Yet One More Reason Passaic Is Better Than Israel

Shalom Yishai,

Once again as is my want, I found myself on Sunday at another chasuna in Lakewood, NJ trying to inspire the few Jews I spoke to about the importance of living in the Land and at least making them have to justify why it is "okay" for them to be living here. I must say, that as I continue to listen to your show and others at INR, I am getting better at articulating the case for aliya.

But an argument came up from a BT that I wasn't sure how to answer convincingly. It goes as follows: Why should I make aliya when here in Passaic I have a great job, a nice house, I am growing in learning and ruchnious with my morning in night sedarim, etc. Who knows what will be if I move there. Furthermore, as both my brothers already made aliya, who will take care of my ageing parents? That would be selfish of me. Ever hear of Kibud Av v'aim? He went on to further say (in a nice way) you Zionists only focus on one mitzvah which is a machlochus rishonim if it is even a mitzvah! If I move there, I know my shalom bayis will suffer, my parnossa will suffer, and my learning will suffer. So any gain from living in the land will be outweighed by the augmes nefesh from being there. Lastly, we are supposed to wait for Moshiach! (I have yet to find a source for this last "proof".)

In anycase, I do think he made some good points, namely: Why should someone who is growing in Torah and mitzvos, who is happy with the schools, community, etc., who has a decent parnossa make aliya? Why should he risk throwing that all away? We have plenty of aliya failures in the New York area who made aliya with starry eyed idealism only to have it crushed by the realities of the "harshness" of life on adamas ha kodesh...In my own reading of Eim Habanim Semeichah R' Teichtal seem to intimate that the call for aliya is to those Jews who are suffering in the gulus not those that are thriving...

-Yisroel

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Shalom Yisroel,

Thanks for your letter. Please listen to my 7 minute audio response by clicking ))))HERE((((

-Yishai

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Understanding and Action

The following wonderful article from the OU's Jewish Action Magazine is entitled: "A Love Story in Anticipation of a Happy Ending" and was written by my friend and colleague Rabbi Hillel Fendel and I think it sums it all up pretty well:

“Skittering over the hilltops, jumping between the mountains” (Song of Songs 2:8). In sight for a moment, out of view for two, and once again back into range. How aptly the relationship depicted in Song of Songs between God and Israel describes that between the Jewish people of today—so clearly longing for Redemption and for Israel’s material and spiritual success—and the modern State of Israel.

We see so much good and beauty in Israel as it skitters before us over the hilltops—and then we recall its many shortcomings and problems as its glory falls out of view behind the mountains. True, we know it will soon come into view again—and maybe this time even forever! But when we look at the horizon and see nothing but the fleeting image of what could be, it is hard to remain encouraged. Perhaps all that’s missing is to view the mountainside from the proper angle?

Some decades ago, when I first arrived in Bayit Vegan, a neighborhood in Jerusalem, for high school, it seemed as if all was right with the country. A sense of confidence prevailed: The Kotel was ours, and work was underway to build a plaza in front of it. The War of Attrition was behind us, and whatever terror attacks there were—and there were—were faced with unity and a sense of justice in our national cause. The ba’al teshuvah movement was going strong, and new yeshivot seemed to be opening everywhere (though at a snail’s pace compared to the current frenzied rate). The ingathering of the exiles was proceeding apace, and the economy was growing. While it was difficult to get a phone line for a private apartment, the number of months one needed to wait seemed to be gradually dropping to single digits.

And now, several months before Israel’s sixtieth birthday, has everything turned upside down? Must we feel, as the introduction to this series of articles implies, that all of our accomplishments amount to nil? Must we feel that then we had a sense of unity, but today we don’t, that then we had confidence and direction, but today we don’t? Yes, we all know the many terrific problems we currently face, but must we assume that our national history has gone into reverse?

Am Yisrael is always advancing along the road toward Redemption, and especially so during the past 120 years. For more than 1,800 years we had been waiting patiently for the Divine call “Return, My children, to your borders!” It came finally, unmistakably, in the late 1800s, when Jews not only began arriving in the Land of Israel in large numbers, but were also self-supporting!

As the great visionary Rabbi Shmuel Mohilever wrote in 1890 after a visit to the Land:

Can anyone not see the finger of God in all that has befallen us? .... It has been now six years that towns and villages and wells and flocks have arisen from the dust; the fields are full of grain, and grapes and vines cover the hills. Fourteen colonies have been founded during this period, and 3,000 of our brothers are working there. Before, the holy ways were filled with thorns and thistles, and people could barely walk here and traveled only by covered wagon—but now, we travel from Yaffo to Jerusalem, Hebron, Petach Tikvah, Rishon LeTzion, Mikveh Yisrael, Zichron Yaakov—and all on a straight path, the “king’s way,” in a carriage drawn by three horses. And Jerusalem, so desolate before, is now as fresh as in its youth; outside the walls of old Jerusalem, we see straight and beautiful streets lined by hundreds of houses, soon to be thousands; and all the European countries are trying to buy a portion of the Holy Land and Jerusalem. Is all this not a sign and wonder that Hashem has remembered His people and His Land, and that all that He wrought was for our good, to bring us up to the heights of Mt. Zion?

Over a century later, can there be any doubt that the process of Redemption has only intensified? When commemorating sixty years of statehood, we must not look myopically at the past few years, but rather at the entire picture—beginning with the Exile, and extending through the centuries of darkness, wandering and persecutions to the gradual return of the Jewish people to their home—exactly as was predicted by our prophets and sages.

