The Jewish New York Times

Many Jews today, especially those who see themselves as elite, sophisticated or intellectual, a cut above the rest, read the New York Times. Are they ignorant of the bias this paper has against Jews? They may, in fact, not know this bias dates back to WWII when Jews were being exterminated by the millions, but certainly they ought to have sensed the bias by now, after all its commentary on all those wars Israel had with its enemies, until today. More likely they've fallen victim of their own self-worth by identifying with Sulzberger's paper that, after all, is also "sophisticated and intellectual".

The NYT will always downplay horror perpetrated on Jews. Their avant-garde readers are all too eager to join in with its rationale. As you would expect, Reform Judaism plays a key role. (Notice the "aristocratic" air of the Sulzberger pose. No sign of "Jewishness" here.)

Here's a well enunciated, well presented 12 minute clip of the stance the NYT took during the holocaust years, and why:

P.S. See here for the NYT's latest advocacy of terrorism against Israel!
P.S. (7/21/14) See here how NYT toes the line of Hamas' demands during Protective Edge war.
P.S. During war on Hamas ("Protective Edge") - here.
P.S. (8/6/14) NYT Rejects Ad by Eli Wiesel Condemning Hamas - here.
P.S. (9/1/14) NYT censors Breitbart.com/s anti-ISIS ad: here.
P.S. (3/9/15) NYT with some faux-pas photography (link).

Joseph Telushkin's Book on the Rebbe

Joseph Telushkin wrote a book about the Rebbe. Would the Rebbe approve this book by a "Conservative rabbi" (akin to a "Reform rabbi")? Not only does he dilute his own Judaism, he encourages its dilution for all his congregants.

Would the Rebbe want a book about him written by a rabbi whose synagogue features a "lady cantor"? This practice does more than scorn the halachah of Kol Ishah or mixed seating; It encourages the scorn, disgraces the Torah scroll and feigns a holy atmosphere. And of course there's a modesty issue. It's highly likely one must not enter such a place to pray in the first place.

Here's a Facebook ad [with my graffiti] where his synagogue heralds an upcoming Shabbat ("... join us to hear her beautiful voice"):

I come not to review the book because I'd never read it. Would you buy gold from a dealer who dilutes the precious metal?

No doubt this book is full of platitudes, portraying the Rebbe as a "great person", in which case he misses the whole point. He does not understand the Lubavitch chassidic movement's real purpose, with the Rebbe at its epitome, which is to raise the expectations and yearnings of the Jewish people for Moshiach in the latter generations!

There may well be a hidden agenda too, at least a subliminal one, and that is - to distance Jews from current Messianic expectations (so they approach his own view).

I, for one, think the Rebbe himself would never have endorsed this book. He probably would have trashed it.

What "Converted" this Reform Rabbi?

A successful commercial once had as its main line, "Try it, you'll like it!"

This is the precise formula by which to understand Judaism. This formula launched, and therefore characterizes, the Jewish nation. The Jews, emancipated from Egyptian diaspora in 2448, became a nation by defining their existence based on this principle. When asked whether they could commit to G-d's demands, Jews exclaimed (Ex.24:7),
"We will do and we will understand!" "נעשה ונשמע"
The Jews determined steadfastly, first of all, to accept G-d's Torah blindly! They will unquestioningly take it upon themselves to do as it prescribes. Then, and only then, will they also seek to understand. This conditional statement demonstrated their full trust in G-d.

One might argue that the discovery of a hidden benefit can first be investigated before committing oneself to certain conduct. Maybe one can first try to understand Torah, and then, based on a new understanding, commit to it.

Not with Judaism! The life of an observant Jew cannot be appreciated or understood WITHOUT relevant activities to serve as pre-requisites. Behavioral "input" of Mitzvot offers the mind a new dimension by which to appreciate and comprehend Jewish tradition. The key is doing first, and then grasping its value. Not the other way around. There are some things that you can never like unless you first try them!

Need proof of this Jewish phenomenon? Look about you and see how orthodoxy and "ultra" orthodoxy thrives among Jews. What these Jews believe in outsiders may well consider patently absurd - like Jews wearing strings on a 4-cornered cloth, praying with boxes on their arm and forehead, fasting 24 hours twice a year, believing a Messiah will "redeem" them, always covering their heads with caps, eliminating all form of work one day a week, considering some foods or combination of foods forbidden, and many other "weird" behaviors and beliefs.

Yet, many such "lunatics" abound. Even among people who are generally considered by the world to be rather smart!

How could such absurdity prevail when it makes more common sense to throw off all shackles, to abandon what appears to be ancient practices and blend in with "modern" society!

The answer is simple. Torah truth can be appreciated only when actualized in practice!

This reform rabbi's story is a case in point (LINK). Hear him explain his "conversion" to orthodoxy and you will note he cannot really pinpoint what actually changed him or what had been missing in earlier years. I'm pretty certain he himself hasn't yet discovered that what really changed him was his "Let me try it" attitude. And then, of course, after he tried it, he liked it, in characteristic, authentic Jewish fashion.

Marry Jewish - For an Ultimate Victory

Some people breathe air, others breathe hate. Jew-haters particularly are your best haters. After all, they can hate Jews without even ever having met one. They have all the right reasons, piled one atop the other, which they convey to their friends, layer by layer.

