There is a custom here in America to say Psalm 130 after Shacharis in the morning. Last week I approached a young yeshiva buchur, who was home for the summer from his resident yeshiva, and asked him why we say this Psalm after davening.
I remember very well when this Psalm started to be said, it was back in 2000 around Rosh Hashana time, during what CNN likes to call and Intifada, what I like to call a terror war, in Israel. This was how American Jews were going to support their brothers in Israel. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but, well you know. . .
Anyways this particular buchur responded to my question, "For the situation in Eretz Yisrael."
I asked him what situation.
He didn't have an answer for me.
The yeshivish world is great, they have been the main reason that Torah is so strong in the world. But they unfortunately don't educate their students about current events or about recent history.
My chavruta and I tonight were were studying the 3rd perek (chapter) in the Book of Judges. In this perek it talks about the generations after the generation that entered Eretz Yisrael with Joshua. How those generations turned away from G-d, stopped following Torah, assimilated, and worshiped other gods. They were punished by not receiving anything from Hashem, and only after they had been enslaved again in thier own land, and called out to Hashem, were they saved.
The pasuk hints to the reason why the Bnei Yisrael, turned away from Hashem just the generation after the one that had entered Eretz Yisrael. "A new generation arose that didn't know Hashem, or the great things that He had done for Yisrael (Judges 2:10).
They didn't learn their own history. "Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it," (George Santayna). If we don't know what our past is, even our past as recent as 50 years ago, we are only going to repeat the mistakes of that generation and do it over and over again. This happens throughout the entire Book of Judges, how the Jews would go through 40 "quiet" periods before they would stop learning Torah and start worshiping idols, and this pattern repeats itself for the next 400 years! It's important to know your history, I can't stress that enough. It's obvious that these generations didn't learn history otherwise it would have been impossible for them to repeat their mistakes.
We need to learn from our mistakes, so we'll know what happens when we are faced with a similar situation in the future.
I remember very well when this Psalm started to be said, it was back in 2000 around Rosh Hashana time, during what CNN likes to call and Intifada, what I like to call a terror war, in Israel. This was how American Jews were going to support their brothers in Israel. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but, well you know. . .
Anyways this particular buchur responded to my question, "For the situation in Eretz Yisrael."
I asked him what situation.
He didn't have an answer for me.
The yeshivish world is great, they have been the main reason that Torah is so strong in the world. But they unfortunately don't educate their students about current events or about recent history.
My chavruta and I tonight were were studying the 3rd perek (chapter) in the Book of Judges. In this perek it talks about the generations after the generation that entered Eretz Yisrael with Joshua. How those generations turned away from G-d, stopped following Torah, assimilated, and worshiped other gods. They were punished by not receiving anything from Hashem, and only after they had been enslaved again in thier own land, and called out to Hashem, were they saved.
The pasuk hints to the reason why the Bnei Yisrael, turned away from Hashem just the generation after the one that had entered Eretz Yisrael. "A new generation arose that didn't know Hashem, or the great things that He had done for Yisrael (Judges 2:10).
They didn't learn their own history. "Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it," (George Santayna). If we don't know what our past is, even our past as recent as 50 years ago, we are only going to repeat the mistakes of that generation and do it over and over again. This happens throughout the entire Book of Judges, how the Jews would go through 40 "quiet" periods before they would stop learning Torah and start worshiping idols, and this pattern repeats itself for the next 400 years! It's important to know your history, I can't stress that enough. It's obvious that these generations didn't learn history otherwise it would have been impossible for them to repeat their mistakes.
We need to learn from our mistakes, so we'll know what happens when we are faced with a similar situation in the future.
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