In response to the call of the Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah of
America as well as revered gedolim from Eretz Yisroel -
- including HaRav Yosef Sholom Eliashiv, HaRav Aharon Leib
Steinman and the Gerrer Rebbe -- approximately 50,000 came
together for an atzeres tefilla in lower Manhattan
Sunday afternoon to express their solidarity with the
beleaguered Torah community in Eretz Yisroel.
Participants began arriving in downtown Manhattan early
Sunday afternoon -- not only from the five boroughs of New
York City but from outlying communities and even other
states. Thousands of bnei yeshiva and ba'alei
batim from as far away as Lakewood, New Jersey,
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and Baltimore, Maryland streamed
onto Manhattan's Water Street from buses that had been
chartered for the event, joining the many diverse elements of
New York's Orthodox community that gathered in unity to pour
out their hearts to Hashem.
Students in the 7th grade and up participated. Subways from
uptown Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens took on the appearance
of rolling shuls, and the Staten Island Ferry carried
that borough's participants across Upper New York Bay
virtually to the doorstep of the atzeres, on Water
Street, between Wall and Broad Streets. On weekdays the area
is the financial center of New York, but on Sundays it is
usually almost deserted.
The large crowd, more than twice what even unbridled
optimists dared expect, was undaunted by a steady rain, which
recalled to one participant a gemora from the previous
week's daf yomi. "One opinion about the content of the
Kohen Godol's tefilla on Yom Kippur," he recounted,
"is a request that Hashem not listen to the prayers of
wayfarers regarding rain."
Wayfarers, he explained, wish that it not rain, but rain is a
sign of Hashem's hashgocho, and so the Kohen
Godol asks Hashem to let it pour down despite the
tefillos of those who are `on the road. "The sign of
Hashem's hashgocho is unmistakably with us today," he
went on, his hat dripping water. "May He deem us worthy of
His mercy."
The particular need for divine mercy that drew the massive
crowd is the religious situation in Eretz Yisroel. The
gathering was a powerful expression of American Orthodox
Jewry's solidarity with the Torah community in Eretz Yisroel,
which feels besieged by an activist judiciary bent on
uprooting the Jewish State's "religious status quo," and by a
hostile environment created by elements of Israel's political
and media establishments. Indeed, Sunday's gathering came
exactly two weeks after a mammoth atzeres tefilla in
Yerushalayim drew the world's attention to the depth of
concern Torah Jews have over the recent developments in
Israel.
Those developments include Israeli court decisions that have,
over recent months provided official State recognition to non-
halachic conversions, ordered the inclusion of Reform
and Conservative representatives on religious councils that
administer public support for religious activities, excluded
kibbutzim from the general prohibition on commerce on Shabbos
and struck down the draft exemptions for bnei yeshiva.
Israel's High Court has even gone so far as to schedule
hearings for a suit aimed at banning bris mila in the
Jewish State.
Reform and Conservative leaders have been particularly
shrill. Even though they have virtually no followers in
Israel, they have been pressing for official recognition.
Their leaders do not have the professional qualifications
demanded of rabbinical leaders in Israel, and their progress
has been possible only because the atheistic Meretz party
claims that Reform and Conservative represent their
interests.
The amount and degree of harsh language aimed at the
observant community in Eretz Yisroel has also been increasing
steadily, in the press, in the political realm and even
within the judiciary -- a member of which recently termed
Israel's religious Jews "huge lice." Major Israeli political
parties have also based political campaigns on slogans like
"Stop the Chareidim!"
A hostile Israeli media, and an escalating, relentless
campaign by the American-based Reform and Conservative
movements to gain official recognition in Israel, add to the
serious threat to the well-being of Torah Jewry and to the
integrity of Torah Judaism in Eretz Yisroel -- and, by
extension throughout the world.
Like the earlier gathering in Eretz Yisroel, New York's
atzeres was devoted exclusively to prayers. There were
no speeches or dais, only Tehillim and
heartfelt tefillos. The event had no official
organizational sponsor; the breadth of participation was
evidenced by the Chassidishe, Litvishe, German and Sephardi
accents of the different ba'alei tefilla who led the
program.
The media was out in full force as well, intrigued by
predictions that as many as twenty thousand Jews might attend
the gathering. After a press conference during which members
of New York's Orthodox community answered reporters'
questions, the media representatives walked alongside the
growing crowd, clearly amazed at the much larger number of
participants that had appeared.
To provide a measure of comfort to the crowd that filled a
six-lane avenue for many blocks, thousands of umbrellas and
ponchos were distributed throughout the afternoon.
In a statement, the American Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah said
that "It is incumbent upon us to strengthen the spirits, the
hearts and the hands of our brethren, the Torah community in
Eretz Yisroel, and to actively join in their pain and their
predicament."