Their friends too have their own assortment of reasons to hate; None of which, of course, is true. The important thing is to stir up a heated conversation, one of urgency, to stoke the flames of hate against the Jews.

The best way to deal with this hatred, be it that of the Amalekite, the Yishmaeli or that of Esav, is to follow Torah's prescription - and that is to ignore the hate by learning Torah or partaking in some other holy endeavor.

Two holocausts swept through the Eurasian continent during and around WWII. Europe suffered from Nazism while to the East they reeled from Stalinism. Both holocausts destroyed many millions of Jewish lives, among others.

During this horrific period, out of the belching inferno that threatened to obliterate the Jewish identity,  came forth the cry of the Previous Rebbe to anticipate the Era of Redemption, for this catastrophe signaled the birth pangs of Moshiach. The Previous Rebbe summoned all Jewish people to "return to God" so Moshiach can redeem them.

The best weapon we have to deal with hate is to pursue Torah, the glue of the Jewish people. The Jews and Torah and God are really One. Torah practice preserves this unity.

Another sure way to prevent attempts to undo the special Jewish bond with their Creator is to marry Jewish, and to scorn intermarriage.

The Reform movement will be the first to protest, but these protests will follow the Reformists into self-extinction, for a Reformist, or an intermarrier, cuts off his genetic Jewish signature, certainly by 2 or 3 generations (see here). Should he persist to retire from Torah, this fringe Jew becomes lost to his Jewish people.

He who cuts off kinship with the Jewish nation continues to sustain - in a silent way - the former agenda of Hitler and Stalin. It is simply not "politically correct" to acknowledge this truth, or impolite to mention it, so it often goes unspoken. Nevertheless, the assimilationist in effect serves as the useful idiot of Jew-haters.

This picture I came across, of a Jewish lady, a holocaust survivor, with her grandchild, shows how the glue can heal long-open wounds that tore at Judaism, a process that will end, pretty soon, in a wonderful panacea for the Jewish people after their long struggle in exile, soon to be recognized as the Era of Redemption.

They tried to stop this grandmother early, but failed. It was she who celebrated victory. Yearning for her own people's freedom was her best knockout blow against former foes who wanted so much to deprive her of this beautiful little soul.

Reform "Judaism" - The Bane of Jewish Traditon

The supplemental invocation we include in our daily prayers, as well as in the blessing after a meal, during Chanukah, elaborates miracles that occurred some 2,150 years ago during the Hasmonean uprising of Israel's Jews against the Greek/Syrian empire, which attempted to stifle the Jewish people's spiritual affiliation with God.

Part of that prayer, ostensibly, makes no sense. Of the list of 5 miracles that occurred during that 3-year war, the first two make good sense, namely:
"You delivered
1) "the strong into hands of the weak;
2) "the many into hands of the few".

But the latter 3 seem to make no sense at all, namely:
3) "the defiled into hands of the pure;
4) "the transgressors into hands of the righteous; and
5) "the reformists into hands of the Torah-true."

Why should "defiled" people necessarily be stronger than those with "hands of the pure", so much so that this qualified as a "miracle"? Besides, what two sectors of people are being referred to by "defiled" and "pure"?

Similarly, why assume "transgressors" and "reformists" are necessarily stronger than "righteous" or "Torah-true" Jews?

A little fact of history answers this question. Would you believe it - the Gentile army enjoyed as their ally a large segment from amidst the Jewish people themselves! These Jews sought to reform Torah in order to assimilate with the Greek culture. Once the righteous Hasmoneans began their fight, these assimilated "Hellenists" actually took up arms and fought against their Hasmonean brethren - in concert with the Gentiles whom they so admired.

(We can get a sense of this history by looking no further than the likes of movements such as "Peace Now", or the likes of those Reform women at the Kotel who antagonize religious culture.)

In other words, this Hellenist component more severely tilted the military odds against the Torah-true Jews.

Nevertheless, Torah-true Jews won the war.

So, while the first 2 miracles refer to the Gentile component of the adversary, the last 3 miracles refer to their Jewish sympathizers, who were also soundly shellacked.

The Fresh Air of Redemption

With clean air, you can take a deep breath of fresh air deep into your lungs, to nourish your blood with oxygen. Just as God uses ozone to clean the air after lightning strikes, so too every so often Judaism needed lightning to strike to clean the air from Reform pollutants in its environment. Thank God we're done with lightnings and the Reform elements are, on the whole, being oxidized into oblivion, leaving most Jews to breathe the fresh air of orthodoxy.

Whereas in the past such cyclic scenarios, of pollution and purification, were part of the Jewish landscape, thankfully in our recent and current days we have only the wonderful prospect of continuous elevation to the lofty Era of Redemption to anticipate. The cycles of upheaval for the Jewish people is now a relic of the past, even though it's close enough in history to still feel the singe. From here on in, only the glory of Judaism will forever shine, every day brighter than the day before.

Whereas in the past the curses we read about in the Torah portion of Ki Tavo plagued us whenever our spirits were polluted and infected with Reformism, we can now thank God wholeheartedly because, as the Rebbe told us, those rebukes are done and over with; From now on only the blessings of this Torah portion shall Jews bequeath.

