The Fall of Islamofascism

Just when the Islamofascist venom infected the bloodstream of Western society, causing convulsions in Europe and threatening to destabilize other Western societies, a miracle, being forged for the Jewish people, runs well-hidden behind this specter. Paradoxically, though Arab peril seems to be waxing, Yishmael's downfall is, in fact, in the making.

The Purim miracle, unlike that of Chanukah's for example, wove itself through the fabric of day-to-day events without breaking Nature's rules. An observer of daily events in ancient Persia would never have noticed the many "coincidences" that intertwined to produce the one big miracle. In ancient Jerusalem, on the other hand, this observer would easily have spotted the miracle of the rout of Rome's huge, well-equipped army by a handful of Maccabees, or that the Temple's one day's supply of oil lasted 8 full days.

Of the two sorts of miracle (let alone that Nature itself is an ongoing miracle), the Purim-type is the "greater" miracle (as if God needed extra effort to camouflage the miracle within regular, day-to-day events.)

We now have a Purim-like miracle transpiring for the Jewish people. Let's step back to scan the unfolding picture. The birth pangs of Moshiach brought us from the holocaust back to our Holy Land, after some 2,000 years. Jews continued to suffer, mostly from Muslim terrorism, because the labor contractions can continue a while longer, even after birth.

The all-powerful Soviet Union vaporized and hundreds of thousands of captive Jews fled for freedom and opportunity.

Israel's hostile enemies, the Arab and Muslim dictatorships, are beginning to fall. Iraq's sadist despot, Saddam Hussein, was overthrown, captured and hanged. Tunisia, who many years gave Palestinian terrorists refuge, recently collapsed.

Egypt went next. Although the country appeared stable, the economy suffered horribly because most of its money went into boosting military might. It exploited the "peace" with Israel by spending billions on armaments, including hundreds of F-16s, Mirage 2000s, Apache and Black Hawk helicopters, scores of missile ships, thousands of American artillery canon and tanks (including the Abrams, which ranks with Israel's Merkava), modern anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles, as well as sophisticated systems for electronic warfare and surveillance.

Mubarak encouraged international incitement against Israel and turned a blind eye to the smuggling of weapons into the Gaza Strip. With Mubarak gone, chances are high much effort will shift to improving the lot of the citizenry and economy. Perhaps a form of democracy too will sprout.

Much of Libya's huge wealth was channeled into support for terrorist organizations. The Pan-Am disaster over Lockerbie was a Libyan initiative. Reagan called Quaddafi "the most dangerous person in the world". Enormous amounts of armaments were purchased. He bought more tanks and artillery than his own army could deploy; He promised to transfer these to those who would war against Israel (as he did during the Lebanon War, and as he helped Egypt during the Yom Kippur War). For this purpose he also had long-range missiles in place and developed the capability of aerial refueling. Libya too no longer poses a threat to Israel.

Syria's aggressive tyrant will also soon fall. He fostered strong ties with Iran. He set up a nuclear reactor (that Israel later destroyed). He armed the Hezbollah in Lebanon, built an anthrax production facility and runs a big army. The protests he now tries to quell are in major cities, like Damascus and Halab. Even army officers and soldiers are rejecting orders. Syria's revolution would bring a severe blow to Hezbollah, being that Syria served as its conduit for arms from Iran. Iran too would suffer because Syria today is its only ally in the Middle East. In a heartbeat, the peril at Israel's North border that had approached the flashpoint for conflagration has dissipated.

A short while ago, fear mounted that Turkey and Syria might join forces against Israel. And now, just as Turkey rattles its sabers against the Jewish state, Syria's strong relations with her neighbor suddenly deteriorated, because Syria was killing many Moslems as he tries to crush the revolution, to the point where Turkey threatened to go to war unless Syria stops the killings.

Iran too has miraculous "coincidences" to take note of. The huge protests there, violently suppressed, reflect the little faith the populace has for its leadership party. As for Iran's nuclear aspiration, significant delays mark its progress. Many of their centrifuges became dysfunctional by the Stuxnet virus, and important nuclear physicists are dropping like flies.

Many more Arab dominoes have yet to fall.

