Make Never Again – Never Again

How can we make sure that the clarion call “Never again!” is permanent? 

Rabbi Elchonon Wasserman said, “The Jews in Europe declared war on Hashem. Now, He has declared war on them. That’s why He’s sending His armies against them.”  (Parshat Noach, 5783 by Rabbi Avigdor Miller)  [Editor’s Note: Further examples of what prompted Hashem’s war can be found in Rabbi Miller’s book A Divine Madness.]

To guarantee that there won’t be another Kristallnacht, Auschwitz, or Gaza, we must swallow the hard truth: 

Before each of these catastrophes, we were in open rebellion against God.  

Holocaust #1 

Throughout the 1930s, every European Jewish town had socialists, communists, and nationalists actively rebelling against the Rabbis. We asked to be Soviets. We asked to be Germans. We asked to be protected by the head of the Communist Party and the leader of Germany. They rebelled against the Torah. They told Hashem that they wanted nothing to do with Him.   

So, on Kristallnacht, God gave us what we wanted. 

Holocaust #2 

For all of 5783, every motzei Shabbat, we gathered to tell our Father that He isn’t welcome on His Land. We did it with immorality, injustice, and violence. These are the three abominations that Hashem calls in the Torah “hamas” (המס). For an entire year we told God that we prefer Sodomite flags, locking up the religious, and beating up people for praying on Yom Kippur rather than loyalty to Him and His Torah.  

We asked for “hamas”, and Hashem gave us Hamas.  

All those demonstrations for “democracy” were nothing more than a cover for the real reason: They didn’t want the religious assuming power. The current government is the first one in the history of Israel to be 50% religious. So, for the first time in modern Israeli history, there were massive demonstrations against a democratically elected leadership.  

In truth, the protests were against God and His Torah – our Torah. The preparations for these weekly rebellions were made during Shabbat. In essence, we told God that we preferred “hamas” to His holy day.  

So, on Shabbat-Simchat Torah, He let us have it.  

What’s the Message? 

Our generation will have to live with the trauma of Oct 7. We will go about our lives fearing that it can happen again anywhere and anytime.  

What our parent’s generation went through – the dread that another Holocaust might whisk them away to a horrible death – is what we are going through right now.  

For 75 years, when we shouted, “Never Again!” the world said “Amen.”  

Today, when we say, “Never Again!”, the world says something else.  

Only Hashem can protect us. We have to embrace Him.  

We didn’t in 1933.  

We didn’t in 2023.  

We must stop rebelling against Hashem and His Torah! We must return to Hashem right now.   We must actively petition our government to return Torah to Israel. We must tell God that we want Him in our country. We must tell Hashem that we want our country to be forever His country.  

God will destroy our enemy nations:  

But My people did not heed My voice and Israel did not desire Me. 

So, I let them follow their heart’s fantasies, I let them follow their own counsels. 

If only My nation would heed Me, if Israel would walk in My ways. 

In an instant I would subdue their foes and against their tormentors turn My hand. (Psalm 81:12-15) 

Hashem will never let anyone harm His people. He will never let a foreigner harass His nation – as long as we declare ourselves His nation by serving Him according to His law. Never again will we rebel against Hashem and His Torah. This is how “never again” will truly be – never again.  

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David Ben Horin lives in Afula with his family, millions of sunflowers, and Matilda, our local camel. David‘s Israeli startup, 300 Marketing Solutions, is a lean marketing agency for startups and small businesses that creates and promotes SEO-optimized ROI-driven to the right audience on LinkedIn to make your business the star of the show.