That's not to say Reformism is gone and dead. But it is dying, and all those who still grab at its skirts do so out of sheer ignorance - an ignorance that shall diminish as these latecomers to genuine Judaism open their minds' eyes, especially today with the help of the internet window. Soon enough these Reformists will see they are being led astray by non-Jewish elements in their midst, pollutants that they had allowed into their breathing space. As they choke they will learn to abandon this hollowness, to seek out the hallowed, verdant Jewish lifestyle from which all Jews will soon encounter the long-awaited utopia to which God is taking us by the hand.

Arabs (And a Jew) Attack Jerusalem Boys

Surely you've all seen the recent incident (link) where two young chassidic boys, walking in Jerusalem on a snowy day, were hounded, disgraced and pelted by a large group of hateful, Arab slackers. The boys did not fight back. They managed finally to walk away from the fiends.

I personally felt I would have turned around with my fists swinging and smashed into them with such ferocity they would have been stunned. But these young boys looked rather meek. Did their meekness disturb me? Not at all. They were quite young and tender, to be sure. They may have assessed the situation in ways I could never, me sitting comfortably in an armchair watching a clip in tunnel vision. Neither did I have slippery snow beneath me.

Here are 3 remarks about the incident. The reason I post it here is - because if I could get my hands on Commenter 2, I'd just as violently punch HIM out for the way he referred to these 2 boys - our fellow Jews. There are Jews that think they can find grace in the eyes of the world if only all Jews can behave more assimilatively, like him. I cannot stomach such Jews who have no pride in their own Jewishness, let alone denouncing those who do.

I cannot help but love Commenter 3.

Commenter 1.
Friends,
Please take just a few minutes to watch this alarming video. Many of us have been to this very spot in Jerusalem. It is just outside the Damascus Gate to the Old City. It is a common area for tourists. It is also the typical entrance for American students to enter the Old City from Hebrew University on Mt. Scopus, and also the common entry for Chassidic Jews coming from the Mea Sherim neighborhood. The Jews who were attacked there by the Arab mob were likely coming back from prayers ON SHABBAT at the Western Wall.
Yours, TM

Commenter 2.
I disagree, T. First, the saccharine music is way too much. Second, the dumb fucks in black were absolute wimps. Unlike Jews in the Shoah who would have been tortured and shot if they fought back, that's not the case here. Plus these boychiks were not retarded, or mentally ill, or in a wheelchair. As far as I'm concerned, they get no sympathy from me. As far as the Arabs go, of course they're predators, we all know that, but they didn't have guns  and if one of the black hats ran amuck the arab shits would have dispersed.

best....P.B.

Commenter 3.
DS - In disagreement with PB's verbal attack on adherent Jews.

They may not have fought back in the physical realm, but the adherent Jews in this video will be the reason why there are Jews in the future.

For that reason alone, PB's attitude may be selfish, inappropriate and misaligned.

He disagrees with the music, but hasn't served up an alternative, a better or different one...

That he claims they are dumb, might be a testimony to his own naiveté. I'm thinking they may understand they are not able to defend themselves, that they may not have sufficient training to physically defend themselves and their choice to be moving forward seems to have eventually earned themselves their safety...

In PB's bloodline, I'll bet Judaism will be over within a few generations, if he himself hasn't ended it already.

It's also not impossible, because of their choice to be living in an area that has this many who hate Jews, they are actually more brave than the P's of the world by literally preventing the complete (additional) occupation of a Jerusalem neighborhood by our enemy. For that too, the P's of the world may need a dope slap.

P's possible lack of understanding of these basic principles and failure to identify the Orange plated (license plate) vehicle driver making no effort to help, or any other possible adult drivers coming to their aid, is perhaps a misdirection of his disgust of biblical portions... (In Israel and generally but not always, an orange plate is a Jew or Israeli and a white plate is a Muslim. Muslim cab drivers fought and won (from liberalist Gov officials), to get orange plates for their cabs, so this security measure has a breach...)

Those like PB and myself might fight to the death defending ourselves from this sort of reality, albeit to allow the righteous to continue, for Torah and Mitzvot... Therefore our defensive postures may be the appropriate rank and file to defend these folks. We each play critical roles. Until we all understand this we may have failed in our occupation of our bag of bones and our spirit presence here on Earth, for now...

I'll remind P that in his accusatory finger- pointing, 3 of his fingers point appropriately back on himself. Therefore my recommendation would be for PB to fully understand Torah and Mitzvot before attempting to be a conduit to the more complex Kabbalah, like you'd have to know Math to then teach calculus...

Certainly these two victims don't earn the label he has assigned to them by using a derogatory word as an adjective.

We are in a war. The war is against us. It is primarily fought in the realm of the media and supported by acts of violence, as they see fit. Allowing this sort of self hate to spew from one Jew to another and go
unanswered is taking a bullet and not firing back. In essence giving aid and comfort to our enemies...

Until we realize this - they have us.

The Enemy From Within

The על הניסים we include in our prayers and in the blessing after a meal during Chanukah details the miracles that occurred during the Hasmonean uprising about 2,150 years ago.

The prayer lists the 5 miracles during the war:

"You delivered -
1) "the strong into hands of the weak;
2) "the many into hands of the few;
3) "the defiled into hands of the pure;
4) "the transgressors into hands of the righteous; and
5) "the reformists into hands of the Torah-true."

