Denouncing Spiritual Terrorism
On March 16, 1968, soldiers of the 1st Battalion’s Charlie Company committed one of the most notorious war crimes in American history when they brutally massacred over 300 villagers in the Vietnamese hamlet of Mỹ Lai.
Was every soldier in the American army complicit in the crime? Did the perpetrators of the massacre act in accordance with the dictates and the mission of the American military? Was the savagery inflicted on innocent men, women, and children indicative of the country whose soldiers wore its insignia on their uniforms?
The simple answer is: no.
We can talk, legitimately, about collective responsibility and the mixed cultural messages that may have contributed to the atrocity. But when Americans learned about the barbarism of their own soldiers, the untempered outrage that poured forth testified that the individuals had acted as individuals, and that their inhumanity in no way represented the values of their country.
The same was true about the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin in 1995 by the marginally religious zealot Yigal Amir. As unpopular as Rabin may have been among the religious community, only the most extreme ideologues saw his actions as anything other than an aberration of the Torah values he invoked to justify cold-blooded murder.
And the same is true now with respect to the hideous spitting incident in the Beit Shemesh community in central Israel. It doesn’t matter that the perpetrator may wear a frock coat and sidelocks. It doesn’t matter that he may refrain from kindling fire on the Sabbath, may keep a strictly kosher diet, and may stand in prayer before his Creator three times a day. It doesn’t matter that he may study Talmudic texts and analyze the finest points of Jewish law. It doesn’t matter if his neighbors, whether few or many, sympathize with his attitudes and his actions.
At best, he is a misguided fool. At worst, he is an imposter and a terrorist. Whatever he is, he does not represent the ideals of Torah Judaism.
The sad truth is that the Torah, the Almighty’s guide to morality and virtuous conduct, is only as good as we allow it to be. The Torah may be a perfect expression of the Divine Will, but it only works to the extent that imperfect humans are willing to let it shape their conduct and, even more essentially, their character. It does not mystically or magically turn us into saints; rather, it teaches us how to transform ourselves into spiritual beings. But it remains up to us to follow the path it lights before us.
The sad truth is also that there are imposters among us; the Talmud itself laments the “pious fools” who clothe themselves in the external trappings of religiosity with no comprehension whatsoever of true spiritual values. The Jew who prays fervently and then cheats in business, the Jew who clops his chest in repentance then slanders his neighbor, the Jew who meticulously trains his son to read from the Torah scroll and then spits on a child who may have innocently absorbed the social mores of the surrounding secular world – a Jew such as this is worse than a fraud. He is nothing less than a terrorist, for he brings violent derision upon the Torah and all its sincere practitioners.
Frequently at odds with contemporary Western values, Torah values are easily mocked, satirized, and misrepresented by intolerant skeptics who would rather ridicule than seek answers to their questions. But the Orthodox community includes tens of thousands of Jews like myself, Jews raised in irreligious homes who chose to return to Torah observance, Jews who learned to appreciate the ancient wisdom of our people by asking those same questions, by searching for teachers and mentors who could articulate the answers, and by listening patiently to their explanations.
Unfortunately, many secularists and most of the media prefer to deal in stereotypes. It’s easier to depict bearded men in long coats as fanatics than it is to examine the historical and philosophical foundations of their tradition. It’s more provocative to caricature women wearing head-scarves, three-quarter sleeves, and knee-length skirts as burqa-clad Jewish Wahabists than it is to concede the modest elegance projected by many Orthodox women. It suits the progressive agenda better to decry separate seating on buses in religious communities as Shariah-like segregation than it does to contemplate how sensitivity to sexual boundaries bolsters the integrity of the family structure against the hedonism of secular society.
The useful idiots who masquerade as devoutly orthodox but possess little understanding of authentic spiritual refinement empower cynics eager to smear an entire theology with the broad brush of condemnation based on the actions of a few. But amidst the outrage, consider this: Does it make any sense that true adherents of the culture that taught the world the values of peace, charity, and loving-kindness would endorse the public humiliation of a little girl in the name of piety?
It doesn’t. And we don’t.
Published in the St. Louis Jewish Light.
Netanyahu Advisor Strikes a Blow for Responsible Journalism
To the New York Times:
I received your email requesting that Prime Minister Netanyahu submit an op-ed to the New York Times. Unfortunately, we must respectfully decline.
On matters relating to Israel, the op-ed page of the “paper of record” has failed to heed the late Senator Moynihan’s admonition that everyone is entitled to their own opinion but that no one is entitled to their own facts.
A case in point was your decision last May to publish the following bit of historical revision by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas:
It is important to note that the last time the question of Palestinian statehood took center stage at the General Assembly, the question posed to the international community was whether our homeland should be partitioned into two states. In November 1947, the General Assembly made its recommendation and answered in the affirmative. Shortly thereafter, Zionist forces expelled Palestinian Arabs to ensure a decisive Jewish majority in the future state of Israel, and Arab armies intervened. War and further expulsions ensued.