Though for many years it was hard to see how this process was developing, in our generation we are fully confident that our ascent towards complete national Redemption has started—and that we ourselves are playing an active role in moving the process along. As Rabbi Eli Sadan, the head of the first mechinah (pre-army yeshivah program) in Israel, wrote in a recent pamphlet:

The front line of great rabbis of the past generations—Rabbi Yosef Karo, the Gaon of Vilna, Rabbi Zvi Hirsch Kalischer, Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak HaCohen Kook and many others—told us: “Holy flock, the time of your redemption has arrived!” They marked the way for us—yet astonishingly, it was very hard for the Jewish people to accept the ruling [that the period of forced exile was ending and the time to return to the Land of Israel had come]. This was chiefly because it was truly a hard thing to do—to adopt a national lifestyle of politics, army, economy, and the like, and all in the old/new garb of the traditional sanctity and purity of Israel. How difficult! But “kol dodi dofek, my beloved is calling,” and “et l'chenenah ki va moed, the time has come to favor the Land”; the nation, in the depths of its soul, began to awaken; the Master of the Universe dropped the walls and opened before us the gates of Eretz Yisrael.…The time had come.

Even if the religious public hesitated, Rabbi Sadan continued, the non-religious Jews were unable to wait any longer. Creating facts on the ground, they burst forward. Tradition states that the coming of the Mashiach will take place in a similar manner—Mashiach “Ben Partzi” is destined to come from Peretz, the one who paratz, burst forth, into the world before his twin brother.

Ever since those early years of modern Zionism, Israel has continued to be on the ascendancy, with more Torah, more religiosity, more hi-tech and scientific inventions, more production of agriculture, more development of cities and towns—and more growth in the Jewish population.

Everyone is familiar with the fantastic rate of growth and construction in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria. But what about the rest of the country? Take, for example, sleepy old Afula. When I lived there some twenty years ago, I would take my bicycle for weekly rounds around the outskirts of the city to check that the eruv was functional. Today, given Afula’s tremendous growth, the former “outskirts” are in the middle of town, while the current outskirts are blocks and blocks away in each direction.

Could any Jew who experienced the Holocaust sixty-five years ago have dared to entertain such a scenario? When commemorating sixty years of statehood, we must not look myopically at the past few years, but rather at the entire picture.Never in the last 1,930 years have the Jewish people, on a national scale, had it so good!

But, of course, there is the other side of the coin. If everything is so great, why does everything feel so bad? The problems in Israel are many and great. With a total lack of confidence in the necessity of listing them at all, here they are: Corruption in the government, poor quality of education, discord about our national goals, a growing non-Jewish population, growing socio-economic gaps, increased estrangement from Judaism and the Land of Israel, lack of inspired leadership, apathy regarding the fate of Jerusalem and uncertainty regarding the nation’s future and violent crime.

So what do we do? Give up? Throw in the towel? Say it was a good try but better luck next time, see you again in a couple of centuries? The very fact that we can entertain this question is an absurdity. Can you imagine the French or the Brazilians ever “giving up” and leaving their country? Is there any nation that would actually consider the option of calling for a “do-over”?

Moreover, it’s an incredible chutzpah when Jews living chutz la’Aretz criticize Israelis and their political leaders and assert that because of their mistakes, they will be staying in the Diaspora. Such sentiments are often found in talkbacks to Internet news reports on Israel.

History has decreed that our prophets’ Divine messages are coming true before our eyes; we can either jump on the bandwagon or get left behind. But to claim membership in a nation that has taken the path of revival while at the same time choosing to remain exiled is untenable in the long run.

This, then, is both the challenge and the solution: aliyah. It’s not just for those who live outside Israel (immigration) but also for those who already live here. The word aliyah comes from the root word aleh, which either means to “go up” or to “raise up.” Those who live here should be continually trying to raise the quality of Israeli life on all planes. Aliyah to Eretz Yisrael is necessary, for the sake of both the individual and the nation. We need Jews here, and they need to be here. The Jewish nation suffers when her children are not home, and the children suffer when they are cut off from their source.

At the risk of stating the obvious, the more people move to Israel in order to help solve our collective problems, the faster those problems will be solved. Decades ago, some religious leaders did not encourage aliyah for fear that the State would not be religious. Ironically, this almost guaranteed that the State would be irreligious.

There are those today who mock the religious leaders of previous decades for taking this road, yet they themselves take a similar approach today. However, there’s a difference. Back then, it was “spiritual” problems that kept some Jews away. Today, it is “political” problems. “First get rid of your government,” they say, or “your bureaucracy or [fill in the blank] and then I’ll consider coming.” (Insert small dose of healthy skepticism here).

Let us not make the same errors again. No more “I-told-you-so’s” after the fact. Instead of once again finding the perfect excuse to remain in the Diaspora, let us jump into the fray with real-time fixes. Let us be a part of the solution, not the problem.

And those who live here in Israel must also make aliyah. We must be constantly on the lookout, as more and more people already are, for ways to alleviate the problems that are closest to our hearts. We must be constantly on the alert to radiate to others that life in Israel, in the long-range, is not only good but is getting better.

And more: As we increasingly hear our rabbis—and our children—say, let us grab the chance to establish a society predicated on Torah values. Let us forge ahead to become a strong presence and influence in the army, in the courts, in the media. Let us combine purity and on-the-ground action to build our national home in Eretz Yisrael. Let us raise a generation imbued with dedication and even sacrifice. Let us be like the early pioneers, but with the added great ambition to live a life of sanctity in accordance with the Torah of Israel.

Let us not be fooled by what appears to be thriving Jewish life in the United States. The center and the heart of Jewish life is here in Israel. Taking active part in the enterprise that is Israel is the challenge of our times and is an opportunity that no one must miss. After sixty years, it’s way past time to come home.

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Rabbi Fendel has been the senior news editor of Arutz Sheva Israel National News since 1995. He studied in Yeshivat Merkaz HaRav for five years and started Yeshivat Mevaseret Zion for international students. He is the author of One Thing I Ask (Jerusalem, 1995) and has lived in Beit El with his wife Bina and their eight children since 1992.