What Torah lesson might these facts refer to? The last words of the last verse of the Torah portion Chayei Sarah, regarding Yishmael's ancestors, literally reads, "... on the face of his brethren he fell". The first words of the next verse, the first verse of portion Toldot, reads, "And these are the chronicles of Isaac...". The famous commentator, the Ba'al Haturim, reveals the significance in juxtaposition of these two verses. "This comes to teach us that when Yishmael will fall at the end of exile, that's when the son of David will emerge" (Gen 25:18). In other words, once Moslem dominion begins to decline, the Jews and Moshiach will be on the ascendancy.

In a nutshell, what we are witnessing is the terrorism support base of the Middle East disintegrating, all while the redemptive process for which we eagerly look forward to stealthily waxes. We are witnessing the bright light at the end of the tunnel. Happy 5772! Moshiach now!!

Unbroken Treaties

The Torah portion of Netzavim starts out with the treaty God wrought with the Jewish people before they entered the Holy Land. "You are all standing here today ... to partake in a treaty with God ... that God ratifies for you today."

(Deut. 29:9-11)

The term "treaty" means, in Biblical Hebrew, an everlasting promise between two; A contract that no side can later reject.

An earlier treaty between God and the Jewish people occurred at Mount Sinai when God presented the Jews with the Holy Bible, where they "passed a treaty ... at Horev" (Deut. 5:2). This treaty designated the Jews as God's choice for His representative nation. "In you God chose to be his favored nation from all other nations" - an irreversible, eternal choice.

The very first treaty between God and the Jewish nation was struck with the first Jewish forefather at the Treaty of Parts. "On that day God passed a treaty with Abraham, saying, to your descendants I gave this very land, from the Egyptian river until the the great river, the River Pratt" (Gen 15:18); This is the land of "ten nations" that straddled the Jordan River, which was given to the Jewish nation as an eternal inheritance.

Any nation pushing to deny this divine truth ends up effectively denying itself a continued existence.

Once Torah was given and its laws formalized, with a distinct set set aside for Gentiles (the "7 Noahide Laws") and another for Jews, the law clearly states that not even an iota of the Holy Land Jews possess may be given away.

This holds true even if religious coalition members in an Israeli cabinet support giving away possessed land.

In 1992 (10 Shvat) the Rebbe of Lubavitch warned that "autonomy talks" will lead to formation of a Palestinian terrorist state, bringing hazard to Jewish life. Were we to raise our voices and say what Torah wants us to say, no matter how absurd we may think it sounds to the Gentile audience, we will find, in fact, to our surprise, that that, and only that, can forge a path to understanding and appreciating the divine truth it reflects. The Rebbe asserted "the world is ready!" for Moshiach and therefore there's no doubt about it. Never mind the few who chafe hearing these words. They may be loud, but they represent a minority. Most people appreciate the special times we live in and thirst to hear the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

People know plenty of broken treaties. They also know of, can see, and appreciate the unbroken eternal treaties between God and the Jewish people. Those who support this treaties are deemed righteous and guarantee for themselves a bright future; Those that don't - guarantee their own downfall into oblivion.

Eve of Elul 25, 5771; How We Must Respond to the U.N.

Regarding Elul 25, in the Jewish year 0000, Torah tells us, "In the beginning G-d created the world ... ."

On the very first verse in Torah, Genesis 1:1, on the very first word, Rashi tells us how to respond to the world's nations who call Israel robbers for invading and conquering THEIR land. Rashi spells out exactly what to answer these accusers! (see here!)

5,771 years after the Elul 25 of creation, on Friday, eve of Elul 25, 5771, the chief terrorist of the so-called "Palestinian" people will claim - in the United Nations (the world's nations), before a world audience - that Israel and Jerusalem are their territory and the Jewish nation robbed them of it.

Netanyahu will probably bring forth other arguments, unfortunately. Probably he will not invoke the rights we got to the land from God, as per the Torah accounts.

But as long as he does not say as Rashi tells us to say, we will still have a rough ride of it. Only by stating the Jewish claim as Rashi dictates - only this way will pave the way for the world's nations to ACCEPT the Jewish stake in the Land of Israel. We have Torah's say-so!!

Netanyahu should say, "The whole earth belongs to God. He created it and He gave it to whom He saw fit. It was His will to give it to them, and it was His will to take it from them and give it to us!" Anything else, like invoking the sanction of the U.N. back in 1948, or any other "treaty" or armistice, or border issue, or terrorist issues will not cut it. God wants us Jews to tell the nations of the world what He wants to hear us say. Only this recital will sway the world to finally lay off of Israel and bear down on its enemies!!