The first two miracles make sense. The Greeks/Syrians presented a formidable and massive enemy, and still the Jews triumphed. But what sense does it make to expect the "pure" be weaker than the "defiled"? Similarly, why should "righteous" people be any weaker than "transgressors"?

The answer is simple. The Gentile army enjoyed as their ally the Jews who sought to reform Torah in order to assimilate with the Greek culture. These "Hellenists" actually took up arms and fought against their Hasmonean brethren in concert with the Gentiles they so admired. (Reminds you of the "Peace Now" movement in Israel, does it not?)

The last 3 miracles mentioned takes this Hellenist component into consideration, which even more severely tilted the odds against the Torah-true Jews. And, in spite of these excessive odds, the Gentiles and their Jewish sympathizers were soundly shellacked.

The Shape of the Chanuka Dreidel

Nothing in the world is random, and how much more so anything related to Judaism. Take the shape of the Chanuka "dreidel" as a metaphor. It spins as an inverted pyramid, on its tip. Similarly, the Chanuka miracle represents a vast majority's reliance on a minority that sustains it by tenaciously sticking to the original, authentic Jewish spirituality, the base upon which the world turns and depends on.

The floor symbolizes the Torah upon which the Torah-true minority adheres to, the dreidel's tip represents the Torah-true minority, and the rest of the dreidel's mass represents the rest of the universe.

Somewhere in the greater mass we'll find our modern-day Jewish Hellenists. The reformist movement (be it "Reform", "Conservative" or "Reconstructionist") prides itself in its extensive presence, its numerous organizations and large membership; As if the larger the number, the more impressive and, therefore, the more credible their position. (That's the most common "selling point" of their websites.) Perhaps this is why they feel compelled to assimilate with their Gentile peers; After all, there are some 1.2 billion Roman Catholics in the world.

But God happened to create the world with an opposite algorithm! God does not want Jews to water down their Judaism!

The quantity of inert matter far exceeds the quantity of plant life that it sustains. The quantity of plant life far exceeds the quantity of animal life, for the same reason. The quantity in the animal kingdom far exceeds that of the human species, which benefit from the former. The quantity of Gentiles far exceeds the quantity of Jews, a core of whom is necessary to sustain the world, otherwise it would not exist. The quantity of unreligious Jews far exceeds the quantity of religious Jews, who must try to influence their unreligious peers. And the quantity of religious Jews far surpasses the single Moses of the generation, the head on the body, without which the Jewish body - or generation - cannot exist.

Just as the dreidel's function relies on its tip to support its entire mass, the Jewish people who hold firmly to Torah provide the world with its raison-d'etre. The Jewish people are the tip that supports the entire spinning mass! (That the Gentile world does not yet realize this dependency is irrelevant but this knowledge will anyhow become an eventuality.)

If this concept sounds strange to you, you're unfamiliar with the meaning of the Bible's very first word, which means, as Rashi explains, "For the sake of two entities called "ראשית"; The first verse reads, "For the sake of ... the entire world was created."; For the sake of the Jewish people and for the sake of Torah, and, significantly - in that order!

The only way Jewish people can connect directly to Hashem is via the Moses of their generation, the "head of the generation". Without the head there is no body and without the body - there is no world. The head of the generation is the perfect conduit, the perfect mediator whose selfish interest in this mediation is absolutely nil.

Says the Rebbe, the head of our generation, "The state of the world is dependent on the state of the Jew in his Judaism".

So invoking numbers to prove an advantage is delusional. Should we be impressed because the Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists or Sikhs outnumber us? Since when is truth resident with majorities because they are majorities? The first Jew was Abraham. He alone stood strong with monotheism against an entire world practicing polytheism.

The great sage Hillel said, "Be of the disciples of Aaron; Love peace and pursue peace, love your fellow creatures and bring them close to Torah". Note that he did not say, "... bring Torah close to them". (Pirkei Avot 1:12)

The reformist's attitude to Torah is upside-down. Instead of bringing people to Torah, they bring Torah to the people. To make Torah more "palatable", more "rational", less "fanatic", more "modern", they dilute Torah for their own convenience. But Torah is Hashem's Torah. It's infinite. It's absolute. It's not something we humans may modify or compromise on. When the Chassid reaches out to other Jews to warm them up to Torah, they do so by drawing Jews to Torah, and not by drawing Torah down to suit the Jew.

The 4 letters on the Dreidel add up in gematria to "Moshiach". The sooner reformists abandon their perspective to reform that which God Almighty provided as the source of absolute truth, which is the point of the Chanukah holiday in the first place, the faster Moshiach will arrive.

The Reform Rabbi and the Angry Child

A "Reform Judaism" site in Westchester removed many of my comments I had posted on their blog, this even after once acknowledging I had made a "powerful" point. Deletion is a sure-fire way to save face with their clientele. After all, any rational Reformist seeing my comments would immediately sense the absurd knots Reformist jargon ties itself into as it tries to maintain a bond with Jewish heritage.

My words never bore a tinge of malice. The contrary is true because I know most Reform Jews have been "abducted" since infancy by a non-Torah culture. Besides, I meant to educate the Jews among them and only by being friendly can this be accomplished.