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Our Flag

Listeners of my show asked how they can support Israel's 60th celebrations. I responded by saying that everyone should put out a flag of Israel - especially non-Jews! I also asked that people email me photos of the flag. Here are a couple of responses:



Yishai,

You asked for a flag of Israel flying in Oklahoma. You got it. I am in Chickasha, Oklahoma. Pronounced Chick-ah-shay. I would like to wish Israel a happy birthday. I listen you guys every day.

Letting you know we care.

Thanks,
James



Dear Yishai,

I'm HAPPY to submit pics of my support for Israel. My husband also helped put both flags up, side by side.

I dream of one day moving to Israel, but need prayers. Holding fast to the promises given to the Land of Israel and with faith that I may see Her become whole in every way as She was intended to be, I dream one day of moving to Israel.

I enjoy your shows and all the shows at Israel National Radio. Continue in that work. It's the only news I listen to. With LOVE and HOPE for Zion,

~Sharon
Colorado

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Busted for Praying!

Shalom Yishai,

Freedom of religion in America? Only if you are muslim. Then they will install footbaths for you in airports. It's true that Jews are arrested on the Temple Mount for praying, but those who use it as an excuse not to make aliyah should read the stories below:

Praying passenger removed from flight. An Orthodox Jewish man, who wanted to travel to San Francisco by plane, left his seat and went to the back of the plane to pray before the Flight 9 to San Francisco took off. He didn’t follow the flight attendants’ advices to return to his seat. As a result, he was ejected from the flight....

Jewish man removed from airplane for praying.

Some fellow passengers are questioning why an Orthodox Jewish man was removed from an Air Canada Jazz flight in Montreal last week for praying. The man was a passenger on a Sept. 1 flight from Montreal to New York City when the incident happened.

Man arrested at a Rosh Hashanah prayer meeting.

A group of about 100 people in Central Florida claim they were harassed by deputies during a Rosh Hashanah prayer service that ended with an arrest. The group was celebrating the Jewish New Year at an off-campus house near the University of Central Florida Wednesday night when deputies were called to the house.

Jewish passenger saying morning prayers on Chicago train causes panic by putting on tefillin, which other passengers thought to be wires of explosive belt.

A Jewish passenger on a Chicago train was arrested after fellow passengers accused him of being a suicide bomber

City of Los Angeles sends inspectors to shut down "illegal" Kol Nidrei Tefillah

kol tuv,
Dan

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To Blog Or Not To Blog?

Hello,

My name is Sean. I am writing a thesis on blogging around the world and I came upon your interesting site while researching. I would really appreciate it if you could answer any of the following questions; any response both long or short would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Why do you blog?

Y: Dear Sean - Shalom! Blog writing fills a niche that article writing cannot fulfill. Blogging tells the story of the daily life. Blogging can describe a fleeting feeling that is not necessarily your philosophy of life, but just a thought that occurred to you. In this way blogging is a companion to news sites because it gives a glimpse into the personal and the real life of a region or group of people...

How many people do you estimate read your blog?

About a thousand a day. Our movie, however, was seen by hundreds of thousands and went around the net virally.

Do you hope that your blog can influence people or accomplish something or do you just blog for the sake of writing?

Our blog is certainly geared to call on action. Our focus is Jewish immigration to Israel (in Hebrew: Aliyah). We are calling on American Jews to choose Israel as their home. However, we cannot just talk about the philosophy of Aliyah every day, or push our ideology every day. We understand that to make people fall in love with Israel we need to show them our perspective on the beauties of the country, and to get them involved in the nitty gritty of life here. We want to show them the supermarkets and the children. We also want to help defray the image of Israel that one sees in the news, which by the news' nature, is always bad.

We also try to bring our political/philosophical/religious outlook down to a people level. This means that someone can email me directly, or comment on the blog and have a discourse with a real person and not just an anonymous writer on CNN. We try to be very real and to share ourselves and our lives as much as we can so that people know that our message comes from the heart.

Do you know other people in your community who blog?

Sure. Like minded people get together and I cross-promote often. While we try to be a good blog, I do not feel any competitive aspect. Maybe another important point is that there is no money involved here. No ads, no employees, no salaries. So it's a labor of love and I think that readers sense that.

Do you get really supportive/negative feedback from your readers? Do you have any examples?

Check out this link. Feel free to write again Sean. All the best, Yishai

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A Modern Exodus!

Click on the above photo to enlarge it - it is a happy maker. Also, speaking of Exodus, check out this Haaretz article about a modern Jewish hero, the captain of the Exodus:

'A Hero Who Did Not Seek Acts of Heroism'

On the way from Tel Aviv to the funeral yesterday in Kibbutz Sdot Yam of Yossi Harel, the legendary commander of illegal immigration ships, his friends sang Shaul Tchernichovky's evocative "Creed" to the mournful accompaniment of a harmonica. There seems to be no better song than this, declaring the poet's belief in the human spirit and the birth of a new, strong generation, to reflect Harel's life.

"Modest, a brave fighter and a hero who did not seek acts of heroism, because he understood the limitations of strength," is the way the writer Shaul Biber, a comrade from the Palmach days, described him.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak eulogized him as "a man who saw a window or a door in every wall, and an obstacle as an opportunity to be overcome."

President Shimon Peres said the biblical verse, "For with wise advice thou shalt make thy war; and in the multitude of counselors there is safety," suited him very much.

When Harel was only 28 years old, he had already commanded the major clandestine immigration operations which brought four ships from Europe to the shores of Palestine: Knesset Israel, Exodus, Atzmaut and Kibbutz Galuyot, bringing in 24,000 Jews, over one-third of all the illegal immigrants who came to the country between 1945 and 1948.

A veteran of the Palmach's naval force, the Palyam, recalled that in the hold of the Exodus was a 12-year-old girl, who would one day raise a son in Israel who would become commander of the navy and of the Southern Command. That girl was Fruma Galant, the mother of Major General Yoav Galant.

Ten years ago, Galant brought his mother to meet Harel, and yesterday he said he "was impressed by the power that radiated from him and the sympathy he showed. One can only look at his actions today in amazement."

