Rabbi Michael Leo Samuel

One of my congregants asked a recent synagogue class, “How can we try to be respectful and understanding of the ultra-Orthodox when they are at the forefront of hostile activities like rioting at places which are open on Shabbat and more recently, vandalizing a girls’ school in Bet Shemesh because it bordered their neighborhood?”

The short answer is simple: Everybody deserves respect, provided one acts in a manner that is respectful. Since the Haredim do not behave in a manner that is respectful, they need to change and improve their behavior to win our respect back.

They may want to start the process of healing  by following Maimonides’ prescription for repentance. The first step is an acknowledgement of responsibility and fault. The second step involves a change in behavior for the better–no more attacks on innocents. The third step requires restitution to the city and school property, which were damaged. Arresting and incarcerating those responsible for the violence might also be included in this step. Forgiveness comes only in the end when all the other steps have been carried out to fruition.

Platitudes and empty promises mean nothing. Without a change in behavior, they are analogous to Maimonides’s example of the individual who immerses himself in the mikveh, while holding on to a rat–the symbol of ritual defilement. Immersion means nothing so long as the individual is still holding on to dysfunctional attitudes and deeds. [2]

Some law-abiding Haredim in Israel find their cohorts’ religious behavior embarrassing. Yet, despite the condemnations we have heard from the leading Chief Rabbis of Israel, we have yet to hear a universal condemnation from all of the Haredi scholars and leaders—and this attitude is most disturbing. Some have even done the opposite!

Eidah Haredit [the Haredi ecclesiastical authority of Jerusalem]released a  letter earlier this week, “The arrests of violent Haredim who attacked police, women and girls is yet another chapter in the worst of all the exiles, the one imposed by the evil State of Israel . . . they harbor a deep jealousy for those who fear God . . .who serve God in truth and purity . . .”

Houston, we’ve got a problem . . .

How can constructive change occur if the leaders of the Haredi deny all responsibility? Not only do they enable poor behavior by saying nothing, many of them have even actively encouraged violent behavior.

How can constructive change occur if the leaders of the Haredi deny all responsibility? Not only do they enable poor behavior by saying nothing, many of them have even actively encouraged violent behavior. The ancient Chinese philosopher Confucius said, “When a man in his own person is guilty of doing evil, a superior man will not associate with him” (Analects 7:1). Jewish tradition has similar teachings, “You shall not join hands with the wicked to act as a malicious witness” (Exod. 23:1); “I hate the company of evildoers, and will not sit with the wicked” (Ps 26:5).  The Sages sum up this idea well, “‘Woe to the wicked and woe to his neighbor!’  (Numbers Rabbah 3:12). A person is judged by the company one keeps.

We seem to be reliving a chaotic period of Jewish history, “In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what he thought best” (Judges 21:25).

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[1] MT Hilchot Teshuvah 1:1

[2] Ibid., 2:3.

Lately, we have written a lot about Yisroel Dovid Weiss, the head of the Neturei Karta, whose latest antics of trivializing the Holocaust has created shockwaves throughout the Jewish world. Bear in mind, this is the same person who shook hands with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s hand, the new and improved Adolf Hitler of our time.

Weiss is a disgrace to all Holocaust survivors. His willingness to join hands with Hamas for a Shabbat celebration is amazing, especially when considering how Gaza land still celebrates Hitler’s birthday! As one good friend said, “Weiss, whose grandparents perished at Auschwitz, is not himself a Holocaust denier, but he happily played token Jewish friend to those who are . . .”

When you consider how demented this man is, you must really wonder about the Republican candidate, Ron Paul, who decided to shake hands with Weiss. What was Paul thinking? Most Americans haven’t a clue about the inappropriateness of Paul and Weiss’s close encounter of an immoral kind.

John Tabin observes in the American Spectator:

• When I arrived late at the town hall event in Meredith, he was prefacing an answer to a question about Israel by expressing admiration for Zionist principles of independence and self-reliance, going on to say, of course, that Israel shouldn’t get any US aid… On the way out, I overheard a late-middle-aged Ron Paul supporter, identifiable by button and sticker, talking to one of the Neturei Karta guys, saying that “The Zionist are godless atheists … they only believe in themselves.” Ron Paul may not hate Israel, but people who hate Israel sure seem to like Ron Paul.

Ditto.  My mother and father used to say, “Son, a man is judged by the company he keeps.” They were right. I hope that the Jewish supporters of Ron Paul give some moral consideration as to the kind of man they are supporting. Ron Paul is no friend of Israel, and he certainly is no friend to the Jewish people either.

Back in 1970, I remember Beit Shemesh as a little village, one that barely had people. Today, it is a city of 80,000 people—but this is one small city where its Orthodox citizens are imploding.

