I Run

I run.

I run, though my legs fill with lead, promising me a thousand promises of pain in the morning.

I run for the six million, who didn’t have an army they could run to.

I run, though a stabbing pain throbs in my ribs after the first half-kilometer.

I run for Hannah Szenes, who parachuted into Nazi Europe, only to be caught and killed by the Nazis.

I run though I’m tired, though I’m hungry.

I run for Elisha Ben-David, a twelve-year-old boy killed defending Israel in the War of Independence.

I run, though the Israeli sun beats down on me mercilessly.

I run for Eli Cohen, the Israeli spy almost made Syrian Defense Minister, when caught and hanged on television.

I run, though the stretcher pole digs into my shoulder like a knife.

I run for the eleven Israeli athletes massacred in Munich, who will never run again.

I run, though the rain is pouring and the mud weighs me down.

I run for Yoni Netanyahu, who died leading the spectacular Raid on Entebbe, freeing over a hundred Jewish hostages.

I run, with the mark from my Tefillen proudly imprinted on my arm.

I run for Roey Klein, the loving father who jumped on a grenade in Lebanon to save his soldiers.

I run to make a vessel of G-dliness in the form of a body of an Israeli soldier.

I run.

Papa-Elisha Purim Pilpul

3/22/2008

Dear Elisha:

I am still here.  I have been reading all of the e-mails and debates  with
interest.  You certainly have become a prolific writer.  Your  writing has
improved greatly ..  Perhaps I’ll eventually get around to  discussing many
of the things you and others have been writing about, but that  must come later.

For the moment I just have a question about Purim.  First let me say that your Purim sermons–for that’s what they seem to be–are  of very high quality. Is the language all your own?  Good  stuff.  I am curious, however, about an item in the content.  You  correctly point out in Part III that the book of Esther is the only book in the  “Written Torah that does not mention G-d’s name once.” But in Part I you  say:

“Rav Chizkiyahu Neventzal relates that this is exactly the whole point
[referring to the planned  banquet]. Only at this  stage of the Purim story
did the Jewish people really turn to G-d. Up until  here, they said ‘We
have a friend in the Royal House; Esther will save us.’  However, once they
saw that Esther was wining and dining with their enemy, it  occurred to
them they may be in trouble. Then they wholeheartedly repented and
returned to G-d and were miraculously saved.”

Where does that come from?  I find nothing that shows a turning to God  or about wholehearted repenting.  Give me some explanation.  The book  of Esther shows the remarkable resiliency of the Jewish people, but there is no
reference to divine intervention. or the Jews turning to God.  Let’s  really be
honest about what it says.

Please write.  I know some of your correspondents are complaining that  you don’t answer their mail.  I have not found that to be the case,  for you
have been better than I have been in corresponding.  I look forward  to your
reply.

Love,

Papa

* * *

3/24/2008

Dearest Papa,
I have had a chance to think over your question on the Megillah. If I
understood you correctly, then your question was two-fold: Where do we see in the simple text of the Megillah that the Jews as a whole repented, and
where do we see Divine intervention?
To answer your questions I read through the Megillah briefly and a few
verses stuck out in my mind. There may be slight variations in my wording
of the verses from the text you have, as I am reading it directly from the
Hebrew and translating it myself. In 4:3 it states “And in every province,
the place where the king’s word and law reached, great mourning there was
for the Jews, and fasting and crying and lamenting, sackcloth and ash were
spread out to the masses.” If the Jews were not repenting here, then what
was the purpose of fasting, sackcloth, etc.? It certainly did not gain them
favor in the gentiles’ eyes. In 4:16 Esther instructs Mordechai “Go gather
all the Jews that are located in Shushan and fast for me. Do not eat and do
not drink for three days, night and day. I and my maidservants will also
fast.” Again, what was the purpose of fasting if not repentance? In fact it
was actually counterproductive for Esther to fast; she was going to the
king, without being summoned, to try and win his favor. It would be more
logical for her to look as good as possible, not to be weak and pale from
three days fasting. In 8:17 the author of the Megillah goes so far as to
write “And in every province and in every city many from the nations of the
land converted to Judaism, for the fear of the Jews fell upon them.” If
many gentiles were converting, then surely the Jews themselves must have
repented. Also, what was this “fear of the Jews”? It seems to be a
religious context here. Finally, in 9:23 it states “And the Jews accepted
that which they had begun to do, and that which Mordechai wrote.” What is
this referring to? What had they “begun to do”? Mordechai was the greatest
sage of that generation. He surely directed them to repent. The only thing
that makes sense to me that “the Jews accepted that which they had begun to
do” is that they accepted the Torah upon themselves once again. Perhaps you have a different explanation of each of these verses. I would love to hear what you have to say.
Next we move on to topic of Divine intervention. True, there was no
sea split in Shushan. However, there were too many coincidences that worked
out perfectly for the Jews for them to be considered to be coincidental.
Xerxes (Ahasereus) decided to throw a party, culminating in him having his
wife Vashti executed in a drunken rage. This paved a path for a new queen
to be chosen. Next, a beauty pageant was held throughout the empire for the
most beautiful virgins to be brought to Xerxes. Xerxes could have had any
woman in the world, but he chose the Jewish girl Esther. Then, Mordechai
happened to overhear Bigtan and Teresh’s plot to assassinate the king and
reported it. The king was saved and the matter was recorded in the king’s
chronicles. All of this was put into play before Haman’s decree was even
issued.
Then Haman decided he was going to exterminate the Jewish people, G-d
forbid. Esther went before the king to plead for her people and was told by
the king she could have anything she wanted. She requested him and Haman to come to a feast with her. It happened to be that night the king could not
sleep. He asked for his royal chronicles to be read before him. Out of any
event that had happened in his entire reign, the one read to him that night
was Mordechai’s unrewarded deed of thwarting the assassination plot against him, gaining him considerable favor in the king’s eyes. Then there was the second feast where Esther revealed to the king her true identity and begged for the life of the Jewish people, and Haman was hanged on the very gallows he prepared for Mordechai! The decree was repealed and the Jews were saved.
The Jewish people went from being earmarked for extinction, G-d forbid, to uniting, repenting, and standing up to and ridding themselves of all their
enemies.
The pieces of the puzzle all came together perfectly. If you want to say that all of these remarkable events happened by chance, fine. But as I see it, the hand of G-d can be seen throughout every stage of the story, even when things looked quite desperate for the Jews.
There’s actually a very practical reason given by the Lubavitcher Rebbe, of sainted memory, for why G-d’s name does not appear in the Megillah. He explains based on the Maharsha, of sainted memory, that though the Megillah was authored by the Men of the Great Assembly, it was published by Persians. The sages worried that if they wrote G-d’s name in the Megillah, the Persian publishers would replace G-d’s name with the name of their heathen gods, and so they omitted G-d’s name. But this is only a surface reason for why G-d’s name is not written in the Megillah. I have
discussed it in more depth in the past and would be glad to delve deeper
into the concept if you are interested.
Thank you very much for your insightful questions. I enjoyed them very
much and would appreciate similar questions in the future. If it is okay
with you, I would like to send out this letter publicly, as I think it is a
fascinating topic. If you prefer I will not mention you by name, or will
not publicize it at all. It is always great to hear from you. I hope Bubby
is well. Send her my love.

With Love from the Holy Land,
Elisha

* * *
3/26/2008
Dear Elisha:

You are becoming such a prolific writer that I wonder whether you should be wasting that talent on medicine.  Your “Doresh Tov: Dodging Rockes in Sderot (again)” was very moving.  Now for the Purim dialogue.

Your Purim response seems to disprove what Rav Chizkiyahu Neventzal was saying.  Elisha, you will have to become a more careful reader–the independent thinker you say you are requires an open mind.  The Rav made the point that up to the time of the banquet the Jewish people were not turning to God, rather they were relying on Esther, their friend in the Royal House.  But your two illustrations to prove that the Jews were repenting occurred before the banquet (4:3 and 4:16).  If you were right in your reading, then the Rav was wrong in his.  And your assumed reason for the conversion of the Gentiles in 8:17 contradicts the reasons expressly given by the author of the Megillah.  In the first place, you assume that Mordecai was the greatest sage of that generation–maybe and maybe not, but he was certainly the most powerful Jew of that generation–but it doesn’t automatically follow that he would therefore direct repentance.  The Megillah is clear why many of the Gentiles converted (9:6):  “for the fear of the Jews was fallen upon them.”  Indeed, the king’s written decree that had been published in all the provinces granted the Jews authority “to destroy and slay, and to cause to perish, all the forces of the people and province that would assault them, their little ones and women….”  Indeed, in Shushan the Jews “slew and destroyed five hundred men.”  And (9:16) “the other Jews that were in the king’s provinces…slew of them that hated them seventy and five thousand.”  And in 9:15 they slew 300 more in Shushan.  Some Gentiles thus had good reason to fear and thus to convert.  Some might have just been jumping on the bandwagon–they saw who was in charge.  10:3:  “Mordechi the Jew was next unto king Ahasuerus.”   Regarding 9:23, it seems to mean exactly what it says. They “took upon them to do as they had begun, and as Mordecai had written unto them….”  And the preceding and following verses are very specific as to what Mordecai had written, i.e., “these things,” to wit:  “a day of gladness and feasting, and a good day, and of sending portions one to another,” (9:19), and “gifts to the poor” (9:22). That’s what was being referred to.  As some scholars have opined, the Megillah may even have been of secular origin.  Now I’ll come up with an idea; If I’m not mistaken, the only book of the Bible that was not found among the Dead Sea scrolls was the Book of Esther, so its secular origin may have been the reason for its absence.

Anyway, it seems there are insurmountable problems with Rav CN’s thesis and also yours.  Don’t be afraid to disagree with authorities.  You have access to more knowledge than they had available, and if you use pure logic and unbiased reasoning you might come to some different conclusions.

As for the matter of divine intervention, the text credits only the wisdom and persistence of Esther and Mordechai.  One may certainly believe there was divine intervention, but such must be based on faith, not on the text of the Magillah.

That’s all for now.

* * *
3/6/2009

Dear Papa,
Almost a year has passed from when you sent me your last letter about the book of Esther. However, as Purim approaches again my thoughts turned to our exchange last year and I decided to write you back finally. Today is actually a fitting day to begin this letter as it is the 7th of Adar, the day Moses passed away. Because of this Haman was very pleased that his lot determining when to exterminate the Jews fell out on Adar, as he saw the month of Moses’ death as a time of weakness for the Jews. However, what he did not know was that Moses was also born on the 7th of Adar and that it was actually a fantastic time of year for the Jews.
You point out that verses that I quoted as evidence of the Jewish people’s repentance happened before Esther’s feast, therefore contradicting what Rav Chizkiyahu Neventzal said. However, a closer examination of both Esther and my words will show that this is not so. I never said that the Jews did not engage in any form of repentance up until Esther invited Haman to the feast. I said that only at that stage did they really turn to G-d. The Jewish people did repent before then, however their faith was not solely on G-d, for in the back of their mind they felt they could rely on Esther as well. But once Esther invited Haman to feast with her and the king, they thought that Esther was trying to save her own neck, and only then did they realize that G-d and only G-d could save them from their predicament. I asked Rav Chizkiyahu what he thought of my explanation and he said it was the exact same one that he would offer.

It is true that the Book of Esther never writes explicitly that Mordechai was a sage. To address this I will preface by saying that the Megillah is the source used by the sages for the virtue of quoting a teacher by name, as it says, “The matter became known to Mordechai, who told it to Queen Esther, and Esther informed the king in Mordechai’s name (Esther 2:22).” Accordingly I will quote my dear teacher and friend Rav Chizkiyahu Neventzal’s response to your claim. Rav Chizkiyahu points out that both in Ezra 2:2 and in Nehemiah 7:7 Mordechai is listed amongst the ranks of Zerubavel, the governor of Judah; Nechemya, a prophet; Seraya, Ezra the scribe’s father; and Reelaiah, one of the princes who returned from the Exile. In all intellectual honesty, Mordechai would probably not have been counted in this all-star cast of scholars and nobleman without being a sage himself. In addition, the way the Megillah depicts him makes him sound like a sage: “And Mordechai sat at the gate of the king (2:21),” where the courts were generally located; the fact that he knew of the decree of the Final Solution before Queen Esther did; “For great was Mordechai in the house of the king…(9:4)”, and as establishing the holiday of Purim in 9:20; “Then Queen Esther daughter of Avigayil wrote, Along with Mordechai the Jew, with full authority to ratify this second letter of Purim (9:29).” Individually, each one of these instances can be explained in a different light. However, from an objective viewpoint, as a whole they paint the picture of the perfect sage statesman, who as a religious leader surely would have directed the people to repent.

In regards to the gentiles converting, it is true that the Megillah says “the fear of the Jews was fallen upon them.” But what does that mean? The Megillah writes very clearly that the Jews only killed their enemies. So why would any gentile who posed no threat to them fear them? The Jews were not performing a crusade to convert the gentiles, as is occasionally insinuated, they were removing the threat that had lingered above their heads. However, then, as now, hysteria was probably spread amongst the masses that the Jews were slaughtering innocent gentiles left and right, and some gentiles probably did convert out of fear of being killed.

You say that when the Megillah writes they “took upon them to do as they had begun” refers only to that which Mordechai had just commanded them to do. Namely, feasting, sending portions one to another etc. But take a more analytical approach to the verse. What does it mean when it says “to do as they had begun to do.” But this was the first time that they had ever been commanded to do these things! So when would they have “begun” to do them earlier? And if it is referring to after Mordechai commanded them, why would they begin doing it and then continue later? Why wouldn’t they just accept it all at once? Further, the verse states, “And the Jews accepted that which they had begun to do and that which Modechai wrote them (9:23).” The word “and” seems to indicate that that which the Jews accepted upon themselves to do was separate from what “Mordechai wrote them”.  The verse must be referring to something else that they had begun to do previously, and I accept the sages’ explanation that it means keeping the Torah and Mitzvot.
I did some research on the Dead Sea scrolls to answer your question of why Esther was the only book not found amongst them. Dr. Magen Broshi, curator of the Shrine of the Book from 1965 to 1995, offers the following explanation: “Not only are the scrolls the oldest known copy of the Old Testament, but they belonged to the Essenes, a mysterious ascetic Jewish sect that existed about 2,000 years ago…The levity of the Book of Esther would not have been to the sect’s taste. The banquets, the drunkenness and Esther’s flirtation with Achashverosh would not have been approved of by the Essenes.” Further, the Coalition for Excellence in Science and Math Education writes that “some recent work identifies several of the fragments as possibly coming from a proto- or variant form of Esther.”  I am not sure what you mean when you say the Megillah may have been of secular origin. It was written in Persia and G-d’s name was omitted for various reasons. The Megillah was also one of the last books added to the Bible, so it is not so surprising that it would be missing from the Dead Sea Scrolls.

In conclusion, there are not insurmountable problem’s with Rav Chizkiyahu’s thesis and mine. I am not afraid to disagree with authorities, but I’m also not afraid to admit that there are those who know more than me that I can rely on. You say that I have more knowledge available than him, but he has an encyclopedic knowledge of the entire Talmud, Midrash, Jewish Law, and all of his father’s teachings, which in total is a lot more than you and I will ever know combined. You speak to me a lot about being unbiased, but I think we both have our biases. I will never be able to show anyone a proof that will make them believe if they don’t want to. However, I feel that this exchange has demonstrated that there is no definitive proof against the integrity of the Megillah, whether textual or archaeological, and that the words of the sages are strongly supported. I look forward very much to your response.

With Love from the Holy Land,
Elisha

No Standard Shabbat

Fiday night at the Kotel (Western Wall) is unlike anywhere else in the world. The gigantic plaza glows with floodlights shining on the white stones. As the sun sets, thousands of holy Jews converge on the centerpoint of worldwide Judaism. Jews of all stripes and colors, from all over the world, gather together to welcome in the Shabbat queen. Even neighborhoods with the widest variety of synagogues do not come close to the amount of customs, dialects, and ethnicities present at the Kotel on Friday night; let alone all together under the beautiful Jerusalem night sky.

Every chance that I get I pray at the Kotel. This past friday night was one of those precious opportunities. But it was no typical Shabbat at the Kotel, whatever that means. I decided to pray with a Minyan (prayer group) of soldiers led by my friend Yitzchok Meir Malek. As I got closer to them, I realized that these were not simple soldiers. They were from Maglan, the elite anti-terror unit of the Paratroopers Brigade. Suddenly, there was some commotion as a man surrounded by five bodyguards came in my direction. “Who is that?” I asked someone, struggling to see who was in the center of the entourage. “Joe Lieberman,” he answered as I saw the famous face emerge.

Before the Shabbat prayers began, the soldiers’ group leader, Shaul, addressed them. “I want to thank you all for coming tonight and for what you do for our country. I know what it’s like to be in special force unit in the army. I also know what it’s like not to sleep at night; what all the mothers went through when their sons were in Lebanon or Gaza. So thank you again for all you do. Mr. Lieberman arrived at the Kotel fifteen minutes ago, but when he heard you were coming he said he would wait to pray with you. His time is very precious and I would like to thank him for joining us.”

Mr. Lieberman said he too wanted to address the soldiers. “Shabbat Shalom. I want you all to know that you and I are all part of one army. I know that I do not endanger my life the way you do and believe me I know what Maglan is. But I want you to know that the American people, Jews and Christians alike, support your brave work and commend you on your sacrifice.”

Kfar Alei HaNegev: A Utopia for Special People

Kfar Alei HaNegev is a small village two kilometers from Ofakim, nestled in the beautiful Southern Israeli plains. Layed out like a college campus, everything in it is specially designed for the mentally and physically handicapped. A fully equipped hospital, with one of the best children’s intensive care units in the region, is on site available for the residents. The residents live in custom made “houses” with twenty-four hour care. Every set of two houses is joined by a large, fenced-in courtyard with outdoor activities. Each fenced-in area is called a “neighborhood”. A unique school sits at the top of a hill for the higher functioning residents, and an arts and crafts center is located next door for those on a slower advancing level. Every door in the village is big enough for a wheelchair to go through. Spacious bedrooms house two residents each. The saintly staff consists of observant and secular Jews, Ethiopians, Russians, Moroccans, Bedouins and black Bedouins; all unified to help those who are in need of a little extra assistance.

The paradise at Kfar Alei HaNegev came crashing down one day with the shreiking siren: “TZEVA ADOM! CODE RED!” The village also happens to be located within rocket range of Gaza. Within thirty seconds the staff must get over eighty physically and mentally hadicapped residents into each house’s bomb shelter. The spacious bedrooms have all been left abandoned, and all the residents sleep crowded together in the bomb shelter, some in adult size cribs and some on mattresses on the floor. The school and arts and craft center have been closed for over a month, as they have no bomb shelter in them. The residents have been cooped up in their houses, going insane from boredom. Many of them suffered trauma from the panic filled alarms shaking their fragile worlds several times a day.

I had the priveledge of volunteering and living with the residents of the village, getting to know these special people and the staff that lovingly cares for them. The four days I spent there felt as though I were in another world, and I hope to take the lessons I learned there for life.