The site posted an article by a Reform "rabbi" who claimed to being "half-Jewish". He used this term almost a dozen times. In his article he also uses another phrase - very common on Reform sites, namely - "Our Jewish tradition".

I pointed out to him that Reform Judaism has no tradition, not longer than 3 or 4 generations at the most. By that time, the Jewish familial ties to our Jewish ancestry have been wiped away. Whereas orthodox Judaism is rooted in a geneology of 3.5 millennia, propagated since Jacob our forefather, Reform Jews of today are in no way ancestors of earlier generations of Reform Jewry, for this deviant fringe invariably self-extinguishes. (A chart that illustrates this empirical fact can be seen here.)

And although this "rabbi" confidently invokes "our Jewish tradition", I pointed out that being "half-Jewish" cannot be relegated to that same Jewish tradition - because in that tradition - there is no such thing as a "half-Jew"! If the mother was Jewish, she gave birth to a Jew, a full-fledged Jew; And if she was Gentile, then she gave birth to an entirely complete Gentile, even if the father was Jewish.

The "rabbi" mentioned how sad he was to find that his half-Jewish friends felt no pride for being Jewish. Imagine how much less pride a Reformist would feel in the next generation, he now being only "one-quarter Jewish".

For Reformists to acknowledge Torah law, as by acknowledging the mother's religion determines that of her child's, would undermine their raison d'etre, which is to deviate from Torah. In their own interests, for the sake of self-preservation, for at least one more generation anyhow, they have no real choice but to delete my commentary. To let it stand would mean to allow a challenge go unanswered, for all their clienete to see. Don't forget that intermarriage among Reform Jews runs rampant - especially among their "rabbis".

Reform Jews, especially their "rabbis", unlike Torah-true Jews who have a God-given absolute authority to rely on, act like angry babies when it comes to defending themselves. When truth rubs them the wrong way, they just lash out by censoring you. After all, for them to provide sound reasoning, in tying Torah to their way of life, would involve miraculous verbal contortions.

A Rebbe Letter on Buying German Products

Date unknown

Greeting and Blessing;

I am in receipt of your letter in which you ask my opinion "as to whether it is a weakness or impropriety" to avoid the purchase of goods made in Germany. You add that you ask this question as a Jew, in light of Jewish law and custom.

Surely this is more a matter of feeling rather than a question of Jewish law and custom. Consequently, as in all matters of sentiment, it is difficult to express an opinion that would have universal application.

At any rate it certainly cannot be categorized as a "weakness". On the contrary, a decision of this kind bespeaks strength of will, all the more so since it entails some inconvenience.

Nor can it be considered an "impropriety", since it is based on a principle which may be considered to come under the category of "Remember what Amalek did unto you". For, as is well known, the inhuman atrocities, etc., against our defenseless and innocent brethren were not perpetrated by a small group, but were carried out with the knowledge, consent and even cooperation of the vast majority of the German nation. Moreover, I do not think than anyone seriously believes that the Germany of today is entirely different from the Germany of two decades ago.

While on this subject a point must be made which, unfortunately, is often overlooked. It is that the so-called "Final Solution", which Hitler wished to bring about, can take various forms. It can take the form of an overt attempt at physical extermination, or it can be an insidious process which is no less destructive and perhaps even more so, namely, through assimilation and intermarriage, a process which began in Germany long before Hitler, when Jews tried to hide their Jewish identity and conduct their daily life like their German neighbors and associates, etc. This process, most unfortunately, is very much in evidence all around us. Whatever explanation may be given, the effect is the same. Hitler, too, had a "philosophy" that "justified" his actions.

It is too painful of a subject to dwell on here, but the conclusion is obvious. Each and every one of us who is aware of the situation must do everything possible to counteract the tide of assimilation by positive and dedicated action, to strengthen the eternal Jewish values and Torah-true institutions in his community and environment.

With blessing,

The Redemptive Era - Phase One

The Rebbe told us Moshiach's era has dawned. But many of us detect no change from how it was years ago. So what gives?

The Rebbe told us to "open our eyes", that is, to see that, in fact, we passed the threshold from the old world into the new one. This prefatory scene, however, despite its momentous significanace, appears to have affected the world with no fundamental change. We must conclude, therefore, the process has to incrementally progress to full-fledged completion, at least from the outset. So, despite what the surface reveals, we are nevertheless in the early stages of the Redemptive Era's development.

This is what Maimonides said about the first phase of Moshiach's era;

עולם כמנהגו נוהג

The world will proceed as usual.

This means the current events unfolding before our eyes spell "The Redemptive Era". If you see Israel being surrounded by more and larger threats than before, you hear the dog barking but he doesn't bite. If you fear for Israel's future, realize Arabs may well end up devouring each other instead, just as Egyptian first-borns of yesteryear murdered fellow Egyptians and freed the Jewish nation. If Jews seem threatened for being Jewish around the world, notice also how a protective glass shields them. If Israel seems inundated with foreigners and Gentiles, notice too the Jewish population remains strong and safe, and leave future concerns for God to handle. If some Jews suffer poverty, notice it is merely relative to an imagined wealth that isn't necessary. If you find many Jews remain far beyond the call of Torah duty, notice too a great wave of new oncomers has joined the Torah fold, against all odds - if judging by the strict code they are yielding to. And if most of Israelis remain as yet unorthodox, see nevertheless how the majority now believe in God and in Torah's holiness, despite the incessant bias from the media and government policies, and therefore have but a thin line that separates them from true Torah convictions.