The time: Any day of the week you choose .  . .

The place: The local elementary school in Beth Shemesh.

The scene: Haredi Jews threaten young 8-12 year old Jewish girls with violence.

No, this is not Cracow, 1943. No, the anti-Semites are not the ones threatening Jews—Jews are threatening Jews.

The elementary school happens to be an Orthodox school for girls. The children are modestly dressed in accordance with Jewish law. Yet, the Haredi (better known as “Ultra-Orthodox” Jews) are screaming at the girls, “Prostitutes,” “whores,” and so on. The police provided an escort so that none of the girls would be attacked by the pious Haredim.

Why are the Haredim so upset? Well, to put it simply: they hate women. This is the same group that wants women to sit at the back of the bus, or avoid walking on the Haredi streets. Although their neighbors are Orthodox Zionists, they are not “kosher,” in the eyes of the Haredim. By the way, this is the same group of people who are known for spitting at the Greek Orthodox priests in Jerusalem. By the way, they also spit on women whenever they try praying at the Western Wall.

According to one article, “The campaign [ of normal people fighting back] is being driven by a small group, say parents and activists who label their Haredi opponents kanaim – loosely translated as extremist, fanatic, zealot, fundamentalist. What they do is described as “terrorism”. ‘They [the Haredi] instil fear, they use terror tactics,’ Michal Glatt, the mother of a 10-year-old pupil, says. ‘Screaming at little girls? What other word is there but terrorism?’”

Yet, Haredi terrorism also has a deviant side that the news media fails to bring out in their coverage: When a community activist named Rabbi Dov Lipman asked one protester why they were focusing on the way small girls dress, he was told “even an eight-year-old draws my eyes”.

Yeah, there’s a name for this kind of man . . .

In their warped minds, the Haredim do not see anything wrong with their behavior.

Yet, there is also a political agenda at here: By making life miserable for their religious neighbors, the Haredim are hoping to take over the city because normal people do not want to see their precious children get hurt.

Frankly, I do not understand why the Israeli government does not arrest the culprits and thrown them in jail for a couple of years. Spitting at a Greek Orthodox or non-Haredi Jew ought to be considered assault and battery. The rule ought to apply to spitting a young girls and women of all ages who refuse to look and talk like Haredim. Continue Reading

Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758) was a brilliant theologian, philosopher, as well as a fiery preacher (I could hardly resist the pun!). One of his most famous sermons was “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” which he delivered in 1741; in this revival sermon he used the metaphors of hellfire and brimstone to inspire his followers to repent before it was too late. One his most picturesque portions of his sermon went something like this:

• The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you and is dreadfully provoked: his wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire; he is of purer eyes than to bear to have you in his sight; you are ten I thousand times more abominable in his eyes than the most hateful venomous serpent is in ours. You have offended him infinitely more than ever a stubborn rebel did his prince; and yet it is nothing but his hand that holds you from falling into the fire every moment. It is to be ascribed to nothing else that you did not go to hell the last night; that you suffered to awake again in this world, after you closed your eyes to sleep. And there is no other reason to be given, why you have not dropped into hell since you arose in the morning, but that God’s hand has held you up. There is no other reason to be given why you have not gone to hell, since you have sat here in the house of God, provoking his pure eyes by your sinful wicked manner of attending his solemn worship. Yea, there is nothing else that is to be given as a reason why you do not this very moment drop down into hell.”

Gulp!

Now, let us turn to the present. Anyone reading Edwards’ speech probably must wonder, “What kind of God image is Edwards conveying?” Obviously he seems to relish depicting a deity who definitely hates sin. But if God takes sadistic pleasure in eradicating sinners and sin, how could anyone feel comfortable worshiping such a blood-thirsty deity?

One imaginative and creative American Jewish thinker, Rabbi David Blumenthal, in his book, Facing the Abusing God, claims that abusiveness is one of the fundamental attributes of the Divine personality.[1] Not only has the shepherd image been discarded by Blumenthal and many modern Jews, the dangerous image of God as an “Abuser” has taken its place in light of the Holocaust experiences and centuries of continuous Christian/Muslim oppression. [2]

Out of fairness to Blumenthal, we must be honest: Blumenthal merely states what many thoughtful Jews have long suspected about their God—but were afraid to candidly admit—God is abusive. Is it not any wonder why Blumenthal’s theology strikes a visceral note with so many voices of the modern Jewish experience? Unfortunately, his book characterizes the severity of how dysfunctional and destructive God-images can be when God is portrayed as the Abuser Supreme.[3]

