Torah Jews and secular Jews do not look at each other as martians, beings from another planet altogether. It’s worse than that. They look at each other as enemies.
The Torah world, for the most part, just wants to be left alone. It is relatively self-sufficient, and despite a certain MK’s claim, they contribute healthily to the economy. They may not make a lot of money, but they certainly spend a lot of money, and many pay taxes. They do tremendous acts of chesed, many of which the government should be doing but has chosen to ignore.
And while the government is busy kow-towing to international pressure to pay off the Arabs at a cost to their own people, the Torah world takes care of their own people, religious and secular. If the anti-Charedi sector would stop looking at the Charedim through eyes of hatred, they’d probably come to admire them a lot more. I’ve met some who have.
The Torah world believes in God and takes its orders from Him. He has said that mitzvos apply to every Jew, and to not live according to the Torah is to live a life of sin. The only question is, and it is a crucial one, how responsible is the person for not being Torah observant? Only God can decide how guilty someone is because only He knows how they became what they have, and the average Orthodox Jew is perfectly willing to leave that to God’s discretion.
The problem is that it is not good enough for many secularists. They have a different idea of what is right and wrong, of what is fair and unfair. They answer to themselves, not to God. Some might even feel guilty about their lifestyle every time they see a religious Jew, and we tend to hate the people who make us feel bad about ourselves. Even Hitler, ysv”z admitted that. And some secular Jews might simply be embarrassed that there are still Jews clinging to a way of life secularists think science disproved long ago.
As far as this group of secularists are concerned there is no to-each-his-own. There is no you go your way while we go our way. There is only, be like us or get out, and if you won’t go, we’ll make you wish you did. And they have, and often do, and this draws the Orthodox into a war they’d rather not fight but will if they have to.
There is no resolution at the time. If the Torah world cannot even achieve unity among its own groups, how can it do so with secular Jews? There are just so many obstacles in the path of national peace that it will take an incredible miracle to resolve them all and in a timely manner.
If anything, the Torah world seems headed for a major clash with the secular world, especially since some MKs are personally anti-Charedi. They felt this way before they took office and now they feel they have the means to act on it. They’ll disguise it as just good politics when it is really hatred of the Torah world.
But that is the way the Erev Rav, the Mixed Multitude works. As the GR”A taught, the final battle of the Jewish people will be the worst, and will not be against the descendants of Eisav or of Yishmael, but against the Erev Rav, who will use deception to fight their battle against Torah and truth. And, concluded the GR”A, anyone who does not fight against the Erev Rav de facto becomes one of them.
The main way to fight the Erev Rav is not with physical weapons. Whatever it is the Erev Rav claims to be doing, their main goal is to destroy Da’as Torah. They want ALL Jews to stop living as if the Torah was given by God and should be followed daily. They want Torah Jews to adapt their way of thinking and perspective on life, and they have specifically targeted the next generation of Torah Jews with frightening success.
One thing for certain. The only way to fight da’as is with da’as. Torah has the distinct advantage of being brilliantly deep. It has all the answers. The knowledge of the secular world is imperfect, mostly accumulative and often mistaken. But it is also extremely prevalent, it talks to the yetzer hara of a person, and is not afraid to make a mockery of others points of view, even if wrong.
An astute person can see this. A knowledgeable person knows the truth. But how many people are that astute and knowledgeable today? Not nearly enough, and the situation is getting worse by the day. People have lost their way and oblivious to the consequences of doing so.
If you want to survive this stage of the War of Gog and Magog, get the requisite Torah da’as. Don’t accept the situation as being safer than it is. And turn to God. When you pray, mean it. Put your heart into it. Talk to God as if He is really there and listening, because He is. If we don’t believe we need His help, then why should He give it?
And one more thing, for now. Mordechai told an anxious Esther that her rise to power may have only been so she could be in the right position at the right time to save her people. We know it was after the fact, but before it, it wasn’t so clear. Likewise, the fact that we are living today may be only to give us a chance to contribute in some way to the rectification of the situation. The only question each person has to ask themself is, “What can I personally do to save the Jewish people?”
That is what God wants to hear, what He waits to see in a person. Once He does, it is His green light to plug the person into His plan. Cross that threshold and you’ll be in a completely different world, not one that leads to war, but one that leads to tikun…and a remarkable amount of heavenly help.