When Rashi lived over a millennium ago, there were no nations that would even dream of calling Jews robbers for conquering Israel because Jews had no army, had no formal collective cohesion; All they had was a scattered, minimal presence across the globe, bitterly oppressed, tortured and killed. To think the Jewish people would later have the Land of Israel under their control was - if not prophecy - then certainly wholesome innocent faith in God's promise to return us to the Holy Land. It behooves us to appreciate the depth of Rashi's faith and join him in telling the Gentiles of the world the real reason the Land of Israel belongs to the Jews.

The Transparency of Jewish Identity

Jew and Gentile may look alike, but hardly think or behave alike. Nowadays, given the plague of Reformism in America many Jews contracted from birth, and the blight of an inferiority complex Zionism infected Israelis with, this assertion is less apparent but, nonetheless, should hold true. For this is what our holy Torah expects of Jews. In the portion "Ki Tavo" it says, "All nations of the world will see the name of God conferred upon you." (Deut. 28:10).

We learn therefrom that Jews must radiate an aura of holiness in Gentile eyes, so God's presence be made tangible.

When Jews pray, study Torah or involved in doing ceremonial mitzvot, the occasion cannot draw a good comparison, for the Jew does these activities isolated from the public. When can resemblance to a Jew spur comparative evaluation by the Gentile? When the Jew is preoccupied with permissible activities beyond those of ritual. Only where they overlap, can behaviors be evaluated for their genuine differences. For example, in the way the Jew eats, drinks, or conducts business. In such cases the Jew must project an identifiable, "holy" ingredient.

Those behaviors shared by all peoples - that's where the Jew must convey "holiness". That's the behavior the Gentile should recognize uniquely Jewish in that it reflects a consideration of God's presence.

When God chose the Jewish people, not only were their souls chosen - but their bodies too were chosen. For this reason, everything a Jew does must reflect this chosen-ness. That which resides in the innermost recesses of the Jewish heart must also find expression in everything he does. The strong light of the refined Jewish soul easily can diffuse through its course bodily prism to continually broadcast God's presence to the observer.

The Rebbe Writes re: Conversion

The following letter the Rebbe wrote to someone who asked him about converting to Judaism. I post it for its postscript.

By the Grace of G-d
16th of Av, 5739
[Aug. 9, 1979]

Mrs. H
Anchorage, Alaska 99504
Blessing and Greeting:

I am in receipt of your letter of July 27, in which you write in regard to conversion in accordance with the Halachah, which, of course, is the only valid conversion.

Needless to say, it is difficult to deal with such a matter through correspondence. The best thing would be if you could speak personally to a practicing orthodox Rabbi, for it is a very important and serious matter. If for some reason this is impossible to do without delay, you ought to write to one of the competent Rabbinic authorities, such as the Union of Orthodox Rabbis (address below), in whose domain it is – not in mine. And since they treat such matters in confidence, you can write to them quite freely in every detail.

Though you write that you have spoken with an orthodox Rabbi, I see from your letter that you’re still confused, and the sooner your status is rectified the better.

With blessing,

(signature)

Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the USA and Canada
235 East Broadway, New York, NY

P.S. I gather from your letter that you are aware of the general attitude of the Jewish religion not to encourage proselytizing, and, indeed, to discourage would-be converts. A Gentile who wishes to embrace the Jewish faith is often reminded at the outset that Gentiles, too, have a divinely ordained purpose in life to promote the rule of justice and decency and the other basic Seven Divine Precepts, with all their ramifications, which have been given to all mankind (the descendants of Noah, hence the so-called Seven Noahide Laws), thereby attaining spiritual fulfillment.

You should therefore not be surprised that you have not been encouraged in your desire for Geyrus (conversion) according to the Halachah, which is the only kind of valid conversion. For, obviously, any other form of conversion has no validity whatsoever, since it would be a self-contradiction to adopt a new religion in a way which is contrary to that religion. And since Halachic conversion requires a total commitment on the part of the proselyte to strictly adhere to all the laws – the do’s and the don’ts – of the Jewish religion, which, in your present place and circumstances is well nigh impossible to fulfill, there is an additional strong reason to discourage you from taking that step. For, with all your best intentions, you would not be able to conduct a full Torah-true life in your present place – the first condition of Halachic conversion, lacking which there can be no conversion.

