R Yehuda Zev Leibowitz’s warning to US Jews – from 2009
This post is an answer to asd’s comment.
The Lazer Beams site is long gone now, but back on January 24th, 2012, R Brody wrote this:
“Rav Yehuda Zev Leibowitz of saintly and blessed memory was a Kabbalist and hidden tzaddik as well as a Holocaust survivor. Little is known of him, for he lived his life far away from spotlights. Yet, his word carried tremendous weight in the Heavenly realm.
What many don’t know is that he was one of Rav Shalom Arush‘s principle spiritual guides. Rav Yehuda Zev, a holy man with the eyes of a sonogram, could not stomach anything other than absolute holiness.
Many big rabbis were therefore afraid to approach him, for he could smell if they were the real deal or not. He loved Rav Shalom. He didn’t leave much in the physical world, but he bequeathed his tefillin to Rav Shalom.
====
Before he died, he told Rav Shalom three things, the first two of which have materialized:
- Uprisings and infighting will sweep through the Arab countries;
- Bibi will not be able to attack Iran; Hashem will use other means as He did with Sadaam Hussein.
- I don’t want to repeat the third thing that Rav Yehuda Zev said, for it hasn’t materialized yet. But, I urge our cherished brothers and sisters outside of Israel to start praying and planning to make Aliya, the sooner the better.”
====
R Brody got a lot of flack for that post.
But by 2012, the ‘Arab Spring’ was in full force – and Bibi clearly didn’t have permission to attack Iran.
That is still the situation 12 years later….
====
So now, what was the last thing that R YEHUDA ZEV LEIBOWITZ said, before he died in 2009?
Let’s scoot over to the RavBerland.com site HERE, where we read this, in a post called ‘Tel Aviv Will Be Destroyed’, from October 6, 2017.
(It’s quoting R Aharon Stern, the son of the reknowned kabbalist from Bnei Brak, R Chaim Dovid Stern. R Aharon was one of R Leibowitz’s attendants, before he passed away in 2009:)
“I’d like to request just one on thing: that we should have achdut (unity) and love between us, which will bring us the geula (redemption).
Before his death, Rav Leibowitz ordered me to make the following announcement about America, so I repeat this every opportunity I get.
He told me that the anti-Semitism in the United States is only going to continue to grow, until it gets to the point where the Jews will be forced to flee. We can also see how the forces of nature are going crazy there, and this is because we see how the people there are overturning everything, and no longer know who is their abba and who is their ima….
“The same is true in Tel Aviv, which is why Rav Leibowitz told me:
‘YOU SHOULD KNOW, TEL AVIV WILL BE DESTROYED.’
====
“Moranu Rav Berland, shlita, is fighting against the head of the snake, in direct combat. Rav Berland is gouging out its eyes, and he’s taking upon himself all our troubles.
I heard from my teacher and father, shlita, who told me: ‘I’m scared… I don’t know how Rav Berland is doing this!
There is no other rabbi in Israel, there is no other rosh yeshiva in Israel, there is no other rebbe or admor in Israel who knows how Rav Berland, shlita, is able to fight this war, and to fight against the head of the snake itself,” concluded Rav Aharon Stern.
====
These comments are from seven years ago.
BH, the Rav has been sweetening so very much, and that process of ‘sweetening’ is ongoing.
With the massive wave of teshuva now happening in Israel, it’s possible that ‘Tel Aviv Won’t Be Destroyed’ after all.
To my knowledge, the Rav hasn’t talked about Tel Aviv being destroyed – although he does talk a lot about Jerusalem being the safest place in the country – and the world! – for Jews.
And that for sure is what we are seeing and experiencing over the last year, where no rockets have got to Jerusalem.
====
But when it comes to making aliyah?
The Rav has been mentioning that Jews need to move to Israel for years.
This article – one of so many – is from April 20th, 2020, HERE:
Snippet:
The whole inyan is to nullify the sin of the spies, and to ascend to Eretz Yisrael.