Some 300 of Harel's friends and relatives gathered yesterday on the beach at Tel Aviv's Clandestine Immigration Park to remember him. Later, at the funeral in Sdot Yam, Mordechai Roseman, a leader of the immigrants aboard the Exodus, said, "We salute Yossi Harel, our commander."

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Pig-Out

The photo above was taken on the mountainside below my house. Some people hate pigs. I don't hate them, I just don't eat them or let them run around the sanctuary. These wild boars don't harm people, and are said to be dangerous only when cornered. I have had no problems with them. In fact, I love to see G-d's amazing creatures. I do think though that the Torah's repeated warnings against eating swine is due to the fact the hogs are common in Israel and the Lord wanted to give us a stern warning not to partake of pig flesh. However, as you can see in the Forward article below not everyone has heard His call for an embargo on the pork:

On Israel’s Only Jewish-Run Pig Farm, It’s The Swine That Bring Home the Bacon

I stood beside the road with a traveling backpack and a yarmulke, my arm extended, hitchhiking to the junction from Ramat Raziel to catch a bus home. I was singing “Lev Tahor,” a verse from Psalm 51 meaning “pure heart” that I’d been singing all Sabbath long. A car stopped, and a bearded man in a knit yarmulke picked me up. As I entered his car, he turned to me: “I’m Oren… So where you going?” Damn. I’d begun to hate this question, especially when asked by religious people. “Kibbutz Lahav,” I answered, expecting a gasp. Unfazed, he further inquired, “And what do you do there?” Again, I hesitated, this time with dread. “Uh, well… I work on their pig farm.”

And just like that, I managed to overwhelm and confuse Oren, as well as myself, while simultaneously expressing the contradiction that pig farming in Israel played in my life for the two months I spent working at Kibbutz Lahav. Luckily, Oren was an open-minded man whose parting words to me were: “God put you on the pork farm for a reason.”

The kibbutz and its pigs sit comfortably in the northern Negev, just 30 minutes north of Beersheba, surrounded by the Lahav forest, Israel’s largest manmade woodlands. Pine trees, scattered acorns and orderly planted “wild” grasses and flowers seem somewhat out of place in the desert hills. The iconoclastic kibbutz similarly appears incongruous in a Jewish part of a Jewish country, next door to religious Kibbutz Shomeriya. As I learned over the course of two months, though, the kibbutz, just like the forest, fits into the complex web of Israeli and Jewish identity in more ways than one.

Toward the end of January, I moved onto Kibbutz Lahav in an effort to understand the phenomenon of pigs in Israel. While there are a number of similar farms in Israel, Kibbutz Lahav is unique because, as its slogan suggests, it is “the meat from the Kibbutz.” All the other pig breeders operate in a zone in the North dominated by Christian Arabs, the only place where raising pork is legal, according to a 1962 law. Kibbutz Lahav, a Jewish-run farm, proudly operates outside the legal zone.

Lahav’s pig breeding gained widespread notoriety because of its legal loophole, almost talmudic in its ingenuity, in which the kibbutz is exempt from the law and can rightfully raise pigs for research as a part of its Animal Research Institute. Thus, the kibbutz raises pigs for science and eats the excess, developing over the years a rather staggering excess. For many years the institute was no more than an ad hoc veterinarian research institute, which, on the scientific side, boasted little more than the successful splicing of an ibex with a goat.

“Israelis weren’t ready to pay more money for it,” said Dodik, a kibbutz elder whose last name I never learned, as was the case with most people on the kibbutz.

Today, as a result of the recent biotech boom, the institute is the center of Israel’s most spectacular medical advancements, where religious Jewish scientists are among the hundreds of researchers who use the pigs for innovative experimentation.

Despite the institute’s success, raising and processing pig meat is the main purpose of the farm, as the 10,000-plus animals suggest. Most workers commute from Beersheba each morning. Jewish immigrants from Argentina and Russian immigrants with little Jewish background make up the largest proportion of the 50-something workers. On any given morning, the workers are spread out among the 15 or so indoor buildings, administering antibiotics, slaughtering and butchering, inseminating sows and moving pigs to the fattening rooms from their weaning rooms.

Eshai, a proud Israeli-born pork eater — and self-proclaimed messiah (he was born on the Ninth of Av, the prophesied birthday of the future messiah) — was my supervisor for most of February. He seethed with a cynicism toward all things Jewish and traditional. I once asked him why nobody collects and sells pigs’ milk. He answered me, grinning: “Pigs’ milk isn’t kosher.”

One day after work, when changing out of my coveralls and knee-high boots, a new immigrant from Brazil, Yehoshua, was discussing his former religiosity with Marcos when he mentioned in passing that he still didn’t eat pork. “Me neither,” I interrupted their conversation, excited to discover I wasn’t alone. “I keep kosher.”

Then Marcos chimed in, in his equally broken Hebrew: “Yeah, neither do I.” And there we sat, three confused Jewish pig farmers, when Imat, the Palestinian Muslim pig farmer, who also didn’t eat pork, entered the room.

How can you spot a kosher pig farmer? We blended in — except for Yehoshua, who always wore facemasks in a last-ditch effort not to inhale or ingest the same air as the pigs, or the floating fecal dust. Early on I also donned a facemask, but unlike Yehoshua, who can hardly understand Hebrew or English, I got the jokes and insults, such as “Jewboy” and “rookie,” from the Sabras, not to mention Eshai’s looks, which implied “pansy.”

It was when I learned from co-workers that our manager doesn’t eat pork, and that his manager and the head of the entire pork operation has a pork-free home, that I first felt at home, comfortable as a kosher Jew on the kibbutz. Through such revelations I saw the pig-breeding center as home to the same neurotic Jewish traditionalism that courses through my veins.