Now It’s Official: Israel at War

After an eight-year unofficial war against Southern Israel, Hamas has now been faced with Israel making it official. For years Sderot activists like myself have warned the country that the Kassams are not an isolated problem of Sderot, and if not dealt with will spread to the rest of the country. In the past month this has come true in the form of rockets on Ashkelon, Ofakim, Beer Sheba, Yavne, Netivot, Ashdod and other cities. As is well known, Israel has been bombing Hamas institutions all over Gaza for the past month. Hundreds have been killed, among them civilians. Exactly how many civilians have been killed is impossible to know. The people reporting the casualties from Gaza are the same people that claim no more than ten thousand Jews were killed in the Holocaust; obviously statistics are not exactly their strongpoint. Hamas wants as many casualties as possible in order to gain international sympathy. They purposely do not build shelters for civilians and entrench themselves in hospitals and schools to maximize innocent lives lost. After eight years of Kassams, negotiations and “ceasefires”, Israel is left with no choice but to attack the Strip forcefully, whatever the cost may be. Israel has done her utmost to minimize the civilian casualties in Gaza, with surgical strikes on Hamas buildings and even dropping leaflets in Arabic warning the civilians to leave the area, despite the danger that doing so caused to her own soldiers on the ground.
International anti-Semitism has reared its ugly head once again in the wake of the war in Gaza. After twelve thousand protesters demonstrated against the Israeli campaign in Hyde Park, England, an angry mob left the protest in search of a pogrom against the Jews. In Golders Green, a Jewish dominated neighborhood in London, they burst into busy restaurants and stores and assaulted everyone inside. They took the Ahava store, an Israeli chain, hostage along with its workers. Outside the store they hung a sign saying “Condemn the Israeli Army as War Criminals” and chained themselves to the door, preventing police from getting in to save the terrified hostages. In Spain, an Israeli flag with a swastika instead of a Star of David was burned before thousands of jeering protestors. Two Israeli workers were stabbed in a mall in Italy. Countries varying from small west African states to France to Australia have all come out against Israel. Jewish self-hatred made its expected appearance in the form of washed up actress Roseanne Barr declaring the Jewish Homeland a “Nazi state”. This campaign in Gaza has forcefully reminded Jews around the world that which they have tried to forget: That no matter how detached and unassociated a Jew anywhere in the world may be towards Israel, he will always be part of the Jewish state. He will be held personally responsible for Israel’s actions in the eyes of the violent anti-Semite.
* * *
For the last month, the media has swooped down on Sderot like a flock of vultures on a carcass, as if it were making up for its eight years of absence with a vengeance. Never leaving a ten-foot radius from a shelter, they stand opposite the camera and claim, “I’m standing here in Sderot, in the line of Kassam fire from the Gaza strip. The extent of their interaction with the the town’s residents is stopping random passersby for a few questions. They don’t listen to the heartbreaking stories of the traumatized families. They don’t cry when one of our soldiers dies. They don’t cry for the five-year-old boy who wets the bed nightly, living in fear after being injured by a Kassam. I, on the other hand, spent ten days in Sderot since the campaign began. I met scores of residents, sat with them in their homes listening to their stories, and my heart felt the fear and burden of the typical Sderot resident. I would like to introduce you to a few people whose stories truly touched me and recreate some scenes of life in the shadow of terror.
On Shabbat day, December 27, the Israeli Aif Force began bombarding Hamas strongholds in Gaza. Within twenty-four hours the call went out for volunteers to go down and help bear the burden of the people of Sderot, located within arm’s reach of the war. At the “pump up” speech in Jerusalem before the volunteers came down to Sderot, one sentence that really stuck with me was “The army has called up 6,500 reserve soldiers. We hope to enlist at least that many, if not more volunteers to help the residents of the South.” How amazing are the Jewish people that instead of running away from a border under fire, we run towards it to help those in dire need.
I was on the first bus down, consisting of about twenty-five volunteers. Upon my arrival Sunday night I could hear the helicopters and feel the explosions in Gaza. The first night I was in Sderot was the last night of Chanukah. As I lit the Menorah in the bomb shelter I slept in, I thought of the symbolism of the moment. Now as then, an enemy is determined to destroy us. The Greeks wanted our soul, but Hamas wants our body too. Yet, even here in these dark times, we still have enough hope left to light the Menorah, just like the Maccabees. With the shelter occasionally shaking from an explosion, we sang and danced together, Secular and Observant Jews together as one, united to help our fellow Jews in need.
* * *
I would like to introduce you to Mazal, an elderly Russian woman. After a Kassam exploded near her house, she has no running water. With no car and an ill body, all of her water must come from the supermarket. My assignment was to get a volunteer to drive her and I to the supermarket to buy sixty bottles of water, plus her food for the next month. When we got to the supermarket, the only way she was able to obtain money to buy groceries was by writing a check against her March pension. In December. As she shopped their was suddenly a deafening shriek above the supermarket. Certain it was a Kassam, I rushed Mazal into the store and away from the entrance, and crouched down. “This is it,” I thought to myself, “I am going to die now.” When the noise continued for several seconds, I realized that it was not a Kassam but rather an Israeli fighter jet, flying five hundred feet above the city. From then on I knew how to identify the sound of a jet instantly.
There was a time when any explosion, or even any loud noise, in Sderot meant a Kassam had struck. Today, after eight years of suffering, Israeli tanks, helicopters, jets, and artillery in Gaza can be heard in Sderot. It is commonplace now for an entire room of people to jump at the sound of a blast, only to have one “expert” say reassuringly, Don’t worry. That was one of Ours.”
I would like to Ana, also an elderly Russian immgrant. A widow with no family, Ana lives alone in a two-room tenement, in the poorest neighborhood of Sderot. As if her life was not difficult enough as is, a Kassam exploded in her yard, sending shrapnel and glass shards all over her living room and kitchen. Ten minutes later, a clean-up crew from the volunteer organization Lev Echad, myself included, showed up at her door with brooms, buckets, tape and plastic sheeting. My heart broke as I saw the poor woman; she looked like she was about to have a heart attack, crying in shock and frustration. Our attempts to comfort her were in vain, for Ana speaks only Russian and none of us knew the language. I quickly called a Russian speaking friend and had her explain to Ana what a bunch of teenagers in matching T-shirts were doing in her apartment, and she calmed down. After hours of moving furniture and countless knickknacks, sweeping up glass and taping windows shut, we managed to return a sense of normalcy to Ana’s life. A Russian speaking volunteer came and helped ease Ana’s stress. After seeing the miraculous turnaround that a few teenagers brought about with sweat and love, Ana became a new person. Turning into a typical Jewish grandmother, she began smiling and showering us with praise, handing out kisses and chocolate. As I watched this modern day miracle unfold, seeing Ana shift from hysteria to happiness, I suddenly remembered that it was the last day of Hannukah. A strong longing to be with my own grandparents enveloped me after kissing Ana a happy Hannukah and goodbye. On Hannukah we bless G-d “Who performed miracles for our fathers, in those days at this time. This year we went to war against our enemies ”in these days at this time”, on the sixth night of Hannukah.
I doubt I ever had a more chilling experience than when I saw a house in Sderot that a half hour earlier had been covered in a pool of blood. Though volunteers had cleaned up the blood already, the destruction was everywhere. The next door neighbors are an elderly Tunisian couple. The trauma of the explosion caused them to move into a shelter with the female Lev Echad volunteers. Eli and “Daisy” (no one knows her real name) made Aliyah to Israel from Tunisia in 1954. Despite the fact that they are too afraid to sleep in their own home, they warmly welcomed in a young man tracing their footsteps, over fifty years later. Eli and “Daisy” are the typical funny elderly couple. Eli’s hearing is almost non-existent (he can’t put in his hearing aids for fear than a “Code Red” alarm will deafen him), but ”Daisy” is as sharp as ever, with a quick tongue. The hours I spent joking with Eli reminded me of my own paternal grandfather, whose passing this past summer has not sunk in at all. Their love and praise truly warmed my heart in an aching time.

To be continued…

With Love from the Holy Land,
Elisha
P.S. Lev Echad is desperate for money to continue funding its assistance in this critical time. To make a donation go to http://lev1.org.il/English/Donation.html

A Heavy, Happy Heart

Monday Night, 18 Kislev 5769

“Though I may be standing in front of you, I am not here. I am still in Lebanon, in Bint Jabell…”

Tonight I heard one of the most powerful and saddening speeches in my life. Avichai Yaakov, a graduate of and current tutor in my Mechina, told his story of the Battle of Bint Jabell in the Lebanon war three summers ago.
There he found his unit, Golani Battalion 51, ambushed in a heavily outfitted Hizbollah village. They were in an open area, surrounded by sniper fire on all sides. There he watched his superiors, subordinates and friends get shot and blown up by grenades. He saw Major Roey Klein run out to assist some wounded soldiers. Roey saw a grenade thrown in his direction. Instantly, he realized that he had a choice: be killed along with all of his soldiers or die alone. Flattening himself on the grenade, he shouted out the same last words as a countless amount of his ancestors, “Hear O Israel, G-d is the L-rd, G-d is One.”
Avichai ran back into the crossfire again and again to bring back his wounded and dead comrades. As he went to retrieve a fallen colleague, another grenade was thrown in his direction. With a great explosion he flew backwards, bleeding from shrapnel in his right arm and leg. After checking that all his limbs were still in working order, he went back into into the mayhem, again and again. The entire time there was precise sniper and bullets whizzed around his feet as he ran. It was too dangerous to carry fallen soldiers the conventional way, across the shoulders. Instead, two soldiers grabbed the wounded man under his armpit and dragged him backwards on the ground. At one point in time, Avichai found his strength failing him. Turning to the wounded man he was dragging he said, “You’re going to have to help me out.” and the injured soldier began pushing himself along the ground with his one good leg.
Roey Klein once wrote, “True heroism is acts of kindness.” This 31-year-old father of two died embodying these words, jumping on a grenade to save his soldiers’ lives. Avichai Yaakov was awarded the nation’s highest honor, the Medal of Bravery, on national television for his heroic courage in battle. Today he is married with a baby daughter, studies Torah in my Mechina, and serves a month a year in reserve duty.
It was very humbling to watch this muscular warrior wipe the tears from his eyes as he spoke of his fallen comrades. For two hours, thirty teenagers with A.D.D. sat silently, riveted to Avichai’s tale. I left the study hall feeling a combination of sadness for the young lives cut short and a burning desire to be in the army already. On this intense emotional background, I received the news from my brother, “Nechama had a baby girl; you’re an uncle twice!”
I immediately made a rare phone call to my older sister in Los Angeles. She picked up the phone sounding happy and tired. I heard the baby crying in the background and I was dying to be there. “I don’t know when I’m going to see this baby,” I remarked over the phone.
“Well, when are you coming home?” she asked.
“Don’t you mean when am I leaving home?” I replied, in the Jewish tradition of answering a question with a question. I can’t leave this land of mine, even for a visit. Not yet. I must keep my full focus on the task that lies before me: enlisting in the army in a few months.

However, I am comforted by the Divine coordination of the two contrasting events. For I know that though there is still death in the Jewish people, there is also birth.
True, Gavriel and Rivki Holtzberg were murdered in cold blood in Mumbai, simply for being Jewish. Two of the most pure and selfless contributors to the Jewish people were slain. The scene was frighteningly reminiscent of the Munich Massacre of eleven Israeli athletes in 1972. Again, innocent Israeli citizens were held hostage in a big building by Muslim terrorists. Like the Germans in 1972, the Indians attempted storming the building with inadequately trained commandoes on international television. And like the Germans, they botched it, and the hostages were murdered.
Yet a ray of hope shines through the ashes. The tragedy in Mumbai has brought unprecedented international attention to the Chabad movement and the work of the selfless emessaries of the late Grand Rabbi of Chabad, Menachem M. Schneerson. Every newscaster in the United States now knows how to pronounce the word “Chabad”. The entire world now knows of the extraordinary sacrifice of the Holtzbergs; how they left all their friends and family forever to move to Mumbai, where they had no Jewish community, no Kosher food, and did not speak the local language. Arriving with little more than a few holy books, they dedicated their lives to helping Jews with everything from getting out of prison and getting off of drugs, to teaching Torah classes and hosting massive free Pesach Seders. Chabad emissaries around the world, as well as Jews in general, are now doubling their efforts to help their fellow and spread the light of Torah in memory of the couple.

The Jewish people will always carry on. No matter how much we may be persecuted across the globe, we will always persevere. Roey Klein and Gavriel and Rivki Holtzberg, may G-d avenge their blood, will always be in our hearts and will give us strength to endure what lies in the future. We will always have hope.

With Love from the Holy Land,
Elisha

Ode to My Caravan

Note: In Israel, a “caravan” refers to a small trailer, without wheels, shaped like a tiny house.

I live in a caravan. I have old couches and carpets outside my door. I do not have any running hot water. I wash my clothes in a metal pot and hang them on a clothesline outside to dry. My next-door neighbor is a horse ranch.

Were I to live this way in America, I would most likely be dubbed “white trash”. But in Israel, I consider myself a pioneer. I live in one of the most beautiful places in Israel, the gorgeous Golan Heights. During the day, I see the sun glimmer off the scenic Sea of Galilee; at night, the lights twinkle from shoreside cities. When I look at the infinite amount of stars that blanket the sky, I think of the promise G-d made Abraham, “Look now towards the heavens and count the stars. If you can count them…so shall be your offspring (Genesis 15:5).” I watch the majestic Griffon vulture soar overhead with its nine-foot wingspan, the “nesher” described in the Torah (commonly mistranslated as an eagle). In a day’s work he may fly to Syria, Lebanon, and back, crossing hostile borders with ease. So call me a redneck, but no amount of money in the world could bribe me to leave this paradise.

Caravans like mine have long played a significant role in Israel’s history. Their predecessors were the massive tent cities built to house nearly one million Jewish refugees from Arab countries in the 1950′s. Then, when the call went out for Jewish pioneers to move back to Judea, Samaria, Gaza and the Golan, their first dwelling was the caravan. And when those courageous trailblazers were subsequently expelled from their beautiful stone homes in Gaza that they had built with sweat, blood and tears, the caravan was there to house them again. The caravan that I live in actually came from Sderot.

In the Golan I see myself living not in a trailer, but in a piece of Israel’s history. Here I watch the future of the Israeli Army developing. I see thirty-five young men push off their life plans for a year, despite the fact that they have three years of army service awaiting them, to refine themselves into the best soldiers humanly possible. And beyond. I listen to the heartwrenching song written during the last Lebanon War by a boy who was shelled in Safed. I feel the pain that one of the young rabbis bears, after losing eight of his officers in the war. I listen to the ancient texts of the Torah being analyzed in the light of modern warfare, by rabbis who are not only brilliant scholars but war heroes as well. Here I see the future of the Jewish people, and never have I been so proud to be part of something so much greater than myself.

Elisha is currently attending a Mechina, a pre-army preparation program, until his draft in March.

Conversation in a Cab

I was in a taxi from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv, with a young couple sitting next to me. We got to talking and they asked me what I was doing in Israel. “I’ve been studying here for the past two years, I’m going into the army soon, and as a hobby I try to be a journalist.”

“We’re both journalists,” they said, “what do you write about?”

“I write about what’s going on in Israel, I try to put a face behind the headlines.”

“Have you had anything published?”

“Only in local Jewish publications in my hometown. A mainstream newspaper wouldn’t publish what I have to write.”

“Why not?”

“Because what I write is too controversial.”

“Like what?”

“Like how a ‘Palestinian’ state would be an absolute disaster.” After giving them the rundown on why I believe that is so, the woman asked me, “Have you ever been to the ‘West Bank’?”

“The ‘Wild West’ Bank? Yeah, I’ve been there.”

“Where?”

“All over: Kochav Yaakov, Beit El, Revava, Bethlehem, Hebro-”

“You’ve been to Hebron?”

“Yeah.” I said

“Why should there be Jews there? Six hundred Jews in the middle of tens of thousands of ‘Palestinians’?”

“Well there was actually a much larger Jewish population there until the Netanyahu administration drove them from their houses and gave ninety-seven percent of Hebron to the ‘Palestinians’,” I answered.

“What about the fact that there are streets that the ‘Palestinians’ can’t walk on?”

“There is one hundred-meter stretch of one street that ‘Palestinians’ can’t walk on, and that’s because it’s right in front of the “Jewish side” of the Tomb of the Patriarchs, where thousands of pilgrims visit regularly.” I replied, starting to get annoyed.

“You know in the Jewish Ghetto there was a street that the Jews couldn’t walk on, but at least they made a bridge across it.”

Suddenly, a gentleman sitting in the row in front of us turned around. “I’ll give you each a candy to change the topic,” he said. It was good timing, because at that point my blood was boiling.

How can an Israeli, or for that matter any Jew, honestly compare Hebron to the Warsaw Ghetto? What he was referring to was that the Warsaw Ghetto had two parts: the Big Ghetto and the Small Ghetto. They were connected by a pedestrian bridge. They were also surrounded by barbed wire walls, overpopulated and the population inside diseased and starved. The Warsaw Ghetto was about 4.5% of the city of Warsaw.

The “Palestinians”, on the other hand, occupy 97% of Hebron and  are not surrounded by barbed wire fences. The “Palestinians” are allowed to work, they are not starved nor diseased. They are given full access to Isaac’s Tomb, which Jews are only permitted to visit ten days a year. In fact, Jews are only allowed to visit one quarter of the Tomb of Patriarchs.

If anything the Jewish residence in Hebron is much more “ghetto-like” than the Arab, as much as I absolutely hate to use the term. Jews are only allowed to walk within three percent of the municipal area of Hebron. Thousands of Arabs continue to live in this “Jewish Zone.” Jews are prevented from buying and building houses, even as the community grows naturally.  In the past twenty years, building permits have only been issued for three Jewish buildings. The police have admitted to officially sanctioned discrimination in Hebron, enforcing the laws much more strictly against the Jews than the Arabs.

All of this is only on a practical level. But in Israel things run much deeper than the surface. Hebron was the city that Abraham chose to bury Sarah in, her burial plot being the first Jewish property ever owned in Israel. All of the Patriarchs were there at some point. For the first seven years of his reign, Hebron served as the capitol of King David’s kingdom. It had a vibrant Jewish community throughout the ages, up until the Massacre of 1929, in which Arab mobs mutilated, raped and murdered dozens of the peaceful Jewish residents of Hebron. Isn’t Israel supposed to be the Jewish state? Then how can she forsake Hebron, the city where her forefathers lived and are buried? Much less how could an Israeli compare Hebron to the Warsaw Ghetto?

I am tired of the abuse of Holocaust terms in “Palestinian” propaganda. To think that they deny our Holocaust, then claim that one is being staged in Gaza. How ridiculous is that? Didn’t the “Palestinian” people want all the Israelis to leave Gaza? So they got what they wanted. But when we don’t provide them with water, electricity and “humanitarian” aid as they fire rockets on our civilians, suddenly we are perpetrating a holocaust? By not feeding and supporting people dedicated to our destruction?

Meanwhile, on the Israeli side of the Gaza border they have now developed an “armored tractor”. Basically, it is a bullet-proof, kassam-proof farm tractor. So in order for Israelis to farm their fields, they now need to do so in a tank so that they’re not murdered. The Negev communities have used the “ceasefire” (Gaza has fired over 45 rockets during this time) as an opportunity to build up more shelters, and wait in fearful anticipation during the calm before the storm. Hamas is arming itself to the teeth on the other side of the fence and the Negev residents know that it’s only a matter of time until their life goes back to being a living hell.

There is no point in using the Holocaust as a comparison, because if you do it goes both ways. Last summer, as a volunteer in Sderot I was assigned to help a kindergarten in a bomb shelter. The shelter was two floors underground, with peeling walls. When I walked in the kindergarten teacher asked me if it was hot or cold outside. Upon seeing the look of astonishment on my face, she said, “Welcome to the Warsaw Ghetto.” I looked around me, at children playing two floors underground in a shabby shelter, and I realized that it didn’t look too different from the Warsaw Ghetto. But I was still uncomfortable with the analogy.

I am tired of Jews calling me and saying, “The Israeli army obeying orders and driving Jews out of their houses is like the Nazis, just ‘following orders’” or “Hey, I just saw a documentary about how the treatment of ‘Palestinians’ by the Israeli army is like how the Nazis treated the Jews.” Israel’s conduct with “Palestinians” is in no way comparable to the Holocaust. Six million martyrs would probably turn over in their grave if they heard this. The “Palestinians” are not corralled, diseased, starved, murdered in mass, or gassed. Unless that happens, G-d forbid, I don’t want to hear anymore comparisons of Israel to Nazi Germany. Where Israel was left with no other choice, she put walls around the “Palestinian” towns with soldiers guarding the entrances. But this was a last resort-never did we want it to come down to this. Yes, there are checkpoints that “Palestinians” have to wait in long lines for. This is unfortunate, but it’s also part of the reason for the drastic drop of suicide bombings in the past few years.  There is a small minority of Israeli soldiers whose behavior with the “Palestinians” is disgraceful. There needs to be some reform and enforcement of the rules in this regard. But never has this behavior stooped to the level of Nazis. Comparing the Holocaust and “Palestinians” is an abuse and cheapening of the genocide and torture of our people to a mere catchphrase.

Homeless Love

I had an interesting experience last week. I was walking along listening to music, going about my daily life, when I noticed a homeless man in a wheelchair waving at me. “You need some help?” I asked.

“Up! Up!” he kept repeating. I looked at the sharp incline behind me and back at the stump of the man’s leg. “Well I guess G-d blessed me with two legs, so I should help out those who are less fortunate,” I said to myself. I pushed him up the steep hill in the hot sun, sweat pouring down. At the top he offered to buy me an ice cream, but I politely declined. “Where do you need to go?” I asked him.

“To the number four bus stop,” he replied. I thought of how far that was, how hot it was, and how heavy the man was. But I figured he wasn’t going to get there on his own, so why not help him. I pushed him down Jaffa Street, the busiest street in central Jerusalem. It is under heavy construction, supposedly for a new railway system. Currently there is only a narrow passageway fenced off on the side of the road for pedestrians. I pushed him along this corridor and he asked every person we passed for a shekel. Whoever didn’t give him, which was the vast majority of passersby, he shouted uncomplimentary remarks about their mother in Arabic. About halfway down the passage, he started shouting again. “Up! Up!” he shouted.

“But I am taking you up!” I answered.

“Help the man, can’t you see he’s falling?” a shopkeeper usefully suggested to me.

“Why don’t you help me?” I asked the man. Together we were able to lift the fragrant man up onto his seat and we continued on our way. We began approaching the end of the passageway, right before Zion square, where it was most congested. Suddenly, he saw a woman beggar sitting on the street and her face lit up in recognition. “Stop. Stop!” he shouted, “This is the nicest woman in Jerusalem.” He rummaged through his bag to find some money to give his friend, and the crowd began gathering behind us. A woman pushing a stroller started speaking to me in fast-pace French. After about a minute of this, I turned to her and said, “Lady, I don’t speak French.”

By this point, the one-legged man had found a decent amount of change to give his homeless ladyfriend. A smile spread across her lined face. I immediately thought of the Jewish law that if a person is too poor to give charity on Purim, then two paupers must exchange charity to one another. Now I understood why. I started pushing him again. “Stop! Stop!” he cried.

“What?” I asked.

“I want a kiss from her,” he said. I rolled my eyes, but waited for him to get on with it. A man behind me pointed out the obvious, “Excuse me, there are other people who want to get by here.”

“I don’t know this man,” I replied, “so you can either help me or quit complaining.” Meanwhile the homeless courtship was continuing.  The crippled man reached out his filthy hand and the beggar woman took it and kissed it. It was almost beautiful if it wasn’t so tragic. Finally, we were able to move and the angry mob behind us stormed off, grumbling. I no longer cared what they said, I was on the homeless guy’s side. All these people just walk by him and make comments, but no one stops to help. After another ten minutes of pushing him uphill, refusing more ice cream, lifting his sweaty body again and listening to a slew of Arab curse words, I got him to his stop and went on my way.

After I left I got to thinking. For twenty-five minutes I experienced what it’s like to live in this man’s world. What it’s like to be ridiculed, ignored, and even worse, to be invisible. It was absolute hell. But I also learned what it’s like to see a smiling face after seeing a hundred unfriendly ones. I left him with my body drenched in sweat and my hands reeking to the high heavens. But I knew there was a reason I had run into him, and I was even glad I did. I appreciate my relatively comfortable life and the use of both legs much more now. I will try not to be so judgemental next time I see a homeless person. But most importantly, I saw that you can never know what it’s like to be another person until you walk a mile in their shoes…or at least push them around for half an hour.