Historically, rabbis since the days of the biblical writers generally associate Israel’s collective suffering as an expression of retribution, for failing to follow God’s holy commandments. The “wrath of God” theology, though ancient, is still very much alive regardless of religious ideation. After WWII, the Satmar Rebbe, Yoel Teitelbaum (1888-1979) insisted that the Holocaust occurred because the Jews adopted Zionism instead of the Messiah. By insisting on a secular redemption, Israel became “prey” to their Nazi tormentors.[4] Teitelbaum’s reasoning is classically simple and clear:  If Jews suffer; it is because of their sinful ways and attitudes. This idea finds numerous examples in the Bible[5] and especially in daily liturgy, “On account of our sins we were exiled from our land, and far removed from our soil.”[6]

Rabbi Mordechai Gifter (1915-2001), a prominent 20^th century Orthodox leader, argues that the Holocaust should “become a source of inspiration and encouragement for us. We are assured that we do have a Father in Heaven Who cares for us and is concerned enough with our spiritual status to demonstrate His disfavor.”[7] Though many Orthodox and Hasidic Jews portray great courage in affirming their faith during the Holocaust, nevertheless, many regard the Holocaust as a punishment for not observing Torah study and mitzvot (precepts). Consider Rabbi Mordechai Gifter’s quotation from the Telshe Rav (rabbi):

At the time when the Nazis took the Telshe community to their intended slaughter at the lake nearby, the Telshe Rav said in a drasha (homiletic commentary): ‘If we will be scrupulous in kashrus, in Shabbos (the Sabbath), in taharos hamishpacha (laws of family purity), the enemy will have no dominion over us.’ And from that day on plans were changed; they were taken away from Telz and were confined in a ghetto. The entire community suffered no harm until the first breach in kashrus (kosher observance).[8]

Here is a personal anecdote to illustrate. Once at a Jewish singles event I attended at Congregation Beth Jacob in Beverly Hills, California, I heard a rabbi from the Jewish Learning Exchange speak about God and the Holocaust shortly after the Jewish holiday commemorating the destruction of the ancient Temple known as Tisha ‘b Av. One person asked the rabbi about something he heard from an Orthodox Rabbi:

• I heard that the reason the Holocaust occurred was because married Jewish women failed to cover their hair, and the Jews were consequently punished for that infraction. Is that really true?  I really must know! The Rabbi thought for a moment and answered, “You can’t say that is true, yet you can’t say that it isn’t true either!”

Most of the Orthodox Jewish singles present did not find anything objectionable to this particular theological view. Those, like myself, who found this answer offensive, were ignored and later silenced by the speaker. The theology of retribution continues to be popular in many of the ultra-right Orthodox and Hassidic seminaries in Israel and abroad. But is it only an “Orthodox” problem?

In another recent interview, the Sephardic Chief Rabbi Ovadia Yosef has frequently proclaimed that according to the Kabbalah, the Holocaust came to purge Jews of their generation’s sinful ways and attitudes.

• After all, people are upset and ask, “Why was there a Holocaust?” Woe to us, for we have sinned. “Woe to us, for there is nothing we can say to justify it,” he said. “It goes without saying that we believe in reincarnation,” continued Yosef. “It is a reincarnation of those souls. Our teacher The Ari said that there are no new souls in our generation…all the souls were once in the world and have returned. “All those poor people in the Holocaust. . . .” We wonder why it was done? There were righteous people among them. Still, they were punished because of sins of past generations.”

My Aunt Miriam is a remarkable woman; she is the sole Holocaust survivor remaining in our family. She was my father’s first cousin, who later married my father’s brother, Bernard. She attends the Beth Jacob Synagogue in Oakland. On one occasion a young rabbi came and spoke about the Holocaust to the Shul. He made it a point to criticize the Jews in Europe for not observing the mitzvoth (religious traditions) of our people. Aunt Miriam stood on her walker and asked the speaker, “Were you there in Auschwitz? What did small children do to deserve such a terrible death with their parents? I cannot believe in your kind of God.” The whole Shul stood up and applauded her, while the young Haredi rabbi “looked for a little “rabbi” hole in the ground to hide himself under,” so I was told.

Is such a belief limited to people who identify as “Orthodox”?  Not necessarily. Across all religious denominations, whenever tragedy occurs to a person or a family, a common response is “Why pick on me, God?” or “What did I do wrong to deserve this?” Statistics have shown that religious victims of domestic violence often feel that God is punishing them through their husbands for some past sin. Rape victims are often made to believe (especially in court cases) that they did something to lure the offender into attacking them. This attitude is even reflected in the etymology of the English word pain which comes from the Greek word poine which signifies penalty. In other words, if there is pain, then it must serve as a penalty for doing a misdeed.