Such contradictions shed light on the beautiful and confusing Jewish identity of Kibbutz Lahav and its pigs. On Friday night in the kibbutz dining room, there is a Sabbath display of candlesticks, a challah cover and a Kiddush cup. Kibbutzniks thus have the Sabbath on their minds as they eat their special meal of braised pork or ham on the ceremonial white Sabbath linens. During our celebratory barbecue just prior to Purim, management handed out mishloach manot, traditional Jewish gift baskets, to all the workers, with a note wishing everyone a “happy Purim.” Most workers ate the hamantaschen as dessert after the grilled pork spare ribs. One Thursday, while I was shopping in the kolbo — the kibbutz grocery store — a panicked woman ran behind me to speak to the cashier, urgently asking if she could leave a ham in the freezer and collect it tomorrow for Friday’s dinner. When she left with permission to do so, I turned to the cashier woman, smiled and asked her if the meat was “for Shabbat.” She nodded, and we both laughed.

According to Dodik, one of the kibbutz founders, Lahav embarked on pork production by chance. In 1952, the year of the kibbutz’s founding and a period of major food shortages in Israel, the struggling Lahav received a gift of one boar and two sows from a neighboring kibbutz. After a number of years, and thanks to the will of a few kibbutzniks, those pigs became the kibbutz’s financial linchpin. As kibbutzim have been failing and Lahav, in particular, has had trouble, the pigs have remained a stable revenue producer, an unlikely friend to a Zionist institution.

And even though most kibbutzniks no longer “work in the pigs,” the porcine influence on the kibbutz is nearly impossible to miss. Ten thousand-plus pigs howl throughout the night, along with the desert jackals. There’s a dreaded western wind here that brings with it the inescapable and potent scent of industrial hog waste that cannot possibly be ignored. In the dining room there is almost always a pork option. The kibbutzniks find no need for the silly euphemisms used by greater Israeli society, like “white meat” and “white steak.” Pork, or at least the right to raise it, serve it and eat it, is no doubt a point of pride at Lahav today, and part of the kibbutz’s national legacy.

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Aliyah or Assimilation?

Shalom and Happy Passover!

My family was very secular, so I was raised as a very secular Jew. I awakened as an adult and decided to make aliyah. I had a very hard time because I was unable to think of a way to make aliyah (our shaliach we had at the time was NOT very helpful). I finally went and found some proof (duh, if my father's military records would prove Jewishness, why wouldn't mine?). Right on my VA (Veterans administration) records it states "Jewish". If this record would work to prove I am Jewish if it was on my father's records (which I could not get because of privacy laws) it will have to prove it if it is on my records. I have been trying now for 11 years and finally got the idea to try my own records to see if it is on them and sure enough it is...

Any way, I am so tired of the complacency in my local community. We have a building but no services. I had to twist their arm and finally got them to hold a half hearted Shabbat service. (Their is not one scheduled again for the time being. They only use the building for funerals and a communal Passover Seder.) They all are afraid to even admit their Jews in public (this is the reason for lack of services I was told). They all want to just ride below the radar and not be noticed and stick out. This is the type of fear and apathy, etc. that allowed the holocaust to happen. If we were more willing to fight for our rights, etc., less of us would have been killed by the Nazis and their supporters. I want info about how I become a member and what your organizations stands for and does.

Thanks,
Scott

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Priestly Blessing - Jerusalem 5768

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This Might Help...

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Bush, Carter, and Intelligent Design

Yishai, Shalom,

I enjoyed your explanation of George W. Bush visiting Massada, not to identify with the Jews, but with the Romans.
Also, you referred to the Philistines as Bush's proxy warriors. That's exactly the point, without American financial and political backing for the Philistines, there would be no terrorism.

That's why I disagree with pundits who talk about our enemies as the Islamofascists. I agree that the Ishmaelites enjoy terrorizing Jews, but they quickly lose motivation and money, and start fighting among themselves. Thus, I see the Philistines more as Edom's dobermans. They don't want to do the avodah shechora, let the Arabs do that for them. That means, the American gov't is Israel's enemy ! American Jews, you are accomplices to the crime. Come home to Israel....

As for Carter's visit to the Hamas leader, I think it's supposed to change the scale. Did you ever make a graph in Excel. Let's say you're making a graph of appeasement of terrorists by different leaders. Olmert would get a 40%, Livni would get a 45%, then comes Carter and gets a 100%. He completely changes the scale. Olmert's and Livni's bars are dwarfed by that of Carter and now take up only half of the screen. Now they can condemn Carter for appeasing terrorists and pretend to be Hawks, while they continue to sell out Israel. Now Condy Rice can supply a whole shipload of weapons to the "moderate" Abu Mazen. Thanks, Jimmy.

As for Tibi, have you ever seen Gypsies in Europe ? Here's how they work, a couple of gypsies put on a show and sing or juggle, whatever, and the third gypsy goes around the crowd and picks people's pockets. Tibi is a diversion. He makes a lot of noise and Eli Yishai and Avigdor Lieberman can pretend to be right wing by condemning him and pass laws making it a crime for Arab MK's to betray the state -- these laws have no meaning because the judicial system will ignore them -- and then while everyone is staring at Tibi's antics, Olmert and Livni "pick our pockets" and give away the land of Israel.

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Intelligent Design:
I'm reading "Not by Chance" by Dr. Lee Spetner, an Oleh to Israel. He demolishes all of Richard Dawkin's arguments in the Blind Watchmaker. I read that book by Dawkins years ago and was convinced that evolution could work. I was conned ! Dawkins makes a lot of unsupported assumptions. Spetner shows mathematically that it can't work.

And you know what, "they" know it doesn't work. That's why Stephen Jay Gould suddenly came up with a theory about 20 years ago that evolution must have happened in rapid surges every million years or so, but that doesn't work either. They know it doesn't work and they keep on teaching it, just like they keep on teaching Biblical criticism even though Prof. Cassuto disproved it in the 30's. They can't let people believe that Hashem created the world or that Hashem wrote the Torah.