This paragraph effectively turns on its head an event within living memory in which the Palestinians rejected the UN partition plan accepted by the Jews and then joined five Arab states in launching a war to annihilate the embryonic Jewish state. It should not have made it past the most rudimentary fact-checking.
The opinions of some of your regular columnists regarding Israel are well known. They consistently distort the positions of our government and ignore the steps it has taken to advance peace. They cavalierly defame our country by suggesting that marginal phenomena condemned by Prime Minister Netanyahu and virtually every Israeli official somehow reflects government policy or Israeli society as a whole. Worse, one columnist even stooped to suggesting that the strong expressions of support for Prime Minister Netanyahu during his speech this year to Congress was “bought and paid for by the Israel lobby” rather than a reflection of the broad support for Israel among the American people.
Yet instead of trying to balance these views with a different opinion, it would seem as if the surest way to get an op-ed published in the New York Times these days, no matter how obscure the writer or the viewpoint, is to attack Israel. Even so, the recent piece on “Pinkwashing,” in which Israel is vilified for having the temerity to champion its record on gay-rights, set a new bar that will be hard for you to lower in the future.
Not to be accused of cherry-picking to prove a point, I discovered that during the last three months (September through November) you published 20 op-eds about Israel in the New York Times and International Herald Tribune. After dividing the op-eds into two categories, “positive” and “negative,” with “negative” meaning an attack against the State of Israel or the policies of its democratically elected government, I found that 19 out of 20 columns were “negative.”
The only “positive” piece was penned by Richard Goldstone (of the infamous Goldstone Report), in which he defended Israel against the slanderous charge of Apartheid.
Yet your decision to publish that op-ed came a few months after your paper reportedly rejected Goldstone’s previous submission. In that earlier piece, which was ultimately published in the Washington Post, the man who was quoted the world over for alleging that Israel had committed war crimes in Gaza, fundamentally changed his position. According to the New York Times op-ed page, that was apparently news unfit to print.
Your refusal to publish “positive” pieces about Israel apparently does not stem from a shortage of supply. It was brought to my attention that the Majority Leader and Minority Whip of the U.S. House of Representatives jointly submitted an op-ed to your paper in September opposing the Palestinian action at the United Nations and supporting the call of both Israel and the Obama administration for direct negotiations without preconditions. In an age of intense partisanship, one would have thought that strong bipartisan support for Israel on such a timely issue would have made your cut.
So with all due respect to your prestigious paper, you will forgive us for declining your offer. We wouldn’t want to be seen as “Bibiwashing” the op-ed page of the New York Times.
Sincerely,
Ron Dermer
Senior advisor to Prime Minister Netanyahu
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Email of the Week
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An Israeli is on vacation and is visiting a zoo in the Englandwhen he sees a little girl leaning into the lion’s cage.Suddenly, the lion grabs her by the cuff of her jacket and tries to pull her inside to slaughter her, under the eyes of her screaming parents.
The Israeli runs to the cage and hits the lion square on the nose with a powerful punch. Whimpering from the pain the lion jumps back letting go of the girl, and the Israeli brings her to her terrified parents, who thank him endlessly. A reporter has watched the whole event. The reporter says to the Israeli: ‘Sir, this was the most gallant and brave thing I’ve seen a man do in my whole life.’ The Israeli replies, ‘Why, it was nothing, really. The lion was behind bars. I just saw this little kid in danger and acted as I felt right.’ The reporter says, ‘Well, I’ll make sure this won’t go unnoticed. I’m a journalist, and tomorrow’s paper will have this story on the front page. So, what do you do for a living and what political affiliation do you have?’ The Israeli replies, “I serve in the Israeli army and I vote for the Likud.” The journalist leaves. The following morning the Israeli buys the paper to see news of his actions, and reads, on the front page: RIGHT-WING ISRAELI ASSAULTS AFRICAN IMMIGRANT AND STEALS HIS LUNCH Hat tip: Steve Glassman |
Obama’s Mideast Farce
As usual, Charles Krauthammer is a lone voice of truth and reason in the wilderness of international and media groupthink:
President George W.Bush gave a written commitment that America supported Israel absorbing major settlement blocs in any peace agreement, opposed any return to the 1967 lines and stood firm against the so-called Palestinian right of return to Israel.
For 21 / 2 years, the Obama administration has refused to recognize and reaffirm these assurances. Then last week in his State Department speech, President Obama definitively trashed them. He declared that the Arab-Israeli conflict should indeed be resolved along “the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps.”
Nothing new here, said Obama three days later. “By definition, it means that the parties themselves — Israelis and Palestinians — will negotiate a border that is different” from 1967.
It means nothing of the sort. “Mutually” means both parties have to agree. And if one side doesn’t? Then, by definition, you’re back to the 1967 lines.
The Unfairness Doctrine
The World Cup exposes a dangerous trend in world politics.
Hat tip: Marc Jacob.
Thanks, Helen Thomas
I have been saying how much appreciation we owe Helen Thomas for shifting the dialogue away from the farcical condemnation of Israel in the wake of the flotilla incident.
Paul Greenberg takes a broader perspective.
We Con the World
If you haven’t seen this yet, it will make you laugh and cry to consider how so many can be so willingly fooled.
