As the Eagle Flies (and swoops down) Threatening to control Planet Earth


This coming Sabbath, we will read what most people refer to as "the curses" (Deuteronomy 28:15-69). As far as I understand, these were not as much for the individual, as they were for the Jewish Nation as a whole!
As we were exiled and consequently spread all across the world, it was difficult for our people to understand if this could happen in any of the countries they ended up in, and many of our Rabbis & Sages have interpreted the Torah to conclude that the curses of Leviticus (26:14-43) became the reality during the destruction of the First Temple in Jerusalem (circa 550 BCE); and the curses in Deuteronomy came true during the destruction of the Second Temple (70 CE).

As a person who served in the IDF, I was always fascinated by the different symbols army units use for their Insignia, even as a teenager, and I discovered that the Roman forces in Jerusalem had an eagle on their banners, flags and other forms of the insignia.
Nazi Germany issued these stamps in January of 1934, depicting an eagle that is larger, in my opinion, than the Globe. I don't know enough about the history, but as recent as 6 years ago – there was a dagger from the German SS for sale here in Fredericton, and right above the Swastika – was an eagle!
I don't own the whole set of these stamps (missing the 10, 15, 40, 50, 80 and 100 German reichspfennig stamps), but last night in our Parasha (Torah Portion) study – I shared with my friends this image, and we are pretty certain that this could be a fulfillment of this curse: "The Lord will bring a nation against you from afar, from the end of the earth, as swift as the eagle flies, a nation whose language you will not understand" (v. 49).

Something that still isn't clear to me is the last part of the verse, concerning this (enemy) nation's language. If Nazi Germany is, in fact, this nation – most European Jews spoke Yiddish, which is, apparently, very similar to German?!

So, what I think is that there are 2 options for understanding this. Either G-d had mercy on our people that they, at the very least, will understand the orders & rules in the concentration & death camps. Or, it was fulfilled (partially) with the Jews from Tunisia, Greece and former Yugoslavia who were also sent to these camps.

Last, verse 50 (see above) was the very essence of the extermination process of the Nazis. They killed, almost immediately after arrival, all those not fit for slave labour. Every old person and children not 14 years of age ("the elderly... the young") did not survive. 

 

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