Obviously the God imagery invoked by Edwards and the Haredi/Hassidic rabbis certainly inspires a God of retribution and fear, but they cannot inspire a sense of love, security and healthy relatedness. Consider what Michael Shevack and Rabbi Jack Bemporad cleverly and comically dubbed this theological view of God as the “Marquis de God.”

• Wanted: Dominant deity for submissive person—must be into pain and bondage. Willing to inflict human suffering in pursuit of satisfaction—humiliation technique is a plus. Sense of humor not required. Inquire P.O. Box G.O.D . . . Get out the whips, the chains, the earthquakes and pestilence. It’s time for some good old-fashioned fun with a good old-fashioned God. Yes, this is the proverbial God of wrath—the Marquis de God—ready to show you how much he cares by punishing you, for the Marquis de God is simply a god who hates. This is a deity who despises sins and sinners with such a passion that he’ll murder in order to exterminate them. He forces his noblest creation to dance like a trained poodle on the brink of annihilation.[9]

In summary, metaphors of God may inspire relatedness and love of God; or they may cripple or even destroy a life of faith. Indeed, the metaphors we use to illustrate our relationship with God are of crucial importance. Continue Reading

Toward the end of the 19^th century, Jack the Ripper became famous for horribly slashing the faces of his many victims. Many American and European murderers have often done the same. When the infamous Nazi Julius Streicher did the same thing to photos of Jewish faces, the world was shocked by his callous disregard for the humanity of his victims. But what else would you expect from a Nazi?

Recently, the human face has come under attack in Israel and in the United States. No, these faces were not attacked by Palestinian terrorists; no, not by murderers, and nor were these faces actually defaced, but they were certainly symbolically removed by Orthodox Haredi/Hassidic Jews, who find the woman’s face pornographic.

Are these rabbis eventually going to promote burkas too?

More and more Haredi Jews are defacing women’s pictures appearing on billboard advertisements, in newspapers and magazines. Evidently, the laws against nudity now apply to the human face—but only a woman’s face.

How strange!

Some Israeli feminists interpret this gesture to mean that woman’s face should not be seen, nor should their voices be heard—in any sphere of modern life, and especially with respect to politics! While this perception is true, there is another aspect to this behavior they are not taking into consideration.  Haredi rabbis are doing everything in their power to suppress all visual expressions of the feminine. Gender discrimination has spiked up in all areas of Jewish life in Israel.

When you think about it, so much of our personal identity is very much tied up with our faces. To be without a face, or to be treated as though one has no face—condemns the victim to the most marginal kind of existence.  The deliberate effort to deface these pictures of women is a yet another subtle form of murder.

Many years ago, I recall visiting a young woman whose face was destroyed as a result of an explosion that took place in a bar, while she was trying to serve a customer a hot beverage. The loss of her beauty shook her to the core of her being. The inner and outer worlds of the individual are interrelated.

Judaism has much to say about the integrity of the human face. One of the most important Jewish thinkers of the 20^th century was the Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Levinas (1906-1995), who perhaps more so than anyone else (with the possible exception of Martin Buber), developed an important piece of his ethical philosophy based on the spiritual and ethical significance of the human face.

According to Levinas, the human face always “commands” a moral response. Even if the other person acts in a manner that is less than desirable, nevertheless I (as an individual) am commanded to still treat the Other with human dignity because that is how I would want to be treated as well.

• The face speaks. It speaks, it is in this that it renders possible and begins all discourse…. The first word of the face is the “Thou shalt not kill.” It is an order. There is a commandment in the appearance of the face, as if a master spoke to me. [1]

The human face—regardless how disfigured it may be—commands that we respect the uniqueness of the human person; this respect for the Other transcends one’s physical attributes. Whether a person looks like Ms. America or Quasimodo, whether a person is a king or a beggar, if we truly believe that God made us in the Divine Image, then, it is only apropos we show our respect toward the Creator by acting respectfully toward all people. Granted, this may not always be easy; in fact, it may be quite difficult but as Levinas argues, there is an asymmetrical aspect to ethics and morality. Just because one person acts rudely doesn’t entitle the recipient to act in kind.

Respecting the human face requires that I operate from a higher sense of values—even if it is not easy or distressing to deal with a difficult person. For Levinas, the human face commands, but does so without words; the human face silently demands that its dignity be respected. The face speaks often without words. I am amazed at how stroke victims (like my father and others I have known) can still express their feelings and sentiments without words ever being said.

