1.
The prophet Isaiah predicts what will happen in the end times: "The wolf will live with the lamb, and the leopard will lie down with the kid, and the calf and the fattened calf and the fatling together, and a little boy will lead them." This is, as stated, the 'vision of the end times', the time when the world will reach its peak and perfection.
Rabbi Yehuda Meir Shapira, zt"l, Rosh Yeshiva of the Lublin Sages and originator of the idea of the Daf Yomi, commented that the alleged vision of the end of days took place in the beginning of time, somewhere in Noah's generation, since even then in Noah's Ark the wolf, the lamb, the leopard, and the goat lived together. If so, he was puzzled, what is the great wonder?!
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Maharam Shapira of Lublin replied, because there is unity and there is unity! There is unity that stems from love and a kind of kindness, and there is unity that stems from one interest or another. Such unity is not true. It does not indicate brotherhood but rather a state of lack of choice that requires a united stand in the face of a common danger.
In Noah's Ark, unity among creation was at a time of existential danger from the flood, which washed away and destroyed the world outside the ark. It was the flood that brought about unity among them. Such unity, said the Rabbi of Lublin, is not a vision of the end times.
2.
My great-grandfather, Rabbi Yitzhak Yedidiya Frankel, zt"l, quoted Maharam Shapira's words in one of his sermons and added with a smile tinged with sadness, that I wish there would be at least the same unity among us that served in Noah's Ark, and that even before the end of days we would know how to unite against the common dangers that lurk at our doorsteps every morning...
Like my grandfather, who served as the city rabbi in the early years of the state, there were many others, great and good, who wished for and even worked for the unity of the Jewish people in their land from the founding of the state until this very day, the eve of Shabbat Kodesh - Simchat Torah 5744, but unfortunately they were not able to achieve it.
Should we say that the enemies recognized this weakness and therefore rose up against us precisely now, and this too is 'natural'? Of course not! After all, they had been planning this terrible massacre in detail for years.
No one who is ignorant will know, and no fool will understand, but this is a decree from the Holy One, blessed be He! This is the truth!
The writing was on the wall. Our true leaders, those who read only the pages of God's messages flawlessly, warned us again and again not to continue the division and hatred, begged us to heal the rifts between us and to love freely, but we did not listen.
We ignored and forgot that we are one people, but they… they never forget!
Only now, after thousands of victims, have we barely internalized the fact that the people of Israel, wherever they are, share a common destiny. In doing so, we have proven once again that for us, 'unity' is just a synonym for 'emergency'.
3.
Although these are days of closeness for tragic reasons of a shared and difficult interest, and unfortunately, the blessed closeness will pass with time, we should not think about the day when we will once again be distant, but rather take advantage of the window of opportunity that has fallen to our lot to increase love and brotherhood between man and place and between man and his fellow man, and with God's help, together we will hear and be told the good news of salvation and comfort.
