For years, it has been the custom of many Hassidim to study the Talmudic tractate "Sota" during these days of the Counting of the Omer. When reading some of the most obscure Torah laws dealing with the indiscretions of a particular woman, we are introduced to some of the most profound Torah prophesy and ideology about the messianic era. What's  remarkable is how the end of the tractate jives with just about everything we see happening in the "pop culture", both in Israel and abroad.

 

"Preceding the messianic era, affrontery and insolence will be on the rise; scoffers and heretics will emerge from the leadership; the righteous will be despised and truth will disappear," we are told. Question: How do we assume that these miserable traits apply to our generation? Answer: Our Israeli "government" is on a self-destructive course, banting about daily pronouncements where bad is good, Arab terror is rewarded, courted, and white-washed, while the righteous (Rabbi Kahane, Binyamin Kahane, Rahavam Zeevi, Uzi Meshulam, Rabbi Yitzchak Ginzburg) and other prisoners of Zion are killed, jailed, or stuck away in insane asylums.

 

And the truth? Go ask Olmert, a traitor disguised as a Jewish leader, why he feels obligated to destroy Jewish communities, yet he nurtures the very satanic forces that openly declare their vow to kill Jews....

 

This week we celebrate the very opposite characteristics in a true Jewish leader- a man who symbolized the greatness of Judaism, Jewish honor, and Jewish strength. Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, author the kabalistic work, the Zohar, stood like a beacon during the times of the Roman conquest of Jerusalem, speaking his mind when great men were silent.

 

Once a rabbi spoke with him, marveling about the fine roads and exquisite bathhouses that the Roman enemy had built. "The roads serve to provide easier access through which to tax the people; the bathhouses are for harlotry and immorality," Rabbi Shimon shot back, without blinking an eyelash. When the authorities learned of his words, he and his son were forced into hiding, where they studied Torah and mishnayot together in a cave for 13 years.

 

Oy, Ma Haya Lanu!!! Where are our Jewish heroes? Where are men of truth and righteousness? A gay parade, through our sacred city, Jerusalem, is sanctioned, promoted, and haled as "progressive" - while at the same time, Jews, who have returned to living their biblical homeland, are stamped upon by charging police horses, beaten with clubs, arrested, homes bulldozed, and remain homeless. Who will cry, who will scream?

 

The tractate ends with these words: "Upon whom may we count on for support? Only our Father in Heaven!" Here is one Jew that will want the Messiah to redeem those that have waited for Him, and "deal" with those who have stabbed us in the back!