They [the spies] said, what are you talking about, to make aliyah to Eretz Yisrael! What are you saying?! We are going to wait for the Moshiach. For they didn’t know that by way of their coming to the aretz (land of Israel), they would bring the Moshiach.
IF EVERYONE WOULD COME TO THE ARETZ, THEN TODAY MOSHIACH WOULD IMMEDIATELY COME!
The whole inyan is that today, Moshiach will come. At this moment, Moshiach will come, in this second, Moshiach will come. On Seder Night, it’s possible to bring the Moshiach.
If everyone would have made aliya to Eretz Yisrael, then immediately the Moshiach would have come.
Everyone needs to make aliyah to Eretz Yisrael, we need to return everyone to here, great and small, as one. Rabbanim, Admorim and Chassidim – everyone needs to ascend to Eretz Yisrael.
====
(At the bottom of this post, I’ll stick up the Rav’s prayer from 2019, to make aliyah easily.)
The Rav has been encouraging people to move to Israel for years, already….
People don’t like to hear it.
But, if God wants His people back in His country…. then one way or another, God will arrange things so that happens.
====
BH, the part we have to understand, is that geula coming the hard way, or the ‘sweet way’, really depends on us, and our teshuva.
If people refuse to get Hashem’s hints about what He wants them to work on, fix and change, then Hashem doesn’t give up. He just makes those ‘hints’ louder….and louder….and louder….
I know it’s very hard for some people to make aliyah, even though they really do want to.
Those people are a tiny minority of the Jews in chul.
Most Jews in chul, even today, aren’t even thinking about moving to Israel.
Do you think God is going to give up on those people?
Or maybe, is God going to start turning the heat up with ‘mass deportation’ laws that can be applied to any ‘undesirable’ so designated by the United States?
====
Ultimately, we get to Israel with a lot of prayer and humility, as a gift.
I’m not pretending that ‘I got to Israel’ thanks to my own amazingness. Simply, God sent me a bunch of nightmares that were so bad, that after the third one I woke up and told my husband we were selling the house and moving to Israel….
That’s how we got here.
Really, totally chasdei Hashem.
Here’s the Rav’s prayer:
====
====
BS”D
A Prayer to Come to Eretz Yisrael
TO MERIT COMING TO ERETZ YISRAEL WITHOUT LOSING ANYTHING. TO SELL EVERYTHING FOR ITS FULL VALUE. AND MAY I MERIT LEAVING THE DEFILEMENT OF THE LAND OF THE NATIONS THAT WE ARE IMMERSED IN. AND MAY WE SMASH ALL OF THE OBSTACLES THAT ARE MOSTLY OBSTACLES OF THE MIND.
Master of the World, who can do everything. Merit me to go up to Eretz Yisrael with sublime self-sacrifice. That I leave all of the property and all of the belongings that I have outside of Eretz Yisrael. That I not leave anything over, that I not leave any remembrance.
Rather, I should sell everything as quick as possible at full value, and not lose even one pruta by moving to Eretz Yisrael. And may I not incur any other damages by moving to Eretz Yisrael.
==
For we have no more strength to stay in exile, in chutz la’aretz, even for one second.
We want to go up to the land of our forefathers, that you gave to our forefathers, Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov, “The land flowing with milk and honey”.
For Eretz Yisrael is holier than any other land in the world.
“And Hashem Your G-d chose her over all other precious things in the world.”
Please, Hashem, merit me to go up to Eretz Yisrael with self-sacrifice,
“And bring us to Your Holy Mountain.”
For we have no more strength to stay in chutz la’aretz, but on the other hand we’ve been here for so long, in the defilement of the land of the nations, and we have no idea how to free ourselves from it.
Now we are turning to You, with humble kneeling and prostration:
Help us, Hashem our G-d, to come to Eretz Yisrael in the blink of an eye! And help us to break all of the obstacles, and all of the postponements, for the main obstacle is in the mind.
====
PS: Apparently, we have a cease fire in place as of today with ‘Hezbollah’ – who even is left to sign that agreement, no-one knows – that’s going to lead to the creation of a buffer zone between Israel and Lebanon, exactly where those massive oil fields were found, plus a ‘Palestinian State’.