Jerusalem: It’s a Hell of a Town

When I see artists painting the same stone arches and cobblestone streets that I walk through every day, I think to myself, “Jerusalem, it’s a hell of a town.”

When I walk into Jaffa Gate, and I’m not the least bit surprised to see a camel sitting there, or someone playing sitar, guitar, or harp. When I see the policemen riding in the ancient streets on six-feet-tall horses and imagine that it must not have looked too different here three thousand years ago, I think to myself, “Jerusalem, it’s a hell of a town.”

When I get heckled by Arab vendors shouting at me in English, “Come into my shop!” and I see their jaw drop as I, a blond-haired, blue-eyed American Jew say to them, “No thanks, but have a great day!” in fluent Arabic, I think to myself, “Jerusalem, it’s a hell of a town.”

When I hear music from my balcony late at night and I follow it. When it leads me to a group of young Jews sitting under the giant golden Menorah, designed to look like the one used in the Temple and I sit. When I look around and I see Americans and Israelis and Brits, “black and white” yeshiva students and religious Zionists in T-shirts and shorts. When a Hassid, donned in the full traditional dress, stops by and starts playing a guitar and another one joins in on the flute. When we all sing songs of Jerusalem late into the night and forget the differences between us, I think to myself, “Jerusalem, it’s a hell of a town.”

When a bride and groom come to film their wedding video and we all start singing the ancient Jewish wedding song, “Quickly, quickly, oh G-d our Lord, let us hear again in the cities of Judah and in the outskirts of Jerusalem the voice of rejoicing and the voice of happiness, the voice of a groom and the voice of a bride,” and I see their faces light up, right across from the Temple Mount, I think to myself, “Jerusalem, it’s a hell of a town.”

When I go to an open-house Friday night meal and over a hundred people are eating there, free of charge, and the host stands up and apologizes that it’s a bit crowded, but don’t worry-they’re adding on, I think to myself, “Jerusalem, it’s a hell of a town.”

When my wallet falls into a sewer and before I even have a chance to attempt to get it out myself, a bunch of strangers crowd around, push me “out of the way” and do it themselves, I think to myself, “Jerusalem, it’s a hell of a town.”

When I sit out on my balcony and take in the view. When I look to my left and see the Western Wall and Temple Mount. When I look straight ahead and I see a candlelit wedding in the gardens by the southern wall of the Temple Mount. When I look to my right and see the lights twinkling in the ancient City of David. When I see the beautiful fireworks shooting up, indicating that one of our “cousins” just got married. When I sit and watch the orange, layered sunrise, like a breathtaking painting over the hills of Jordan as a rooster crows, I think to myself, “Jerusalem, it’s a hell of a town.”

When I think of Pesach Susnitsky, who in 1892 was arrested on Shabbat in Brenham, Texas. Who was carried to jail, then subsequently released for keeping Shabbat, since he refused to attend the Saturday hearing. Would he, in his wildest dreams, ever have fantasized that over a hundred years later his great-great-grandson would be living in the Old City of Jerusalem, welcoming in the Holy Shabbat at the Western Wall with thousands of other Jews, of every color and every flavor, from every corner of the globe, together as one?

Jerusalem, it’s a hell of a town.

The Kindness of Strangers

I feel compelled to share this heartwarming story with you that happened to me on Friday: I was waiting in line at the ATM in the Old City of Jerusalem. As I was taking my credit card out, my wallet fell out of my hand and slipped into a grate covering a sewer four feet below. “What did you drop?” asked a man walking by.
“My wallet,” I answered.
“Oh, I dropped my keys down there once.”
That didn’t really make me feel any better. Somehow I managed not to despair as I thought about the fact that all of my cash, credit cards, keys, and ID were in that wallet. I also needed to catch a bus to Sderot soon and I now had no money. I walked to one of my rabbi’s houses and asked his wife if she had the number of the city’s sanitation department. She said no, but to bring her kids to where it was. “They’re smart,” she said, “they’ll figure something out.” I showed them where it was and went back to my room to get some wire hangers.
By the time I got back, one of the kids had come back with an iron rod and a thick rope, and a group of French tourist girls were standing around. We tried fishing the wallet out with the hangers, unsuccessfully. Then we tried to pry the drain cover up with the iron rod. After several attempts, I, my rabbis’ kids, and the French girls were able to lift up the forty pound piece of metal. I was a bit hesitant to go in to the open sewer, as I was already wearing my Shabbat clothes. Before I knew it, one of the French girls lowered herself into the sewer, and picked my wallet up with her feet. As she did so, all her friends starting singing something in French, what I imagine is the French equivalent of “way to go” or “2-4-6-8″. I thanked them and they disappeared.
My wallet was just a bit dirty on the outside and nothing had even gotten wet. With a big sigh of relief I thought this debacle was over. However, as I was replacing the drain cover with another guy, it fell down into the sewer. Now there was a forty pound drain cover four feet in the ground, and a gaping hole in front of an ATM on a busy street. I could not conceive of any way to get it out and resigned myself to calling the city. But an Israeli man and his son walking by decided to stop and help. Immediately, his son dropped down on his stomach and tried to lift up the drain cover, but it was too heavy. After several failed attempts, the son managed to tie the rope around the drain cover, and together we all lifted it up and replaced it. I tried to offer to pay to have the son’s clothes cleaned, as he had made his white shirt and black pants completely filthy. He refused, saying he’ll just throw them in the washing machine and they went on their way.
I cannot imagine another place in the entire world where a bunch of total strangers would stop and help someone in need. Where a young girl would lower herself into a sewer to get out a stranger’s wallet. Where a man and his son would put in a lot of effort and ruin their clothes, again to help a stranger. I am not sure that the concept of “stranger” even exists in Israel. Because when I walk around, even if I haven’t met the people around me just yet, I never feel estranged.

With Love from the Holy Land,
Elisha

Barack Saddam Hussein Obama bin Laden Visits Palestine

In the spirit of my favorite magazine, the New Yorker, I decided to give this article a ridiculous, satirical title to portray how ludicrous ignorant smear campaigns can be. For those of you who do not know what I am referring to, the latest New Yorker magazine cover beheld Barack Obama wearing full Arab garb, pounding fists with his wife, who is dressed like a black panther-esque terrorist. On the wall hangs a picture of Osama bin Laden, and an American flag burns in the fireplace. To top it all off, all of this is taking place in the Oval Office. (To see it for yourself go to http://www.stuff.co.nz/images/738865.jpg) The New Yorker claimed it was a satire of smear campaigns. But it kind of backfired on them. You see, 99.99% of Americans do not read the New Yorker. So when they went to the newsstands to pick up a paper or a Sports Illustrated, they glanced at this cover and thought, “Oh. Obama equals Arab.” and went about their day. An aside, there is no country Palestine nor has their ever been one under sovereign rulership. We can only pray that there never will be one.
Barack Obama came to Israel Tuesday, acting as though he was already president. In a thirty-six hour visit strongly reminiscent of Republican candidate John McCain’s trip to Israel, he visited Sderot, Ramallah, Yad Vashem, and the Kotel (Western Wall). The gesture he made by going to Sderot is very meaningful. Due to the fact that Hamas is busy rearming itself to the teeth under a so-called “ceasefire,” the danger of him going there was much less then when McCain was there last March. However, that was not his fault and the gesture was appreciated nonetheless. I also admire that he had the courage to go to the Kotel, which Bush did not.
Originally, Obama planned to come to the Kotel at 10 PM. However, he pushed it off until five the next morning. Was he tired? Perhaps. Or maybe he wanted his visit to Judaism’s holiest site to be broadcast live on prime time news in America, as opposed to the early afternoon slot it would have been. Meaningful gesture or media stunt to win over Jewish voters? You can decide for yourself.
Sharp shooters manned a perimeter around the Kotel plaza, as they always do when there is a big event or a famous person coming to visit. Obama’s motorcade of flashy black SUV’s and limousines drove in, and the tall, young, possible future president of the United States stepped out. The truth is that few people were there to see him. His main supporters had shown up the night before, with big signs saying “Barack Obama” in Hebrew letters and “Jews for Obama.” However, these people had left disappointed six hours earlier and did not return.
As he stepped out his car, he want along a fence to shake some hands. If he was trying to spot out the Americans, he did a rather lousy job. Most of the people’s hands he shook were actually Australian. I certainly hope he wins the Australian vote in the upcoming election. Once he began nearing me, he had already stopped shaking hands. So I said to him what I would say to any current or possible future world leader. “Mr. Obama, please don’t give Israel away. It’s the only thing we have.” He chose to ignore me. His five minute prayer at the Kotel involved him being heckled by Israelis and blinded by flashbulbs-not exactly the most spiritual experience. On his way back, I extended my hand again. “Mr. Obama, I’m an American voter. Please shake my hand.” Again, he ignored me. So I said, “Please don’t give away Jerusalem,” as he continued back to his vehicle.
Why would I say these things? Have I been brainwashed by narrow minded warmongering right-wing Orthodox Jews? Maybe. Or maybe I went on his website and looked at his policies. On the “Israel Fact Sheet” it states, “Barack Obama believes in working towards a two-state solution, with both states living side by side in peace and security.” It’s a nice idea, and I believe it is possible. If the current state of Israel becomes the “Palestinian” state and the Mediterranean Sea becomes the Jewish state, I don’t see any reason why we shouldn’t be able to live side by side in peace and security. But anything short of that is a fantasy. The establishment of a “Palestinian” state will put me within eyeshot of an Arab terrorist state. I hope to elaborate in full on the practical reasons why that is so in a future article.
There was also the AIPAC fiasco. On June 4, before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, he declared “…any agreement with the Palestinian people must preserve Israel’s identity as a Jewish state with secure, recognized, defensible borders. And Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel and it must remain undivided.” The next day, after PA leader Abbas strongly condemned him, a campaign adviser “clarified” his statements. “Jerusalem is a final status issue, which means it has to be negotiated between the two parties” as part of “an agreement that they both can live with. Two principles should apply to any outcome,” which the adviser gave as: “Jerusalem remains Israel’s capital and it’s not going to be divided by barbed wire and checkpoints as it was in 1948-1967.” This month Obama again “elaborated” on his comment on CNN, “You know, the truth is that this was an example where we had some poor phrasing in the speech. And we immediately tried to correct the interpretation that was given. The point we were simply making was, is that we don’t want barbed wire running through Jerusalem, similar to the way it was prior to the ’67 war, that it is possible for us to create a Jerusalem that is cohesive and coherent.”
If this man plans on being a world leader, he needs to say what he means. If he says one thing to the Jews and then changes it as soon as he faces “Palestinian” criticism, it makes me seriously doubt his integrity. If he wants to be president, he needs to stick by what he says. Obama must stop trying to please everyone on every side of the argument and take a firm stance. The creation of a “Palestinian” state is a concession that puts Israel’s security at grave risk. Until Obama retracts his support for it, I won’t be voting for him. And neither should you.

With Love from the Holy Land,
Elisha

On Bulldozers and Weddings

As I sat at lunch last Wednesday, I heard the words that I dread most. “Did you hear about the terrorist attack?” I felt my heart speed up in fear. “A tractor (the Hebrew word for bulldozer) flipped over a bus.” I rushed to the computer and was horrified by what I saw. An Arab Israeli resident of East Jerusalem, Hussam Duwiyat, went on a killing spree in a bulldozer on the busiest street in Jerusalem. The terrorist flipped over a city bus and crushed several cars. Bat-Sheva Unterman, 33, a Jerusalem nursery school teacher, was going about her daily life, driving her baby Efrat in her car. When she saw the bulldozer coming toward her she managed to hand her baby to someone outside of the car, but did not have time to save herself. She was crushed in her car. Lili Goren-Friedman, 54, a school teacher and former vice president of the Jewish Institute, was the second of the slain. Lastly, Jean Relevy, 68, was murdered by the Arab terrorist. Jean was born in Iran and made Aliyah (moved to Israel) from India in 1949.
Various policemen climbed on top of the bulldozer attempting to stop the driver, unsuccessfully. One man saw what needed to be done and stood up to the task. He was more a boy then a man really, an 18-year-old Yeshiva graduate on leave from the army, named Moshe F (his identity is being kept secret for his safety). He was riding his bicycle and saw the attack happening. Moshe ran to the scene, climbed onto the tractor and shouted at a policeman already on it to shoot the terrorist. When the policeman hesitated, he grabbed a pistol from a security guard behind him and shot the terrorist himself, three times to the head. Only then did a Yassam policeman get up on the bulldozer and shoot the terrorist again, to “confirm the kill.” The Yassam policemen are the infamous Israeli “supercops” or “men in black.” Men with no identity, and most likely no soul. So effective, so brutal when it comes to beating their fellow Jews. Yet when it comes to actually doing what they are trained to do, stop terrorists, they froze this past Wednesday. It took an 18-year-old Yeshiva boy to have the courage to stop the murderer. Incidentally (or not so incidentally), Moshe was the brother-in-law of David Shapira, the soldier on leave who stopped the terrorist at the Mercaz HaRav Yeshiva High School a few months ago.
Let me make one thing clear. This was not an oppressed “Palestinian” acting out of desperation. This was a man with full rights, with Israeli citizenship, given work by Israelis. Yet he still decided to murder and wound innocent civilians. The terrorist who murdered eight innocent boys at Mercaz HaRav a few months ago was from the same East Jerusalem neighborhood. Let this dispel the myth once and for all that East Jerusalem Arabs are docile, peace-loving, law abiding citizens. There is absolutely no difference between the Arabs in East Jerusalem and those in Gaza, at least in regards to their support of terrorism against Israel.
The attack itself was not as much of a surprise as the fact that it hasn’t happened sooner. When we surround ourselves with a violent people dedicated to our destruction, what do you expect? How many more mothers, sisters, brothers and fathers will have to die before a permanent solution is made? These victims were innocent, going about their daily lives, and they were crushed to death in their cars by a cold blooded Arab terrorist. What did two teachers and an old man do to deserve such an awful death? Bat-Sheva sacrificed her life to save that of her baby’s. Do I need to fear every bulldozer I walk by, every crane, every tractor and every truck operated by Arab workers? Israel brought this upon herself by ignoring the inherent risks of hiring a massive Arab work force in return for cheap labor. There are plenty of Jewish immigrants who would be more than glad to take these jobs and then we can avoid having to live in fear.
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Later that night I went to a beautiful wedding just outside the Old City walls. The Chuppah was held on the balcony of the David’s Citadel hotel, with the background of the sun setting over David’s tower. I thought there about the pattern of Jewish life. The day may have started with the darkness of terror, but it ended with the light of a young Jewish wedding. This is the Jewish order of life, first there is dark and then there is light. First there is evening and then there is morning. No matter how hard our enemies may try, they will never succeed in extinguishing the light in us.
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The Torah portion this past week was Chukat. Though Chukat is my Bar Mitzvah Parsha, I never learned it in depth, as it always falls out in the summer. I decided to study it properly this year, with the latest Arab terrorist attack fresh in my mind. I noticed that it contains several clear instructions for how the Jewish nation is to conduct itself.
When the Jews approach the nations living around the borders of Israel, they send messengers asking for passage to the Holy Land. They say, “We will go up on the highway…, I will pay their price, nothing will happen. I will pass through on foot (Numbers 20:19).” Rav Yissachar Shlomo Teichtal, who was murdered by the Nazis, writes in his masterpiece Eim Habanim Semeichah that this verse indicates how the Jews had to return to Israel to make a state. We had to go up with the permission of the kings. Twice, once in the League of Nations in 1922 and again in the U.N. in 1947, the nations of the world gave the Jews permission to return to their land. Thus, it was possible for the Jews to make a state after two thousand years of exile. Then, “Israel will dwell in safety, alone, in the likeness of Jacob (Deuteronomy 33:28)”
Later on in their travels, the Jews were attacked. “The Canaanite, king of Arad, who lived in the south, heard that Israel had come by the route of the spies, and he warred against Israel and captured a captive from it (Numbers 21:1).” The great Torah commentator Rashi explains the seemingly superfluous terminology of “captured a captive” to mean that the captive was a slavewoman. Nevertheless, Israel retaliates. First, they pray. Then, they attack. “G-d heard the voice of Israel, and He delivered the Canaanite, and destroyed them and their cities (Numbers 21:3).” Today, there are three captives being held from the Jewish nation: Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev in Lebanon, and Gilad Schalit in Gaza. These were not slavewomen, they were soldiers protecting their people. Yet, for the past two years the Israeli government has done next to nothing to free them. The Torah gives clear instruction how to respond to captors: not to negotiate with the terrorists and reward them for their treachery, as Israel is currently doing with Hamas and Hizbullah. Rather we should pray and put our trust in G-d, then destroy them and their cities.
Lastly, the Torah portion teaches us how to handle land captured in defensive war. Israel sent messengers to Sichon, the Emorite king, asking for peaceful passage through their land. “But Sichon did not permit Israel to pass through his border, and Sichon assembled his entire people and went out against Israel to the desert. He arrived at Yatzah and waged war against Israel. Israel struck him with the edge of the sword and took possession of his land (Numbers 21:23-24).” Israel was attacked, unprovoked. They fought a defensive war, won, and kept the land they conquered. The term used here for “took possession of” in Hebrew is Vayirash, which literally means “and they inherited.” The Torah is telling us here that when the Jewish people capture land in a defensive war, they are so entitled to it it’s as if they inherited it from their parents. In June 1967, Israel was attacked, unprovoked, by Syria and Jordan (and Egypt). In the six days of defensive war that ensued, Israel captured what is known as the “West Bank” and the Golan Heights. Aside from the fact that never has there been a historical precedent of a country returning land won in a defensive war, the Torah clearly tells us that our entitlement to that land is so strong it is as if we inherited it. Therefore, their should be no discussion of “occupation” or returning these lands; they are ours forever, as an inheritance.

For those of you have read this far and are under the impression that I am an insane religious fanatic, I assure you that every point I have made here has practical backing as well as historical precedent. I welcome you to take up any issue you have with what I have said and I will explain it in further detail. I have attached a video of Moshe stopping the terrorist as well as a link to his full account of what happened.

http://www.cbc.ca/clips/mov/rampage-080702.mov

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/126707

With Love from the Holy Land,
Elisha

Hug Around Jerusalem

As I was walking out of the Old City of Jerusalem today, a man wearing a big yellow sign handed me a flyer. “Big hug around the Old City of Jerusalem. Join thousands of people holding hands with open hearts to promote happiness and human unity in the Holy Land and around the whole world.” The idea was to make a human chain around the Old City, followed by a joint, non-denominational prayer and song and dance. I smiled to myself and went on with my day.
On my way back into the Old City later tonight, I heard the sound of drums from a far. As I got closer I saw a conglomeration of people around a circle of bongos. Did they make it around Old City? Probably not. There were the mandatory hippies, of course, but also a surprising number of religious Jews, some even in black and white; there were Arabs, some of the women wearing the traditional head covering, as a well as an assortment of other people. People were laughing and singing, Jews and Arabs side by side. Is it possible?! Does this show hope that there is indeed hope for peace in Israel? Is this a precursor to the utopia imagined by some liberals, of a single secular state in which the Arabs are in charge of the streetlights and the Jews the mail? Maybe.
But I doubt it. The problem with this mini-utopia which mine eyes beheld is that it was only thirty people. This could never happen on a nationwide scale. There will never be peace with Jews and Arabs living together. I’m not a racist, I’m a realist. The hate here is in people’s blood, not their mind. From birth, the Arabs are taught to hate Jews. Unless it is enforced by Israel, no “Palestinian” textbook even has a map of Israel in it. The Muslim leaders glorify bloodshed and jihad, less than a hundred meters away from where I live. The media pumps them with propaganda against Israel and promoting violence. The “Palestinians” do not want peace.
It’s not as if Israel hasn’t tried. When Jewish settlers arrived in Israel at the turn of the twentieth century, they lived rather peacefully with the Arabs around them. The Jews bought the land legitimately, offering gifts of friendships to the local leaders and more often than not buying disease-infested swamps. The Arabs could care less about their new neighbors. Once the Jews converted the disease-infested swamps into beautiful orchards, the Arabs’ eyes started turning green. They introduced their Arab neighbors to modern medicine, clean water, and successful agricultural technique. The quality of life for Arabs in Israel was higher than any Arab country (it still is). Tens of thousands of Arabs swarmed to the Holy Land, seeking a better life amongst the Jews.
So what went wrong? The Arab leaders were not pleased with the fact that they were losing control of their people, who up until now had lived in a feudal system, with the majority of people living in poverty that bordered on slavery. They incited the Arab masses to jihad and the rest is history. Israel’s has had seven official wars. But the truth is she has been at war since the day she was founded. Maybe it is only because the Arabs want a state of their own, with full rights, and they only use violence as a desperate last resort? Perhaps. But then how do you explain the massacre in Hebron of 1929, in which dozens of Jews were slaughtered and injured; and the remaining Jews were forced to flee Hebron, never to return in full number to the ancient Jewish city, even to this day? There was no Jewish state then, no “oppression of the poor ‘Palestinian’ people.” They rose up and murdered their neighbors out of cold blood. And this was not a lone occurrence.
So what do we do now? Some propose a joint secular state, but as I said before, that will never happen. The prevalent Western opinion today is the two-state “solution.” I agree. We should make one Jewish state and one Palestinian state. We’ll call the Jewish state Israel and the Palestinian state Jordan. The original land appropriated to the Jewish state and verified by every country in the League of Nations (the equivalent of the U.N. today) in 1922 included modern day Jordan. Britain was given a mandate over the area to oversee the construction of the Jewish state. But Britain went behind our back, and made what is known as Jordan today an Arab state. Jordan had a vast majority of “Palestinian” residents, with a Saudi Arabian king in charge. The “Palestinians” want a state of their own? Fine, move to Jordan. I challenge you to give every “Palestinian” in the West Bank Jordanian citizenship and see how many stay. More than fifty thousand “Palestinians” have left Gaza since it was given autonomy in 2005. Many more would join them if not for fear of having their families murdered, and if their Arab “brethren” would grant them citizenship. The “Palestinians” prefer to stay in Israel? Fine, as long as they stop supporting those among them who blow up, shoot, stab, and fire rockets at innocent civilians.
I am tired and you may be tired of reading this. In the future, with G-d’s help, I will continue. I will provide several practical reasons for why a “Palestinian” state would be an absolute disaster. If you are interested or at least intrigued, read it. Everything I have written is with basis. If there has been any misunderstanding or if you take contention with anything I have said, feel free to take it up with me. Good night.