Since it is a very serious matter, I am reiterating here what has been indicated in the main body of the letter, namely, that before you take up residence in a city and neighborhood where you can be certain of being able to carry out the said unequivocal commitment to conduct the everyday life in accordance with the Jewish Code of Law (Shulchan Aruch), there is no point in talking about Geyrus. Unless after discussing the matter with an orthodox rabbi, and despite his reasoning and discouragement, a basis may be found for pursuing the matter.

I trust you will accept the above in the proper spirit, since it is first of all my duty to clarify the true aspects of the situation, and it would be in your best interests, as well as your family’s, to follow the path of truth.

I would paraphrase this as, "If you want to go into deep water, you better know how to swim."

Moaning in the Wind

A rabbi handed in his resignation after 6 months at the job. The board was stunned. They said, "Rabbi, just let us ask you one question; Can you tell us 'Why'; Was the salary too low?"
"No, the salary was fine."
"Was there a problem with the board of directors?"
"No, you are a wonderful bunch of people."
"Did the congregation bring you displeasure?"
"Not at all, I enjoyed them."
"Then rabbi, please answer us this one question, 'Why'?"
"Because this is the first question I've been asked in the 6 months since I've been here!"

Like this rabbi, I too feel like resigning. There is no point in running a blog except to occasionally throw out an insight of Jewish worth gleaned from rabbinic sources that's worth repeating. There's no money, honor, or medals in blogging. And it takes plenty of time too.

As a Chabadnik who lacks the courage our youth have to take off every Friday and devote the day going out into the communities to reach out to fellow Jews and Gentiles, I do my tiny share by writing this blog.

But I hardly get any comments!

I hesitate telling you this because I am not soliciting comments per se. I simply have no guage by which to measure if what I'm doing is worth my time because of this lack of feedback. I don't know if people are reading what I am writing. I've been blogging now for some three years and sometimes I think I'm just churning water, spinning my wheels for nothing. I notice other blogs do draw many more comments than mine; Much more. Is it simply because those blogs draw so many more surfers than mine? I just don't know.

Truth is, I'd rather have surfers who come to read rather than those who come to comment, for there are such blogs where comments look like a rowdy classroom!

I used to occasionally group-email to a mailing list of friends to drum up some readership, but I've stopped that. Instead, I added a widget where people can add their email address if they wish to get my blog's email feeds. If I don't have to stick my unsolicited nose into everyone's mailbox, I'd rather not. I prefer a low profile.

So for now, I'll just hunker down and continue this thankless venture I got myself into, but I did want to share my feelings with you people out there, wherever and whoever you are.

And, by the way, if you do occasionally drop by, then I tip my 10 gallon chassidic hat to you and say, "Much obliged".

What the Rebbe Thought during the Riots

Twenty years ago, 3 days of riots unnerved the Jewish community of Crown Heights, when Jews feared to leave their homes because police stood by as blacks rioted in the streets yelling "Death to the Jews". One Jew, Yankel Rosenbaum, tragically lost his life when 16-year old Lemrick Nelson, Jr stabbed him in the back.

The Rebbe delivered a talk on the 3rd day of the pogrom. What did the Rebbe speak about; What did the Rebbe have on his mind? On the 11th of Elul, 5751, the Rebbe quoted the Ba'al Haturim, who says (on verse Ex. 19:6) that in the future all Jews will become elevated to the status of "Kohen Gadol", the High Priest. The Rebbe elaborated on the implications of this statement; He said that in the near future all Jews will be permitted to enter the inner sanctum - the Holy of Holies chamber inside the Temple during Yom Kippur. Of course this will have to be accompanied by bringing special sacrifices for the occasion.

A better question would be, when did the Rebbe NOT have Moshiach in mind.

How to React to the Rubble of Migron

Israel's army pulled off a bold move in response to international pressure on Israel, thereby relieving the tension with superb action. The chokehold she felt around her neck, placed by America, Europe and Turkey, slackened and gave her much more breathing room with this brilliant, well-planned move. Even the PA could only gawk at this display of heroism.

