Yeshuat Hashem KeHeref Ayin

Something Rabbi Wein said on Wednesday night keeps bouncing around the walls of my mind. He cited a story via Chazal (if anyone knows where this is I'd appreciate the source) of a Rav who passed by a young imprisoned Jew. He called out to the boy, "Al mah avdah ha'aretz? - Why was the land of Israel destroyed? (Yirmiyahu 9:11). The boy immediately replied, "Al azvam et Torati - Because the Jewish People have forsaken My Torah (Yirmiyahu 9:12). The rabbi rescued the boy who grew up to be the great tanna, Rabbi Yishmael.
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I think that I wrote down Rabbi Wein's take on this almost word for word. He said that people are imprisoned because they have the answer but no-one asks them them the matching question! He applied this to real life in a very specific way, which got me good. He said that, "Important questions are rarely asked in school systems - out of fear. But children know the answers to hard questions - like, 'why marry Jewish?' - and are waiting to be asked so that they can articulate the answer." (He then shared an adorable recollection from his yeshiva days. There was a brilliant boy who paced the Beis Medrah with his Gemorah folded back like a newspaper. He memorized and analyzed every page and would sometimes look up to his peers and wonder aloud, "I have an answer, does anyone have the question!?!") (This brings to mind this outstanding Ebner poem.)
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A lot on my plate

And on the plate of my heart

G-d please, please help me
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The first two lines of the above haiku came out organically in a letter to a friend. The last line is my old standard prayer with one "please" added for haiku purposes. One could read this and worry. No need. Thank you. All is good, thank G-d.

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We each have our internal and external worlds, our wars and battles, our mental and physical health, our housekeeping and hygiene, our endless and and and and and and ands. Or maybe not everyone feels all this - a friend of mine claims that many of the things I say many of us go through are only experienced by few - but I do.

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I write now as I sip my favorite tea, something I all too seldom do. For some reason the debate about Graetz just entered my mind. It's not really much of a debate. In the Orthodox world, he is regarded in quite a negative light - with one very prominent exception.

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Before getting to the exception (I hope the suspense isn't killing you),

the prosecution's case: "In the 19th Century, Heinrich Graetz, a former student of Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, who left Jewish observance and became an "enlightened" one, wrote a magisterial multi-volume of Jewish history in a scientific fashion. Graetz' work became the basis for all subsequent Jewish historiography. Graetz was meticulous in his research and facts. However, his overwhelming antipathy towards Orthodoxy, especially his loathing of the Chasidic movement, colored much of his work. Thus an otherwise accurate work of history became somewhat of a polemic of a false and inaccurate picture of Jewish life, much more dangerous than 'bunk.' (From Rabbi Berel Wein's article, History and "Bunk" ).

In a book that fell under most people's radar, Herman Wouk came out in full force to Graetz's defense, writing, "Graetz was an old fashioned 'narrative historian,' as the condescending critical term goes nowadays, so he sweeps you along in a gigantic tale as absorbing as fiction, yet meticulously true to all the facts known when he wrote."

During this time of national morning we long for redemption. The saying, "Yeshuat Hashem keheref ayin" - "The salvation of G-d comes in the tinkling of an eye" comes to mind. My research shows that this line is not in fact a saying of the Rabbis from the Mishnah or Talmud time. According to A Tzaddik In Our Time (page 368), in the wake of The Six Day War Reb Aryeh Levin quoted these words in the name of Rabbi Yeudah HaLevi. The reference book Michlol Ma'amarim U'Pitgamim, cites the saying as from Minchah LeYehudah (pages 27-28). Anyone have an earlier source for this? l
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"Good night and G-d bless"

He writes, mostly to himself,

Nothing to confess