Appearances remain nothing more than appearances. Jewish faith can change appearances and effectively cancel the apparent threats. The Jewish thought process has powerful ramifications; It can now actually nullify threats from transpiring. This is now how the redemption unfolds before our eyes - it looks like it will be bad, but it is, in fact, the concealed way of actually being fantastic.

"Opening your eyes" includes UNDERSTANDING that it is up to you to change the world with YOUR THOUGHTS because YOU CAN CHANGE THE WORLD. A Gentile cannot. Jews are God's representative people. Jews therefore have the inherent power to change the world faster by GOOD THOUGHTS and GOOD DEEDS. This is the power intrinsic in contemporary Jewry.

Hail the Rebbe King Moshiach who has left us with this legacy of power to bring on the Redemption. Will it and it will come to be - via you! Think good - and it therefore will be good!

Who else can change it? Gentiles? Like those who mouth rap "music" with angry, stupid rhyming? Who can change it, a culture where youngsters walk around with their pants below their waists, exposing their underwear? Can you expect a people that allow abortive killing in the millions to bring goodness to the world? Can a society of loose morals bring about this sublime change? This Gentile generation and its decadent culture is quickly dying, taking America down to a decrepit state. Once God was its central platform, as in "In God we trust" or as in "endowed by the Creator", but that has been gradually chiseled away since the country's inception.

Look at pictures of city dwellers or even Hollywood films of a few decades ago. You immediately detect the change in modesty and nobility. Like Germany of 60 years ago, Americans profess to be on the right track but you can see brutish character wherever you turn; Any polish is only skin deep. The sanctity of family, once the lynchpin of a healthy society, has withered into perverse "relationships" - like "same-sex marriage". The medical institution has become a legitimatized industry of drug-pushers. Racial tensions are rising. Anti-Semitism again simmers. The dollar has been purposely brought to ruin. Fascists have taken control of the White House.

The god worshipped as "Democracy" is dead.

Only the orthodox Jew has the power to think good to make things better. Only the orthodox Jew can enable the Gentile to regain some of his power by teaching him to conform with the 7 Noahide laws as sanctioned by Moses. If he conforms, this remains his only avenue of hope - to align with Jewish interests. America is tailspinning irreversibly into an abyss of misery! Only God's overt lifeline can now be summoned by the Gentile for direct help! Woe to the blind who seek salvation from false gods and plodding the dogma of spurious faiths.

(I say the "orthodox" Jew because only orthodoxy is valid. The likes of "conservative" or "reform" or "reconstructive" or other "plastic surgical" types of reformists have no steel anchor embedded in Torah; All they have is some malleable romanticism with but no committment or proper respect for Torah's dictates or its origin. Reformist Jews more likely act against the better interests of society by seeking to appease or conform with the decadent Gentile element. Reformist Jews are Jewish quacks!

They fear being genuine Jews. They fear to pray as Jews prayed for millennia, as dictated by our sages. They lack faith in God - in His eternal providence. They seek to be "modern", as if contemporary lifestyle holds an advantage over that of previous era, as if our sages had no idea of what the future held. So they improvise their own nonsense and rules of conduct, like forbidding the wearing of kipahs in their "temple", or to have mixed seating, or creating lady rabbis, or calling up couples to the Torah reading, or to replace cantors with tape recorders. They desecrate the Sabbath and desecrate holy tradition. They fear to offend the Gentile, thinking - wrongly - the Gentile prefers a "modern", assimilated Jew over an "ultra" orthodox Jew whose ways could only stultify them with ancient customs. In other words, these reformists are birds of the same feather, no matter to what extent they deviate, because any deviation leads to appalling results - like, for example, the "conservative rabbis'" recent consensus in support of "same-sex marriage" - an outright abomination! These quacks all lack pride in authentic God-given Judaism, or, simply no nothing at all about it.)

The orthodox Jew is the cog of society's wheel. Whereas before the Redemptive Era that fact hadn't been obvious, but now, if we "open our eyes", we can readily sense the divine providence that follows this Jew's every breath, thought and step.

Jewish Demise from Unsuspecting Quarters

"In every generation," the Passover Hagadah tells us, "people rise to destroy us, and Hashem saves us from their plots".

Those who wish evil upon the Jewish people fall into one of two categories; Either they want to extinguish the Jew's spiritual bond to Hashem; Or they wish to destroy the physicality of Jewish presence.

The Greek king Antiochus tried to extinguish Jewish spirituality. He instituted harsh decrees to force Jews to forget their Torah and break their faith in Hashem.

Haman, on the other hand, chief viceroy to the Persian king Achashverosh, tried to exterminate the Jews scattered throughout the 127 countries of the empire by killing every Jewish man, woman and child.

In recent history we can point to two such notorious villains as well, Stalin and Hitler.

Stalin successfully destroyed millions of Jews - spiritually. He forced Jews to break with Torah and faith in Hashem, by destroying synagogues and yeshivas and banning religious observances. Hitler, on the other hand, in his attempt to engineer "the final solution", murdered some six million Jewish people throughout Europe, from infants to the elderly.

