“It is with great sadness that we can remember this event [storming of the US Capitol] as part of the process of America’s descent from the stage of history. It’s a sad moment, but it happens,” Rabbi Eliyahu wrote in a piece for Arutz 7.
The Rabbi points out that throughout history many empires and superpowers have fallen as a result moral crises. Whether it was Rome, Egypt, England or Russia, no civilization can endure once there is a breakdown of its ethical foundations.
The Rabbi believes the time has come for Israel to fill the vacuum of leadership left by the failing American experiment. “One can’t help but mention the collapse of England and France, once regarded as among the four world-governing powers,” he writes. “Who remembers them today as such? They collapsed upon themselves like all of Europe, where moral values and justice have been replaced with ‘political correctness’. Family values have been replaced by hedonism.”
The Rabbi points out correctly that there is a vacuum in moral leadership in the world today and believes that it is Israel’s destiny to take up this role. “Israel leads the world in protecting family values,” he stresses. “The average number of children for an Israeli woman is double the average of the Western world, and that is what drives the successful Israeli economy and ingenuity.”
As examples of the moral decline in the West, the Rabbi noted that “Russia leads the world in alcohol consumption, and the US leads the world in drug consumption. Israel, on the other hand, has among the lowest rates of alcohol and drug consumption in the world.”
Rabbi Eliyahu also believes that there will never be a military or popular coup to overthrow the government in Israel, as happened to nations and empires throughout history. “We all remember the heavy toll of the destruction of the Second Temple and we won’t let it come to that again,” he writes, referring to the belief among many Israelis that Jerusalem was sacked because of the divisions and infighting amongst the Jews. US President Abraham Lincoln also once declared, “A house divided cannot stand.”
To some it might sound presumptuous to think that Israel could offer leadership to the world, moral or otherwise. How can such a small nation with so many problems of its own be expected to shoulder such a huge responsibility?
And yet it was this tiny nation that long ago gave the world the ethical monotheism that has become the moral foundation for all Western civilization. The modern Jewish State itself was founded upon the principles and values passed on from Moses, the Prophets, as well as Jewish traditions that have kept the Jewish people together for thousands of years in exile under the thumb of repressive empires. Even a Holocaust could not untether the Jew from the God of Israel, Torah and Hope (our National Anthem based on Ezekiel).
Furthermore, Judaism has never fallen into the violent, racist and corrupt brand of leadership that has plagued historical Christianity and Western Civilization. Even now Middle East nations are lining up to secure strategic alliances with the Jewish State. (See: Israel as a Spiritual Force in the World)
God promises that all the families of the earth will be blessed through the children of Abraham. Now, the only ones who need to be convinced, writes the Rabbi, are the Jews themselves. “It is time we remembered our destiny. We need to be prepared for it so that we can fulfill it with all the responsibility required and not make their [the Gentiles’] mistakes.”