With Love from the Holy Land,
Elisha

Happy Shavuot Everybody!!!

This evening and tomorrow day (in the Diaspora the next two) are the festival of Shavuot (Pentecost), the day that the Jewish people received the Torah on Mount Sinai. The Jewish people left the land of Egypt fifty days before receiving the Torah. There they had been on the forty-ninth level of impurity. Nevertheless, G-d redeemed them with ten plagues and the splitting of the sea. Why would G-d go to all this trouble for an undeserving people? Rav Akiva Tatz explains that this is a theme that every person goes through in life. First, there is a period of great inspiration and clarity. But it never seems to last, and a person’s psyche reverts to doubt. Similarly, the Jewish people were shown great miracles and redeemed, even though they didn’t deserve it. But then G-d put them up to the ultimate test, a barren desert, where they had to work their way up to the level of receiving the Torah at Sinai. In life, G-d gives us moments of clarity to show us what our purpose is. Then our task is to work our way up to that clarity, but not in superficial way, rather to build a strong foundation for it.
The Bnei Yissachar, of sainted memory, alludes to this process by examining the sacrifices given on Pesach (Passover) and Shavuot. The sacrifice brought on the second day of Pesach is the Omer, consisting of barley, animal feed. This represents the fact that at that point in time the Jews were on a low level, still subject to their animalistic desires. The sacrifice brought on Shavuot, however, was of fine wheat. This is to show us that in a mere seven weeks the Jews had raised themselves up from the forty-ninth level of impurity to the forty-ninth level of holiness.
Why is there this pattern of seven: seven weeks of seven days, forty-nine levels of impurity, forty-nine levels of holiness-everything seems to have a common denominator of seven! In Judaism, seven represents natural order. Thus, the world was created in seven days. Six Mitzvot were given to Adam, and a seventh to Noach (Noah). These seven Mitzvot represent the natural order. But an eighth Mitzvah was given to Avraham (Abraham), circumcision, as an eternal bond that the Jewish people are beyond nature. Thus, before Shavuot we count seven weeks of seven days to represent natural order. But on the fiftieth day, Shavuot, we begin to touch on the infinite. That is why we were given the Torah then, because it bonded us forever with the infinite G-d. This concept that eight is representative of the infinite is coincidentally hinted to by the symbol 8, which is a sideways infinity sign (∞).
This pattern of seven repeats itself in another aspect. In Sefer Yetzirah, an ancient book of Kabbalah attributed to our forefather Avraham, says that the month of Sivan, in which the Torah was given, was created with the Hebrew letter zayin. Zayin has a numerical value of seven. G-d created the world to be a dwelling place for His Presence. The sins of man removed G-d’s Presence from the world seven times, each time to a higher heaven, through seven generations of sin from Adam until the Egyptians. But the seven generations from Avraham to Moshe (Moses) brought the Divine Presence back down into the world. The climax of this was the giving of the Torah to Moshe in Sivan, the month created with the letter ziyan, which has the value of seven.

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In the verses describing the giving of the Torah it says, “So shall you say to the House of Yaakov (Jacob) and relate to the Children of Israel (Exodus 19:3). The Talmud explains that the House of Yaakov refers to the women and the Children of Israel refers to the men. Furthermore, it says that Moshe spoke softly with the women and harshly with the men. Why was the Torah given to the women first?
The Lubavitcher Rebbe, of sainted memory, explains that the order was so because the Torah is dependent on women. In Judaism the woman is called “the foundation of the house.” She is the one responsible for pushing her husband to fulfill his potential. The first years of a child’s life, the most crucial of its development, are in the care of its mother. The women were taught the Torah softly, and therefore they have the unique ability to teach it to their children in their tender years.
Rav David Pinto, one of the leading Kabbalists alive, gives a different reason why the women were given the Torah first, which also explains why the men were spoken to more harshly than the women. He writes that the purpose of all this is that a man learns the virtue of humility from a woman. If on Mount Sinai it was the Torah that reminded man to conduct himself with complete humility, who would remind him to do so in his own home, if not his wife? The Midrash teaches that all while being strong, a woman is born with a discreet, modest disposition. That is why a man must learn humility from a woman.
This is one of the many reasons that Megillat Rut (the book of Ruth) is read on Shavuot. Rut is praised by the Sages for her incredible modesty. She also willingly accepted upon herself the entire Torah, and in the merit of this combination she was the great-grandmother of King David. This is alluded to in her name. A gentile is expected to keep the seven Noahide laws. So when she came to convert, she was accepting an additional 606 Mitzvot. The numerical value of the word Rut is 606.
When Rut’s mother-in-law Na’ami tried to convince her not to convert, Rut’s response was, “Where you will go, I will go. And where you will sleep, I will sleep. Your nation is my nation and your G-d is my G-d. Where you will die, I will die, and there I will be buried (Ruth 1:16-17).” The Sages elaborate that when a gentile wants to convert to Judaism, we inform them of a few easy Mitzvot and a few difficult Mitzvot. So when Rut wanted to convert, Na’ami told her that it is forbidden for us to walk 2,000 cubits out of a city on Shabbat. Rut responded, “Where you will go, I will go.” It is forbidden for us to be secluded with a man, “where you will sleep, I will sleep.” We are required in 613 Mitzvot, “Your nation is my nation.” We are forbidden to worship idols, “your G-d is my G-d.” Four deaths are given to the hands of a Jewish court, “Where you will die, I will die.” Two burials are given to the hands of a Jewish court, “There I will be buried.”
Rav Nebenzahl, the rabbi of the Old City of Jerusalem, elucidates further that these verses hint to the fact that Rut wanted to rectify the previous sins of her nation, Moav (Moab). “Where you will go, I will go,” as opposed to her ancestor Lot who separated himself from Avraham. “Where you will sleep, I will sleep,” as opposed to Lot who slept in the cave with his two daughters and committed incest. “Your nation is my nation” as opposed to Balak the Moabite who said “behold a nation has left Egypt.” “Your G-d is my G-d,” as opposed to the daughters of Moav who seduced Jewish men to serve idolatry. “Where you will die, I will die,” as opposed to Haran, Lot’s father, who was ready to believe in G-d only if his brother Avraham survived a fiery furnace. “There I will be buried,” as opposed to Lot’s wife that was turned into a pillar of salt and was never buried.
Another reason why the book of Rut is read on Shavuot is because Shavuot is the day King David, her great-grandson, passed away.
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The Midrash says that when G-d came down to give the Jewish people the Torah, they were sleeping and G-d got angry at them. Though I can readily identify with them for sleeping in, how did they do such a thing? For seven weeks they were preparing to accept the Torah, and when the grand day arrived they slept in?! You would think they would have set an alarm or something!
The first Lubavitcher Rebbe, of sainted memory, explains that when they went to sleep that night they were preparing to receive the Torah. How would this serve as a foundation for accepting the Torah? The Rebbe explains that when a person sleeps the major portion of his soul ascends to heaven. The closeness that a soul feels in heaven can never compare to that felt on earth. So the Jews went to sleep before the giving of the Torah because they wanted to attain greater spiritual heights. They thought that this would be the best preparation for the great revelation they were about to behold. If so, why did G-d become angry with them? Because the entire essence of the giving of the Torah was that now Mitzvot could be performed with physical objects and thus raise them up from their level of crassness to G-dliness. Therefore the preparation for receiving the Torah should not have been done by separating oneself from physicality, but rather by embracing it and elevating it.
The Magen Avraham, of sainted memory, writes that we have the custom of staying up all night studying Torah on Shavuot to rectify this error of our forefathers.
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The Jewish zodiac of the month of Sivan, in which the Torah was given, is twins. This is to indicate that it is a month of unity, of G-d with the Jewish people, but more importantly of the Jewish people with one another. Immediately before the receiving of the Torah it says, “And he camped there; Israel opposite the mountain.” Why is this verse written in singular? The great Torah commentator Rashi, of sainted memory, explains that the Children of Israel had journeyed to receive like a single person, with a single heart. This is to teach us the importance of the unity of the Jewish people; it is a precursor for fulfilling the Torah.
Rav David Pinto writes that this concept is alluded to when the Jewish people accepted responsibility for each other. They were to be guarantors for one another, zeh bazeh. Zeh bazeh has a numerical value of twenty-six, the same as that of G-d’s Divine name. The meaning of this is if harmony reigned among them, the Divine presence would reside in their midst. Consequently, only perfect unity allows for the study of Torah and the acceptance of the yoke of Mitzvot. Neither the Evil Inclination nor foreign nations will have any power over Jews if they refrain from committing sins (Ketubot 66b). If the Evil Inclination finds the slightest fault or the least bit of disagreement among them, the Divine Presence will no longer abide with the Jewish people. However, if harmony reigns among the Jewish people, they can very well find themselves “opposite the mountain” (an allusion to the Evil Inclination), all while triumphing over it.
Rav Nebenzahl writes that this theme is further indicated by the fact that in several places the Torah refers to the day of the giving of the Torah as “The day of congregation (Ex.: Deuteronomy 9). Why? Because this is the day that the Jews became a “congregation,” no longer a gathering of individuals, but one nation in perfect unity. Additionally, when Moshe informed the Jewish people that G-d wanted to give them the Torah, they responded with “All that G-d speaks we will do (Exodus 19:8).” They didn’t say “I will do,” but rather “we will do,” as an indication of them accepting responsibility for one another. The reason for this is because that is the only medium in which a Torah and its lifestyle can exist.
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If anyone has read this far, first I thank you for your time. Second, I wish you the best possible Shavuot, one in which we truly accept the Torah upon ourselves and become united “like a single person, with a single heart.” May we merit to see the rebuilding of Jerusalem with the Final Redemption speedily in our days.

With Love from the Holy Land,
Elisha

Jerusalem Day 2008

By May of 1967, it looked as though there was going to be another Holocaust. Instead of being in Europe, like the one twenty-five years earlier, this one was going to be in Israel. The Arab nations surrounding Israel all joined forces, with the sole purpose of attacking it and exterminating every last Jew in it. Anyone with foreign citizenship left the country and bid the Israelis good luck. The Prime Minister, Levi Eshkol’s voice broke down on a nationally aired radio speech. One of the top generals in the army had a nervous breakdown, just days before the war. And these were the leaders of the people. You can just imagine how the average person felt.
Through a series of G-d’s open miracles, not only was Israel not wiped off the map, it even tripled its land mass. In six days, against all natural odds, Israel defeated every one of the Arab armies, ensuring the security of its citizens. One of those nations was Jordan. After Jordan indiscriminately shelled Israeli civilians in West Jerusalem, Israel invaded. Israel succeeded in recapturing all the land up until the Jordan River, including the precious Old City of Jerusalem.
Due to the many holy sites of various religions located in the Old City, it was decided to send in a ground attack with neither air nor artillery cover. As a result, ninety-two paratroopers were killed in the battle for the Old City. Ninety-two young men, not much older than myself, died so we could come and pray at the Kotel (Western Wall). For two thousand years, Jews all over the world wept for Jerusalem. Finally it was in our hands once again.
The Midrash tells us that the entire land of Israel is occasionally referred to as Jerusalem, since Jerusalem is its center (Esther Rabbah 1:9). Similarly, the Zohar points out that all of Israel is included in Jerusalem (1:114a). Why is Jerusalem so important to us? Because it is the heart of the Jewish people. Cut out half the heart of a person and see how long he’ll live. Similarly, giving away “just half” of Jerusalem will signal the beginning of the end of the Jewish people.
King David writes, “Remember, G-d, to the children of Edom the day of Jerusalem, who say ‘Destroy! Destroy!’ until the foundation.” According to many rabbinic authorities, America is a modern day descendant of Edom. It is interesting to note that even today the children of Edom, America, are still saying “Destroy Jerusalem!”, though in the guise of only destroying half of it (at a time). So I will now remember to the children of Edom the day of Jerusalem.
This year, Jerusalem day fell out on this past Sunday night and Monday. It was the forty-first anniversary of the reunification of Jerusalem, according to the Jewish calendar. To celebrate, hundreds of thousands of people thronged to the Kotel. The main streets of the city were blocked off, and every couple of blocks another band was playing a free concert. For me, Jerusalem Day started with an emotional speech from Rav Aharon Bina, the head of my Yeshiva. Amongst other things he recalled childhood memories of Jordanians shooting into his house and crawling to school every day. He also spoke of the song “Jerusalem of Gold” by Nomi Shemer. When the song used to come on the radio on the bus, he said, everyone would go silent.Secular, Orthodox, and Hassidic Jews all wept as one, as they silently thanked G-d for giving us back Jerusalem.
Then we had live music and festive dancing on the balcony of the Yeshiva, overlooking the Temple Mount. Later, we walked to Yeshivat Merkaz Harav, where an Arab terrorist slaughtered eight innocent high school boys a few months ago. With heavy security manning a perimeter, hundreds of people turned up for the bittersweet celebration, accompanied by a live band. Amongst the musicians was a young boy playing violin. He was actually shot several times during the terrorist attack. The paramedics declared him legally dead, and put a sticker on him identifying him as deceased. With his last ounce of strength, he raised his hand and immediately efforts were made to resuscitate him. Miraculously, he has recovered sufficiently to join in the festivities and play his violin.
Towards dawn, everyone assembled at Merkaz Harav began moving towards the Old City. We danced and sang our way from the entrance of the city all the way to the Kotel. Thousands of people partook in the procession, bedecked in blue and white Israeli flags and singing songs about Jerusalem. Morning prayers were said with the sun rising over the Temple Mount and everyone went to sleep.

My Jerusalem Day celebration continued the next evening singing and dancing in the center of town with half a million other Jews. There I met up with my friend and teacher Rav Ari Fuld and his family. From there we proceeded to Shaar Shchem (Damascus Gate) to parade down to the Wall from there. One day a year we remind our Arab neighbors that their existence in our holy Old City is only due to the benevolence of the Israeli government. All along the sides of the main road were police barricades, supposedly to keep the Arabs from disturbing our procession. At some point Ari and I got separated. I managed to get to the Kotel without incident. Ari, who was a few minutes behind me, was not so lucky. The Arabs very well could have gone about their private lives and left the Jews to their peaceful celebrating. Instead they reverted to their natural tendency: They started throwing rocks and glass bottles at the peaceful marchers. The police, as usual, did nothing about it. They only woke up in time to prevent the Jews from going upstairs and stopping the Arab rioters.

In conclusion, are things perfect? No. Is Jerusalem completely redeemed? No. The Temple Mount and seventy-five percent of the Old City are in blood-soaked Arab hands. Jews cannot dance through the Old City one day a year without getting rocks and glass thrown at them. The police are more concerned with protecting Arabs than Jews. But is it the best we’ve had in two thousand years? Yes. Now we only need the Jewish people to return to their Homeland which cries out for them, and only then will our redemption truly be complete.
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Tomorrow evening is the holy Jewish holiday of Shavuot, the day the Jews accepted the Torah. I hope to have time to write something tomorrow, but if I don’t I wish you all a happy Shavuot. I hope that this year we each accept the Torah upon ourselves with love and finally bring an end to our people’s suffering.

Bush in Jerusalem as Rockets Rain on Israel

President Bush arrived today in Israel for a short visit in honor of her 60th birthday. We can only pray he leaves a minimal amount of damage in his wake. In today’s edition of the Israeli newspaper Yediot Achronot the purpose of his visit was discussed. The newspaper is printed in Hebrew; what follows in italics is my own free translation: “The President of the United States is not arriving here emptyhanded; rather he is prepared to present to Israel some ‘goodies’- most of them in the realm of military and intelligence.” Bush better give Israel some amazing intelligence, to partially rectify the gross breach of confidentiality committed by the C.I.A. when they revealed Israel’s covert operations in Syria. Doing so caused Syria to rattle its saber again, threatening war and demanding the Golan Heights. “Israel presented Bush with a list of requests to obtain delicate security, for types of new arms, for fighter jets, cruise missiles, and new radar systems that will lengthen the early warning time on missiles shot land-to-land. It is unknown which requests Bush will answer, however, the Americans made clear from the outset that Israel will be ‘pleasantly surprised.’”
The least Bush can do is to give Israel new radar systems. An up-to-date American missile system may add a few seconds of extra warning time for the rockets in the south. It would be like trying to cure cancer with a bandaid, but it’s better than nothing. Anyone who has ever been to Sderot knows how key a few extra seconds can be. The president’s pressure on Israel was a key factor in the perpetration of the expulsion from Gaza in 2005. The withdrawal has directly affected Israel’s security, with several Southern Israeli cities living in terror since then.
Today, perhaps to mark Bush’s arrival, two Grad Katyusha rockets were shot at the city of Ashkelon. One of them blasted through the roof of a shopping mall, exploding in a children’s clinic inside the mall.At least fourteen innocent civilians were wounded in the explosion.This past Friday, 48-year-old Jimmy Kedoshim, a father of three who lived in Kfar Aza, not far from the Gaza border between Saad and Sderot, was killed by an Iranian-made, Hamas-fired mortar shell. Two days later, 70-year-old Shlomit Katz was killed in Moshav Yesha, nearly adjacent to southern Gaza, when Hamas terrorists fired a Grad Katyusha missile at Israel. Everyone of these attacks happened inside the “Green Line.” Anyone who continues to say that the only objective of the Palestinians is to return to the “pre-1967 borders” is just plain naive. Merkaz HaRav, the high school in which eight innocent boys were slain by a “Palestinian” terrorist a few months ago, is in “West Jerusalem.” Sderot is in the “Green Line.” Ashkelon is in the “Green Line.” The “Palestinians” want every square inch of the land of Israel, and every Jew and American in it to die. Yet a large percentage of Americans continue to support these people who want them dead. The “Palestinians” are just this generation’s embodiment of antisemitism. The only difference between them and previous enemies of the Jews is that the world supports them, again as a modern day disguise for antisemitism. There is a very fine line between being pro-Palestinian and being anti-Jew. How much innocent Jewish blood must be spilled before the world wakes up from its comatose indifference?
Once Bush hands over his toys that fascinate him so-the fighter planes, missiles, and radars-what will he do about Sderot and the rest of southern Israel? Will he follow his fellow republican John McCain’s footsteps and visit Sderot personally? He’s willing to ruin the lives of 20,000 residents there, yet he can’t face the consequences of his actions. Bush is too much of a coward to visit the old city of Jerusalem, and all the more so Sderot. I have enclosed below an invitation from the chairperson of the Parents of Sderot to President Bush:

Dear President Bush,

Our reality is seeing hundreds of families in a severe state mental trauma, of seeing normal people suddenly dispatched for treatment in closed psychiatric wards

This invitation is real, and it is being sent to you with heartfelt greetings from a small city in the land of Israel that would welcome your company. .

Sincerely Yours,

Batya Katar
Chairperson
The Parents Association of Sderot

Even with all the pain and bloodshed that Bush has caused Israel recently, I must make one thing clear. Israel will forever be in debt to America for its general support over the last sixty years. America has given Israel billions of dollars of military aid over the years, and occasionally even stuck up for us in the U.N. Tonight, Israeli musician Adi Cohen sang “You’ve got a Friend” to President Bush. He has not been the greatest friend to Israel, but America has. For this we will be eternally grateful.

With Love from the Holy Land,
Elisha

Yom Hazikaron in Yerushalayim

I sit writing by a lone candle in an ancient apartment in the Old City of Jerusalem, with a cluster of notes in front of me as the thoughts pour in. Memorial Day in America is usually celebrated with a barbeque and a picnic. In Israel it is a bit different. Wednesday evening and Thursday mark Yom Hazikaron this year, Israeli Rememberance Day. It is a day of sadness for the entire country. There isn’t a single Israeli who does not know someone buried on Mount Herzel, Israel’s military cemetery. Tens of thousands of people stream towards the Mount during the day, carrying candles, flowers, but mostly a heavy heart. They go to pay their respects to their friends and family who fell in the line of duty. An eternal flame burns before the Western Wall today, as it once did in the Temple and then in synagogues for hundreds of years.

As the sun sets over Jerusalem, an air raid siren sounds for a minute of silence. A sudden hush falls upon the city; all conversation stops, cars stop on the highway and their drivers get out and think about their fallen comrades. As my eyes tear, my thoughts turn to Yoni Netanyahu. Yoni was not a religious man in the traditional sense of the word. But he was a man dedicated to his country, with a deep conviction about his role in Jewish history. Yoni was the Harvard educated mastermind behind the daring raid of Entebbe in 1976, when Israeli commandos stormed an airport in hostile Uganda to save the Jewish hostages contained therein. On July 4, 1976, Yoni sacrificed his life at the young age of thirty to save 103 Jewish hostages. I guarantee you he has a seat in heaven amongst the most distinguished rabbis in history. Seeking some insight on this black day, I flip through the pages of his letters. I come across a letter written to his parents on November 17, 1973, amongst the ashes following the tragic Yom Kippur War. He writes:

“…I see with sorrow and great anger how a part of the people still clings to hopes of reaching a peaceful settlement with the Arabs. Common sense tells them, too, that the Arabs haven’t abandoned their basic aim of destroying the State; but the self-delusion and self-deception that have always plagued the Jews are at work again. It’s our great misfortune. They want to believe, so they believe. They want not to see, so they shut their eyes. They want not to learn from thousands of years of history, so they distort it. They want to bring about a sacrifice, and they do indeed…

“And yet, how strong and how great is the nation at moments of crisis. You can’t imagine how the fingers tighten into an iron fist when the threat of violent days approaches. The entire people-young soldiers, lawyers, doctors, clerks, laborers-all turn into tankmen and infantrymen, pilots and sailors. They aren’t reserves who’ve come from “another world,” but an integral part of a strong and united army. Amazing how we succeeded in establishing this fact, of the whole people being an army.”