It's not known that Jews helped Haman, but it is known Jews helped Antiochus. It's not known that Jews helped Hitler, but it is known Jews helped Stalin.

Besides these two sorts of Jewish destruction, yet another form of destruction arose from the Jewish quarter, probably unwittingly, in recent Jewish history. These unsuspecting destroyers of Jewry comprise the secular leftists, the "reform" Jews (whatever brand their reform takes), or the ignoramuses. These three groups, in effect, also render nothing short of a Jewish holocaust. They first suffer a spiritual suicide, because they, their children and grandchildren abandon Torah observance and tradition, and then these assimilated offspring intermarry and drop out of the Jewish gene pool, which effectively translates into a passive, physical genocide. After all, Jewish men who marry Gentile women break their branch of genetic Jewish continuity. What Hitler or Stalin would have done to them, these do for Hitler and Stalin in abstentia!

This present generation's counterpart of Haman or Hitler is the Iranian regime, among others.

Apropos of the group of Gentile haters who seek to destroy Jews spiritually, a present menace looms large. This hostile bunch seeks the demise of Jews - on the sly. They are the Catholic missionaries funded by America's Southern Baptists who by stealth work to "convert" Jews. By stealth - like the pig who flaunts his split hooves to onlookers and says, "Look, I'm kosher!" (when, in fact, it lacks the internal physical sign for being kosher). Obviously the Jews they bait are the ignorant ones, those weak on Torah knowledge. They have well over 300 million dollars budgeted for this cause. You already find them peddling their piddling spirituality in every large city of Israel, under some "Messianic" rubric [A theme they steal from authentic Judaism]. In the U.S. they have succeeded in persuading some 300,000 Jews to regard their human idol as a god. They succeed because these baited Jews hunger spiritually and cannot find or cannot meet Jewish representatives to satisfy their hunger. One of several missionary agencies for this duping purpose is called "Jews for Jesus" (יש''ו).

In the end, of course, the outcome will be "... and Hashem saves us from their plots". But meanwhile, because all Jews constitute one family - one big collective body - if the left arm hurts, the right arm wants to help. The best way to fight these destroyers is to teach the truth of Torah to these Jews "roaming in the dark". Torah is the glue that binds Jews to Judaism. This blog, for example, might just serve one day to attract the hungry soul of one lone Jew in some far flung corner of this world who, upon learning the truth, returns to Hashem; And by saving that one soul - I will have saved an entire world.

Reform Judaism's "Tradition"

Here's a comment I left at a Reform Judaism website, in reaction to what the rabbi said.


Dear Rabbi ___,

You say the Reform movement takes a "... thousands-year-old tradition to renew it everyday."

May I remind you there is NO tradition of the Reform movement, but rather the tradition of the Orthodox movement - simply because Reform Judaism has no tradition beyond that which remains after two or three generations, which by that time is practically nil. Reform Jews of today are not the descendants of Reform Jewry of the past. Within only 2 or 3 generations, Reformism goes extinct! Starting with a group of Reform Jews, the number of them who remain hugging Torah after 3 generations is insignificant.

If you take this as an accusation, you miss my point. This is not an attack. It is an empirical finding that the chances for assimilation into the Gentile culture and intermarriage is a simple matter of fact. (Researched chart data can be seen here.) The only "tradition", therefore, that you adopt as your own happens to be that which Torah-observant Jews have propagated for over 3 millennia!

Torah at its core is truth, in God's language, אמת.

(This is suggested by the 1st 3 words of Torah, where their last letters spells "truth". The order of these letters is not in order, because, at first sight, Torah truth does not SEEM apparent. But the further you delve into Torah, as its words 2, 3 and 4 represent, the more its truth becomes evident, which is why the last letters of THESE words DO spell "truth" -- in the right order!)

(Another thing about אמת : It comprises the 1st letter of the alphabet, the last one and the middle one -- to signify that Torah-truth remains unchanged ("unreformed") from beginning of time to the end of time.)

I say this only to correct a slight error in your reasoning -- that Reform Judaism has "its own" tradition. It does not. It merely adopts another's tradition, calling it its own, and then reforms it -- or, hollows it out, as its geneology will prove in 4 generations at most. As with any slight error in aim, its downrange trajectory misses the target by a wide margin.

The Rebbe's Letter on the Reform "Rabbinate" (1957)

By the Grace of G-d

23rd Adar I, 5717

Brooklyn NY

Mr. _____
Chelsee 50
Mass.
Greeting and Blessing:

I received your letter of February 12th, in which you give a brief account of your background and education, and that you are now considering entering the appropriate institution where conservative Rabbis are trained. You ask my opinion on this matter.

My opinion can only be based on the opinion of the Holy Torah, and as it has been formulated by Maimonides, to the effect that he who admits that the Torah is G-d-given, except for one verse which he holds was given by Moshe Rabbeinu himself, such a person is regarded as denying the whole Torah.

Even without the said ruling of Maimonides, this would be self-evident and logical. For one has to be consistent: Either one accepts that the Torah is Divine, in which case a human being with his limited intellect, inasmuch as all creation is limited, cannot possibly fathom the Divine Wisdom that is in the Torah, and cannot, therefore, select passages from it which appeal to his intellect and discard others which do not.

