Poland is not a normal land like Switzerland or Ireland. It is a wretched territory drenched in Jewish blood; a dreadful landmass from which G-d hid His face while six million of our people were murdered there. In contrast with the holy land of Israel, Poland is the cursed land of exile.
Our decade will see the last of the survivors who, eight decades ago, crawled from the Polish extermination camps Auschwitz, Treblinka, Majdanek, Sobibor, Chelmno and Belzec. It is no coincidence that as the number of Holocaust survivors declines, anti-Semitism surges. Poland is proof of the peril of Jewish powerlessness and an alarming wake-up call that Israel can never be strong enough.
Hashem has His ways of using desolation to remind us of our sacred calling. And so, may we all heed the warning of Poland to finally leave our exile for our eternal homeland. Eretz Yisrael is the only place on earth that truly wants each and every Jew. Israel is the only land where the Torah promises us that we will not merely survive, but where Hashem will transform the dark nights of galut into the bright days of geulah.
