Bechukosai: 5784 - Accusing Israel of war crimes? This has happened before: The Yevsektsiya's "public trial" and the chossid's spot-on response to accusations against Judaism. Presented by…

00:03 Speaker 1 They accuse Israel of war crimes and all kinds of other things—genocide, and so on and so forth. We’ve seen this before. It’s nothing new. Throughout Jewish history, the Jews have always been accused. It began with blood libels, with claims that they poisoned the wells, and more of the same. Whatever the catastrophe, whatever happened, they always blamed the Jews. We’ve seen it before. Rabbi Shmaryahu Shashonkin relates that there was a chossid who studied in Lubavitch. They called him Shmuel Batumer. He was from Batumi and had been a rabbi in the city of Batumi, Georgia. So he relates that when the Communist Revolution took place, he was in Rostov with the Rebbe Rashab. The yeshiva had moved there, to Rostov. When the Communists came in and took over, they began imposing new arrangements. Above all, they began fighting the religious institutions. It was primarily the Yevsektsiya who acted against the religious institutions—the yeshivas, the shuls, the mikvaos. They staged a public trial. They appointed a prosecutor and judges to rule on the matter of the religious institutions, and invited a large audience. It was held in one of the big clubs. There were five thousand people there. The defense was to be presented by the rabbi of Rostov at the time, Rabbi Berman, and by one of the Rebbe Rashab’s outstanding chassidim, Reb Moshe Rosenblum. They held this public trial before the entire audience, against the religious institutions operating in the city. For three days the prosecutor—one of the Yevsektsiya members—presented his case. These were Jews arguing against the religious institutions, against Judaism, and against the yeshiva students, treating them as though they weren’t even human beings. They blamed the religious institutions for every crime in the world. For three days he presented his arguments. Then it was time for the defense to speak: first the rabbi, and then Reb Moshe Rosenblum. Now he

02:32 Speaker 1 had a gift for speaking. Everyone loved listening to him. He opened by saying this: In our prayers, in the order of the offerings, we say in Eizehu Mekoman, “These are the guilt offerings.” This refers to the asham offering. There are several kinds: an asham for robbery, an asham for misusing consecrated property, an asham for a betrothed maidservant, an asham of a nazirite, an asham of a metzora, an asham brought when one is uncertain of having sinned, and other kinds of asham. So he interpreted the phrase: “These are the accusations.” What accusations have the non-Jews always leveled against the Jews? First, the asham for robbery. They have always accused the Jews of being thieves. When a Jew had some property, when he owned something, they would ask, “Where did you get that? You stole it.” What did Lavan say? As we mentioned earlier from the Gemara: “The flocks are my flocks”; everything you see—the sons are my sons, the daughters are my daughters. Everything you see is mine. What does that mean? Yaakov Avinu worked hard for it. No, they say, you stole it. It’s all mine. Throughout Jewish history, they have claimed that Jews are thieves. That is one accusation, the asham for robbery. Then there is the asham for misuse of consecrated property. Jews, they say, cannot be trusted. They abuse their positions; they are traitors, always on the other side. They have always accused Jews of being subversives. Yes, that is the asham for misuse of consecrated property. Then there is the asham for a betrothed maidservant. What is that? They have always accused Jews of making their workers do backbreaking labor, of sucking their blood, working them hard and paying them pennies. That is the asham for a betrothed maidservant. Then there is the nazirite’s asham. The non-Jews accused the Jews of keeping apart from them. They say, “You have chosen us from among all the nations.” It is as though they don’t live together with everyone else. They always keep themselves separate. What did Haman say? “There is one people ... and their laws are different from those of every other people, and they do not observe the king’s laws.” Right? If a non-Jew merely touches their wine, they pour the wine

04:45 Speaker 1 out. That is the nazirite’s asham: the Jews keep apart. Next is the metzora’s asham. What is the accusation of being a metzora? Even when Jews had integrated into society and behaved like all the non-Jews, they said, “The Jews are like metzoraim.” You can see exactly what happened during the Holocaust, rachmana litzlan. There were Jews who were more German than the Germans themselves, and they too were taken and burned in the crematoria. Nothing helped them. Why? Because the Jews were branded as metzoraim. And then there is the asham brought when one is uncertain of having sinned. What does that mean? They always claimed—who killed Jesus? The Jews. That guilt, they say, hangs over them. They have always blamed the Jews, accused them of all kinds of things. That has been the story throughout history, and it is happening again now. We have no one to rely on but our Father in Heaven. There is no solution to all these accusations—not a diplomatic solution, and not a military solution either. Only Hakadosh Boruch Hu can save us from all these accusations. That will come in the future, when King Moshiach comes and builds the Beis Hamikdash, very soon, with Hashem’s help.

05:55 Speaker 2 Amen.