Expressing Immense Gratitude to President Shimon Peres z"l
We
are joyous that we have a State, that we have a President and that we are not
enslaved by the non-Jews. Our former
President, Shimon Peres z"l, was not the Mashiach, and did not pretend to
be the Mashiach, but we are extremely grateful that we have a State and that he
served as our President.
In
the face of criticism regarding his conduct in various areas - and who is the
person on Earth who is free from criticism? - we must remember the important,
essential things which he accomplished.
One of the greatest merits of Shimon Peres z"l, of which many are
unaware due to censorship, is the nuclear strength of the State of Israel.
If
we search the internet in Hebrew, we will not find a word about this. But if we search in other languages, we find
that the State of Israel has hundreds of Jericho 2 missiles with nuclear
warheads with a range of 700 kilometers, and hundreds of Jericho 3 missles with
a range of 11,500 kilometers. This
information is not censored when it is written in a foreign language.
Before
the Six-Day War, we armed missiles with nuclear warheads. And during the Yom Kippur War, when our
ammunition was depleted, we again armed the missiles. These were truly weapons of Judgement Day in
its simplest meaning. Baruch Hashem, we
did not need to use them, but they served as a serious deterent. Until this very day, our enemies are deterred
by them. And all of this strength is in
the merit of Shimon Peres. Because he
was a socialist, he had connections with his socialist comrades in France, and
little-by-little, both officially and unofficially, he facilitated our
acquisition of nuclear weapons. Peres
z"l did all of this modestly and humbly.
We are therefore obligated to express immense gratitude to our former
President.
One
can certainly take issue with his policies and other conducts, which I will not
detail. Such criticism is legitimate, and has its place. But it is forbidden to confuse the essential
with matters of secondary importance. We
therefore express our gratitude to President Peres.
"Who
is the man who desires life, who loves days to see goodness? Guard your tongue from evil and your lips
from speaking deceitfully" (Tehillim 34:13-14). I do not know if the former President was
particular about every Halachah in the book "Chafetz Chaim", but it
is clear to me that he respected every person and guarded his tongue.
We
owe this man a great deal, and we bless him: May his soul be bound up with the
bonds of the living.