These words were written nearly thirty-five years ago, and they ring true to this very day. Today, the vultures are perched at every one of Israel’s borders, waiting to feast on the carcass of a country that’s left over when the Western powers finish giving it away, piece by piece. Today, as then, America is pressuring Israel into committing act directly contrary to her security. Jewish liberals are still deluding themselves into thinking that the Arab greed for our land can be satisfied. In October of 1973, thousands of Syrian tanks poured into the Golan Heights unprovoked. The Israelis trapped their were nearly massacred. To this day, you can go visit the “Valley of Tears” in the Golan Heights. For the nineteen years that the Heights were in Syrian custody, artillery shells rained on northern Israeli population centers and Israeli workers in orange groves were shot at by snipers. Yet, today there is a large American Jewish representation that wants the blood shed in the Valley of Tears to be in vain, and to return Northern Israel to the perilous life she once led. But if we listen to Yoni’s prophetic words, if we finally learn from thousands of years of anguish, Israel still has a chance of surviving.

Today’s Torah portion discusses Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. In regards to Rosh Hashanah it says, “It will be for you a day of rest, a shofar blast as a reminder.” (Leviticus 23:19) The Sages elaborate that the shofar blast is a reminder of Isaac’s willingness to sacrifice himself on this very day thousands of years ago. My first thought as I read of the shofar blast is the sounding of the siren for a minute of silence. Isaac was willing to sacrifice himself then, and many Jewish men have actually sacrificed themselves for the Jewish people since then. Today we must rest and remember the sacrifice we paid to be able to live in our precious Holy Land.

This year, as every year, the question arises: Why is this day of mourning held the day before Israeli Independence Day, a day of great joy? Because that is the Jewish way. Our happiness would not be complete if we did not remember our fallen soldiers first. There must be dark before light can be appreciated. My dear friend and brother Yitzchak Meir Malek lost a close friend in the Second Lebanon War named Mike Levine. In the closing words of a song in memory of his fallen brother Mike he writes, “Don’t live life to live, live life to give.” We must remember the true purpose of our lives as Jews. We must remember those who sacrificed their lives for this great country and not let their deaths be in vain.

One begins to wonder if all the heartache and blood was worth it. In the closing words of his last letter ever, Yoni Netanyahu writes to his girlfriend, “It will be okay.” Even after all the pain, all the agony that bears upon us in order for us to live as Jews in our Homeland, we must remain optimistic of the future, like Yoni did. As I watch the flame flicker out as I write, I think of the perseverance of the Jewish people, despite all odds. “It will be okay.”

With Love from the Holy Land,

Elisha

Doresh Tov: Dodging Rockets in Sderot (Again)

A week and a half ago, my dear friend Daniel Mendelsohn and I took down a group of yeshiva boys and seminary girls to Sderot for the organization we work for, Doresh Tov. It was Daniel’s last trip as a coordinator. Today he went into the tough Golani Brigade of the Israeli Defense Forces. I can say for sure that it was the best trip we have done yet. It is unfortunate that I have put off writing about it until now, because the details seep out of my mind like water in cupped hands.
We rented a minibus that sat thirty-six, and had twenty-six boys and girls come-our biggest group yet. The ride there was uneventful, and as we got close to the city, Daniel gave them the instructions on what to do in the event of a Tzevah Adom, a Red Alert Alarm. Upon entering the city we got a little confused trying to maneuver some one-way streets, and stopped to ask a local for directions. Instead of just telling us how to get there, he hopped in his car and told us to follow him there. Seeing the look on the group’s faces, I told them that this was a typical example of Southern Israel kindness. As I have said before, in Israel there’s a saying, “Where the weather is warm, the hearts are warm,” and it is definitely true about Sderot.
The first stop was the police station, where I took the group to see the Machsan Hakassamim. The Machsan Hakassamim is an area behind the police station where they store all the Kassam rockets that residents haven’t kept. Hundreds and hundreds of rusty rockets on racks. They write the dates on the side of the rockets and I showed the group one that had exploded in the town earlier that morning. So they started taking pictures with it and smiling and laughing. I told them to cut it out, and not to smile in a picture holding a weapon of death and destruction.
Next stop was the mayor’s office. He wasn’t in, so the vice mayor filled in for him. We filed into the city meeting room, sitting in comfortable chairs around a very long boardroom table. In the corner was a memorial to the eleven people killed in Sderot over the years, as well as the first Kassam to ever be shot at Sderot, which happened to explode in the mayor’s yard. I was asked to translate for the vice mayor, as he does not speak English. He didn’t feel comfortable sitting at the head of the table in the mayor’s seat, so he asked me to instead. So there I was, sitting in the chair of the mayor of Sderot, conducting a meeting in the city boardroom. I thought it would be at least another two years before I would do that. The vice mayor received two rocket warnings during the course of the meeting, both of them exploding outside of the city. He had a very broad perspective to give us on the effects of the prolonged terror, how it has effected businesses as opposed to the industrial district etc. The shops have been salvaged by nationwide shopping drives coming to Sderot to do their shopping. The factories have not been so lucky. Many of them are in desperate need of repair, but no technicianswill come, as their insurance refuses to cover a trip to Sderot.
The third part of the trip was a short walking tour. Right before we left for it, the dreaded sound of the microphone turned on, followed by the woman’s voice “Tzevah Adom. Tzevah Adom.” To people there for their first time, it didn’t register immediately what was going on. So Daniel and myself yelled at them “GET INSIDE OF THE APARTMENT BUILDING NOW!!” After quickly checking that no one was left outside, we ran in ourselves. Twenty seconds later, Daniel and I came out to find the place a ghost town. I would not have been surprised to see a tumbleweed roll by. After some calling and coaxing they finally came back out from wherever they found shelter. “Welcome to Sderot everybody! I’m very proud of how you handled that. I did NOT expect it to go that smoothly,” I said to the group.
“Now you guys know what we mean when we say move fast,” Daniel added.
Afterwards, the tour continued as scheduled. We showed the group where rockets had exploded and the extent of the damage from the shrapnel. We stopped to pay our respects at a monument erected in memory of two Ethiopian toddlers murdered outside their home four years ago. On an earlier trip I translated for the father of the two-year-old. It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, repeating a father’s tale of finding his baby in a pool of blood.
After the tour, we stopped at the house of the Doresh Tov director, David Spanglet. We ordered in pizza and prayed the afternoon prayer service outside, in their beautiful backyard. Before the service, I announced to everybody that the Chief Sefardic Rabbi of Israel, Rav Mordechai Eliyahu, ruled that in the event of a Tzeva Adom during prayer it is required by Jewish Law to run inside for safety. As people were hanging in and around the house, another Tzevah Adom went off. As people ran into the house, I yelled at them to get into the reinforced room of the house. About thirty people packed into a small office. They all stared at me with a shocked look in their face as they saw that I didn’t follow them into the office. “What-Elisha thinks he’s bulletproof?” I smiled, as I hadn’t told them that the hallway was also reinforced.
The last part of the trip is always everyone’s favorite: going around to families. We split it up into a couple of groups and went to different “neighborhoods.” A neighborhood in middle-class Sderot consists of several apartment buildings surrounding a parking lot. We went from door to door, handing out free toys to children, letters of encouragement to parents, and hope to everybody. Every person tried to invite us in, to give us something to eat, and some even tried to keep us. Many of them had pictures in their house of Rav Kook, of sainted memory. I told them that I had studied the night before in Rav Kook’s Yeshiva, Merkaz HaRav. While we were going door to door, another Tzeva Adom went off. I was in the midst of knocking on a door. As soon as the alarm went off I tried the handle-it was locked. I rushed across the hall to another apartment; the door was open. I ran inside and showed my friend where the protected room was. We quickly realized that no one was home. My friend Kyle Delmoor, who was with me at the time, looked at me in astonishment as he realized that I had just ran into a stranger’s unoccupied home. “Things work a little differently in Sderot,” I said to him.
We all met back at David’s house and got ready to leave. On the bus ride back I walked up and down the aisle. “They shoot these rockets called Kassams,” I heard one girl say to her mom on the phone. “And they have an alarm called Tzevah Adom and then you have fifteen seconds to find shelter,” a boy said to someone else on the phone. I smiled as I realized that the butterfly effect had been set in motion.
~ ~ ~
This past Friday night, I prayed the Shabbat evening service on the balcony of my yeshiva. As I sang David’s songs on Shabbat eve, I saw the moon rise over the trees on the very Temple Mount that David sat on. I smiled as I thought: with all the problems that Israel has, with all the political strife and religious tension, even with a sometimes hostile security situation; how could I ever dream of leaving such a beautiful place? I don’t plan on it.

Background of the Frank Series

This is just to give you a background of what I have termed “the Frank Series.” My original format was to send out my articles by email to family and friends. On the Saturday night following the Merkaz HaRav terrorist attack, I wrote a bitter article titled “Yes, I’m O.K.” Within several minutes, I had received a response from a distant cousin Frank. In this letter, titled “Frank’s First Letter to Me” I felt that he accused Orthodox people of causing most of Israel’s problems and not serving in the military. I immediately wrote an infuriated response, entitled “My First Response to Frank,” unable to believe that this was how he responded to my expression of sorrow following a terrorist attack. Suddenly dozens of people were tuned into this heated debate of America vs Israel, Orthodox vs Secular, young vs old…

Note: Throughout the exchange I use the terms “Orthodox” and “religious” interchangeably, in line with modern Israeli terminology. I apologize to anyone who finds this confusing and/or offensive. Content that was deemed unrelated to the subject matter was removed for the sake of brevity and clarity, with Frank’s permission.

What is a Jew/An Apology to Frank

What does it mean to be a Jew? Obviously we are all descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. So what? What does Jew even mean? What does Judaism mean? The words Jew and Judaism are derivatives of Judah, the tribe of royalty in Israel. But the vast majority of us are not from the tribe of Judah. So why are we called Jews?

I was discussing this matter today with my good friend Chanan Eliav in Jerusalem. He gave me a very powerful insight. The Talmud states “Says Rav Huna: How saved from sickness and worry is the person whose help is his Master (in heaven)! Saul sinned once and it was held against him, David sinned twice and it wasn’t held against him.” (Yoma 22b) Why is that? Because when the prophet Nathan rebuked King David, he immediately admitted his sin, as it says “I have sinned to G-d!” (Samuel 12:13) King Saul, however, did not accept the consequences of his actions instantly when reprimanded. After being scolded by the prophet Samuel, he attempted to shift the blame away from himself and tried to rationalize, “The people took from the spoils-the best of that which was to be destroyed-in order to bring offerings to G-d.” Since he did not accept responsibility for what he had done right away, the crown was taken away from his tribe and he was condemned to death.

This is why we are called Jews. We learn from our righteous King David, of the tribe of Judah, what distinguishes us from the masses. A Jew is not perfect. He sins and he angers G-d. But he admits what he has done, he repents, and becomes stronger and closer to G-d through it. As King David’s son and successor King Solomon writes, “For though the righteous one may fall seven times, he will get up; but the wicked ones will stumble in evil.” Unlike other religions, Judaism does not believe in the infallibility of our leaders. We emphasize the mistakes of our great people in history, and learn from them. How does one become righteous? Not by being perfect. By getting up when one falls.

I recently wronged a few people. I will strive to not make the mistake of King Saul, but rather emulate King David, whose royal lineage will never cease to reign in Israel. I recently humiliated my cousin Frank. I called a letter that he wrote me “anti-Semetic.” I publicly apologize for the use of this term. Historically, it has been used to describe persecution, torture, libels, murder, rape, propaganda and similar incitements against Jews. It was wrong of me to use it to describe Frank’s letter, however spiteful it may have been. I accused him of causing hostility and division amongst Jews, but I in turn caused a lot more of the same with my poor choice of words. I apologize to anyone else who was upset by my remarks. I also apologize to my Aunt Phyllis for the offense she took at my wanton usage of the word, and again to her as well as my Uncle Jeff for my rudely shirking the reprimand they gave me. I hope that in the merit of us learning to follow the ways of King David and finally unite as one, the Son of David will arise speedily in our days and redeem us once and for all.

With Love from the Holy Land,
Elisha

Get Pumped for Purim: Part III

Happy Purim everybody! Outside of Jerusalem, Purim this year is Thursday night and Friday. In Jerusalem, it is spread out over the course of three days. I am just going to write a few words about the festival and then return to studying all night long in honor of it. The holiday of Purim is all about concealment and hiding. The book of Esther is the only book of the twenty-four books of the Written Torah that does not mention G-d’s name once. The very name Esther in Hebrew means hidden, for that is what a Jewish woman is, the hidden dimension. Esther herself was very mysterious: No one knew where she came from, what her religion was, what her real name (Hadassah) was etc. In comparison to the open miracle of Hanukkah, the miracle of Purim was brought about in a much more natural fashion, through a series of political events.
The Bnei Yissachar, of sainted memory, shows that this concept is expressed in the simplest traditions of Hannukah and Purim. For thousands of years Jews have been spinning dreidels on Hanukkah and noisemakers (graggers) on Purim. But the source of these customs is incredibly deep. The reason why we spin a dreidel on Hanukkah is because that was the nature of the miracle of Hanukkah. We saw the hand of G-d come down and that is why we spin a dreidel from above. But on Purim the miracle happened in a seemingly natural fashion, and accordingly we spin the noisemaker from below. So we see that if a custom has existed amongst the Jewish people for thousands of years, it can be assumed that it has a very deep source.
This why we say the public thanksgiving prayer of Hallel on Hanukkah but not on Purim, even though the Purim story happened earlier. Rav Neventzal, the Rabbi of the Old City of Jerusalem whose family I am very close to, shows that even the decree against the Jews in the Purim story was a charade. The reason given in the Talmud (Megillah 12a) for why the Jews of that generation were worthy of annihilation, G-d forbid, was because they had bowed down to an idol of Nebuchadnezer. But close examination of that event shows that it wasn’t actually an idol, but merely a statue of the king, and there are many reasons given why it was actually permitted for the Jews to bow down to it. So again the question arises, why were the Jews deserving of annihilation? The answer is that G-d was also pretending. Just like the Jews pretended to bow down to the statue, G-d pretended to put out a decree dooming them to annihilation. But G-d never has any intent of killing them, He merely was awakening them to repent.
But when miracles are not brought about in a supernatural fashion, but rather by conventional means, then we ourselves become the miracle. Our very lives are miracles. You just need to open up your life like the scroll of the Megillah and see that G-d’s hand was there all along, just like in the Purim story. Purim is about more than concealment; it’s about revealing the hidden, which is the highest level of all. The term for the Scroll of Esther in Hebrew is Megillat Esther which can also be translated as “revealing the hidden.” That is what Purim is all about.

***
There a few Mitzvahs to be fulfilled on Purim. Every Jewish man and woman must go hear the Megillat Esther (scroll of Esther) read publicly twice: once on the evening of Purim and once on the morning of Purim. One must have a feast during the day of Purim, preferably with wine as well. Also during the day of Purim, one must send food packages containing at least two different foods to at least two different people. Lastly, one must give charity to at least two poor people. These last two Mitzvahs are meant to unify the Jewish people, as they united in the days of Mordechai and Esther. In fact it was only through the unification of the Jewish people that the redemption became possible. The Lubavitcher Rebbe, of sainted memory, explains that the only reason why it was plausible for a decree to go out against the Jewish people was because there was division amongst them. As Haman described them to Xerxes (Ahasereus) “There is one people scattered and separated amongst the nations.” (Esther 3:8) When the Jewish people, who are by essence “one people” exist in a state of division, G-d forbid, then such a decree is conceivable. So the rectification of this comes about through these Mitzvahs, sending food packages to one another and giving charity, which bring the Jewish people together.
There is one more Mitzvah to be performed by every Jew on the day of Purim: to be happy. The Zohar states that the day of Purim is on a higher level than that of Yom Kippur. This is hinted to by the name Yom Kippurim, which in Hebrew means “a day like Purim.” This tells us that the lofty level attained on Yom Kippur through fasting, praying and negating the physical body, cannot compare to the level of Purim. Through singing, dancing, giving gifts, eating, and drinking on Purim, instead of suppressing the body we utilize it in its most physical form for the highest spiritual purpose.
In line with this the Psietchner Rebbe, may G-d avenge his blood, who was murdered in the Holocaust, tells us a practical ramification of Purim being compared to Yom Kippur. The Rebbe writes that on Yom Kippur one must fast and repent whether or not he or she wants to; similarly on Purim a person has to be happy, whether he or she likes it or not. Even if a person is brokenhearted or depressed, he or she must awaken some spark of happiness within his heart. Furthermore, if a person makes an effort to repent on Yom Kippur but is unable to repent completely, the day of Yom Kippur atones for his or her sins. Similarly, even if a person is not on the appropriate level of happiness on Purim, if he or she makes an effort to be happy than the salvation and happiness that Purim activates for all the Jewish people will extend to him or her as well.
May we merit to rejoice on this Purim like we should. May we be given the ability to reveal the hidden, see through the illusions of this world to awaken our inherent love for G-d, and bring about the final redemption speedily in our days.

With Love from the Holy Land,
Elisha

Get Pumped for Purim: Part II

The Code of Jewish Law states that on the day of Purim we do not check poor people’s credentials. Rather, “All who put out their hand to take we give to him.” (Code of Jewish Law 142:3) The Hassidic Masters tell us that G-d does not expect us to do anything that He Himself does not do. So on the day of Purim, any of us that “put our hand” to G-d and ask him for something we need, G-d will give to him or her; It is a very opportune time for specific prayers.
But we do not always take advantage of this unique opportunity. There is a Breslov parable that shows a comparison of this anomaly. There was once a poor man who did a favor for a king (all Jewish parables have to have a poor man and a king, of course.) As a symbol of his gratitude, the king told the poor man to come to his treasury on an appointed date and to take whatever he wants. Later, the king regretted his decision, but did not wantto renege on his promise to the poor man. So what did he do? On the appointed date he got the poor man incredibly drunk. In his intoxicated stupor the poor man barely took anything from the treasury.
On the day of Purim, G-d’s treasury is open; we can take whatever we want. But what do we do? We get paralytically drunk and squander this rare opportunity. It is important to keep the day of Purim in its full sanctity, to utilize it to its full potential.
Rabbi Nachman from Breslov, of sainted memory, tells us that on the day of Purim one should start new beginnings, plant new seeds, take on resolutions, for there is special merit that they will succeed. Originally, all beginnings began on Passover: the new year, the redemption from Egypt, etc. But when the story of Purim happened, it caused all new beginnings to start exactly one month earlier, on Purim.
I noticed an allusion to this in this week’s Torah portion, Tzav. The portion of Tzav speaks of the inauguration of Aaron and his sons as priests; the first time they put on the priestly garments, they brought their first sacrifices. The prevailing theme is new beginnings, the start of a process. And this does not only apply to priests, but to the entire Jewish people, as G-d stated “And you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” (Exodus 19:6) In Jerusalem, Purim falls out on Shabbat. So the reading of Shabbat has a powerful instruction for us in connection to Purim: Now is the time to start over. It doesn’t matter what happened in the past, even if you brought a Golden Calf. Now is the time to rectify, to start fresh, with a clean slate. May the holiness of Purim this year help us see through the concealment of G-dliness in this world and bring about the final redemption.
With Love from the Holy Land,
Elisha

Get Pumped for Purim: Part I

It is well known the fact that G-d’s name is not mentioned once in the entire Megillah of Esther, which we will read on the festival of Purim this week. Where is the first time a direct hint of G-d’s Providence is seen in the Purim story? Says the Ari, of sainted memory, when Esther says to the king of Persia, Xerxes (also called Xerxes the Great and Ahasuerus) “The king and Haman will come today,” (Esther 5:4); when she is inviting the king and Haman to a wine party with her. In Hebrew this verse reads “Yavo Hamelech V’Haman Hayom.” The first letters of these four words spell out the Tetragrammon, the four letter name of G-d, hinting to G-d’s Providence here. But this does not seem like the beginning of G-d’s Providence. First, Xerxes had his wife Vashti killed, then he picked Esther out of any girl in the world to be his queen. Furthermore, here it specifically appears that G-d is NOT playing a role-Esther is inviting the king to drink with her and the self-proclaimed enemy of the Jewish people, Haman!

Rav Chizkiyahu Neventzal relates that this is exactly the whole point. Only at this stage of the Purim story did the Jewish people really turn to G-d. Up until here, they said “We have a friend in the Royal House; Esther will save us.” However, once they saw that Esther was wining and dining with their enemy, it occurred to them they may be in trouble. Then they wholeheartedly repented and returned to G-d and were miraculously saved.

I would like to take this a step further. The reason why we are required to read the Megillah twice a year is not because it is a nice fairy tale. Rather, it has practical instruction for us each and every year. This year, I see one directive as this: Who would have thought that one day we would invite our enemies to dine with us? That we would recognize he PLO and Fatah, known terrorist organizations and sworn enemies of the Jewish people, and invite them to the negotiating table? More than that, it says in the Megillah that Xerxes said to Esther, “What is it you request? Up until half of my kingdom I will give to you.” (Esther 5:3) What was he referring to when he said “Up to half of my kingdom”? Rashi, of sainted memory cites the Talmud (Megillah 15b) as saying “Up until something that is in the middle and halfway through the kingdom, this is the Temple.” Israel was in the center of the known world at that time. Jerusalem is in the center of Israel, and the Temple was in the center of Jerusalem. Xerxes was telling her that she could half the kingdom, but there is no way he would allow the Temple to be rebuilt. Today we are in a seemingly worse situation. Today we are told that we must give up to half of our kingdom, half of the Land of Israel. Where is the exact dividing point that is proposed today? The Old City of Jerusalem, exactly where the Temple once stood. Does the Megillah’s practical application for today still seemed far fetched?