One midnight last week, when the stars fooled people into sleeping, but lit the path for stealth soldiers, the platoon managed to sneak up on dormant clowns fool enough to build houses on what they were suckered into believing was Jewish territory.

In a matter of minutes, they chased the clowns from their beds, demolished the 3 houses in Migron, and felt happy for their stellar performance.

It's hard to laugh at such tragedy, at the incessant oppression of Jews who want to make Israel their homeland. It's hard not to admire the steel will of these Jews who are determined to scorn the wails of Jew-hating foreigners and those in power who seek to quiet and soothe them. So many others in Israel, unfortunately, cling to the media-driven belief that Israel "needs" to cultivate foreign goodwill and therefore submit to foreign demands.

These Jews in power and their media supporters look at Torah with disdain. While Torah urges Jews to be "a nation that should live apart from, and not reckon as, the other nations" (Num. 23:9), they, on the contrary, want people to believe "Torah is outdated, just a book of fairy tales; It's unrealistic and cannot apply to our modern era." They want us to trash what God behooves of us.

Arabs build expansive cities wherever they can and nobody in authority dares pout or say a word. But let a Jew try building on his land and his world must cave in. Instead of Jewish pride, our "leaders" display secular arrogance.

This week's Haftarah provides the rebuttal to last week's sad episode: "Expand the place of your tent, the perimeter of your dwellings; Stretch, don't spare; Lengthen your tents' cords and strengthen and set farther the tents' pegs!" (Isaiah 54:2)

Jewish Soil Can Suffer Nausea

Why did The Holy Land lay barren before Israel's farmers made it blossom with produce; Certainly Gentiles knew how to farm land? Early history proved this geographical hub to be of optimal strategic value; Why then could they not settle the land as they did everywhere else?

The Torah foretold, 3,300 years ago, that one day in the future, Jews will be exiled from the Land of Israel. In a prophecy spoken by Moses, he said, "When you have been established in the land for a long time ... you will then ... perish from the land ... God will then scatter you among the nations ...". (Deut. 4:25-27)

Now it happens that this land has a unique attribute other lands do not have: It can suffer "nausea". The Holy Land, just as a healthy body that ingested poison, reacts by vomiting out the offensive intrusion; It would "vomit out" the Jewish people were their quota of sins intolerably high. The land then shuts down and no longer can cultivate crop. Otherwise, as long as Jews mostly "... safeguard My decrees and laws ... the land ... will not vomit you out." (Lev. 20:22)

Here's confirmation from a reliable source what the Land of Israel looked about 150 years ago. It's a quote from Mark Twain, who visited Israel in 1867. ("Innocents Abroad", Vol. II, Harper and Brothers, 1922, NY)

“We traversed some miles of the desolate country, whose soil is rich enough but is given wholly to weeds, as silent, mournful expanse. A desolation is here that not even imagination can grace with the pomp of life and action. We reached Tavor safely. [Tavor is in the Northern Galilee, the most fertile part of the land.] We never saw a human being on the whole route. We pressed on towards the goal…, renowned Jerusalem. The further we went, the hotter the sun got, the more rocky and bare, repulsive and dreary the landscape became. There was hardly a tree or a shrub anywhere. Even the olive and the cactus, those fast friends of a worthless soil, had almost deserted the country. No landscape exists that is more tiresome to the eye than that which bound the approaches to Jerusalem. Jerusalem is mournful, dreary and lifeless. I would not desire to live there.”

As long as Jews are not settlers of this land, or, as long as the occupiers of it are foreign nations, "I will make the land so desolate that even your enemies who live there will be astonished!". (Lev. 26:32) This is a land that can discriminate against Gentile inhabitants!

If you think about it, it makes eminent sense. For as long as Gentiles cannot comfortably stay in the land, they will move on, sooner or later. No one will want to make their stay there permanent. And therefore there will be no archaeological proof of this permanence either. The Jews lived on that land over 1,00 years and yearned to return to it nearly two millennia, while no nation meanwhile could endure there - or lay claim to Jerusalem. As long as its food markets provided meager pickings, this land proved hostile to every nation but the Jewish one.

