The 'Chafetz Chaim': What Would Prophets Say About This Terrible Disaster?

D. Tzfatman, in his column in "Yated Ne'eman," brings the words of the 'Chafetz Chaim' in his well-known letter from the year 1925, 104 years ago during the severe disasters in Russia and Europe: "We have now heard a new and terrible report of the devastating flood that occurred in our country, and the great earthquake that happened in Russia, where hundreds and thousands of men, women, children, and many animals were killed and injured, and several people's homes became their graves... Surely, every understanding person is gripped with fear and trembling, asking what has the Lord done to us? Is He not good and beneficial to all, with His mercy upon all His creations, desiring not even the death of the wicked, as it is written 'As I live, says the Lord,' but an understanding person will comprehend that Hashem is urging us to repent...

"And it is clear to me that if we had prophets, they would certainly be on guard to urge Israel to repent to our Father in Heaven, and since, due to our many sins, we have no prophets and messengers today, He urges the world through other emissaries, as written: 'He makes winds His messengers, flames of fire His servants.'

The revered 'Chafetz Chaim' writes that there is no country in the world that has not been struck by the hand of judgment, and there is no day whose curse is not greater than its predecessor. At the bottom of the letter, the 'Chafetz Chaim' added a note: "I do not understand how the world is not frightened at all, after we have seen that everything stated in the prayer 'Unetanneh Tokef' on Rosh Hashanah was fulfilled among us this year, and everyone should fear the dread of judgment reigning over the world."

The 'Chafetz Chaim' also writes that anyone capable of awakening the public is like the 'chief captain' whose role is to save the Jewish people from the attribute of judgment prevailing in the world. Therefore, "one should protect himself and the souls of his household from bringing into the home heretical books that confuse the mind, as it is said about them: 'And you shall not bring an abomination into your home and be destroyed like it.'

Rabbi Gedaliah Silverstone, of blessed memory, one of the rabbis in America in the generation before and after World War II, once interpreted the words of the Sages: 'The people of the standing would say to the people of the watch, keep an eye on your brothers in the diaspora, so that their homes do not become their graves.'

"To the watchers", Rabbi Silverstone, of blessed memory, says, "rests the responsibility to ensure that when there is an increase in materialism, when the Jewish home is conducted not according to the spirit of Torah, at a time when what happens inside the home causes a Jew to retreat from the path of Torah - then the situation, G-d forbid, is that 'their homes are their graves.'