But now as then, we must put all of our faith in G-d, who will then bring about a liberation for us, and retroactively we will that specifically now is when G-d’s hand is first seen in the picture. May we merit to have the final redemption come speedily in our days.

With Love from the Holy Land,
Elisha

(To be continued)

The Valley of Death: Merkaz HaRav and Sderot

King David writes: “Even as I walk in the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me.” (Psalm 23) I have walked through the Valley of death before; I have been to Poland, I have been to Auschwitz. But never did it look like this. Never was the Valley of Death surrounded by bookshelves in a high school library; never did the Valley of Death contain two toddlers playing in front of their house.
This past Wednesday night my Yeshiva went to Yeshivat Merkaz HaRav to conduct our night studies, to strengthen our brothers in shock there, as well as to help us to relate to what had happened. The glass door to the library was covered in bullet holes. There was a stack of books sectioned off, awaiting burial, as they were splattered with blood. The floors were arbitrarily chipped from volleys of bullets. Going from stack to stack in the library, it was clear to see where eight young men’s lives were ended bloodily. On Thursday I led a group of twenty-five young men and women to Sderot. Amongst many other activities, we stopped to pay our respects where two children, ages two and four, had been murdered four years ago while playing outside their home.
Today we read the Torah portion of Vayikra. Vayikra is all about sacrifices that were brought in the Tabernacle, and later in the Temples. But as the Torah is an eternal source of instruction, what relevance do sacrifices have to us today-especially to those of us who are not as fortunate as I am to live overlooking the Temple Mount, where those sacrifices were once brought? The answer to this is alluded to in the second verse of today’s Torah reading. “If any man brings an offering of you to the L-rd.” “An offering of you”? This seems to imply that the sacrifice must be of yourself. What does this mean?
To me and to many others in the Jewish people today, the association is automatic. Ten days ago, eight young men were sacrificed. Unlike our barbaric foes, however, this is not the ideal form of sacrifice in Judaism. My teacher and dear friend, Rav Chizkiyahu Neventzal, shed some light on the matter in the very library where the boys were murdered. In Hebrew, the term for giving up one’s life in G-d’s name is Mesirat Nefesh, literally translated as “Giving over one’s soul.” However, the word Nefesh has another meaning: It means will or desire. Every time we desire to do something, but choose not to because we know it is not what G-d wants, this is considered Mesirat Nefesh, giving over one’s soul. This is the type of sacrifice G-d really wants.
The Lubavitcher Rebbe, of sainted memory, explains the concept in view of the entire nature of sacrifice. When G-d first commanded the Jewish people to build him a Sanctuary, the words He used were “And make for me a Sanctuary, and I will dwell in them.” (Exodus 25:8) It does not say “I will dwell in it” but rather “in them.” This, the Rebbe clarifies, indicates that every Jew has the potential to make a Sanctuary for G-d within him or her. We must “slaughter” our physical desires and use them instead in the service of G-d. Just like the animal sacrifices had to be free of any flaw or blemish, so too we must search out the inner flaws of our soul and do the best to rectify them. In doing so, however, one often gets depressed thinking of the sins committed in the past, and loses hope of ever returning to G-d. But once one has been through the Valley of the Shadow of Death in a spiritual sense, meaning that one has sinned and felt utterly detached and distanced from G-d, one’s desire to be reunited with G-d again is multiplied exponentially. Then, like the sacrifices, one bursts into flame of love for G-d.
One aspect of sacrifice stuck out in my mind in a painful way: the requirement that a sacrifice be without blemish, without flaw. The boys in Merkaz HaRav who sacrificed their lives were all innocent, without blemish. Every one of them was described by everyone who knew them as being an exemplary boy, kind and caring. I heard their teacher tearfully speak of them firsthand on Wednesday night. Doron, an Ethiopian immigrant, used to finish all six tractates of Mishnah once a month, a feat that required learning an average of eighteen chapters of Mishnah a day. Every one of them had a similar story. One brought flowers to his elderly aunt every Friday; every one of them went beyond the norm. The reason why they were not upstairs with their peers celebrating the beginning of the month of Adar was because they preferred to go to the library and study more Torah instead. They were gunned down in the service of G-d. But this is the Way of G-d: if He is going to take a sacrifice, it must be pure. Throughout the years, all of the guys killed in the army from Yeshivas have been the best guys.
But there is hope even in the darkest of times. One of the murdered boys, Yehonadav, was wearing a tshirt from the Disengagement that said “It will be alright.” I cried when I read this today, but I think that is the message we need to take out of it. Even in the saddest of times, we have faith that “It will be alright.” In Psalm 23, King David ends on an optimistic note: “Only goodness and kindness will pursue me all the days of my life, and I will sit in the House of G-d for long days.” Similarly today we must trust that only goodness and kindness will pursue us. Purim is coming up this week and this is a time of happiness.
It is very late in Israel right now and I am very tired. I hope with G-d’s help to write soon about my most recent experience in Sderot and on the upcoming holiday of Sderot. To those of you have written me personally and I have not yet responded, I apologize. I will do my best to write you back soon.

With Love from the Holy Land,
Elisha

My Second Response to Frank

Dear Frank,

I do not define myself as an “ultra-Orthodox Jew.” Nor do I define myself as an Orthodox Jew. Nor religious, observant, practicing, Zionist etc. I define myself as a Jew. That’s it. A pashut yid, as your grandfather probably would have put it. However, you probably label me as an Orthodox or religious Jew, which is why I took your comments offensively, as did many many other people. I have a close friend who made Aliyah, served in an elite unit in the army, serves every year in the Reserve Corps, and fought and was injured in Lebanon two summers ago. He told me that when he read your email he was personally insulted, not as a religious Jew, but as a Jew-especially one who put his life on the line for this country.I was writing an email in the distress following a tragic terrorist attack on teenagers, and the immediate response I get is a barrage of claims blaming all of Israel’s problems on religious people. Is that all we can think about when eight teenagers are murdered in their school library? I know I got angry; I lost my cool. But maybe there comes a time to get a little angry. Maybe there’s a time not to sit and discuss things from a detached, objective point of view and to get a little emotional. When Jews are being murdered, pointing fingers between religious and secular will get you nowhere. Only together, standing up as one for our people and our state, will ever get us anywhere.
I don’t want to get caught up in specifics with you. While it may be true that you and your family have been Zionists and that you follow what’s happening here, you must realize that all of that is being done through the lens of Western media, which is very biased. Terms are thrown at you over and over again until you think they are legitimate; terms like “occupied territories,” “cycle of violence,” “Palestine,” “settlements”, “two-state solution”, etc. Hitler once said “If you repeat a lie enough times even you will start to believe it.” So if you are told a lie day in and day out on the news, you may start to believe it too. It can not compare to actually being here.
Your unawareness of the fact that there are religious people in the army is to me an example of a lack of knowledge of the whole picture on your part. There is an entire religious brigade in the Israeli Army as well as many religious units in every other brigade. Also, not all Yeshiva students are exempted from military service; only the most right wing are, and even they are subject to review every couple of years. Today draft-dodging is just as common amongst secular Israelis as it is amongst religious. If you would like to come visit Israel I would be happy to give you a personal tour and you will see a very different perspective on things. Ask Jeff and Phyllis about their recent visit to Israel; I think it would be fair to say that it gave them a fresh look on the situation. The fact that there is crime in L.A. means nothing to me; ordinary crime cannot compare with terrorism in the slightest. Would it have been rational to tell someone in New York after the World Trade Center was destroyed that there are gang killings in L.A., so you know what it’s like to live in fear? Every city has crime, some more than others, but when parents in L.A. send their kids to school, do they have to worry that the school might get blown up? That someone will spray the schoolbus with bullets? That their children may be beaten to a bloody death while hiking? Also, you say that religious students join the army because they are interested in “expansionism.” This is also not true. They join the army because they want to defend our people, live peacefully in our current borders and just have the world leave us alone. The army here is called the Israeli Defense Forces for a reason. This isn’t America, we’re not interested in conquering the world. We just want to protect our people and our land.
Do you really think that “settlements” is a valid reason to perpetrate terrorism? Even if Israel had agreed not to, which it didn’t (at least not in binding terms), or if it was illegal (which it isn’t), would it justify butchering men, women and children? If someone you knew was killed by a terrorist , would you just say “He shouldn’t have built a house”? It’s ridiculous. Whereas civilian populations being bombarded daily with rockets is a fair “excuse not to make peace.” You say that the Israeli Arabs live with us in peace, yet almost every terror attack carried out in Jerusalem was carried out with a local accomplice.
I do not like the security wall because it’s not nearly as effective as people think, it was incredibly expensive, and yes because the world sees it now as a border, leaving many many Jewish people on the wrong side of it. The wall is not the main reason for the recent decrease in terror. The decrease in terror was caused by the Arabs realizing that they can achieve their goals better by cooling down the terrorism and allowing American Liberal pressure force Israel into giving them land. I guarantee you, once every last bit of land has been squeezed out of Israel, the terror will continue in full force. But some Arabs don’t want to wait, hence the rockets in Sderot and bullets in Jerusalem. The reason why we share genetic diseases with the “Palestinians” is because we are closely related; Abraham had two sons, Ishmael and Isaac. Some other time I will discuss with you how the “Palestinians” already have a state, it’s called Jordan. Originally partitioned to the Jews by the British, over 75% of its residents are of “Palestinian” descent. That’s my “two-state solution.” Also, most “Palestinians” are actually of Egyptian or Jordanian descent.
When I referenced the American Indians I was not referring to the 1600′s. The United States Army rounded up Indians, put them on death marches, and kept them in camps. Thousands died. Look up “The Trail of Tears” in the encyclopedia if you don’t know what I’m talking about. There the comparison ends; the American Indians were in America first, the Palestinians were not in Israel first. Also, the Americans swindled the Indians out of a good percentage of the country, lying and breaking treaties with them. The American Indians were the original ones who learned the hard way that “land for peace” does not work. Israel should have picked up on the lesson before it was too late.
Now, when I said your letter was anti-Semetic, I didn’t mean that you are not proud to be Jewish. But your letter promoted animosity between different factions of Judaism; it promoted separation between Jews, which is one of the most destructive forms of anti-Semitism. United we stand, divided we fall. Look throughout history. In my original letter I made absolutely no distinction between any types of Jews. But that seemed to have been the only thing on your mind, how everything is the Orthodox’s fault. I didn’t say you were self-hating because you disagree with me. I said you were anti-Semetic for attempting for promoting hostility amongst Jews. I don’t think the Holocaust survivors kicked out of Gaza would mind my use of the term “judenrein.” Also this “clearing of settlements” as you like to put it in your politically correct Western terminology, involved forcefully removing 8,000 families from their homes, digging up every Jewish grave in Gaza, and removing all signs of Jews ever having been in Gaza, aside from the Synagogues which are forbidden to be destroyed by Jewish Law. If anyone else besides Israel were to do this, or if Israel would do this to Arabs instead of Jews, it would be called ethnic cleansing. So though the word “judenrein” (which means Jew-free; how many Jews are in Gaza now?) may be a bit strong, it is apropos. You say Orthodox people call all other Jews self-hating. You know full well that that is a two-way street and that Orthodox, atheists, and everyone in between are guilty of calling each other “narrow-minded” or “racist” or “self-hating” in equal measure. This is something we all need to work on. Again, I didn’t say your letter was anti-Semetic because it was written by an irreligious Jew. It was anti-Semetic because it promoted disunity amongst Jews.
I wouldn’t even call Orthodox Judaism a religion in the classic sense; it’s more of a lifestyle really. So why would one include his service of G-d in every other respect of his life, but exclude Him from politics? Doesn’t it seem that if one really believes that G-d runs the world that worldwide events and decisions should definitely be influenced by that? Also, I don’t even know why you brought this up. None of the arguments I gave you were based on religious contexts. They were all practical, based on current events as well as historical precedents. You don’t know me either. I am not a typical Orthodox Jew. Some call me an Untraditional Orthodox Jew. I do not accept anything at face value; I challenge everything until I’m satisfied with the arguments I receive. I am very accepting of all Jewish people, from all sorts of religious and cultural backgrounds. Just because I choose to be observant does not mean that I have a condescending view towards people who are not religious. I am not trying to evangelize the world either. If you go back through my emails, you will see that never do I say stop driving or Shabbat or women can’t be rabbis. I just ask people to be proud of being Jewish and do their best to get in touch with G-d.
“Settlement” is an English mistranslation. The word “yishuv” (mistranslated as “settlement”) in Hebrew means a town, whether it be Jerusalem or a small country town. The word “settlements” makes it easier for people not to think of these as towns, many of them consisting of tens of thousands of people, but rather as “outposts” built to anger the Palestinian people. Many of them have been there for forty years, have paved roads and tall buildings; people have lived their whole lives there. “Settlements” were not started by only religious people, but the reason why now religious people are the only ones left there is because they are basically the last surviving Zionists in Israel.
Now, as I said before “Palestine” is a stolen term. Unless you are saying the Arabs in Israel are still subject to the British mandate then the word “Palestine” does not really apply here. The “West Bank” is half of our country. It is part of Biblical Israel, it was captured in a defensive war in 1967, it’s ours. You also have to realize that the “Palestinians” are not like the other Arabs, so just because we have made peace with other Arab peoples does not mean the same tactics will work with the “Palestinians.” In my lifetime two agreements have been proposed to the “Palestinians”: The Oslo Accords, which they accepted, and the Camp David accords which they rejected. In the Oslo Accords, both Israel and the “Palestinians” made some agreements. Israel agreed to transfer control of land to the PA, educate its people towards peace with the Arabs, give arms to the P.A. to establish a police force, and recognize the PLO. Israel did all of this. The “Palestinians” agreed to end terror, get rid of all terror groups, educate for peace, protect Jewish holy sites, and change its charter to recognize Israel. Terror has not ended, the PA has even been caught supplying arms or support to terrorists countless times. No “Palestinian” textbook even has Israel on a map, nor do they mention the Oslo accords. Jewish holy sites under PA control, including Joseph’s Tomb, have all been desecrated or destroyed. The “Palestinian Charter” has not been changed. In 2000 at the Camp David Accords, Ehud Barak offered Yasser Arafat 92% of the West Bank and 100% of Gaza, and he turned him down. If all the “Palestinian people” want is a homeland in the “West Bank and Gaza”, why would Arafat say no, and then go on to start an intifada? Tell me, why should we continue to make concessions to a people who have not kept a single item on their end of the bargain and are dedicated to our destruction? They simply cannot be trusted. We would love to make peace with them; the problem is that there’s no one to make peace with. The leaders either have no control over the people or are terrorists.With religious issues aside, it would be very very dangerous to Israel’s security to give up the whole “West Bank.” It would be mean that Israel would be nine to eleven miles wide all along the coast, a condition that plagued the young state with Fedayeen (Arab terrorists) until 1967.
You mentioned Baruch Goldstein and the Rabin assassination. Without to get into how a huge amount of weapons were found inside the mosque that Goldstein shot up, those are two incidents of Israeli terrorism. That’s in comparison with over 1,400 Israeli citizens killed in terror attacks since the Oslo Accords alone. It is not an even fight. It’s a democratic nation defending its innocent citizens versus terror with international backing. And to say that the “Palestinians” don’t commit terror based on religious pretense is also false. Their religious leaders glorify “Martyrdom” (also known as cowardice), and almost every suicide bomber left a videotape of him saying that he’s doing this in the name of Allah. Allah Akhbar are generally the last words of a terrorist in Israel. There are Jews who yell “death to the Arabs” and I am not proud of that. But the difference is that they don’t actually carry it out, whereas many many Jews have been killed by Palestinian lynch mobs, often with their bare hands. And you can judge a person on his worst behavior. The Talmud tells us “When can you see the true nature of a person? Kaso, keeso, koso.” Or in English, when he’s angry, needs to spend money, or is drunk. So actually when a person’s at their worst it is the best time to judge them, for that is when the truth comes out.
I do not want to discuss Torah issues with you now. If you have specific issues or questions, I’d be glad to do my best to answer them. If I don’t know the answer, I will find someone who does. I am not interested, however, in talking about “thematic elements” or gross generalities in the Torah.
In conclusion, I ask you to please not take my comments out of context. So if I reference “judenrein” or Hitler, realize that it is to make a specific point, not to call anyone Nazis. We are two Jews having an intellectual discourse, I don’t see the problem. Frank, though we may have differing views on religion and politics, you are a Jew and you are related to me, so we are family twice. I’m sure we would get along fine. I love hearing from you, but please stick to the point. Try to discuss the matters at hand and not reach out into the far ends of the galaxy. This will be my final public response to you, anything after this I will send to you privately.
The reason I’ve taken a while to reply is because I have been too busy living religious Zionism to sit down and discuss it. I just prayed afternoon prayers at the Western Wall. Tonight I will be studying in Yeshivat Merkaz HaRav in memory of the murdered innocent (don’t worry there will be tons and tons of security). Tomorrow I will be bringing a volunteer group down to Sderot (there haven’t been any rockets since Shabbat) to help kids and families living their daily lives under the cruel hell of terror. I hope to write about these things before Shabbat.

Love, Elisha

Frank’s Second Letter to Me

Dear Elisha,

This is an important topic. Just as you do, I believe that the issues relate to serious matters, like the survival of Israel and peace. Just because we disagree about what the dangers to Israel are, doesn’t mean that we care any less for her future. You said a few things that I seriously disagree with, including badmouthing of the government in Israel. Now we all like and dislike things that governments do. I’m not an Israeli, but I have opinions about what the Israeli government does (just as Israelis probably have opinions about actions the U.S. government takes). I assume that if I sent around an email disparaging Israeli government actions you approved of, you would throw in your two cents. Please take what I said in that spirit.

I want to explain myself, but don’t take this as an attack on yourself. I didn’t mean my other letter that way, either. It wasn’t my intent to call you or anyone else names — if “ultra-Orthodox” is considered a pejorative, let me know the more acceptable term to use. It’s true that I called certain actions “foolish,” etc., but in the discussions (and arguments) I have with people (and let’s say in particular Jewish people), “saying what one means” is not considered by itself to be impolite. But I’m sorry that you took it that way. Email is tough; let’s just assume that if we were having this discussion face-to-face, it would be like the rabbis at the Seder talking all night at Bnei Brak — I’m sure they didn’t agree about everything.

Now as for the substance, let me a say a few things, replying to some of the remarks you made. You said that I “have a lot of pent-up anger against religious people.” I’m sorry, but I don’t believe that is the case. I have a lot of respect for many religious people, mixed in with a little envy about their ability to have faith in spiritual matters, and to use prayer and observance of rituals to help themselves and others through difficult times. The religious people I have the most respect for are those who apply the moral teachings of religions to problems big and small. While in my own life I try to ground my morality in reason, I recognize the possibility that, as a religious Christian friend has admonished me, the “Enlightenment was a Christian heresy.” Of course, if it was a Christian heresy, and it had to do with morality, it’s really a Jewish heresy. Certainly the Enlightenment was unlikely to happen in any society in the world other than one based on the worldview posited by the Bible.

It’s true that what I don’t like about religious people, of all faiths, is when they base political decisions on their beliefs, and try to impose them on others. But I don’t think I have any anger towards any religious individuals (with the exception of, say, people like Osama bin Laden, who use their religious beliefs to justify violence — but then, how religious can such people be?). My two heroes in American life — Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King –were profoundly religious people who were, of course, immersed in the
Hebrew Bible even if they weren’t Jews. (Henry in his bar mitzvah talk compared the 10th plague to Lincoln’s Second Inaugural address, in which he said that both the south and the north would likely have to pay back with their own blood every drop of blood spilled with the lash.)

But of course what you mean is that I have anger towards Jewish religious people, and by religious, you don’t mean my guitar-strumming Reform rabbi, but people who keep very frum and may wear black hats and long beards, and believe that the Torah was written by Moses (every word). Again, I don’t see myself angry at any of them. You don’t know me, but I’m not generally an angry person. Impassioned at times, yes, but I think if you check with your closer relatives, you’ll find that I’m fairly easy going. Your mom and I have gone at it on occasion, but there have been specific issues between us.

It’s true that I think what the religious people have done with settlements (please let me know why that’s not a good word to use, since it’s so common) deep in the occupied territories has been bad for Israel. Again, I don’t like this because it’s an instance of applying religious belief to politics. But although I may be depressed about this, I’m not angry. I was angry when Rabin was assassinated and when Baruch Goldstein massacred people at Hebron, but then I don’t consider people who do things like that religious. Terrorists, assassins, and murderers have a different mental “chemistry” than what I consider to be religious. It’s a psychosis or a sociopathic syndrome. Religion is not limited to passive prayer, it can be a source of action, but there seems to be always a quotient of reflection. That’s what gives religion its power in a pluralistic society — if religion becomes political, it ultimately defeats itself.

(By the way, the reason I’m not pausing here to condemn the Palestinian terrorists is not because what they do is not vile and reprehensible, but because there’s little pretense that they’re doing so for religious reasons.)

