Divine Retribution or G-d's Sense of Humor

The Passover Hagaddah is a book filled with Divine Retribution. G-d paid back the evil taskmasters in the Hagaddah, but what about in our day? Most people never expect to see justice in this world. Justice is for Heaven.
Well, sometimes G-d does show His Justice to man; sometimes He also shows His Sense of Humor. G-d has a sense of humor? Yes!

A Heavenly Laugh
** An easy example of Hashem's sense of humor is former Knesset Member Shulamit Aloni's grandchildren. A rabid leftist and opponent to anything religious, Shulamit Aloni was blessed with grandchildren who are chareidi (ultra-Othodox). Alonei was so vehemently anti-religious and outspoken in that hatred of religious Jews that, the Jewish Agency website said, in 1992, after a year as Minister of Education, she was "forced to resign her position..." And how did Hashem have the last laugh? By giving her religious grandchildren. I can just imagine her taking her grandchildren - their payot and tzitzit flying - out for pizza. What a site!!
** There are more humorous grandchildren stories, like those of Leon Trotsky. Trotsky was a Bolshevik revolutionary and a Marxist, and today his great-granchildren are running along the hills of the Shomron, taking over hilltops and learning Torah.
But I'm jumping ahead.

Divine Retribution
** As Seder night approaches, and we review the Hagaddah, we see again that every one of the plagues was a punishment for something specific that the Egyptians did. There is Divine Justice on every page of the Hagaddah.
** Having recently completed the holiday of Purim, we know that Hashem's divine justice shines here as well, with Haman ultimately swinging from the same gallows that he himself had built for Mordechai.
** And what a laugh G-d must have had when Haman came up with a fabulous way for the King to honor someone (Haman thought that person was himself!), and Achashverosh told him to do all that he said to Mordechai the Jew!! Egad!
** Fast forward about 3000 years. Yahya Abd-al-Latif Ayyash was a technological genius. His ability to dream up all kinds of technological ways to kill Jews earned him the title of the Engineer. Actually, he is credited with being the father of the suicide bomb. What a claim to fame. Was Ayyash's end G-d's retribution or His sense of humor?? Well, Ayyash himself was blown up with an advanced technical device - an exploding cell phone.
** Next...Surely you remember how the Israeli government did its best during the pre-and-post-State Days to completely assimilate the Yemenite Jews. The Torah-true Yemenite Jews fulfilled their dreams of coming to the Holy Land, and after they arrived on their "Magic Carpet", they were immediately coerced to cut off their payot, abandon their kippot, and turn away from their devotion to Torah and mitzvot. Most of the Yemenite Jews then lost the battle and gave up their observance of Judaism. So, it could very well be G-d's sense of humor today, or you might say His sense of justice, that the biggest Machzir B'Teshuva (person responsible for the secular Jewish people returning to Judaism) is a Yemenite Jew from one of those assimilated homes - HaRav Amnon Yitzchak.

** Remember Hurricane Katrina? Some people say it was Divine Retribution for the destruction of Gush Katif.
** The Disengagement from Gaza ruined the lives of 10,000 people from Judea, Samaria. Remember those post-Disengagement videos? They showed that the lives of every person (except Shimon Peres) that was involved in the "Disengagement" from Ariel Sharon to Yonatan Bassi and Moshe Katzav were ruined. That's classic Divine Retribution. (I tried to find that video, but wasn't successful. I did however find an interesting video of our misguided politicians speaking up in favor of the Disengagement and all the positive results it would bring: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F71vE7C225k )
** Back to G-d's sense of humor. Fifteen years ago, my friends and I had the zechut (merit) to lead a battle to save Efrat's northernmost hill, Givat HaDagan, from being turned over to the Arabs. We spent the summer on the hill and then were pulled down several times by the police. The government was determined to erase the Jewish people's connection to Givat HaDagan. They sent a tractor, as big as a house, to plow up the "streets" we had delineated and the civilization we had brought to the hill. As they overturned stone and earth, they tried to wipe away any Jewish connection to the hill. As the tractor worked, suddenly BOOM, one of its tires fell into a hole. After more investigation, it was found that the hole was actually a cistern that was part of a checkboard of water tunnels built thousands of years ago to bring water to the Holy Temple. So, G-d had a chuckle. "You thought you could cover up the connection of the Jewish people to the Dagan, well, I have helped you uncover Am Yisrael's two-thousand-year-old connection to Jewish history on the hill."
There are more and more examples, AND I INVITE YOU TO SEND IN YOUR OWN. But right now, we return to the source of this particular blog itself:

