"We find ourselves in a most grim situation. This is a troublesome time for all of Jewry." These were the opening words expressed painfully by HaRav Yehoshua Eichenstein: Those who were murdered so brutally, all the wounded and the captured ones! It is terrible and horrific. May Hashem have mercy upon them all and rescue us from their hands.

The first principle which we must know is what Chazal taught us: Hashem looked into the Torah and created the world. Everything in the world, in Creation, is to be found in the Torah, written or hinted therein.

This is how the world has been conducted throughout the generations. Everything appears there, written or alluded to, from the very time of Creation, in Ha'azinu, in the lives of our Ovos and in many other places.

In order to learn the proper outlook regarding our situation today, we must see and attempt to understand the root or source in the Torah of what is now taking place, how to relate to it, and what behooves us to do under the circumstances.

Where, indeed, do we find the root in the Torah to this difficult present situation?

A person famous to the general public, an expert chef by profession and a Leftist in his world-view, published an interesting article expressing regret for his beliefs up till now. I must admit that I have no idea who he is but the very fact that his words aroused a storm in the media testifies that he is well known to the Israeli urbane public.

He writes as follows:

"I admit and confess that I was among the leaders of those crying for peace and publicly supporting it. For the past thirty years of my life, I have traveled throughout the world, from Norway to Jordan, all over Israel and the world. I had idyllic dreams about a great utopian world, replete with quiet and brotherly love.

"I am ashamed and beg the pardon of my people for having partaken in the big deception of the Left. I pray that the Creator forgive me. We must totally destroy the fiendish Hamas and their ilk. The Jewish People lives on forevermore! Shabbat Shalom!"

This article appeared in print in 1992, that is, 31 years ago. HaRav Wasserman was niftar on 2 Cheshvan, 5753 (October 29, 1992). He was about 93 years old.

Part 1

Rav Nachman Bulman, who knew HaRav Elazar Simcha Wasserman for almost fifty years, formulated what may be the central question:

"He wasn't a person who was looking for "madregas," but he had them. That's what a Yid is supposed to be. If you were to ask anybody who got to know Reb Simcha, `What was he?' the answer was not obvious. Certainly everybody knows that he was a talmid chochom, and an ehrlicher Yid, and a yirei shomayim, a baal midos tovos, a baal chesed godol and a true educator. And he was never inconsistent with his emes. But, with all this, it could still be asked, `What was he?'"