We don’t have time here and it wouldn’t solve anything to try to figure out just where every wrong turn was made by all the different sides, starting in the 30s at least, to get us to the present situation in Israel and Palestine. So I won’t bother to go into why the West Bank isn’t “half of our country,” or why people have rights even if they are stateless (assuming they are). But I do want to inject a bit of optimism about peace. In my lifetime, but perhaps before you were either alive or paying much attention, Israel has made two peace treaties with Arab countries, Egypt and Jordan, and they have been successful. The relationships with those countries have proved to be stable. The other Arab countries (if you now include Iraq), have all tacitly recognized Israel’s legitimacy. They are waiting for an agreement with the Palestinians to do so. Israelis and Palestinians almost made a deal in the 90s. As I see it, and based on the polling, the masses of both Israelis and Palestinians want an agreement, and will abide by it once it’s in place. Keep in mind that hundred of thousands of Israeli Arabs have lived side by side with Jews for decades with very little violence between them. The two obstacles to negotiating, which both sides with some justification use to justify not reaching agreements, are the terrorism of the Palestinians (mostly now the rockets from Hamas in Gaza) and the settlements deep in the West Bank, which Israel agreed to stop expanding and building. Peace won’t mean that Israel can give up its army, but I’m confident that Israel will be strong enough to preserve itself behind the borders the parties agree to.

The extremists on both sides are guilty of ugly conduct. You mention Arabs who celebrate acts of terrorism; I’ve also heard of crowds of Orthodox yelling “death to the Arabs.” One bit of advice I’d give you — don’t judge people on their worst behaviors. One thing to keep in mind is that those Palestinians are probably the descendants of the Jews who used to live there. I know that my son looks exactly like them, and I’ve read that Jews share many of the same genetic diseases with the Palestinians.

An aside. It’s clear to me that if Arafat had been a Gandhi or a Quaker, and the Palestinians had used non-violence, the Palestinians and the Israelis would have worked things out a long time ago, to their mutual benefit. The terrorism of the Palestinians is hateful to us, but it’s also had horrible results for the  Palestinians.

It’s interesting that you don’t like the security wall. That surprised me, since I’m used to hearing left-wing people decry it as a kind of apartheid. Do you not like it because it recognizes the reality of the two states? To me, it doesn’t represent the kind of society the original Zionists envisioned, but it’s probably a practical solution for the time being.

This is getting long, but I want to hit a few more points, and then I want to discuss the Bible. I admit that it was news to me what you said about Orthodox joining the military, and that you plan to (I assume that means you’re in Israel having made aliyah.) Although I’m scared for your sake, I respect your decision, since I understand that Yeshiva students are exempt from the draft, and certainly you don’t have to become an Israeli. But something you said concerns me: “Interestingly enough, if you ask any objective commander he will tell you that the religious soldiers are the best ones. They are there because they are motivated and dedicated to protect the Jewish people, not just because the government makes them do it.” I wonder if this what I was fearing at the end of my first letter? Israel never had trouble motivating draftees, but now I have read that there is draft-dodging. In the past, it was shameful not to serve. I wonder if Jews are willing to defend Israel, but not to expand it? To me, this is the kind of distinction that I would expect from Jews (and from Americans, too). We Americans learned the hard way that you can’t win a war your soldiers don’t want to fight, especially if it lasts a long time.

Now let’s talk about this statement you made: “Your e-mail was one of the most hateful, anti-Semetic letters I have ever read that was written by a Jew.” I’ve read my email over again, and don’t see it that way at all. I made plain in the article my pride at being Jewish. In fact, it’s only because you were obviously upset by what I wrote that I’m not completely insulted by this. I love being Jewish; if you knew me better, you would know that being Jewish is a major part of my identity. You should realize that calling Jews you disagree with “self-hating” only indicates that you’re spouting nasty arguments that you’ve learned from others. It’s like using “judenrein” to describe settlements that the Israeli government has vacated; you have no idea to what extent the people whose actions you are comparing to the actions of the Nazis are offended by this –especially considering that they probably got to Israel, or their parents got to Israel, just a few steps before the Nazis got to them.

It so happens that today in the L.A. Times there was an article by a Jewish American who has been involved in Middle East diplomacy about this very phenomenon — about how right-wing Jews use the “self-hating” label to attack Jews they disagree with, and the “anti-Semite” label against everyone else they disagree with. Here’s the link: http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-op-miller9mar09,0,3926492.story. I hope you read it.

It’s true I live in beautiful Santa Monica, and that I’m a Jewish-American, not an Israeli. I try to keep my criticisms of Israel based on the dialogue I read about there. My family’s support for Israel and Zionism goes back to the secular socialists who established the place. We like the old Labor Party and what they stood for. By the way, there is undoubtedly more violence in L.A. than in Israel, and every year Santa Monica has one or two gang killings. So it’s not all sweetness and light.

But one thing — what does the conquest of the Indians have to do with anything? Are you saying that because the conquistadors and missionaries sent by Ferdinand and Isabella (not of blessed memory) got away with it, it would be okay for the IDF and the religious Jews to do the same thing?

The Bible. I understand that you believe the Torah was all written by Moses, with all the inconsistencies there to make it harder to believe. That’s fine — as I said, I respect and envy (a little) people with that kind of faith. But it is a matter of faith. It’s like saying evolution didn’t happen. There has, however, been a lot
of research on how and when the Bible was written and edited (“redacted”), and lot of archaeology that supports and expands on the research.

It may be strange to your way of thinking, but this research has made me more aware of, and proud of, my Jewishness. You see, what the research shows is that although there is no archaeological evidence of the Patriarchs or of the Exodus story, and they remain problematic (or “legendary”) from an historical point of view, the data really start to pick up with David and then the two kingdoms of Israel and Judah. What the researchers on the texts have found is that the four different strands that make up the Torah, and the first, historical books of the Bible that follow, fit the history of that period and the archaeology. These books of the Bible are now seen as real history — in fact, a friend of mine from high school, an important Biblical scholar named Baruch Halpern, wrote a book called precisely, “The First Historians: The Hebrew Bible and History.”

I mean no disrespect to your way of thinking about this, but I want to explain mine. When I read books like that one of Baruch’s, or Richard Friedman’s “Who Wrote the Bible,” or Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman’s “The Bible Unearthed,” (which was recently published and summarized the archaeological findings of the past three decades) I relate very directly to the story of these two kingdoms trying to survive (and succeeding for centuries) in the midst of the great powers of their age — the Assyrian, Babylonian,
Egyptian and Persian empires. It’s not just a matter of realpolitik, but these two kingdoms really took laws seriously, and justice. That’s one of the reasons the House of David survived so long, and the writings the kingdoms left behind are the reason we are still Jews. It doesn’t matter to me whether a real Moses wrote the Torah — there is an essential truth, a historical, Jewish truth, that these books represent, that is becoming more apparent with more study. It’s a truth that can have a lot of meaning today when people all through the world are struggling to live by the rule of law — a particularly Jewish concept.

Please understand that everything I’m writing here comes from my understanding of who I am, including being Jewish. It may be different than your understanding about you, but then no one said that we should be the same. From what you’ve told me about yourself, and from what others have said, I’m gaining a lot of respect for you (but don’t call me anti-Semitic again!). You certainly can argue with passion — that goes a long way where I come from.

I hope to hear from you again.

Love,
Frank

A “Typical” Trip to Sderot

Dear Loved Ones,

I am writing all of you once again, sitting about one hundred meters from where our Holy Temple once stood. Here, I walk the streets that our forefathers walked, I speak the language our Patriarchs spoke, and I follow the traditions all of our grandparents have been following for thousands of years. That aside, I will now tell you about the latest tour/volunteer group that I brought down to Sderot.
I work for a volunteer organization in Sderot called Doresh Tov. Doresh Tov is a community organization working to unify and strengthen the people of Sderot. They have bought a synagogue that they hope to expand into a community center. Currently if there is a simcha (a celebration) in Sderot-a Brit or Bar/Bat Mitzvah-the only location big enough to hold enough people is the parking lots outside apartment buildings-unprotected. Doresh Tov wants to build a community center with an events hall so the people can come together, without being afraid. They are also working on building fortified playgrounds, close to the residential areas, so mothers can watch their children play, without fearing if their children will return. Another program they are working on is sort of a Shabbat exchange program, where Sderot families can be hosted around the country to take a break from the terrorized life they live, and vice versa to host guests in Sderot for Shabbat. These people are working professionals, they get paid nothing for their work. They ask not for pity, but for partners in carrying out their work. I am a partner. If you are interested in becoming a partner, let me know.
That aside, now I’ll tell you about my actual trip there. Under the umbrella organization of Doresh Tov, myself and a dear friend Daniel Mendehlsohn coordinated this tour group. We rented a minibus for the day and had 14 participants. Most were students in Israel for the year, but there were some exceptions, such as a lovely gentile woman from Denmark. Once we started getting close to they city I briefed everybody on the history of the city and gave them detailed instructions on what to do in the event of a Tzeva Adom (a red alert siren that gives 15 seconds warning before a Kassam rocket lands and explodes.)
The first place we stopped was the Mamman family. Nisim Mamman, the father, is a ritual slaughterer who actually stayed at my father’s house recently on a business trip to America. I gave the Mamman family about ten minutes warning that I would be showing up at their house with 15 other people. By the time we got there, in accordance with traditional southern Israeli hospitality, there were chairs set up for all of us, with cookies, cold drinks, and tea all waiting for us on the table. The family itself, though I had never met them before I showed up on their doorstep with 15 people, were a very typical Sderot family. Warm, loving, open to guests despite their meager means, and very strong in their faith in G-d. There is a saying in Israel, that where the weather is warmer the hearts are warmer, and this is most definitely true about the Mamman family and most people in Sderot. These are the people subjected to terror, day in, day out, with rockets exploding in or around their city almost every day. The Israeli government tells them to be patient, not to complain. It’s hard to be patient when a rocket explodes in your neighbor’s yard.
After the initial meet and greet part of the trip, we moved on to the touring part of the trip. We went around the city to various places where rockets had destroyed houses, cars, lives; we saw kindergartens in bomb shelters, reinforced schools, bus stops that double as bomb shelters, and various lookouts into Gaza. At each location we got off the bus, Daniel and myself had to count them off the bus and count them as they got back on. Everywhere we went, we were constantly checking where the nearest shelter could be found in the event of a Tzeva Adom (red alert), when we would need to direct the 14 volunteers with us not to panic and to get there quickly and orderly.
The next leg of the journey was the volunteering part. Ordinarily we put on large events for children. However, since it was raining on Thursday, parents did not want to send their children out. It’s ironic how these parents won’t send their children out when it is raining water, yet they are forced to send them out when it is raining Kassam rockets. David Spanglet, the director of Doresh Tov, had a different idea for a volunteer activity. He informed me that there was a neighborhood that had an apartment destroyed by a Kassam the day before, and the people there were taking it very hard. Now what is called a neighborhood in Sderot is not even comparable to most neighborhoods in Israel, let alone America. A “neighborhood” in Sderot is a horse shoe of apartment buildings surrounding a parking lot. So David thought it would be a good idea to buy flowers and go to door to door cheering up the glum people of this neighborhood. We stopped and bought 60 flowers. Then we split up into groups and went door to door, giving each family a flower, some toys for their kids, a letter of support written by seminary girls in Jerusalem, and words of encouragement and love. The gentile woman from Denmark had difficulty understanding this. “You mean we are just going to go from door to door, handing out things and talking to total strangers? It seems very strange to me.” Indeed, to an outside eye this does seem very strange. But the Jewish people is a strange people.
“Yes,” I answered her. “The Jewish people is not like other people. We are a religion, a nation, and most importantly of all, a family. When a Jewish person is in distress somewhere across the world is in pain, in distress, it must hurt us as much as if it were our parents or children there. We cannot simply ignore them or abandon them to their fate, because as Jews we have a responsibility towards one another.” She was amazed as we went around, cheering up total strangers, being invited in and often leaving with hugs and kisses. But this is the Jewish people. We cannot separate from one another, even if we were foolish enough to want to.
The last part of the trip was relaxing in David’s home, ordering in pizza, and discussing the events of the day. After that, we all piled back into the bus and drove back to Jerusalem. But the 13 participants who had never been to Sderot before came back different people then they were on the trip down. They were deeper people, thinking about what was really important in life, and touched by their brethren in need.
This is not a collection; I am not writing this to try and get you to donate. However, if you would be interested in helping Doresh Tov or volunteering, write me back. But more importantly, when you watch the news and hear “Four rockets landed in Sderot tonight,” remember that these aren’t just the people of Sderot, they our brothers and sisters. Only together will the Jewish people prevail.

Love,
Elisha

My First Response to Frank

Dear Frank,
I see you have a lot of pent-up anger against religious people. I am glad you decided to vent it out on me. I am not involved in the Yeshiva that was attacked. You don’t agree with me that Israel has been giving in to terrorism? What about the rockets exploding in Sderot every day for the past seven years? What about the fact that the “Palestinians” have not upheld a single one of their agreements, yet Israel is moving full steam ahead to give them half our country and our capital city? What about the expulsion from Gaza, which was supposed to solve everything-but has only made things much worse? What about the fact that Hizbullah has rearmed to more than the capacity that it had before the war two summers ago? What about that Israel lets out hundreds of convicted terrorists as non reciprocated “goodwill gestures” to the PA, one of whom walked into a high school Thursday night and butchered a bunch of teenagers?
This was not the first act of terrorism in Jerusalem in four years. There have been multiple stabbings and attacks on border guards. And what about the attacks on other cities? It’s OK to shoot rockets at children in Sderot, to blow yourself up in a shopping mall in Dimona?
Now your anti-Orthodox ranting was based upon not knowing the facts. There are thousands upon thousands of religious people in the army. The invasion into Lebanon was a prime example of the incompetence of the government, the poor leadership capabilities of Olmert, and the disarray the army was in at the time. Olmert refused to send ground troops in for weeks, despite the fact that he had the go-ahead from the states. The air-targeting was almost pointless because it was impossible to avoid blowing up the residential areas that Hizbullah decided to build its munitions factories deep within. There were hundreds if not thousands of yeshiva students who went into Lebanon in that war. There were graduates from my yeshiva in that war, one of whom received a Medal of Honor for his bravery. I have another yeshiva graduate friend who was injured in Lebanon, walking with a permanent limp now at the age of 21. My Yeshiva funds hundreds of thousands of dollars to various army units. I have another Yeshiva graduate friends who is in Gaza as we speak. My best friend in Yeshiva is going into the army in two weeks, as are three other guys from my Yeshiva. I, a yeshiva student, am going into the army in five months. What do you base your claims on? Interestingly enough, if you ask any objective commander he will tell you that the religious soldiers are the best ones. They are there because they are motivated and dedicated to protect the Jewish people, not just because the government makes them do it. The Army doesn’t exactly try to make itself inviting to religious people. In fact, they have a tendency to make things unnecessary difficult for religious people.
Now you refer to something as “Gazan Land.” What exactly is Gazan Land? Did it once belong to the sovereign country of Gaza? There was never a country Gaza. The Gaza Strip had been a part of Egypt. It was used then, as it is today, as a launching pad for terrorist attacks into Israel. You seem to be under the impression that the “settlers” just got up and squatted on Gaza in 1967. But they were actually sent there by what you called the “non-Orthodox government” primarily under the direction of Arik Sharon. At the locations of the settlements, nothing grew there; it was a barren wasteland. The Arab leaders came from surrounding villages and welcomed their new neighbors. They told them that the land was cursed by Allah, that nothing had grown there since the time of Isaac. By 2005, over 30% of Israel’s finest produce came from these same land. All the sudden the Arabs wanted them back. The “settlements,” as they’ve been mistranslated in English, in the “West Bank”comprise of over 250,000 residents; most of whom did not build beyond the security wall, but rather had themselves fenced in with the Arabs by the Israeli government.
Now, you speak of the “security wall.” Have you seen this security wall? I have. It is not this Great Wall of China that Western media makes it out to be. Many places it is just barbed wire, where I myself would be able to cross. The cement parts are not impenetrable. Countless tunnels have been dug and rope ladders thrown over. It was one of the biggest wastes of money that Israel has made in a long time. When they constructed this wall, the government chose to leave several “settlements” (Tel Aviv was a “settlement” once as well) on the other side of the wall. Towns that had been there for years, had Biblical lineage, and many of which had been built by the Israeli Government. 90% of the incidents of students “squatting” on land is usually in a town that the Israeli Government decided to make Judenrein in 2005. Some of these towns have not been given to the Arabs and just lay empty. How would you like it if you were forcibly driven out of the home that you built, raised your kids in, or grew up in? How would you feel know that your hometown is just lying there empty? When you reference US yeshiva students-is it so hard for you to visualize Jews empathizing with other Jews pain? The problem is that you have Israelis as being separate from Jews in your thinking. We are all Jewish-we’re all in the same boat.
Now you mention something called “Palestinian hinterland.” Tell me who is the rightful owner to this land-the British, the last people to have control over that land under the name Palestine? Or maybe the Romans, who made up the name? There never ever was a sovereign Palestinian state. There was the Ottoman empire province, which later became the British mandate of Palestine. Then Jordan annexed the “West Bank.” During that nineteen years, no Jewish worshippers were allowed to enter the old city, no “Palestinians” were given Jordanian citizenship, most of them were kept in detention camps, and during Black September thousands were slaughtered by the Jordanian army. Thousands more fled to the West Bank, where they have stayed until today.
In regards to your Bible analysis, the Torah was written in a way that it could be picked apart by people who didn’t want to follow it. Otherwise we wouldn’t be fulfilling it out of free choice, but rather because intellectually it would be the only sensible option. No one can prove to you that G-d exists, because then you there wouldn’t require any effort to believe in Him, He would just be there, like the sun or the moon or something. You are 100% correct that this week’s portion was written by a “priestly source”-Moses. Though his children were not priests, Moses served as High Priest until he anointed Aaron and his sons. But there the association of authorship of the Torah and “priestly sources” ends. I am actually reading a book written by secular Israelis called Biblical Archeology. Of what I have read so far 98% of archaeological findings in Israel have been in line with the Biblical account. I feel pretty comfortable giving the Torah a 2% leeway, especially considering that it was thousands of years ago and that countless “squatters”-Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Christian, and Arab have all settled their and most probably altered some of their surroundings. Chezkiyahu destroyed the “high places” and the bronze snake because they were being used for idol worship, thus violating the first and second of the Ten Commandments. If you really want to get something out of the Torah, you are going to have to learn to admit that there’s more than meets the eye. It’s a pretty narrow way of thinking to say if I can’t see it, it isn’t there. Do you believe in oxygen? What evidence do you have that exists? Sometimes you just have to accept that there are things beyond human understanding. There is an infinite amount of knowledge embedded in the Torah. Now if you don’t like the exposition I quoted then give me a better answer-Why would Moses put up the coverings of the Tabernacle before it had any walls? How would you explain the verse? You can take a cop out and say the Bible was written by Priestly Sources. Or you can accept a challenge and give me a better answer for why the verse appears in the order it does? What would Mr Friedman say?
Now if you look into the sources the Romans were not exactly benevolent to the Jews. If you trust what Josephus has to say about the matter than you must take into account what the Talmud has to say; otherwise you’re just being plain biased. The Second Temple was actually destroyed because there were religious zealots. And it was destroyed because there was the secular Jew pointing at him calling him a religious zealot. It was destroyed because of Sin’at Chinam-senseless hatred amongst Jews. Disunity amongst Jews. Which is exactly what you are perpetuating right now. Your e-mail was one of the most hateful, anti-Semetic letters I have ever read that was written by a Jew. You focus on the separate sects of Judaism. You blame everything on the Orthodox, most of which was based on false pretenses. You think of Israelis as being a separate people from yours. It is this focus of separatism that always brings about Jewish downfall. Only through throwing away baseless tensions, working out our problems, and at the end of the day standing as one can the Jewish people prevail But if people are always blaming things on the Orthodox or vice versa that will never happen.
You speak of justice. Tell me what justice there is in eight teenagers being slaughtered in their high school. I don’t think you would be so objective if it happened in your neighborhood, or at your son’s school. It’s very easy for you to sit in Santa Monica and speculate about Middle Eastern policy. Try living here, Frank. Try living in a country where children can’t play outside at recess without an armed guard, where every field trip must have an armed guard, where the bus station has a metal detector. Where thousands of Arabs celebrate publicly after some coward guns down a bunch of innocent kids with a machine gun. Where thirteen-pound rockets are fired daily, hoping to hit a child in Sderot. What would you say if your house was destroyed by a Kassam missile? What if it was your son’s school that had to be covered in a gigantic rocket-proof shell just so he can go to third grade. What if it was your son’s leg that had to be amputated instead of the eight-year-old in Sderot? How would you feel then Frank? What it just be part of the “cycle of violence”? Would you still blame it all on religious people? Would that make you sleep better at night? Don’t you think it’s a bit hypocritical for an American to say Israel took over Palestinian lands? Chances are that beautiful Santa Monica is built on the blood of slaughtered American Indians- remember them? The people whose land we stole, raped their wives, murdered them in mass, put them on death marches and kept them in concentration camps? Now they have “reservations”, which ironically enough is the same term that the Nazis used for the ghettos. So don’t tell me about stolen land.
Every single thing that Israel has done to try to establish peace with the Arabs has been spit back in our face. In Israel’s history there have been seven official wars and two intifadas-every one of them instigated by the Arabs. Can you go back through history and blame religious people for every one of those too? We gave them control over a good chunk of the “West Bank,” it is used to send suicide bombers into Jerusalem. We give the PA guns to control the “minimal terrorist factions,” and those same guns turn up in high schools to slaughter children. We give them Gaza, they give us Kassams. We withdraw from Lebanon six years ago, suddenly there’s Qatushas in Haifa. Starting to notice a pattern here? It isn’t working, Frank. Arab people don’t think the way we do. They didn’t grow up in the same culture as us. But America, in its egotism and naivety, thinks the rest of the world thinks the way they do and therefore they can tell everyone else what to do. How did that work out in Iraq and Afghanistan? Where’s bin Laden? The Arab people in Israel will not be satisfied with a two-state solution, but they’ll take as much as they can get before continuing to attempt to conquer all of Israel. Arafat himself said it about the Oslo Accords, it’s true now. Do you really think Israel is going to be able to make every Arab go to this new Palestinian state? No, that would be racist; a humanitarian crime. So the Arabs inside of ’67 Israel will get to stay put and the rest of them will have a launching pad and concentration point to send terrorists and rockets against Israel. That is what every single precedent has told us. The army itself (non-religious, remember?) says now that Gaza was a mistake and any further gifts of land will only lead to more Jewish deaths.
Love,
Elisha

Frank’s First Letter

Dear Elisha,

This is your cousin Frank in Santa Monica. We don’t know each other well, but I’m glad that you’ve added me to your email list. I’m also more than glad to hear you are OK; are you involved with the yeshiva that was attacked?

