Message from R’ Schonfeld: R’ Yoel Schonfeld

By the time you read this article, half the country will be ecstatic, and half the country will be in depression, depending on the election results. There is a private school in Manhattan that is scheduling a day off after Election Day so that its students can deal with the traumatic results of the election. That’s our snowflake generation. Though I may prove to be a snowflake myself.

Rosh HaShanah was surely an exceptionally emotional one for most Jews this year. We reflected upon the most difficult year for Jews worldwide, beginning with October 7 and continuing now. With the abandoning of Jews by our supposed “friends,” especially in the West, we increasingly realize Bilaam’s assessment (BaMidbar 23:9): “Behold it is a nation that will dwell in solitude and not be reckoned among the nations.”

“I think he (Joe Biden) has been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue for 40 years,” said former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates in 2014.

I have always wondered why S’lichos, which we say before and after Rosh HaShanah each morning, has very little to do with asking for forgiveness. It has more to do with expressing our anguish at being oppressed by non-Jews over the centuries. I do not have a great explanation, but I think it is reasonable to say that if we realize how uniquely we are treated in this world, it will inspire us to a certain closeness to Hashem, which is what these Days of Awe are all about.

One of the most solemn and moving parts of the Yom Kippur services is “Eileh Ezkerah – These I shall recall.” It is a poetic depiction of the Ten Martyrs, all great rabbis, including the legendary Rabbi Akiva, who at different times were brutally executed by the barbaric Roman occupiers during and after the time of the fall of the Second Temple.

Many Jewish and non-Jewish pundits are headlining the fact that Donald Trump last week in Washington told his Jewish audience that the Jews will be to blame if he does not win election. It may be true, but no one in the audience took it as an insult or a threat to the Jewish people. We took it as a sad reality from a politician who is not good at word salads and actually says what’s on his mind, to a fault.