The Year of the Sword

 pg 64-65

The Year of the Sword

by Avner Gold

"How have we sinned, Reb Mendel? What have we done to deserve this..."

"We cannot know for sure which sins have brought this on....We are measured...in reward and punishment. We must scour our souls and do teshuvah with all our hearts for even the littlest sins that we find."

"What do you think our sin is, Reb Mendel? Have you no opionion yourself?"

Reb Mendel started to speak, but then he hesitated.

"Please tell me what you think, Reb Mendel, " said Chaim Tomashov gravely. "It is very important to me."

"Very well," said Reb Mendel reluctantly. "But is is no more than opinion, your understand. It is quite possible that I am completely wrong."

"I understand."

"Things have been good for the Jews here in Poland (America, England, Italy, etc.) for quite a long time, you know. Perhaps a bit too good. We have lived here in relative peace for hunders of years. We are free to live almost anywhere we wish and to engage in all sorts of commerce..."

"I think life has become too good for too many Polish (American, Englanders, Italians, etc.) Jews. I think too many of them may have lost their deep commitment to HaShem and His Torah. True,they still perform the mitzvos properly, but the do so out of habit. In their hearts, however, they are thinking about the riches they can accumulate and the successes they can achieve. They have forgotten that they are exiled in an alie land among people who are as different from them as night from day. They have sunk their roots into the gentile soil of Poland (America, England, Italy, etc), and they no longer yearn for redemption and a return to Yerushalayim."

"But this Coassack (Sandy, Anti-semitism, brutal attacks, murder, etc.) uprising has changed all of that.For as long as these times are remembered no Jew will be able to tell himself that Poland is him home. For hundereds of years the Jewish people will look upon Poland as the hostile environment that it has been and always will be beneath the surface. There is no place in the world where the Jew has a right to feel at ease other than in Eretz Yisrael after the coming of Mashiach. We have forgotten this, and we have been reminded."

"Your words have the right of truth, Reb Mendel," said Chaim Tomashov in a trembling voice. "I fear that I myself am one of the guilty ones. May HaShem forgive me for my sins."

I HAVE DNA WITH several character surnames in this book. (meaning either a DNA match of mine or mother's or other family members - or in my DNA matches trees.

Berish Lederer

Reb Mendel

Reb Ringel

Reb Michel

Reb Shabsai Kohen - author of the Shach