My people, my poor people...
More than 2500 years ago, the Prophet Ezekiel spoke, in the name of G-d, to the poeple of Israel, saying: "If I shall bring upon the land a sword - the inhabitants shall take a man from amongst them, and they shall appoint him a tzofe, a watchman, for them. And when he seeth the sword come upon the land he shall blow the shofar and warn the people."(Ezekiel 33).
The Tzofe, the watchman. Appointed to see the sword come upon the people of Israel and cry out; to blow the shofar and warn his people! That is the role of every Jew who can see and hear and understand - and who loves his people. To cry out, to sound the shofar, to warn them!
Rabbi Kahane warned incessantly regarding the forty years mentioned in Sanhedrin 99a and elsewhere. He understood his times. The window of the first 42 years after the creation of the State was to close. The Galut could have been terminated when the Rav stood before the Knesset. The Rav saw disaster coming if the chance would be missed. He saw the rise of a generation bound to repeat all the mistakes of the generation of the Midbar. He saw the tragedy that would befall the jews of the Exile.
In the Rav's own words, from the above-mentioned forward:
The tragedy, the awful national tradegy and catastrophe I wrote about and that need not be, comes closer and closer. And my people see nothing and hear nothing. There are those who, in their tragic ignorance of Judaism and Jewish destiny, simply do not understand what they see and what they hear. And there are those who do not wish to see and do not wish to hear. And so it comes closer.
And, from the last chapter:
The number may not be exact; it may be a few more, a few less, but the period is clear. Forty years of warning, of heartfelt cry from our Father in Heaven. Forty years of grace, of a last opportunity to reverse needless disaster, to bring the redemption with grandeur and majesty.
The opportunity was missed. Right after the window had closed, the prophet was taken from the world.
סט