Oh, and ‘peace in the Middle East’.
Dontcha know?
Trump is very excited about it….
It’s the deal of the century – at least, for all the Evils waiting to exploit those oil reserves and keep humanity in a perpetual state of subservience to them.
(And let’s not talk about the Jewish Problem…. and how all this connects directly back to ‘solving’ that, as well.)
God isn’t going to let this happen, of course.
And then, Trump will get very upset.
====
PPS: And this is how they use the Jews as the scapegoat, when introducing ‘laws’ that are clearly just aimed at suppressing free speech and human rights:
This is why “Anti-Semitism Awareness Act” is worst ever made unconstitutional law and how it is outlawing the Gospel and Bible literally
Excellent explanation by Matt Walsh don’t skip pic.twitter.com/jpqi9wyInA
— Furkan Gözükara (@GozukaraFurkan) May 3, 2024
====
Take the rose-tinted glasses off, understand that the USA is made up of way more xtians than Jews.
And then understand how this ‘Anti-Semitism Awareness Act’ has been carefully designed to boomerang back on the Jewish community in the USA, and to cause way more anti-semitism – whilst also clamping down on free speech.
This is exactly what started the violence against Jews in the 19th century across Europe, when ‘Jewish emancipation’ legislation imposed from the top down stoked the worst, violently anti-semitic, attacks and pogroms seen for decades.
There is nothing new under the sun.
I travel pretty rarely. The last time I left HaAretz was in 2019.
From 2004 to 2017, I didn’t leave at all. Several jarring things stood out to me during my visit 2017 after a 13 year absence from the community I was part of.
First, in the heavily Jewish and frum area I was in, all the businesses that used to extensively employ family and others Jews in the community now were almost 100% staffed by Mexicans.
Second, the nearly complete lack of interest in, even (in some cases) hostility to, aliyah, was shocking to me. Entire families, people with no adult children or grandchildren living in Israel. And everyone seemed perfectly happy with that state of affairs.
Baruch Hashem in 2006 Hashem put it in both mine and my wife’s head simultaneously to make Aliyah, and Baruch Hashem I have all of my immediate family here.
Aliyah is never really talked about in the Frum Jewish communities in America. It is not something that people want to hear. They all pay lip service to it, send there kids off to those over priced Yeshivas and seminaries and feel they have fulfilled their obligations. Now they are all saying Shehechiyanu that Trump won. Actually it may have been better if Amalek Harris won as maybe it would have scared some Jews into coming on Aliyah. The reality is that Jews have to want to make Aliyah, yearn for it, cry for it, and sadly that isn’t happening in the US. I have lost my respect for the Rabbinical leadership there. They try every way to prove Halachically that Aliyah is not incumbent on any Jew. I hope they don’t face a scary reality anytime soon.
From where I sit, it’s already a ‘scary reality’.
Totally agree with you.
Scaring Jews to make Aliyah only causes Jews to make rash decisions they may regret later. I know people who left out of fear only to come back due to financial or familial issues. It could cause marriages to break up and children go off the derech. It is not pashut that moving to EY is right for everyone. In addition, Israel is the most dangerous place for Jews to live outside of Jerusalem. Anti-semitism is being hyped by the mainstream media to scare us similar to what they did during the COVID years. I believe this so-called increase in anti-semitism is really anti-Zionism. That being said, GD wants us to be in chutz laaretz learning His Torah and doing mitzvos being a light into the nations. Moving to EY should not be done out of fear but out of closeness to Hashem. When GD is ready to bring us all back to EY we will all pack and leave happily to serve Him in the BHM.
That’s the ‘ideal’ – and I agree, that the difficulty is that moving to Israel really doesn’t ‘suit’ some people, for many different reasons, some of which I also agree they may have no control over.
That said – the main thing that makes is hard for us to live in Israel is our own bad middot. And our own expectations of what life ‘should’ look like, and how much stuff we ‘should’ have.
And I also know, that for people like us from the West, it’s very, very difficult to let that stuff go.
