Forty Years: 2nd Edition 1989 - Softcover

Kahane, Rabb Meir

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1523377739 ISBN 13: 9781523377732

Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2016

Synopsis

Rabbi Meir Kahane wrote this book in 1982, at the start of “Operation Peace for Galilee” in Lebanon, and republished it in 1989 with an 11 page introduction. Rabbi Kahane reflects on the number forty in Jewish history and reveals its significance as a warning, admonition and opportunity to repent and avoid divine punishment. He recalled: “The idea first entered my head as I sat, one day [in 1980], in Ramle Prison. It was the eve of Tisha B’Av, the tragic commemoration of the destruction of both Temples, the beginning of both terrible exiles. I sat, reviewing the book of Jonah, with its message of repentance, on the day of national tragedy. Jonah enters the city of Nineveh, to which he has been sent by the Almighty, to warn them of impending destruction unless they repent. And as I read, the words of Jonah to the people suddenly leaped out at me: “In forty days, Nineveh shall be overturned!” “Forty. The thought suddenly struck me: How many times, again and again, does that number arise in connection with sin and punishment? “And the rain was on the earth forty days and forty nights” (Genesis 7:12), the punishment of a world flooded for its sin. Forty. And centuries later, as the Jews of the desert “despised the pleasant land” and wept over their “home” in Egypt, the Almighty angrily decreed that the generation of the desert would not enter the Holy Land saying: “And your children will wander in the wilderness forty years and bear your faithlessness” (Numbers 14:33). Again, forty.” Rabbi Kahane raises the possibility that the State of Israel may be subjected to a similar period of grace and asks, “If it is true that the forty years began with the rise of the State in 1948 – how many years are left? ... The number may not be exact...but the period is clear ... “I am convinced that the State of Israel is the beginning, not only of the redemption, but also of the grace period granted us. In the very marrow of my bones, I feel that the Almighty, in His infinite mercy and goodness, gives us the final beseeching opportunity to turn needless suffering into glorious and instant redemption. “Forty years. 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 needles disaster, to bring the redemption with grandeur and majesty “For make no mistake. The magnificent miracle of return and rise of a Jewish State is surely the beginning of the Final Redemption, but hardly the end. The true finality, the magnificent era of the Messiah, comes to fruition gloriously and majestically and breathtakingly only if we cleave to the great axiom “If you walk in My statutes...I will give peace in the land” (Leviticus 26).”

About this title

About the Author

Rabbi Meir Kahane was born in New York City in 1932. He studied at the Mir Yeshiva in Brooklyn and was ordained in 1956. The same year, he completed New York Law School and later received a Masters degree in International Relations from New York University. After serving as a congregational rabbi, he found the Jewish Defense League in 1968 to combat anti-Semitism. Concerned about the alienation and assimilation of Jewish youth, Rabbi Kahane spent two decades touring American college campuses, exhorting Jewish students to learn about Judaism, make Aliya to Israel, and to stand up proudly as Jews. In 1970 he spearheaded a campaign of Jewish activism which led to the emigration of tens of thousands of oppressed Jews from the Soviet Union. He entered the political arena in Israel when he made Aliya in 1971, and was a member of the Knesset in Israel from 1984 to 1988. He authored several best-selling books, including Never Again, Why Be Jewish and The Story of the Jewish Defense League. His widely-read columns appeared weekly in the Jewish Press from 1961 to 1990.

Edition details

• Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 1523377739
• ISBN 13: 9781523377732
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 122