One example: they tell us that bacteria evolve when they become resistant to antibiotics. The bacteria do evolve, but they LOSE information. The antibiotic used to fit into the bacteria, like a key into a lock, so there arose a mutation which damaged the receptor (the lock) so the key won't fit in. But the bacteria needs that receptor for something else, so it get messed up a little, it will not work as well, and lost genetic information.

You can't evolve from a cell to a human being by losing information, just like you can't get rich by losing money and making it up on volume. Humans are more complex than cells so you have to gain information.

kol tuv,
Dan

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Visiting Joseph

A few weeks ago, I boarded a bus at Yitzhar, which when completely overloaded, headed to Shchem for a visit to the destroyed compound that is the Tomb of Joseph. The 30 minutes I spent there gave me a spiritual high that is still with me weeks later. When I first got there, I felt like crying at seeing the burnt remains of this holy site, one of only three which Scripture tells us was bought by our forefathers in the Land of Israel. Seeing the destroyed structure is bad enough, but there is even more pain at the realization that the state of the Tomb of Joseph is also a clear sign that the Jewish State has receded, and that to a degree, Israel is being overpowered by the Philistines of today...

Powerful prayers could be heard from the other worshipers, and I joined them as well. But a funny and unexpected thing happened. All around the compound I was sad and brokenhearted, but when I finally touched my head to the headstone of the tomb I started laughing! I had to hide my laughter so that others would not think I was nuts! Why did I laugh? Because I just had a feeling well up in mY soul that nothing, nothing, could hurt Joseph or stop the destiny of the Jewish/world project. It was just the clearest sense that Joseph was WAY above any superficial destruction and it made me laughingly happy. Eretz Yisrael is acquired through hardships and is seems that we were chosen to deal with the issues of a fledgling Jewish State and her enemies. Just as Joseph was sold into slavery but then was brought high, so too he will rise again, and with him all of Israel.

Here is a link to the pictures I took on the trip.

Below is a nice article from AFP (usually quite anti-Semitic) about our trip:

Hardline Jews Make Night Pilgrimages To West Bank Tomb

NABLUS, West Bank (AFP) — Headlights pierce the misty night as the armored bus packed with hardline Jews winds down the road from a hilltop settlement into the heart of the Palestinian town of Nablus.

Their destination is the burial place of the biblical patriarch Joseph, a pilgrimage site that has become a grim symbol of the region's intractable conflict.

Nearly 100 men wearing black hats or skullcaps and clutching prayer books huddle in the bus, some reading prayers by the light of mobile phones.

"This is a path of devotion for God. I have gone this way dozens of times and will continue doing it," says Benjamin Makhleb, a 23-year-old member of the Hassidic Breslav movement who had come from Jerusalem.

The tense silence that grips this cloak-and-dagger mission gives way to raptured singing and praying as the two buses pass through the checkpoint at the entrance to Nablus, under heavy military escort.

It is just past 2 am.

"This is the cradle of our existence as a Jewish people. Joseph's Tomb is part of every Jew and it is shameful to see us having to sneak in here like thieves in the night," says 23-year-old Nathan Azur.

"It saddens and angers me to see this," says the bearded student from a town near Tel Aviv.

Everyone makes the journey for religious reasons, but for many extreme right-wing Israelis it is also an affirmation of what they see as the Jews' right to control and govern their sacred sites in the Holy Land.

They reject the Israeli government's peace talks with the Palestinians, whose goal is to create an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip -- which would mean evacuating dozens of Jewish settlements and removing Israeli army presence from most of the occupied land .

Escorted by two armored jeeps at each end, the small convoy heads slowly through the deserted, derelict streets of this town of 150,000.

The Palestinian Authority deployed 600 policemen in Nablus after Middle East peace talks resumed in November, but they are not allowed to operate after midnight when only the Israeli army patrols the city.

Palestinian security officials told AFP they are not involved in coordinating the visits to the tomb of Joseph, the 11th son of Jacob. And one local Palestinian security official warned that these the visits could spark new trouble.

"This place has already seen a lot of violence and death, and allowing the settlers to enter Nablus and visit this site could cause more violence," said the official, who requested to remain unnamed.

A small synagogue built on the site following Israel's occupation of the West Bank in 1967 was ransacked and destroyed by Palestinians shortly after the outbreak of the second intifada in September 2000. Several Israeli soldiers and Palestinian were killed in fighting at this site.

In another incident, hundreds of Jewish settlers and Breslav Hassidim defied an Israeli ban on entering Palestinian cities in order to visit the tomb, at great personal risk under cover of darkness.

After the army had to rescue several of them, the military agreed to organise regular, guarded visits with help from local Jewish settler groups.

These days the visits are "done in full coordination with the army, after appropriate preparations and in view of the conditions that allow the prayers to be carried out under the army's surveillance," the army said in a statement.

Nahman Weiss, 19, however, says he has visited this tomb and many other holy sites across the West Bank hundreds of times in recent years, often travelling with friends and without informing the army.

The risk involved is a test of his devotion to God, he says.

"Going through this is hard and sometimes dangerous, but this is the only happiness. We trust God," he says. Like other men on the bus, Weiss sports the earlocks, white skullcap and black overcoat of his Hassidic sect.

As fervent believers file silently out of the bus in front of the abandoned tomb, dozens of heavily armed soldiers fan out across the area.

Two neon lamps illuminate the limestone structure as the stench of urine and rubbish mingles with the cold night air. The stairs leading to the small domed shrine are covered with litter and dirt.

Women in headscarves get off a second bus and head to the tomb as the men enter a side room where they immediately break into rapturous prayers.

In the centre of the main chamber a ring of stones encircles the presumed grave where an Ottoman-era tombstone was destroyed in 2003.

A huge hole in the demolished dome opens out to the starry sky, and the walls are still black from the blaze that badly damaged the structure.

Young women prostrate themselves upon the grave, whispering prayers for good luck, health and strength. Others read quietly from prayer books.