I get it… I also have seen good friends crack up after making aliyah, and it was v painful to watch.
But ultimately – they were not being honest, especially to themselves, about who they really were, and where they were really holding, spiritually.
And Israel is the most powerful truth serum there is.
For good, and for bad.
==
For the record, I’m not into ‘scaring’ anyone into doing anything. But also for the record, the situation in the world is very reminiscent of circa 1938.
And while ‘ideally’, it would be great if everyone would make mass teshuva and return back to God and His Torah without being ‘scared into it’, tachlis – that’s not how most human beings work.
Comfort zones don’t break by themselves.
“To my knowledge, the Rav hasn’t talked about Tel Aviv being destroyed”
I have not heard from the Rav directly myself, but I am told by more than one in the community who did hear directly that the Rav has indeed repeated that Tel Aviv will be destroyed. He said it earlier in the war, and perhaps as recent as Pesach.
My memory was correct. I confirmed last night with someone who directly heard from Rav Berland that Tel Aviv will be destroyed. The conversation was in the Rav’s house, sometime around Pesach, with a group from a nearby kollel. The context was a question asked about the war and living in Ashdod, Modiin, etc. The Rav said that the only safe place is Yerushalayim, and that everyone should move there. People pushed about other places, and the Rav said “anywhere but Tel Aviv. Tel Aviv will not survive”.
The question is, what does “destroyed” mean? How will that occur?
Maybe it doesn’t mean destruction. That would be quite a mess. Financial, disease, earthquake, or…..?
Reb Dov bar Leib has also quoted a couple times about “the predictions”, but doesn’t discuss the third prediction.
PS is the text font getting smaller?
This was published recently and talks about how one has to make aliyah even if he’ll drown…
https://ravberland.com/for-the-hilulah-of-the-chesed-lavraham-by-rabbi-eliezer-berland-shlita/
In the end though, if Hashem wanted chutz Jews to know that they had to come no matter what, then he would have made sure that was clear and not like how it is interpreted today where people find all kinds of reasons that it won’t work out for them. The confusion on this subject was meant to be. There’s just no way to lecture people or warn them as they don’t see any kind of danger yet and go on and on about the spiritual danger in EY when their children will fall through the cracks of Israeli education or they’ll be paupers. They don’t see it as pikuach nefesh yet and won’t until it is too late. Even big rabbis have no problem with not living in EY as there are plenty of heterim. When you ask a big rav in the US, most are told not to go with older kids, not enough money or prospective job offers, etc, the opposite of what the Chessed L’Avraham writes about and I think that’s what the rav says too as he quotes him sometimes.
Hashem says he’ll bring the Jews from the four corners of the world so many will have be there for him to bring to EY. If everyone came so readily to EY, what kind of prophecy/promise would that be, who would be left to bring? The confusion with this topic is just ratzon Hashem at this point. I don’t get what the purpose is to warn everyone again and again and basically saying, “well, this time we mean it!!” It’s just going to end up as a “I told you so” and won’t bring achdut. Or…are we required to lecture others until the very end and hope they may listen??
Thanks Rivka for this post, I appreciate it.
I just found it interesting how you connected the deportation plans to all this, I guess it’s just a raw speculation.
I find this whole subject interesting, because in the torah, wherever referring to the end of days aka the time of moshiach, it always says that Hashem will gather the jews & bring them back, which doesn’t give the impression that aliyah is something the jews have to be doing themselves “before” mashiach comes.
If aliyah was not something the Jews did ‘themselves’ no-one would be living here….
Also, there is an aspect of reward and punishment. The Chesed L’Avraham basically says that Jews outside of chul will be second-class citizens, spiritually, post-moshiach.
They’ll be super rich…. but won’t have the ‘wings’ of the people in Israel.
Bottom line, I also don’t do all the mitzvot I’m meant to do, and there are some mitzvot I also don’t yearn to do…. but I also don’t make excuses and say that if Hashem wanted me to do those mitzvot, ‘He’ll do it for me’.
I’m clearly in the wrong to not be doing those things, or at least yearning to do those things.