It was a terrible thing. One can only hope that someday there will be peace. But I’m a little puzzled by your comment that “It is tragic that it took eight dead teenagers to wake Israel up to stop giving in to terrorism.” The implication seems to be that Israel has been giving into terrorism. What evidence do you have for that?

My understanding is that this was the first act of terrorism in Jerusalem in four years. That’s pretty good given the geography. If your view is common among the ultra-Orthodox, then that seems to me to be rather a case of ingratitude toward the non-Orthodox government and the non-Orthodox IDF that protects the ultra-Orthodox who are concentrated in Jerusalem. Personally I don’t presume to know if God exists, or if he does whether he cares about what goes on in Jerusalem like he did 2,500 years ago, but if another prophet was around, he might criticize the ultra-Orthodox for such ingratitude — if he thought that God had had anything to do with the protection they had had for these past years.

Soft on terrorism? I seem to recall a recent invasion of Lebanon — that seems to have been a hard response by the IDF. BTW, were any yeshiva graduates in the IDF forces that invaded Lebanon? Or what about the recent efforts in Gaza? It seems like the government and the IDF are doing what they can to stop the rocket attacks. They certainly aren’t asleep, as you suggest. Perhaps if a handful of settlers hadn’t taken so much of Gazan land after 1967, the political situation there would be different.

Meanwhile, what are the ultra-Orthodox doing? Certainly one of the reasons terror attacks are down in Israel is the security wall that the government has constructed at great cost in both money and standing in the world. But why are young Orthodox yeshiva graduates, many from the U.S., finding land to squat on and create new settlements far beyond the wall, deep in the Palestinian hinterland with no other Jews around? This hardly seems a sensible way to respond to terrorism. I mean, what would you think if you were an IDF soldier told to defend one of these settlements? These settlements are neither soft nor hard — they are just reckless, foolish and stupid.

It’s a coincidence, but lately I’ve been reading a lot of the Bible and about the Bible. I’ve just started attending a monthly Torah study group. My son Henry is taking a Bible as literature course at the public high school he goes to, and I borrowed one of the books he’s been reading — Richard Elliot Friedman’s “Who Wrote the Bible.” Last year I read the excellent “The Bible Unearthed,” which discusses the impact of the past 30 years or so of archaeology on our understanding of the Bible.

In this context, it’s interesting to read your analysis of this week’s Torah portion. I’m not an expert, but because the portion focuses on the Tabernacle, I suspect that this portion was written by what’s called the “Priestly” sources (or “P”), probably in the time of King Hezekiah (after the fall of the northern Kingdom of Israel). Friedman uses a lot of textual and archaeological evidence to argue (convincingly, so far as I’m concerned) that the reason the P sections of the Torah emphasize the Tabernacle is that the Tabernacle itself was housed inside the Temple in Jerusalem, and that this provided further justification for centralizing worship (i.e., sacrifices) at the Temple. Hezekiah, of course, was famous in the Bible for destroying places of worship outside of Jerusalem (in the “high places”). He also, according to 2 Kings, destroyed the bronze snake that Moses himself had reputedly made because the people were burning incense to it. His monotheism was so absolute that he wanted to confine God himself down to one house.

Hezekiah also almost brought disaster to the kingdom of Judah because he rebelled against Assyria and tried to extend Judah’s control over areas of the former Israel that the Assyrians had conquered just few decades before. This incited the Assyrian emperor, Sennacherib, to bring an army against Judah. As recounted in 2 Kings, the Assyrians captured all the fortified cities of Judah; Jerusalem managed to withstand the siege, but there are ambiguous accounts as to what happened — basically, it appears that the Assyrians couldn’t get in, but the Judeans couldn’t kick them out, and the latter ultimately paid a tribute and the Assyrians lifted the siege. (According to 2 Kings 18:15, Hezekiah even had to “cut off the gold from the doors of the temple” to get enough to placate Sennacherib; but in 19:35, God sent an angel who killed all the Assyrian army — I’ve read a modern historian who thinks that a disease passed through the Assyrians, and he considers that this was the most important moment in Western history, because if Sennacherib had destroyed Jerusalem then (in 701 BCE), that would have been it for monotheism.

In any case, why I am going through all this analysis of P and the history as recounted in 2 Kings? Well, one reason is that like you, I enjoy studying the Bible. It’s a bottomless pit of insights. But I happen to think that there are more important lessons to learn from studying the Bible than speculating as to what or who held the Tabernacle up before Moses worked out the mechanics of the supports. I mean, we might learn something about how the Jews might live in the midst of non-Jews in a very crowded and strategic part of the world. Hezekiah clearly had this wild confidence that because he was holy enough to destroy every village’s or town’s place for sacrifice, God would love him so much that he could defy the then biggest empire that was nearby. His great grandson Josiah made the same mistake. Instead of realizing that reality is more complicated than what the priests say it is, he got into a fight with the Egyptians and got himself killed. That ultimately led to the destruction of the Temple by the Babylonians a few decades later.

A similar fate befell the Second Temple, when extreme elements in the Jewish community couldn’t get along with the Romans, who were known at the time as rather tolerant of local religions in the land they conquered. (I also recently started reading Josephus, although I didn’t get very far.)

We might also study the prophets, many of whom prophesied, quite accurately, doom for the Israelites and the Judeans, because they didn’t heed the word of God. While God displays varying personalities in the Bible depending of which part of it he appears in — sometimes merciful, sometimes not — there seems to be an overall sense in the Bible of the importance of justice. Again, I don’t presume to know if God exists. But I believe that the justice described in the Jewish Bible does exist and it’s perhaps the greatest contribution the Jews have made to the world. I question whether anyone seriously believes that Jews can prosper forever surrounded as they are by hostile peoples (and as they were 2,500 years ago) if they fail to act justly toward their neighbors.

There’s an obvious analogy here. Once again the Jews are back in Jerusalem and Canaan — no longer in Egypt or Babylon, so to speak, or the Pale of Settlement. But once again radical, extremist elements in the community — namely, the ultra-Orthodox — want to frustrate the possibility of Jewish coexistence with their neighbors out of their own sense of holiness, and a mystical sense of what God will do (without any evidence of what that is). As a Jew who hopes Israel prospers, this worries me. Israel is strong otherwise, and I don’t see any reason that it can’t survive except for the actions of this extreme faction. The fact that this faction does not participate in Israel’s defense is just another reason to be worried — at some point, those who do so may wonder why they risk their lives to protect foolishness.

I suspect you disagree with what I have said, but then I also feel compelled, just as you apparently do, to share my hopes and fears for Israel.

Love,
Frank

Yes, I’m O.K.

Dear Friends and Loved Ones,

I am writing this letter in great sadness. Yes, I am OK. No, I was nowhere near the shooting on Thursday. But there were eight families on Thursday night who called their sons “just to hear their voice” and got no answer. Eight families dreaded the worst, and were right. What about them? What about the fifteen and a half year olds murdered in their school. These weren’t just Israelis; they were Jewish, mothers, fathers, grandparents-just like you-who lost a loved one.It almost brings me to tears. The boys were killed with a Kalashnikov, the automatic rifle that Israel gave to the PA, to the “peaceful” Fatah. Hamas is kill you today-Fatah is kill you tomorrow. There were mass celebrations in Gaza and the West Bank. And I’m pretty sure Hamas membership wasn’t an admission requirement. It is true that all the Palestinians want is a state of their own. But that state consists of the entire State of Israel. The terror will not stop until every last Jew is out of Israel, and even then I’m not sure it will.
So what to think of all this? As a Jew I looked into the Torah for some answers. Today we read the Torah portion of Pikudei. There it writes “And Moses erected the Tabernacle and he placed the sockets, and he placed the beams, and he placed the poles, and he erected the Pillars.” But wait a minute-what Tabernacle did Moses set up before he set the sockets and the beams-just the tent coverings with no supports? The Sogitchaver Rebbe, of sainted memory, says that Sforno (a commentator on the Torah) writes that either there were people holding up the tents or they stayed up miraculously. What was the point of this? The Rebbe explains it was G-d teaching us a lesson. The Jews were not on a spiritual level on that point in time for the Tabernacle housing G-d’s Presence on earth-they had just committed the cardinal sin of worshiping the Golden Calf. But G-d in His mercy gave the Jews the opportunity to receive His Presence anyway. He “spread the tent covers” before the Jewish people deserved to support it. And then they worked up to it immediately, as we see in the Jews zealousness in funding and building the Tabernacle. Similarly, at the time of the Exodus from Egypt the Jewish people were on the lowest level of sin. But G-d took them out even though they didn’t deserve it. But they worked up to deserve to be the Chosen People pretty quickly, rising to level of receiving the Torah at Mount Sinai a mere seven weeks after the Exodus.
Today we are in a very grim situation. We ask that G-d forgo the fact that we are undeserving of him rescuing us now, and save us now. We will work up to His expectations. We have now entered into the Second month of Adar. Adar is the month of Purim, the holiday where the Jews went from being earmarked for extinction to returning to G-d wholeheartedly and overcoming every one of their enemies. So if Israel must enter into a time of tension, of military response to cowardly terrorism, we couldn’t have picked a better month. This is the last month of the year, when the Jewish people accepted upon themselves the Torah with love and triumphed over their enemies. It is tragic that it took eight dead teenagers to wake Israel up to stop giving in to terrorism. But now that it has happened, we are finally realizing the pointlessness of trying to be generous. But we pray that G-d will save us now and not wait for us to be deserving, once and for all. No more shootings, no more bombings, no more death, no more blood.
But as I wrote last week, this week’s portion ends with the words “The Cloud of G-d was on the Tabernacle…throughout all their travels.” This tells us that G-d was with us in all our travails. The good times and the bad. Last week I wrote how every seeming situation of helplessness in the Jew’s travel was a springboard for a greater revelation of G-d’s presence, of a greater redemption. So today as well, every seeming tragedy and desperate situation is just a springboard for a period of peace and getting in touch with our Jewish roots. G-d is with us every step of the way. May we all come together in these hard times and finally drop the senseless tension between us.

Love, Elisha

Some Thoughts on the Jewish People

This week we conclude the Book of Exodus. The Midrash tells us that the book of Exodus is the “Book of Redemption.” Yet we see that the Book does not begin with redemption, but with the diametric opposite: the descent of the Jewish people into Egypt. Then the Jews wander in the desert for most of the remainder of the Book, sin with the Golden Calf, and build the Tabernacle. Many of these things do not seem to be in sync with redemption. So what makes it the “Book of Redemption”?
The Lubavitcher Rebbe, of sainted memory, explains that in retrospect we can see that every step along the way led to a greater revelation of G-dliness. By the Jews going down into slavery in the depraved land of Egypt and being put into the darkness of Exile, it enabled the Exodus from Egypt to occur, which was a phenomenal revelation of G-dliness in the most evil of places. Going into the barren desert led to even more G-dliness descending into the world, with the giving of the Torah on Mount Sinai. The Sin of the Golden Calf was a prelude to its atonement, the Tabernacle, which was the epitome of G-d’s presence residing on earth. So we see that every step of the way, however desperate it may have seemed at the time, was all part of a Divine Plan to bring about the highest exposure of G-dliness in history.
Today the Jewish people are living in times of darkness. Rockets are daily terrorizing men, women, and children in Sderot and Ashkelon in Israel. Iran is building nuclear weaponry specifically with the intent of annihilating Israel. While minimal resolutions have been passed in the UN, it has been made pretty clear that were Iran to declare war on Israel, we would basically be on our own. The Prime Minister of Israel wants to give away half of our Holy Land, including our precious Jerusalem. Intermarriage is at an all time high. The sad thing is that a large percentage of the Jewish people are either unaware of these issues or do not care.
But we must not lose sight in the darkness. Every step of the way is part of G-d’s plan to bring about greater light, a grander revelation. That which happens to us is not a mere stepping stone to reach the eventual redemption, but in it of itself is a part of the redemption. So what can we do to be part of this redemption?

This past Shabbat we read the portion of Vayakhel. A theme pervades the entire portion. From beginning until end we see all of the Jewish people in action. Moses commands the Jewish people to donate materials and precious metals to the Tabernacle. Immediately the donations started pouring in. The women take the initiative give all their jewelry to the Tabernacle, even though they were not required to, for they had not participated in sin the Golden Calf. All skilled men and women volunteered their unique talents and craftsmanship. Soon they realized that more than enough donations had been collected and they had to send out messengers to tell the Jews to stop donating. Then there was the building, building, building of the Tabernacle. No one was complaining; no one was debating philosophy. These people took the initiative. They saw that there was a job that needed to be done, so they got up and did it-whether they were expected to or not.
Who remained passive at this point? The leaders of each tribe. They said “We won’t donate right away. We will wait until everyone else’s donations have come in and then we will donate the remainder.” What happened was thatmore than enough donations came in and the leaders were left with nothing to give. After close inventory, it was eventually discovered that one precious stone was missing, and this the leaders gave as their donation.
Today we also have leaders who do not want to take any initiative, who are too weak to make a stand. We must make up where they lack, as our forefathers and foremothers before us. We must stand up straight to the world and say “I am a Jew and I’m proud of it. I won’t conform to how you want me to be. I must do what G-d wants me to do. I refuse to give into anything you may try to impose on me, especially when it is directly contrary to my fellow Jew’s safety and security.”
History will go down as G-d sees fit. But we have a choice. We can either participate as an active player, or be used by G-d as a passive player. In the Megillah that we read on the holiday of Purim, Esther is hesitant to put her life in danger to approach the king on behalf of the Jewish people. Mordechai charges her with the following consideration: “If you will be silent at this point in time, prosperity and salvation will arise for the Jewish people from another place, and you and your father’s house will be lost. Who knows if at this time this is why you rose to the throne?” Similarly, each one of us hasbeen put in a unique position in life by G-d. We too have a choice. Eitherwe can use the capabilities and circumstances that G-d has given us to serve Him and benefit the Jewish people, or we can remain passive and become lost. Either way G-d’s plan will be carried out. What are you going to choose?

Adar and a Short Update On My Life

Dear Family and Friends,

We have now entered into the Hebrew month of Adar. Many thousands of years ago during the Persian Empire, the evil Haman plotted to annihilate every last Jewish person, all on the same day. He held a lottery to see which month he should kill the Jews in. Haman was very pleased to have the lottery fall out on Adar, because he knew that Moses was died on the 7th of Adar. As you see, the Nazis were not the first of our enemies to know the Jewish calender. Haman assumed that the reason why Moses died in this month was because Adar is the zodiac of the fish. Fish are creatures that live in absolute coldness. He assumed that Moses’ power all came from the sun, because the Torah states that Moses face shone like the sun. So Haman was under the impression that Moses’ power which originated in the sun was cooled off in the cold month of Adar, and that is why he faltered. And if the greatest Jewish leader of all time faltered in this month, surely the rest of the nation did not stand a chance.
The Persian Empire attempted to assimilate the Jews through coldness. They tried to get the Jews to be more passive in their service of G-d, to continue to do the Mitzvot, but in a dead, emotionless way.
What Haman did not know is that Moses was also born on the 7th of Adar. What he didn’t realize about fish is that they live in cold, their eyes are always open-they never blink. This makes it very difficult to surprise them and makes it impossible for the Evil Eye to have any influence on them. And so, through the miracle of Purim, the Jewish people were saved and Haman was hanged. The Jewish people were awakened from their sleepy, uninspired service of G-d and showed a greater dedication to the Creator than they ever did before. At Mount Sinai the Jews accepted the Torah through fear. But on Purim, they accepted the Torah with love.
Accordingly, Adar is a time of great happiness and warm love. To combat the coldness of the month of the fish, we must become warm and lively through action and happiness. Adar is a good month if one has a legal issue with a gentile. Adar is also a good month to have surgery, as the Evil Eye has no dominion over it. Most importantly, Adar is the greatest time to rededicate oneself in the service of G-d. In Hebrew, the word Adar can be split into two words-Alef and Dar. Alef represents G-d, as it means One and it is the first letter of the word Elokim. Dar means lives. So in this month G-d lives amongst us. This year is a Jewish leap year, so there is actually two months of Adar. That means twice the joy, twice the warmth, twice the love, and twice the time to spend with G-d.
In the spirit of the happiness of this month, I have enclosed a video that my dear friend and brother Yitzchak Meir Malek took at the Kotel (the Western Wall) of dancing on the first of this month. I hope it increases it makes you as happy as it made me.

Now for a brief update on Elisha. I am continuing to study in a Yeshiva right next to the Kotel. Next week I am taking a tour group of Yeshiva and Seminary students to Sderot for a tour and to volunteer with our holy brethren, the children there. We will help paint schools, distribute toys that we raised the money for, and put on outdoor activities for kids who have been pent up in their homes for months. Mostly we will show them that the entire Jewish people is one family and we are all responsible for each other. I am not currently dating anyone, but if you know of any prospects in Israel, please let me know. I am taking a course in Krav Maga (Israeli Martial Arts), which is the most fun, intense, and dirtiest fighting on this planet. I am hoping with G-d’s help to enlist in the Israeli Army this August to defend our Holy Land. After that, with G-d’s help I plan to officially become a citizen of the Land Of Israel and then go to college here, probably in the medical field. (Sorry Papa, maybe one of your other grandchildren will become the lawyer in the family.) am very active in the political sphere here, closely keeping on eye on the corrupt Israeli government and taking all steps I can to help. I have actually been on the news here twice: once, on a website that I emailed to all of you, and second, I was on Israeli television leading a chant in Sderot calling for the corrupt Prime Minister of Israel, Ehud Olmert. I am meeting many interesting people and having many interesting experiences. This is all I can think of right now. For those of you who wrote me, I apologize if I have not replied personally. I have been incredibly busy. I am blessed to live in the land of our forefathers, speak the Holy Language, and meet and love Jews from every corner of the world. Take care, and though I may be very far away, I love each and every one of you dearly and miss you very much.

Love,
Elisha

P.S.
Papa-I am currently reading a book written by secular Israeli professors on Archeology and the Torah. These men are not religious and most probably do not believe in G-d. Yet, of what I have read so far, 98% of the archaeological finds in Israel corroborate exactly what is written in the Torah and the Prophets. You can draw your own conclusions from this. Also, amongst many other genres of music I have begun listening to classical music, especially if I am trying to sleep or study.
Mr. Passman- Please enjoy correcting all my grammatical errors in this letter and write any comments you have back to me. They are always insightful.
Nechama- I had a dream last night that Moshe took to Tijuana for three weeks for your honeymoon. It would be nice to hear from you if you’re still alive.

Holocaust “Humor”: An Oxymoron

The word “ghetto” is commonly used to describe baggy clothing or a junky car. But if you really want to know what a ghetto is like, try living in three and a half square miles with 400,000 other people and no food. Today we have no concept of the suffering our brothers and sisters went through in the Holocaust. Yet references are often made to it without the slightest trace of sensitivity or compassion.

In popular culture the Holocaust is often the butt of tactless humor. In a recent movie a Jewish man is asked to describe something. He replies with, “You know the Holocaust? It was the complete opposite of that.” On a popular T.V. show a mean chef is dubbed “the soup Nazi”. Adolf Hitler is frequently shown receiving a variety of tortures in humorous hell scenes. Sarah Silverman, a Jewish comedian, ridicules the Holocaust in her new film. What is wrong with our society that the genocide and torture of millions of people is used for a punchline?

This problem extends beyond popular culture and into our Jewish circles as well. Earlier this year, I was wearing my green I.D.F uniform shirt. A rabbi asked me why I supported the Israeli Army after they implemented the removal of “settlers” from Gush Katif. Politely, I answered that though the soldiers did not support the government’s decision, they were simply following orders. “The Nazis were also just following orders.” the Rabbi responded. In fact, the Nazis even violated orders as a means of killing innocent Jews.
Had this rabbi been to the Polish concentration camps and read Hitler’s Willing Executioners by Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, as I have, he would know that the Nazis were not “just following orders”. Goldhagen presents irrefutable evidence, drawn mostly from the testimony of the Germans themselves, that the vast majority of German murderers were quite willing to perform their gruesome tasks. On almost every level of command they were given the option to excuse themselves from killing operations and many of the killing squads were made on a volunteer basis. There was no shortage of volunteers.
On March 2, 1945, Heinrich Himmler, the head of the SS sent an order to Alois Dorr, the commandant of the Helmbrechts concentration camp. In it he explained to Dorr that he was negotiating with the Americans and explicitly forbade that any more Jews be killed or beaten with rods. However, the guards chose to go against these orders and continue killing and torturing Jews. Aside from that, how could any Jew compare the Israeli Army to the Nazis? The Israeli Army is the implement by which it is possible for the Jewish people to have a state, a state that could have saved millions of Jews had it existed before the Holocaust.
So no matter how much a certain history teacher looked like Adolf Eichmann, it was wrong for any student to give him a Heil Hitler behind his back. Does anyone realize what a Heil Hitler represents? It is the salute of evil, the pledge of allegiance to hatred and bigotry, the sign of the attempted destruction of our people. If a high school student researches the Holocaust, don’t tell him “you love Nazis”. If a teacher, a flight attendant, or a waitress is obnoxious, don’t call them Nazis. Please, take a moment and think about the hell our people went through before you make a light reference to the Holocaust. Because frankly, I just don’t get it.