For several months now I have been wondering about the great merit of Jared Kushner to influence the heart of an incoming American Emperor. And Donald Trump’s ascension to the Presidency is the stuff of legend. Not an ordinary President is he. This is not a post on what Jared may actually do in the role of one of Trump’s Chief confidantes, but it IS a post about Why. And this blog, dedicated to discussing the End of Days, is all about Why and not just a series of events which hopefully will climax nine months from now during the Feast of Sukkot. The story starts with with his grandfather, Holocaust survivor extraordinaire Yoseph Kushner. Here is Jared in his own words describing why his father-in-law is not an anti-Semite and how his grandfather survived the Shoah. His writing style is direct and to the point and full of intense detail. But it is not here will you will find the essential reason for his great merit, but it is part of the story.
One might mention that once Yoseph Kushner moved to America after the Shoah, he rather quickly became very wealthy because of incredibly hard work and the same street smarts that helped his survive the Shoah. He worked hard and most of his investments paid off. Like Yosef in Egypt, Kushner was truly blessed by G-d in terms of his personal prosperity after his years of excruciating pain in the Shoah. When he passed away in 1985, he bequeathed over 4000 rental properties in New Jersey to his sons Murray and Charles Kushner. Charles Kushner, father of Jared, then built two Torah intensive, Land of Israel loving day schools in New Jersey, The Joseph Kushner Hebrew Academy in Livingston, New Jersey and The Rae Kushner Yeshivah High School on the same campus. Rae Kushner was Joseph Kushner’s wife who survived the Holocaust with him after escaping from the Lithuanian/ Belarus Ghetto Novogroduk. From this I learned that Yoseph Kushner was likely a Litvak which plays a part at the end of this story. So we see here that Charles Kushner, the father of Jared, built Torah schools in New Jersey. Yes he plea bargained and admitted guilt to a felony which landed him in jail, but as we see from a famous recent plea bargain here in Israel, a plea bargain is not necessarily a guarantee of real guilt, I will simply leave it to G-d to know if Charles Kushner committed the crime for which he plead guilty. If he did the crime, then he did the time. I am leaving it at that. Yet, it is not in the merit of these Torah schools that Jared has the ear of Caesar at this time. There is something else, a missing ingredient. Many great Jews built Torah in America. Not all of the have the ear of Caesar at this pivotal point in world history. Something else is going on.
And then I saw it. For several months I have been wondering about which ArtScroll publication was proudly sponsored by the entire Kushner clan who descended from the righteous Yoseph Kushner who survived by digging a hole in the woods near the Belarus/ Lithuanian border during the Shoah. I checked the Schottenstein Gemorrahs to no avail. The Kushners are not in the long list of donors to ArtScroll’s Talmud project. It was only this evening that a friend of mine from Dallas, Texas brought it up in a conversation with him. (He wants to remain anonymous.) We were discussing the spate of lashon hara going around about the Kushner’s taking a ride on Shabbat from the Inauguration which can be easily explained by Jared Kushner’s new post as Donald Trump’s Mideast envoy. For a committed Zionist Jew to have that position, which wicked hatefilled Jew hater on the planet would NOT want to assassinate him at this critical time? All of them would. The Kushners simply can’t stay in hotels anymore and expect to not be a target. Kushner by virtue of his new position is likely one of the most hated and targeted people on Planet Earth for assassination before Trump announces his first move in the Middle East. If I were in Jared’s shoes (which I am not), I would thank HaShem for the very tight and scrupulous protection of the Secret Service who drove him home on Friday night. He likely owes them his life which HaShem has placed in their hands. All this lashon hara about what Jared and Ivanka have to do to live through this simply has to stop. We are not in their shoes. We are not the target of every evil Jew hater on the planet. From this past Friday, they are their target.
So what is it that I saw? I took out My ArtScroll Nusach Ashkenaz (Litwak) SUKKOT MACHZOR! And there it was. The entire Kushner clan was the sole sponsors of this machzor, the machzor in whose pages we read about the final chapters of GogUMagog at the end of the nine months of the 70 nations, at least, trying to gather against Yerushalayim! They named the Sukkot Machzor: Machzor Beit Yosef in the merit of their father and grandfather Yoseph Kushner zt”l. Think of the Torah they are responsible for spreading in this Machzor which are contained in its very pages.
