Why doesn't the Rabbi of the Haredi community sleep at night?

April 6, 2014   

In a sermon delivered by the Rabbi Moshe Sternbuch of the 'Urban Community', in his yeshiva hall in Jerusalem at the end of the 'winter season', he spoke painfully about kollels that had closed their doors - and said: "There is a terrible decree for several hundred young Torah scholars who are left without kollels." "They talk about a decree of conscription," said the Rabbi, "but there is now a more terrible danger here - which worries me greatly: hundreds of young Torah scholars who have studied in kollels until now are now left without kollels for the foreseeable future, after in several places they reduced the kollel framework for various reasons, and young Torah scholars who study Torah day and night are left without a livelihood, and because of this, the power of the Torah is weakened. "And this is a great danger, that we are not dealing here with the weak who fall from the path as in the decree of conscription, but the concern is really with the Torah scholars who engage in Torah day and night, who in this situation, who have no source of income, cannot continue their studies, and I am very sorry about this and I have no rest from it at all, neither day nor night, and this even troubles my sleep, and may God have mercy and save. "And what is more, this also delays the coming of the Messiah, and increases the power of Amalek, because when Israel weakens their hands from the Torah, then the power of Amalek increases in the world and at this time when the world of Torah needs strengthening, both here in the Land of Israel and abroad, then we can only pray and hope to our Father in Heaven that He will have mercy on us in this time of trouble. The Rabbi also spoke about the parsha of the leper, emphasizing the serious sin of slanderous speech, and "especially those who speak evil of the elders of the generation," and stated that their prayers are not heard. "The Maimonides says that the way of those who speak evil of the elders is to speak evil of the scholars." "We need to understand why God did this to the righteous and geniuses of every generation, who have always been the way of the world to speak evil of them and to despise them, and why were all the geniuses and righteous of the generations obligated to such a punishment that they would often speak evil of them? Rather, this came in order to increase their rights and is not at all a punishment for those righteous." The Rabbi added that the occupation of the Crimean Peninsula by the Russians is a threat to the Messiah and explained: "We have already brought it in the name of our Rebbe the Gra, who said near his death that when the Russians conquer Crimea, we will know that this is a sign of the times of the Messiah.".