Israel’s Sephardic Chief Rabbi, Yitzhak Nissim, issued a New Year’s greeting today to Jewish communities outside Israel in which he noted that the present generation of Jews “has seen the beginning of the realization of the prophetic vision about the ingathering of the exiles and the redemption of the Holy Land.”
Rabbi Nissim warned that “we must live up to it and avoid the calamity that befell our forefathers. We must treat each other fairly, live with each other in amity and peace, and ask each other’s forgiveness when we feel that we have sinned against another man.”
The Chief Rabbi expressed the wish to “all our brethren, wherever they are,” for “a year of peace and tranquility, prosperity and security, a year in which the ingathering of the exiles will continue and our dedication to our faith will be strengthened, a year of physical and spiritual redemption.” Declaring that “the world as a whole is afflicted by materialism and has no time for the things of the spirit,” the Chief Rabbi said: “It is incumbent upon us to mend our ways and go back to the Almighty with all our hearts.”
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