From the Qabbalistic blessing that we say as we enter the Sukkah on the First night of Sukkot:
May it be your will, HaShem, my G-d and the G-d of my forefathers, that You cause Your Presence to reside among us; that you spread over us the Succah of your Peace — in the merit of the mitzvah of succah that we are fulfilling — to unify the Name of the Holy One, Blessed is He, and His Presence, in fear and in love, to unify the Name Yud -Key with Vav- Key in perfect unity, in the name of all Israel; and to surround us with the aura of Your honor, holy and pure, spread over our heads from above like an eagle arousing its brood; and from there cause an abundant outpouring of life for Your servant (Hebrew first name) son of (Mother’s Hebrew name) Your handmaid. And in the merit of my leaving my house to go out – and I will enthusiastically pursue the path of Your commandments. — May this be reckoned for me as if I have wandered afar. Cleanse me thoroughly from my iniquity, and from my sin purify me. From the exalted Ushpizim guests, the guests of faithfulness, may Your ears hear abundant blessings. (To the hungry and the thirsty, may You give their food and their unfailing supply of water.) May You endow me with the privilege to dwell and to take refuge in the sheltering protection of Your wings — at the time of my departure from the world — to take refuge from the Stream of Fire and the fiery rain, when You rain coals upon the (heads of the) wicked. May this mitzvah of succah that I perform be reckoned as if I had fulfilled it in all its details, implications and speifications, as well as all the mitzvos dependent on it. May You seal (The Book of Life) for our benefit, and allow us the opportunity to dwell many days upon the Land, the Holy Land, in Your service and in Your reverence. Blessed is HaShem forever, Amen and Amen.
The emboldened verse is what happens at the End of the Nine months on Hoshana Rabbah for which the flimsy Sukkah which one enters on the 15th of Tishrei provides protection as it says in Psalm 27:
5. For He concealeth me in His Succah in the day of evil; {N}
He hideth me in the covert of His tent; He lifteth me up upon a rock.
כִּי יִצְפְּנֵנִי, בְּסֻכֹּה– בְּיוֹם רָעָה:
יַסְתִּרֵנִי, בְּסֵתֶר אָהֳלוֹ; בְּצוּר, יְרוֹמְמֵנִי.
That Day of Evil is not really evil at all, but it is a day of supreme judgement on the wicked nations of the world, the Great and Awesome Day of HaShem, the Hoshana Rabbah at the end of the 9 months.
At the beginning of this Nusach Ashkenaz ArtScroll Machzor for Sukkot we see the Dedication/ Approbation page:
This Machzor is dedicated to the memory of Joseph Kushner .ע”ה which can either mean (Servant of G-d or Upon him is HaShem’s peace) Reb Yosef ben Moshe HaLeivi ע”ה
October 5, 1985 (the 6th day of Sukkot 5746)
Surviving the horrors of the Holocaust, he came to a new land to build a glorious future. Success never compromised his integrity; nor did it cloud his vision of raising a loving, loyal family, and building a community whose centerpiece would be Torah, its values and its institutions.
In glowing memory, he remains the model of the Jew whose character and prosperity, the themes of Succoth and Koheles (Ecclesiastes), are a means to help others.
Signed all the Kushner children and grandchildren and his wife Rae.
Under Seryl and Charles Kushner we find the names Dara, Jared, Nicole, and Joshua.
So now we know why Jared Kushner has been chosen for a time such as this. May he succeed in G-d’s endeavor for him to fulfill this role for his immediate future to sanctify HaShem’s Holy Name during these final contractions of the pregnancy of GogUMagog!.
Addendum: Notice when Yoseph Kushner zt”l passed away on the 6th Day of Sukkot, the Day of the Ushpiz of Yoseph HaTzaddik, and the very day on the Eve of Hoshana Rabbah. From the 2nd War of GogUMagog in the forests of Belarus to the 3rd War of GogUMagog in and around Yerushalayim is the passage of only one day….