Levinas notes further,

• There is first the very uprightness of the face, its upright exposure, without defense. The skin of the face is that which stays most naked, most destitute. It is the most naked, though with a decent nudity…. The face is meaning all by itself…it leads you beyond.[2]

Whenever problem solving, face-to-face encounters have a far better chance of succeeding in ways that email, or telephone conversations can never hope to achieve. Why? Because when two faces encounter one another, there is always the risk of vulnerability. The face exposes our inherent weakness, defenselessness, and insecurities—our mortality. When a poor man asks someone for help, the human face immediately silently says, “Care about me; see who I am; respond to me; do not leave me here in my aloneness and weakness.” Levinas adds:

• The Other manifests itself by the absolute resistance of its defenseless eyes. . . . [i.e., “The other person manifests himself by the absolute resistance of his defenseless eyes.”] . . . The infinite in the face . . . brings into question my freedom . . .[3]

In a sense the Ultra-Orthodox do rightfully sense something nude about the human face, but all of our faces risk exposure and the possibility of pain when someone denies our inherent God-given uniqueness and identities. By denying the human face of women or gentiles, as some New York Hassidic and their followers are doing, they are denying the mirror that reflects their own humanity in the process. To deny any human being a face, comes perilously close to the kind of Nazi-esque behavior that all decent human beings ought to find repulsive.

• As in water, one face reflects another, so too does the heart of man reflects another.—Proverbs  27:19 Continue Reading

Despite the plethora of scriptural verses depicting the arrival of the Messiah and the age he would inaugurate, many of the rabbis following the destruction of Jerusalem and its Temple learned to adopt a more realistic approach after being deceived by several pretenders who claimed to be the “real deal.”

One passage in particular comes to mind that many of you probably are already familiar with from our celebrations of the Tu Bi’Shevat[1] program. The first century Sage, Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai said: “If you should happen to be holding a sapling in your hand when they tell you that the Messiah has arrived, first plant the sapling and then go out and greet the Messiah.”[2]

An old Jewish story tells of a Russian Jew who was paid a ruble a month by the community council to stand at the outskirts of town so that he could be the first person to greet the Messiah upon his arrival. A friend said to him, “Why have you taken such a low-paying job?” Without missing a heartbeat, the man replied: “True, but the job is permanent” (especially in these hard economic times!)[3]

Maimonides’ comments are also well known, “And Ma’amin, I believe with a full heart in the coming of the Messiah, and even though he may tarry, I will wait for him on any day that he may come.” In the concentration camps, it is reported that many Jews chanted the Ani Ma’amin while walking to the gas chambers. Even in the face of despair and death, Jews affirmed the possibility of hope and redemption to a fractured world.

I would argue that R. Yochanan’s advice is imminently practical. The world will always be in need of saplings—that’s a certainty—but the arrival of the Messiah is more in the realm of an uncertainty.  He was not the only scholar who felt that way.  The fourth century Palestinian Sage, Rabbi Zera (290 – 320 CE) said, “Three things come when one least expects it: the Messiah, a found article and a scorpion.”[4] Maimonides clearly embraces the Talmudic realism regarding the Messiah in one of his best known Halachic passages pertaining to the Messiah:

• Do not think that the natural order of the world will be abolished or that some novelty will be introduced into nature; rather, the world will continue to follow its usual course. The verse in Isaiah, “The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, the leopard lie down with the kid”  (Isa. 11:6) is meant only as an allegory and metaphor. Its meaning is that Israel will dwell in security with the wicked nations of the earth which are allegorically represented as ‘wolves’ and ‘leopards,’ as it says, “. . . a wolf from the desert shall destroy them. A leopard is watching against their cities”  (Jer. 5:6). Those nations will eventually all adopt the true religion (dat ha-emet). They will neither rob not destroy; rather, they will eat permitted foods in peace and quiet as Israelites, as it says, the lion, like the ox, shall eat straw. All similar statements written about the Messiah are meant as allegories, and in the days of the messianic king everyone will understand which matters were allegories, and also the meaning hinted at by them.[5]

For Maimonides, the Messiah will not introduce new changes that overwrite the laws of nature.   The world will remain much the same. However, the political differences will become more clear and noticeable. For the first time in her history, Israel will no longer experience the world’s animus directed toward her. This is for Maimonides, perhaps the greatest miracle that Israel as a people can look forward to in the Messianic Age.

One might wonder: What does Maimonides mean by “allegory” or “parable”? In Maimonides’ Commentary to tractate Sanhedrin, he explains his position regarding the questions regarding the Messiah, the Messianic Age, as well as the matter of the Afterlife.