** Last week, the British government expelled an Israeli diplomat, because "they couldn't just sit back and do nothing" while British passports were used in Dubai where a top Hamas terrorist was assassinated. The British, who assumed that the Mossad, did the deed, refused to sit back and not react.
That's pretty ironic, since in the relationship of the British and the Jews, the British have usually stood by without reacting. They didn't react in Hebron in 1929 when the Jews there were massacred by their Arab neighbors. Neither did they react to the massacre of Jews in the Old City or the Yemenite Village, nor in Sheikh Jarrah when right under the noses of the British Consulate, a convoy of doctors, nurses and security personnel were traveling on a "protected route" up to the Hadassah Mt. Scopus Hospital. The Arabs ambushed them and 78 Jews were massacred, torn to pieces so that many could not be identified and had to be buried in a communal grave.
The memorial for those 78 Jews and one British citizen stands today at the scene of the tragedy, right outside the British consulate door.
Now...next door to the British Consulate is the Shepherd Hotel. In the 1930s this was the home of Haj Amin Al-Husseini, the mufti of Jerusalem. Husseini was the biggest Middle Eastern anti-Semite of his time (if there was a contest) and a good friend and kindred spirit of Adolf Hitler, yemach shmo.
Husseini and his friend Adolf did their best to come up with joint-projects to wipe out the Jewish people to the very last.

The Shepherd Hotel was purchased by the tzaddik (pious man) and Jewish philanthropist Dr. Irving Moskowitz to be renovated for an apartment complex. To the horror of the world (agh!!), this plan has received the bureaucratic go-ahead for construction. May it speedily be built.
Moreover, there is no greater show of Hashem's sense of humor than this Double Gotcha - the fact that IY"H, one day soon 20 young Jewish families (hopefully with many laughing Jewish children) will be living Jewish lives of mitzvot and blessing in the home of Jew-hater Husseini, right next to the British Consulate.
Am Yisrael Chai.

An addendum: Since I originally wrote this article, a reader added this piece of divine retribution:

Former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is in a state of Disengagement. He is disengaged both from life and death. His neshama (soul) has no menucha (rest), because he hasn't been buried. He is, in every way, in a state of hitnatkut (disengagement) just as the 10,000 people he had exiled from their homes are still in a state of limbo. Perhaps when the people of Gush Katif are finally settled into their future homes, they will be at rest, and so will Ariel Sharon.

Addendum #2: Nadia once reported to the Efrat list:

(Last January) A resident of Imanuel in the Shomron was accused of killing an Arab after he fired his weapon when his car was being stoned. Israel National News just reported that the Arab was actually killed by his own stone. His stone "hit the tire of the car and boomeranged straight back hitting the Arab in his skull-killing him immediately !" Now, that's G-d's retribution today.

Addendum #3: Mordechai once reported to the list:

(Last August) IDF Lieutenant General Amiad Faris, who was responsibe for the expulsion of Jews from the town of Kfar Darom in Gush Katif, was added to the list of those Expulsion figures who "received Heavenly punishments" for their role in the "Disengagement". Faris received a dishonorable discharge from the IDF, "after it was discovered he lied to insurance authorities about a traffic accident in which his wife was involved."

Keep them coming!