It Doesn’t Add Up
My friend Dave Weinbaum takes us on an important walk through Jewish history. Highlights include the following Arabic-Jewish community demographics and statistics:
- Algeria-140,000 Jews in 1948, less than 100 today.
- Yemen-55,000 Jews in 1948, less than 200 today.
- Egypt-80,000 Jews in 1948, less than 100 today. Twenty-five thousand Jews allowed to keep one suitcase each and forced to sign declaration “donating” their property to Egypt .
- Iran-100,000 Jews in 1948, 25,000 today.
- Libya-30,000 Jews before 1945, -0- today. In 1945, 140 Jews were murdered in Tripoli .
- Iraq-150,000 Jews in 1948, less than 40 today. In 1941, 180 Jews were murdered in Baghdad pogrom.
- Lebanon-30,000 Jews in 1948, less than 30 today.
- Morocco-500,000 Jews in 1948, less than 700 today.
- Syria-30,000 Jews in 1948, less than 100 today. Two-hundred homes shops and synagogues destroyed in 1947 in Aleppo .
- Tunisia-105,000 Jews in 1948, less than 1,500 today.
Jews had vibrant communities in many of these countries 2,000 years before Islam was born. Israel absorbed almost all of these homeless Jewish/Arab refugees. Currently, they and their descendents constitute over 50% of Israel ‘s population.
The value of Jewish property stolen by the above Arab/Muslim countries is $80 billion in today’s worth.
Jewish-owned land stolen by Arab/Muslim countries consists of 38,625 square miles. Israel ‘s total area is 7,992 square miles.
Yet the UN provides no compensation for these Arab/Jewish refugees and does compensate Palestinians.
And our president Obama publicly snubs Prime Minister Netanyahu in response to Israeli “intransigence.” To read the whole article, click here.
Krauthammer on Israel
“Israel? Israelis have been looking for peace — literally dying for peace — since 1947, when they accepted the U.N. partition of Palestine into a Jewish and Arab state. (The Arabs refused and declared war. They lost.)
“Israel made peace offers in 1967, 1978 and in the 1993 Oslo peace accords that Yasser Arafat tore up seven years later to launch a terror war that killed a thousand Israelis. Why, Clinton’s own husband testifies to the remarkably courageous and visionary peace offer made in his presence by Ehud Barak (now Netanyahu’s defense minister) at the 2000 Camp David talks. Arafat rejected it. In 2008, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert offered equally generous terms to Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas. Refused again.”
Perspectives
Dawn to Destiny:
Exploring Jewish History and its Hidden Wisdom
By Rabbi Yonason Goldson
A comprehensive overview of Jewish History from Creation through the redaction of the Talmud, illuminating the intricacies and complexities of Torah tradition and philosophy according to the sages and classical commentaries, spanning the length and breadth of Jewish experience to resolve many of history’s most perplexing episodes, offering profound insights and showing their relevance to life in the modern world.
How did the sin of Adam transform mankind and the world? How were the prophecies of Noah fulfilled through the rise of the Greek Empire? Why did lifespans shrink so dramatically after the Flood? How did the builders of the Tower of Babel believe they could wage war against G-d? Why did the Torah have to be given in both written and oral form? What was King David’s transgression regarding his involvement with BasSheva? Why did some Jews oppose the construction of the Second Temple? How can we trust the transmission of Torah if our scholars engaged in such fierce disagreements? These and many other questions are answered in this unique volume.
An invaluable resource for scholars and laymen. A priceless tool for education and outreach. With approbations from HaRav Dovid Cohen and HaRav Zev Leff.
FOR EXCERPTS CLICK HERE.
FOR ORDERING INFORMATION CLICK HERE.
Mission Statement for the Jewish People — from the extraordinary wisdom of Rav Shraga Feivel Mendelovitz, founder of Torah education in America.
Why Jews are Liberals — the origins of ideological confusion, and a follow-up piece exploring the practical applications.
The End of the Age of Reason — the sages’ vision of a future that is at our doorstep, and a follow-up piece in response to, and including, some colorful comments.
Israel: History, Politics, and Ideology — Answers to the attacks of apologists and antagonists.
Defining “Objective” History — How can we determine the accuracy of historical records? How do we resolve contradictions in history?
Evolution Forum — Is it possible to have a civil debate on the subject?
The Language of Confusion — 60 years after 1984, Orwell’s prophetic dystopia remains more relevant than ever.
The Final Battlefield – The current economic crisis foretold a thousand years ago and the climax of the ultimate ideological war. Also, variations on a theme inspired by Pink Floyd and this recipe for the only truly secure investment.
The Fallacy of Moral Relativism — How I taught a class of cynical teenagers the illogic of unrestricted personal freedom.
Hurricane Season– With meteorologists predicting more hurricanes on the scale of Gustav, Ike, and Katrina, these thoughts on the Pacific Rim Tsunami are worth another look.
Talking the to the Wall Department — My efforts to engage an ideologue in civil discourse. Draw your own conclusions, and feel free to weigh in … respectfully.
Insights into the weeky Torah Portion
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