After a few minutes the men enter and take the women's place in the main room. Some sink into deep meditation, swaying back and forth. Others break into loud singing in praise of God and Joseph.

Some rub their faces with dirt from the ground and the walls of the site.

"This is a source of strength and good fortune," says Ohad Ben-Ela, a 20-year-old settler from Yitzhar, his face black with soot and earth.

A megaphone calls everyone back to the buses, sparking a burst of loud singing inside the tomb as the pilgrims make the most out of the 30-minute visit. Back on the bus, some excitedly exchange impressions, others are exhausted by the intense late-night experience.

Someone uses the vehicle's PA system to urge everyone to return to the tomb, with or without the army, in order to assert their claim over the site.

"We must continue pressing the army to conquer this place from our enemies," the pilgrim said. "We must not cave in to dictates by an army that operates as a UN force between Jews and Arabs."

Back in the settlement of Yitzhar, overlooking Nablus, two more buses are ready to depart as the others return. A total of seven busloads of pilgrims will visit Joseph's Tomb before dawn.

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Run Home Jews, Run Home

Below is a cute article about a reform rabbi who is altering his diet before running the marathon in Boston to fit the requirements of Pesach. There are also other Jews in the article who have decided that eating chametz in preparation for the Marathon trumps Pesach concerns. The article seems to have some elements of Kidush Hashem by showing the devotion of Jews to Pesach, and some elements of Chilul Hashem by showing how some Jews are willing to throw away tradition of 3000 years in order to run 30 miles in Boston.

However, the truth is that once again our focus is lead astray by a mis-framing of the entire issue...

The real issue is that Jews, with their tremendous spiritual and activist energy, are spending it all on unimportant things. The Jews in this article feel proud that they can run a marathon on a stomach full of Matzah. They thing it is some kind of religious sacrifice and athletic sacrifice all at once. But they are wrong. The whole purpose of the Jewish religion is to serve G-d and not to run marathons on foreign soil. On Pesach, instead of running a marathon on a stomach full of matzah, these Jews should consider packing up their house and preparing for Aliyah on a stomach full of matzah. Then they too can relive the Exodus from Egyptian materialism and bondage.

In general, American Jews find "important" issues to take part in or debate vigorously. The Orthodox deal with things like the endless Eruv construction debates, mini-bugs in water, and blood-drawing during ritual circumcision. The Reform-Conservative care about Darfur and running marathons in Boston. All of these have one thing in common: they are excuses not to deal with the central issue of our time and that is building the nation of Israel through the advent of the Jewish State. By making themselves feel as though they are involved in important issues, or by deluding themselves with the belief that American Jewry somehow helps Israel, American Jews quietly create an atmosphere where their existence is never challenged. Sadly, the fact remains, that the Jewish State is waiting for the last naglah (load) of Jews to come home so that we can move forward. They are holding up the show.

Hey Jew, your home is not America! You don't need to run a useless marathon around Boston! Run home Jew, run home!

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"Is It Kosher? Jewish Marathon Runners Balance Passover With Prep For Boston"

BOSTON - Jonah Pesner is looking ahead to his crucial carb-loading, fuel-up meal on the night before running his first Boston Marathon. On the menu: matzoh.

It’s not the usual choice for marathoners loading up on carbohydrates to drive their run, but Pesner, a rabbi, has limited options.

Passover begins just two days before the April 21 marathon, and the holiday’s strict dietary rules mean Jewish runners can’t eat bread and pasta, the normal staples in the days before the big race.

Besides matzoh, which is unleavened bread, Pesner plans to pound down foods such as potatoes during a rare "carb-load seder" the night before the race.

Pesner never considered breaking the dietary rules for the sake of the race, which he is running with his wife for an autism charity.

"For me, running the marathon is a very spiritual quest," he said.

The marathon is always held on Patriots [team stats] Day, a state holiday that falls the third Monday in April, and often comes within the weeklong Passover holiday.

Marathon organizers try to be sensitive to religious concerns, but major changes to suit various religions aren’t practical, said Marc Chalufour, spokesman for the Boston Athletic Association, the marathon’s organizer.

"You’ve got 25,000 runners and you obviously want to be sensitive to the needs of all of them," Chalufour said. "But you can’t make a change to accommodate some of the runners at the expense of the majority."

The dietary restrictions for Passover forbid eating leavened foods, such as bread, cake, beer or pasta, which have yeast or other fermented grain products.

The prohibition is traced to the roots of the holiday, which marks when God sent an angel to kill first-born Egyptian sons, but spared the houses of the Israelites. Soon after, Pharaoh freed the Jews, who fled in such a hurry that the dough they took didn’t have enough time to rise.

Jews usually hold a Passover seder, a meal with religious rituals, in their homes on the first two nights of the holiday, which is usually observed for eight days.

The level of observance varies. An Orthodox Jew, for instance, does not work or drive on the first two and the last two days of Passover, so he or she would not run a marathon on those days.

It’s not an issue for Pesner, whose liberal Reform branch generally suggests followers hold a seder on just the first day of the holiday, though the dietary rules are observed the entire week.

Pesner, 39, acknowledges he has questions about the effects of his diet on his race. Matzoh is known to have a binding effect on the digestive tract.

"It’s definitely a concern," Pesner said, chuckling.

Sandy Karpen, a real estate agent from Scottsdale, Ariz., said he and his wife, Sharon, are changing their tradition of attending seders the first two nights of Passover to accommodate their training. The second seder is the day before the race, and Karpen and his wife wanted to rest, rather than attend a seder on what is typically a long night.

Their rabbi from the Conservative Jewish tradition advised them that Jews may fulfill their obligation by observing only the first day, and said they could do the same.

The 17-time marathoner admits to some guilt about straying from his lifelong tradition, but has no regrets.

"I guess sometimes you’re looking for justification for what you’re doing," he said. "My rabbi said it was acceptable to do, and that was good enough for us."