• One class of thinkers holds that the hoped for good will be the Garden of Eden, a place where people eat and drink without bodily toil or faintness. Houses of costly stones are there, couches of silk, and rivers flowing with wine and perfumed oils, and many other things of this kind. . . . This set of thinkers on this principle of faith bring their proofs from many statements of the Sages, peace to them, whose literal interpretation forsooth accords with their contention or with the greater part of it.

• The second class of thinkers firmly believes and imagines that the hoped for good will be the days of the Messiah, may he soon appear! They think that when that time comes, all men will be kings forever. Their bodily frames will be mighty. . . . They also bring proofs for their statements from many remarks of the Sages, and from Scriptural texts which in their outward interpretation agree with their claim, or a portion of it.

• The third class is of the opinion that the desired good will consist in the resurrection of the dead. . . . These thinkers also point for proof to the remarks of the Sages, and to certain verses of the Bible, whose literal sense tallies with their view. The fourth class is of the opinion that the good which we shall reap from obedience to the Law will consist in the repose of the body and the attainment in this world of all worldly wishes, as, for example, the fertility of lands, abundant wealth, and the abundance of children. . . . The holders of this view point for proof to all the texts of Scripture which speak of blessings and curses and other matters, and to the whole body of narratives existing in Holy Writ.
• The fourth class is of the opinion that the good which we shall reap from obedience to the Law will consist in the repose of the body and the attainment in this world of all worldly wishes, as, for example, the fertility of lands, abundant wealth, abundance of children. . . . The holders of this view point for proof to all the texts of Scripture which speak of blessings and curses and other matters, and to the whole body of narratives existing in Holy Writ.

• The fifth set of thinkers is the largest. Its members combine all the aforesaid opinions, and declare the objects hoped for are the coming of the Messiah, the resurrection of the dead, their entry into the Garden of Eden, their eating and drinking and living in health there as long as heaven and earth endure.[6]

Maimonides’ offers an interesting and truthful reflection of his personal views that are not so obvious from Maimonides’ other ideas. Much of Maimonides’ “Guide for the Perplexed” deals with the problems posed by poetic metaphors of the Bible, which tend to get read in literal rather than metaphorical terms.  He further argues that the Sages spoke in a simple idiom aimed at making faith intelligible to the masses.  Rather than criticizing the Sages for some of their more provocative statements, Maimonides takes aim his contemporaries who viewed biblical metaphors in the most literal fashion

• The worst offenders are preachers who preach and expound to the masses what they themselves do not understand. They ought to be silent about matters they do not know as it is written, “If you would only keep silent, that would be your wisdom!” (Job 13:5). It would be far more honest for them to admit “We don’t understand what precisely our Sages intended in this statement, we don’t know how to explain it.” Thinking that they do understand, they vigorously interpret to the people what they think rather than informing them of what the Sages actually said. They therefore give lectures to the masses on the Aggadic passages found in tractate Berakhot and chapter Helek [of Sanhedrin] which they interpret in the spirit of literalism. [7]

Continue Reading

Rabbi Eliezer Silver (1882-1968) proved to be one the greatest rescuers of European Jewry during the Holocaust. He is credited with saving many thousands of Jewish lives. Early on in 1939, Silver was one of the founding fathers of the Vaad Hatzalah (Rescue Committee), where Silver was appointed as its president. He was instrumental in rescuing the cream of European rabbinic leaders, who along with Rabbis Aaron Kotler, Abraham Kalmanowitz marched up Pennsylvanian Avenue on October 6, 1943.

While standing in front of the White House, the large Jewish entourage over 200 rabbis recited the Psalms and announced, “We pray and appeal to the Lord, blessed be He, that our most gracious President, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, recognizing this momentous hour of history and responsibility that the Divine Presence has laid upon him, that he may save the remnant of the People of the Book, the People of Israel.”

Shortly afterwards, the Jewish delegation met with Vice President Henry Wallace and a congressional delegation to make their case for European Jewry. Later, at the Lincoln Memorial, a special memorial prayer was said on behalf of the martyred Jews.  Finally, the five rabbis went to the White House to meet with the President, where the President made his famous backdoor exit rather than meeting with them. Although they did not meet with the President, the publicity of the march led to the eventual formulation of the War Refugees Board that opened the doorway for over 100,000 Jews.

After the event, Rabbi Silver raised over $5,000,000 for the new immigrants and secured over 2,000 emergency visas for the Jewish refugees. Like Rabbi Michael Weissmandl, Rabbi Eliezer Silver utilized every means available to bribe officials in Europe and in Latin America, to help settle Jews in the United States, Canada, Mexico, and Palestine.  Foreign diplomats provided the fake visas to help facilitate the rescue. He even attempted to trade concentration camp prisoners for cash and tractors, resulting in the release of hundreds of Jews from the Bergen Belsen concentration camps along with several others.