On the other hand, if a human being is so presumptuous as to use his own discretion with regard to the Torah, and accept or reject accordingly, this means that he regards the Torah as something which does not go deeper or beyond his human understanding. Consequently also, the Torah in his opinion has no greater binding force than that dictated by human reason, which in effect means no binding force at all, since no human being can impose his views on any other human being.

From the above, it is clear that Conservative and Reform Rabbis who follow the approach of reform and compromise on religion, completely misrepresent the true Jewish religion and, moreover, mislead those who are under their influence in believing that their own form of convenient "religion" is the kind for which our ancestors have given their lives for thousands of years. They will have their followers believe that their type of man-made religion is the religion revealed to us by G-d on Mount Sinai, and this is the greatest possible fraud. When a career is made of this type of religion, and human conscience and profoundest feelings are made a "trade-in-stock" in this unholy business, then a greater depravity cannot be imagined.

In view of what you write about your own background, I think it is superfluous to emphasize that there is a great difference between a person falling on occasion to withstand a temptation and therefore committing a transgression, and one who tries to justify such sins of omission and commission by saying that they are not transgressions at all, or that the Torah itself permits one to use one's own judgement, for in the latter case it is nothing but falsification of the truth, which is what Conservative and Reform preach. The fact that a Conservative Rabbi may himself be a thoroughly religious person, and observe in his private life all 613 Mitzvos, does not alter the situation if he represents the Conservative movement and disseminates its doctrines.

From the above, it is also evident that the use of the title "Rabbi" in its traditional sense is completely contradictory when it is applied to a conservative, and is in itself misleading and fraudulent to the unsuspecting congregations. Hence, to select such a career in the first place, in my opinion, is completely out of order.

It is well-known that there are many members in Conservative congregations, and sometimes even so-called spiritual leaders in the movement, who themselves negate completely the Conservative philosophy, accepting and following fully the whole Torah, and, in the latter case, have accepted positions as rabbis in Conservative temples for various reasons. This is also the case with regard to the person to whom you refer in your letter, who obviously does not belong at all in the Conservative movement, nor in the so-called "New" brand of Conservatism, which goes under the name of "Modern Orthodoxy". On the other hand, it is clearly obvious that such a situation is pregnant with constant inner conflicts, which are often even outwardly apparent. Therefore, it is certainly advisable and illogical to select a career which is bound to bring with it constant conflict and friction, both within himself and in relation to the environment, etc.

You write that hitherto you have succeeded in safeguarding your immunity from outside influence. But surely this does not jusify to place yourself in a situation which contains more than the average elements of temptations and trials, a road which is fraught with dangers and pitfalls. Rather the contrary, inasmuch as Divine Providence has been kind to you and has safeguarded you from such influences in the past, you should, once and for all, make up your mind to break away from that dangerous path.

If you are bent on a rabbinical career, surely it would be more desiarble for you to enroll into a proper Yeshivah which prepares and trains for the Orthodox rabbinate. If this seems a more difficult climb, nothing stands in the way of determination and will.

With blessing,

(signature)

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."

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."

Modernity in Torah

Those who underrate Torah, because it can't be relevant in "modern" times (usually the bane of Reformists), also underrate its divine authorship. It's as if to say God is blind to future developments.

King David wrote (Psalms (94), "He who formed the eye, will he not see?" To think Torah cannot incorporate modernity stems from poor Torah knowledge or lack of faith in God; Probably both.

This week's Torah portion (Mattos) illustrates such an example. Upon their return from defeating the Midianites, Moses orders some warriors to remain beyond the inner camp's borders for 7 days, to undergo purification. Who requires this purification? Anyone who, "killed a person or touched a dead body." (Deut 31:19)

Suppose some warriors killed the enemy using their bows and arrows, where others used their swords - would that make a difference?

Indeed it would! Our sages explain that the Torah's juxtaposing the phrases "killed a person" and "touched a dead body" comes to teach that only killing by way of touching, namely, by use of a weapon as an extension of the hand, such as a sword, qualifies for being rendered impure, because that's "like touching" - via an instrument.

So, had a Jewish archer killed a Midianite with his arrow, he could thereafter go straightaway to the inner camp and need not be delayed by the 7-day purification process. Not so the soldier who used his sword for the kill.

Today, in "modern" times, the same differential of law would apply, for example, were someone killed with a bullet - or with a bayonet.

Orthodoxy - I'll Take Mine Plain, Thank You

I am a member of a mislabeled group, the "Ultra-Orthodox". Chances are high we got this name, and why the name persists, because of derision or condescension. In truth, however, it should be labeled "Orthodox".

Another circle of Jews call themselves orthodox - these are your so-called "Modern Orthodox". It seems, however, that a better name for this "modern" element would be "Shaven Orthodox", for mostly this feature alone distinguishes them from the Ultra crowd.

Which brings me to my point. We ought simply to be called "Orthodox", without the Ultra prefix, because the only feature suggested by Ultra is already indicated by removal of the Modern prefix. There ought to be only two streams of Orthodox, the Modern variety and the Plain variety. So thank you very much for dropping and avoiding the Ultra adjective because it implies, quite inappropriately, that we are "too much" orthodox - which is laughable! That's like saying someone is "too-pregnant"!