Karpen, 49, and his wife ate fish and potatoes before their last long runs as sort of practice.

"The last thing you want to do is change your diet or change anything you’ve been doing throughout your cycle," he said. "You never want to experiment the day of the race."

Wayne Cohen, from Houston, figures that on the day before the marathon, he’ll have egg whites and fruit for breakfast, rather than pancakes, and salmon with potatoes for dinner, instead of a carb-filled pizza.

But Cohen, 51, has decided he’ll break Passover rules on the morning of the race, when he’s planning to eat oatmeal without water and likely some pieces of bagel. Cohen has run about two dozen marathons, and decided he doesn’t want to mess with his normal race day routine.

And he’s not feeling guilty about it.

"I’ve pretty much convinced myself I would be a hypocrite if I said it would," he added. "It’s not like I’ve been perfect in my religious beliefs.

"I’m beyond that," he said. "I’m not going to worry."

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Charlton Heston Has Passed Away

The Ten Commandments is one of my favorite films to watch during the Pesach season. Makes me feel as though I too have made the Exodus from Egypt, and isn't that the real point? Charlton Heston sure made a good Moshe Rabeinu though, and it seems he was a man of character as well. Here is a nice eulogy for him by Doug Patton called Charlton Heston Made History

“Some people make headlines while others make history.” - Philip Elmer-DeWitt, American Writer and Editor

There are few of the old stars left in Hollywood, men who loved their country enough to show her the respect, service and loyalty she deserves. Charlton Heston was one of those stars.

Heston joined the military during World War II. After his discharge from the U.S. Army Air Corps, he went on to become one of the most famous actors of his generation.

Hollywood director Cecil B. DeMille is said to have been struck by the muscular, 6-foot-3-inch Heston’s likeness to Michelangelo’s famous statue of Moses. Heston’s portrayal of the Old Testament prophet in DeMille’s 1956 biblical epic, “The Ten Commandments,” etched his image upon the American consciousness.

A few years later, Heston starred in “Ben-Hur,” a movie that stood for a generation as the most honored film in Hollywood history, receiving eleven Academy Awards, including best picture and best actor (Heston).

Both these movies dealt with great themes that stirred moviegoers to consider the nobility of their spiritual legacy. These two films stand as a testament, not only to the contribution of a great actor in a golden age of filmmaking, but also to the willingness of Hollywood to inspire us and to reinforce our faith, rather than degrade us and make us ashamed of our Judeo-Christian heritage, as does so much of today’s Hollywood fare.

Charlton Heston remains the enduring face of both these films, as well as many others, such as “The Agony and the Ecstasy,” a 1965 telling of the story of Michelangelo painting the Sistine Chapel ceiling for Pope Julius II.

But Heston was much more than just a handsome face or even a great actor. He was an activist. Long before he became known for his passionate leadership of the National Rifle Association, and long before it was fashionable in Hollywood, he joined the cause of desegregation. When an Oklahoma movie theater refused to allow blacks to attend the premier his 1961 film, “El Cid,” Heston joined the picket line outside the theater. Heston also accompanied the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., at the 1963 Washington, D.C., civil rights march.

Back in 1960, Heston had been a supporter of John F. Kennedy for president; but by 1980, he had switched his party affiliation from Democrat to Republican and became an ardent supporter of his old Hollywood friend, Ronald Reagan. A consistent foe of racial discrimination, Heston spoke out against affirmative action. He even resigned from the Actors Equity Association because of the union’s refusal to allow a white actor to play a Eurasian role in the stage version of “Miss Saigon.” Heston called the action “obscenely racist.”

And in an era when most of Hollywood was refusing to criticize violence and obscenity in “the arts,” Heston rebuked Time Warner at a stockholders meeting for releasing a violent rap album featuring the song “Cop Killer.”

Heston’s five-year tenure as president of the National Rifle Association, from 1998 to 2003, gave the organization visibility it had never had before. Perhaps the most memorable moment of his presidency came at the 2000 NRA convention. The group was strongly opposing the presidential candidacy of then Vice President Al Gore, who favored restrictive gun control. At the convention, Heston was presented with a hand-made Brooks flintlock rifle. To the delight of the crowd, Heston held the weapon over his head and declared, “From my cold, dead hands, Mr. Gore!”

In 2003, diagnosed with Alzheimer ’s disease, Heston stepped down as NRA president. In a stunning example of the lack of class displayed by today’s Hollywood nitwits, actor George Clooney joked about Heston’s affliction, saying that Heston deserved whatever was said about him for his involvement with the NRA. Heston, always the gentleman, said he felt sorry for Clooney, since he had as much chance of developing Alzheimer’s as anyone else.

Charlton Heston was a culture warrior. He was unapologetically pro-life, pro-family and pro-American. He once characterized political correctness as “tyranny with manners.”

When this great man died last Saturday with his beloved wife of 64 years at his side, he was 84 years old.

Thank you, Charlton Heston, for making history, not just headlines. May you rest in peace.

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Mezuzah's In Space

NEW YORK - NASA’s Discovery space shuttle is set to undertake a six-month-long research mission on the international space station in May. Aside from the usual team of astronauts, however, this "kosher" shuttle will also be carrying some very precious cargo on board in the form of two unique mezuzahs.

Jewish-American astronaut Gregory Chamitoff, who will be part of the Discovery crew, will place the mezuzahs, designed by Israeli jeweler Laura Cowan, on the door post near his shuttle bunk. The astronaut noted that these mezuzahs will serve as a constant reminder of home, and give him a sense of Jewish identity.

These unique mezuzahs’ personal odyssey began some 10 years ago, when 37-year-old Cowan went to study jewelry design in London. Inspired by a film that she had seen dealing with space exploration, she began to design mezuzahs and other Judaica items shaped like the moon or a space shuttle. Cowan then returned home to Israel and began to sell these unique items in her Tel Aviv studio.

Several months ago, Cowan was contacted by Phil Hattis, a professor of aeronautics