mendlowitz]
was subjected to the sharpest criticism for his “Zionist leanings.”

Later he told his family, “I could have answered him [the Satmar Rav]
Chazal for Chazal, Midrash for Midrash, but I did not want
to incur his wrath, for he is a great man and a tzaddik.”

He added with a twinkle, “And besides, he has a fiery temper”…

SOURCE: Reb Shraga Feivel: the life and times of Rabbi Shraga Feivel Mendlowitz,
the architect of Torah in America (chapter 26, page 335 to 336) by Yonoson Rosenblum
for Artscroll / Mesorah, year 2001, based on Aharon Sorasky’s Shelucha DeRachmana,
ISBNs: 157819797X, 9781578197972, 1578197961, 9781578197965

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Once full-scale war broke out after the State of Israel declared
its existence on May 14, 1948 [CE] Reb Shraga Feivel’s [Mendlowitz]
thoughts were never far from Eretz Yisrael.

A group of students saw him outside the Mesivta building one day,
talking excitedly with Rabbi Gedaliah Schorr and
gesticulating rapidly with the newspaper held in his hand.

“If I were your age,” he [Rabbi Shraga Feivel Mendlowitz] told the students,
“I would take a gun and go to Eretz Yisrael.”

SOURCE: Reb Shraga Feivel: the life and times of Rabbi Shraga Feivel Mendlowitz,
the architect of Torah in America (chapter 26, page 338) by Yonoson Rosenblum
for Artscroll / Mesorah, year 2001 CE, based on Aharon Sorasky’s Shelucha DeRachmana,
ISBNs: 157819797X, 9781578197972, 1578197961, 9781578197965

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