Thank God, we've all been ushered into the pre-Messianic era, and 60 years ago we got back our land. This too Moses told us in prophecy: "God, your Lord, will bring you to the land that your ancestors occupied, and you too will occupy it". (Deut. 30:5)

And chassidut teaches - the more Israeli society today turns to God, the more productive we can expect the agriculture to recover from its nausea!

Fear of Commitment

On a "Reform Judaism" blog site, a comment appeared in response to an article. The commenter spoke of his "fear of going to a spiritual place from which I would not return".

This, I believe, manifests the crux of the matter for people who search their souls for truth and will not let convenience sway them from that straight-as-a-laser path of truth. The unconscious realization that truth might lead to the necessity of commitment, having to take the consequences of discovery from the realm of thought to the realm of action, carries with it an unconscious fear that new behaviors must now be embarked upon, old ones dispensed with, and new challenges therefore lie ahead. It takes a giant to pull off this gigantic effort, if for nothing else but to test his new discoveries.

It bears taking note that a theoretical evaluation of one's findings, as opposed to a behavioral endorsement of them, cannot be a valid substitute. For, unlike perhaps other endeavors, Judaism is behaviorally dependent. The Jews in the generation of Moses took upon themselves to do before they could understand, because only by doing can many important aspects of Judaism be understood. "We will do and we will [then] understand", they declared, prior to receiving the Torah (Ex. 24:7). This was not just an arbitrary whim. It is a characteristic Jewish imperative. It reminds me of the once-very-successful TV commercial that went, "Try it - You'll like it!" For in Judaism, not trying inevitably leads to not liking (and if not immediately, or in one generation, certainly by two or three).

The upheaval a behavioral change of repertoire may entail is not trivial. It is not for nothing one of the first laws in the book of the Jewish Code of Law requires the practitioner to be "Bold as a leopard, light as an eagle, swift as a deer and strong as a lion, to do the will of your father in heaven."

Do You Own Your Body?

You think your body is your own, do you? Well, know that Torah thinks differently. Here's how we know.

Torah dictates, says Maimonides (Laws of Sanhedrin, end of chpt 18), that a man's confession of a financial debt obligates him to pay up, even against the testimony of 100 witnesses. But were he to confess to murder, the court must ignore his confession! A minimum of two witnesses is mandatory to invoke the death penalty (or to receive lashes), as it states (Deut. 17:6), "By the say of 2 witnesses or 3 witnesses shall the guilty one be put to death."

Some commentaries explain that a person is master over his chattel or property and therefore his confession obligates him; Whereas his body and soul are given over to him as a deposit for safekeeping and cannot be eliminated based on his confession. His body and soul are not his own to destroy.

At first glance, this explanation makes little sense. God, creator of the universe, owns it all. He owns a man's property as well as the man's body - so why the difference in law between the two confessions?

The reason is simple. God allows man to be master of his property, but the body and soul are only placed in his care for safekeeping, and therefore man is not master of his body or soul. He cannot simply do what he chooses with his body. For example, he must not commit suicide, nor may he mutilate his body. A confession, therefore, cannot remove the body from one's duty to safekeep it for God.

How careful must we be to safeguard the health of our body and soul? When it comes to commandments, very few in Torah come with a qualification of being extra careful. Of the few that do, is the one to take care of our body and soul: "And you should take great heed of yourselves". (Deut. 4:15)

Torah's perspective of the body's ownership is purposely scorned by those who seek to divorce God from their agenda. The vile "Planned Parenthood" institution, and the support it got from recent administrations, is a case in point. They wish to promote promiscuity as well as promoting the murder of babies. They typically claim a woman's body is her own, and she can do to it, and its contents, as she pleases. Instead of promoting responsible behavior, and honoring the sanctity of the body and life, they seek to cheapen morality by defiling young susceptible minds and to defile the sanctity of the person. They are dragging America from the aristocratic, virtuous country it once was, to become just another whorish Sodom.

To take care for one's own body and to care for another person's body - amounts to the same thing, as we've seen. Another area where abuse of this principle runs rampant is our society's corrupt pharma/medical establishment, wherein, for example, they poison drinking water with flouride, resort to unnecessary surgery and body mutilation (as by removing breasts, or by irradiation), poison in the name "therapy" and run a legalized drug-pushing operation (as in vaccinating by needle, or prescribing pill-popping regimens); Wherein lifetime "treatment" - not cure - is their only intent.