So, we’re back to the narrow bridge.
BS”D
Here is a link to Rav Lazer Brody’s website. The old lazerbeams site was discontinued a number of years ago.
https://www.emunabeams.com/
—–stingray—–
DO NOT WORRY OR GIVE IT A SECOND THOUGHT
YOU WILL BE PICKED UP AT HOME OR WORK AND DRIVEN FOR FREE TO THE NEAREST MILITARY BASE
YOU WILL BE FLOWN FOR FREE TO ISRAEL
YOU WILL BE HELD FREE AT THE EXCHANGE COMPOUND FOR FREE AS ALONG AS NEED BE
YOU WILL BE ASSIGNED A NUMBER FOR FREE
WHEN YOUR NUMBER IS CALLED YOU WILL BE ASSIGNED A CASE WORKER FOR FREE
ETC ETC ETC
PS:
NO LUGGAGE OR FAMILY MEMBERS ALLOWED
BON VOYAGE
TO CONTINUE THE DREAM
DO NOT WORRY ABOUT YOUR LIVING CONDITIONS AS THE HAMAS AND PA PRISONERS WERE GIVEN EVERYTHING SO YOU ALSO WILL BE GIVEN EVERYTHING SINCE THEY WILL BE RELEASED INTO THE NEW PALESTINIAN STATE STARTED BY DJT-KRIST IN JUDIA SO YOU WILL JUST BE REPLACING THEM
THEN AFTER INTENSIVE INTERROGATIONS AND BRAINWASHING YOU WILL JOIN THE NEW DJT-KRIST ARMY IF G_D IN PROTECTING THE NEW STATE
ALL THIS WILL BE FUNDED BY THE DJT-USA DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION OVERSEEING THE DISBURSEMENT OF THE NEW OIL LEASES IN THE JUDIAN OIL FIELDS
MEANWHILE BACK IN AMERICA YOUR FAMILIES WILL HAVE NIW BEEN GIVEN A FREE RIDE THE LOCAL MILITARY BASE WITH ONE SUITCASE PER FAMILY WHILE ALL YOUR ASSETS WILL BE COLLECTED AND UTILIZED TO PAY FOR THE NEW PALESTINIAN STATE INSIDE ISRAEL AS WHO BETTER TO SHOW THEM HOW MUCH YOU CARE AND WANT PEACE IN THE MIDEAST
YOU TRIED TO WAKE UP AND YOU REALIZED THAT THIS WAS NOT A DREAM BUT THE NEW REALITY OF THE WORLD OF DJT-KRIST
Hey, you’re in an optimistic mood today….
BH, things will get sweetened for all sincere Jews everywhere, via some real, heartfelt teshuva.
That’s why God make a ‘nuke’, after all, or at least the idea of one.
In the moment a Jew has a hirhur of teshuva, they are considered to be a Tzaddik….
Maybe, that’s how God is going to turn this generation into a generation that is ‘all tzaddikim’, after all.
NOW WE KNOW ONE SIDE OF THE COIN
THE OTHER
DJT ALLOWS ALL JEWS TO CASH OUT ENTIRELY WITH ALL THEIR WEALTH AND FLY TO
ISRAEL
SINCE WE KNOW NOTHING
EXCEPT
IT WILL BE
SOME
WHERE IN THE MIDDLE
SWEETENED
Then in Zekhariyah 14:14 it says: “וגם־יהודה תלחם בירושל͏ם ואסף חיל כל־הגוים סביב זהב וכסף ובגדים לרב מאד”
And also Yehudah will battle with Yerushalayim, and the wealth of all the nations will be gather about, gold, silver, and garments, for a great mass.
Zionist and modern jews in America talk plenty about Aliya
Mainly the anti zionist secular
Or ultra orthodox , that look down on it.
Never heard anyone discussing this from a non political- zionost viewpoint.
Welcome to Breslov….
BH, ‘anti-zionist’ olim is about to become the norm…
BeEzrat Hashem, i’d be happy with non-zionist_pro-israel.
Anti zionist olim is a rare breed!