Rabbi Silver, felt driven by the biblical admonition against standing idly by a brother’s blood, and he made no apologies for violating the Trading with the Enemy Act. In one of his most famous letters, he writes:

• We are ready to pay ransom for Jews and deliver them from concentration camps with the help of forged passports. We are prepared to violate many laws in order to save lives. We do not hesitate to deal with counterfeiters and passport thieves. We are ready to smuggle Jewish children over the borders, and to engage expert smugglers for this purpose, rogues whose profession this is. We are ready to smuggle money illegally into enemy territory in order to bribe those dregs of humanity, the killers of the Jewish people![1]

Even after the war was over, Rabbi Silver continued to help bring the refugees over from over eight European nations. In the end, he died penniless after using all of his monies to help pave the way for Jewish immigration to the United States and Israel, who were trying to flee from Communism.

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Notes:

[1] Amos Bunim, A Fire in His Soul: Irving M. Bunim, 1901-1980: The Man and His Impact on American Orthodox Jewry (New York: Feldheim Publishers, 1989), 136.

בְּרֵאשִׁית בָּרָא אֱלֹהִים — In the beginning when God created — From a purely human perspective, the act of creation ought to be seen as an act of self-giving on the part of the Creator; Creation exists solely because of God’s unconditional love (ἀγάπη = agápē). This divine love makes a space (kένωσις = a kenosis or “self-emptying”[1]) so that there may be room for the Other—namely, Creation. At the deepest metaphysical level imaginable, we surprisingly discover that God is also a relational Being; by creating the universe, God reveals He has a personal stake in the existence of Creation.[2]

God merely contemplates Creation as a possibility, and effortlessly, it comes into being. Unlike the creator of Plato’s universe, who struggles mightily with the recalcitrant chaotic matter as he attempts to model it in the image of the ethereal Forms[3], the God of Israel creates chaotic matter with ease and grace. Unlike the pagan gods of antiquity—who themselves were the by-products of the primal chaos—God’s reality transcends the boundaries of the temporal and spatial universe. His ontology and existence are totally independent of Creation. God is, in the most literal sense, wholly Other than Creation.

Sometimes misunderstandings occur when foreign concepts and terminology are grafted onto the text from other ancient texts or mythologies that have no bearing whatsoever on a given verse (see notes on Gen. 1:2). For all of its elegant simplicity, the biblical writer does not appear to be concerned with such theological conjectures or speculations. Yet, in the opening verse the biblical narrator makes a straight-forward theological claim—God created everything[4] and this is why we find the use of a merism[5] appearing in the opening passage.[6]  Why begin the first book of the Torah with such a revolutionary introduction? Philosopher Susan Handelman explains:

With the deceptively simple words “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth,” the Hebrew Bible begins. In fact, however, this statement was (long before Derrida) a supreme challenge to the entire classical tradition of Western metaphysics: to assert that matter was not eternal, that the world had a temporal origin, that substance came into being through divine fiat, indeed through divine speech (“And God said: ‘Let there be . . . ‘”) threatened the foundations of Greek ontology.[7]

The Judaic creation story certainly has other broad implications that are no less challenging to classical Greek thought. If creation has an ultimate purpose and direction a τέλος (telos=“completion” or “consummation”), then we, as God’s creation, cannot self-consciously live our lives as if we lack ultimate meaning and spiritual direction. In a God-centered existence, there is responsibility and accountability that each of us—by virtue of being made in the likeness of our Creator—must give. Briefly stated, the entire cosmic order is (1) grounded in the will of the Divine, (2) established since the beginning of time, (3) founded in the ethical order that governs human existence. Continue Reading

If a picture is worth more than a thousand words, then take heart! All of my liberal friends, you tend to see the world through rose-colored classes. Check this out . . . .

Wall Photos

Please share with a friend.

Ask yourself a simple question: Would you buy a used car from this guy? Abbas is no different than his master Arafat. The only difference: Abbas wears a suit and “looks” civilized. When Arafat spoke about the “peace of the brave,” he really meant, “the peace of the grave.”

Should we be surprised? Not really. Weren’t the Oslo Accords based upon the principle of “mutual recognition”? Inspired by the atavistic theology of the Koran, the PLO is proud to emulate the duplicity of Mohammed, who made peace with the more powerful cities of Mecca and Medina–only to later attack these cities when the first opportunity presented itself.

On May 10th, 1994 while visiting Johannesburg, South Africa, Arafat proudly defended his move to “make peace” with Israel by saying, “I see this agreement as being no more than the agreement signed between our Prophet Muhammad and the Quraysh in Mecca.”

