The lesson should’ve been, why didn’t you listen to the rabbis who said, “Go back to the Torah!” The rabbonim tried! Reb Elchonon Wasserman, zichrono l’vracha, cried out about it. The Chofetz Chaim too. But did anybody know what they said? Did they hear their opinion? No; they didn’t have any influence at all on the Jewish masses. Reb Elchonon was shouted down. He was ridiculed. “He’s no leader. He doesn’t know anything. A rosh yeshiva, an old man – what does he know about politics? He’s only a rosh yeshiva.” That’s what they said. “A man who’s a gadol b’Torah, what does he know about leadership?”
The gedolim were pushed away in a corner. The roshei yeshiva were like they didn’t exist. If you were in a yeshiva, so you knew he was your rebbe – you listened. But when you left the yeshiva, even though you were a good talmid, once you left you had no contact. What did you have? You had the daily newspapers filled with articles written by poisonous apikorsim – that was your new rebbi. And so from day to day, you became worse and worse. People don’t realize what the situation was in Europe.