Well, for those of you unfamiliar with what happened in Quraysh, heads were literally rolling in the streets, and the streets were drenched with blood . . . this is the legacy Arafat and Abbas wish to re-actualize in our day.

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Western countries tend to see what they want—or better yet—hope to see. Since the time of the Enlightenment, most of the great European philosophers view human nature in fairly optimistic terms and see human societies as evolving toward a more advanced stage of human civilization.

With the advent of modern genocide, the wholesale destruction of indigenous peoples across the world has shown repeatedly that our belief in human advancement has been misplaced. We, as a modern society, tend to ignore the atavistic side of human nature. Jews especially, because of the Holocaust, seriously want—better yet—hope that the world has learned its lessons, but has it?

This year, November 9^th marks the 73^rd anniversary when the Nazis organized a national pogrom on November 9^th, 1939. But has the world really learned its lessons? Even if we want to believe that the Europeans have indeed evolved, what about the Muslim societies, which continue depicting the Jew in the vilest imagery we have seen since the 1930s?

When Mahmoud Abbas announces a “Jew Free Palestine,” using Hitler-esque Judenrein language, he is not referring to just the West Bank—he means all of Israel.

As Jews, we want to believe that Palestinians really wish to live in peace, but do they really? One of the most important architects of the Oslo Accords was a man named Faisal Husseini, who was often considered to be a “moderate voice of peace” in the Palestinian community.

On his way to Kuwait, where he died of a heart attack in May, Husseini gave his last interview  to the Egyptian daily “Al-Arabi.” Following are excerpts from the interview, published on June 24, 2001.

Playing on the idealism of the Enlightenment, Husseini—like a master chess player—laid out a strategy that the Palestinian Authority is following, with methodical perfection. Husseini regarded the Oslo Accords as a “Palestinian Trojan Horse.”

In a speech in Beirut in April 2001, Husseini develops this theme: [note that Word Press does not have indentation features, so I had to use bullets instead for spacing]

• The [ancient] Greek Army was unable to break into Troy due to [internal] disputes and disagreements [among themselves]. The Greek forces started retreating one after the other, and the Greek king ended up facing the walls of Troy all by himself, and he too suffered from illnesses and [internal] disputes, and ended up leading a failed assault on Troy’s walls. [Following these events] the people of Troy climbed on top of the walls of their city and could not find any traces of the Greek army, except for a giant wooden horse. They cheered and celebrated thinking that the Greek troops were routed, and while retreating left a harmless wooden horse as spoils of war. So they opened the gates of the city and brought in the wooden horse. We all know what happened next.
• Had the U.S. and Israel not realized, before Oslo, that all that was left of the Palestinian National movement and the Pan-Arab movement was a wooden horse called Arafat or the PLO, they would never have opened their fortified gates and let it inside their walls. Despite the fact that we entered these walls in order to build, unlike the Greeks who entered them in order to destroy, I now tell you all, all these to whom I spoke in a secret meeting during the days of Oslo: “Climb into the horse and don’t question what type of material the horse is made of. Climb into the horse, and we shall transform your climbing into that horse into a beginning of a building era, rather than an era of the end of hope.”
• And indeed, there are those who climbed onto the horse and are [now] inside [the PA territory] whether they supported the Oslo Accords or not . . . I told everyone: three years ago I said, “climb into the horse,” and everyone entered into the horse and the horse entered into the walled-in [area]. Now, the time has come for us to say: “Come out of the horse and start working. Don’t stay inside the horse and don’t waste time and energy while you are inside the horse arguing whether this was a good horse or not. Look, it is thanks to this horse that you were able to get into the walled-in city.”
• So come down out of the horse and start working for the goal for which you entered the horse to begin with. In my opinion, the Intifada itself is the coming down out of the horse. Rather than getting into the old arguments… this effort [the Intifada] could have been much better, broader, and more significant had we made it clearer to ourselves that the Oslo agreement, or any other agreement, is just a temporary procedure, or just a step towards something bigger…If you are asking me as a Pan-Arab nationalist what are the Palestinian borders according to the higher strategy, I will immediately reply: “from the river to the sea.” [1]

• …the Oslo agreement, or any other agreement, is just a temporary procedure, or just a step towards something bigger…Faisal Husseini

The moral of the story ought to be painfully clear: you cannot make peace with a government that cynically uses peace as a ruse for war. If the State of Israel has not yet mastered this basic lesson in Darwinian survival, then I fear that we may be witnessing the last vestige of Jewish Independence since the 2^nd century. I pray that our leaders recognize the ground facts—beware of letting your guard down. Let us not repeat the mistakes of our history—for our sake, and the sake of the civilized world. Continue Reading