PRESENT DANGERS, OLD FOES

"For though the world has stood up and stopped the bastard, the bitch that bore him is in heat again." -Brecht

I'm sure that no one in his perfect mind wants to go back to the dark years before 1974. But, the way things are going around here, the ghost of old times is haunting, once more, our hard earned freedom.

I know that they are a small number with a little expression in our politics, but they are growing, slowly, fed by the crisis this country is living.

They march in the streets, like they made two days ago "celebrating" the country's national day, getting the support of young people ( who ignores anything about the past ) and also the approval of some old folks, (for whom the bad situation they are living, they think, is due to the democratic regime), taking advantage to release their fallacious proposals, spreading the poison of intolerance and hate.

I think that we are not paying much attention to the danger we are living. Taking anything for granted is a terrible mistake that lead people to think that democracy is here to stay, that nothing can endanger its existence. A mistake that costed dearly to many nations in the not so remote past. Times of crisis, of social unresting, unemployment, poverty, crime, are a fertile ground for the beast to lay down its seeds of hate, and watch them grow while planning the harvest.

On the other hand those who rise their voices against the rebirth of nazi/fascist tendencies ( most of them linked to the democratic parties of the regime) only ask repressive measures against the threat, and are unable to understand that repression is only part of what must be done against this slime of mankind. If we want to put an end to the danger we must go deeper into what has be done. There are things that must change in order to deny the far-right its recruiting ground.

Souls and minds must be won in this battle against the dark forces that are menacing us. People must be shown that nothing in their lives is going to get better if they give away their freedom. More; if they choose to give any chance to those creatures to reach power, it will be the last thing they will choose freely for a long, long time. But this is not enough. Politics must change. It is time that the politicians who led us to this situation be blamed for their actions. Those who promised everything to be elected and, in turn, gave people unemployment, poverty, more taxes ; those who condemn our old folks to a slow death, denying them the health assistance they need, destroying the social security they badly need; those who deny any hopeful future to the younger; those are the ones that must answer for this situation. They in their proud egos are the ones that are opening the doors to the advance of those who hate freedom. A good politician must pay attention to the needs of the population he represents. A cabinet who works for the welfare of the people can make the difference. Things won't be easy, but if the reasons of discontentement are eradicated, those who persist in their dark purposes, soon, will be left alone, cuted down to a meaningless bunch of intelectually deficient persons, for no one will pay attention to their lies anymore.

Also all efforts must be made to unmask those ideologies of hate amongst the younger generations. What happened in the past must be shown deeply, not just superficially like it is done nowadays. Today's nazi/fascist ( and other anti-semitic) organisations are investing in something, injurious, called "historical revisionism", in order to "clean" the crimes they perpetrated in the past. Obviously, youth is a prior target to the ambitions of this scum.

To oppose them with efficacy we need more than repressive measures. Our goal must be to restain the access of the people's minds and souls from our ennemy's campaigns.

Truth shall make you free. So, untiringly, truth must be shown in order to destroy their lies.

We can never forget the beast's principle :"A lie repeated a thousand times becomes the truth."

FACING MOUNT SINAI

(From the book "Les Centurions du Roi Davi" - Jean Larteguy/Alain Taieb)

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THE STORY OF RUTH

(click on the post's tittle above to get to the source link)

The Story of Ruth

"Your People is my People, and your G-d my G-d" (Ruth 1,16)

What is the Story of Ruth?

Our story begins in the Land of Israel, during the Period of the Rule of the Judges, leaders of the Jewish People who preceded the Kings, towards the beginning of their national residence in the Land of Israel. The set of characters initially is Elimelech, his wife Naami and their two sons, called Machlon and Kilyon, though it is doubtful that these are their real names, because those names mean "destruction," and it is doubtful that any parents would give their children such names.

The Story of Ruth is also the classic Jewish "mother-in-law" - "daughter-in-law" story, in that it is the story of a relationship of great love, loyalty and devotion which develops between the two female heroines of the story.

The family of Elimelech has moved to the "fields of Moav" in order to escape the effects of a famine which has broken out in the Land of Israel. This does not sound like an extremely worthy or public-spirited thing for Elimelech and his family, who were quite affluent, to have done, and perhaps that is why Elimelech and his two sons died in Moav, after the sons had married into the royal family of that country.

News comes from Israel that the famine has lifted. Naami, feeling nearly totally bereft, decides to return to her home in Beit Lechem, Yehudah. Her two daughters-in-law, Orpah and Ruth, say initially that they want to remain with her and return to the land they have never seen, and to the Jewish lifestyle. Naami discourages them, telling them of the difficulties of Jewish life, and that they would definitely be better off if they returned to the palaces from which they'd come. It is from here, incidentally, that we learn the attitude of Judaism towards potential converts, namely "Let your left hand push away while your right hand attracts."

Orpah eventually decides to leave, but Ruth will not be dissuaded, and says to Naami, "Do not urge me to leave you, to go back from following you - for wherever you go, I will go, where you lie down, I will lie down. Your people is my people, and your G-d is my G-d. Where you will die, I will die, and there be buried; may Hashem punish me greatly if I allow anything but death to separate between me and you." (Ruth 1:16-17)

Naami accepts her sincerity and agrees to allow Ruth to accompany her on the road back to Beit-Lechem. When the two women arrive, the townspeople hardly recognize Naami, for she left as a wife, and as a mother, of a very affluent family. But now she has been reduced to poverty and loneliness. Naami says to them, "Don't call me Naami (which means "pleasantness"), for Hashem has (justifiably) made my life bitter."

Lacking any other source of income, Ruth offers to become a gleaner, picking up grain behind the cutting crew in the fields with the other poor, according to the Law of the Torah. Naami agrees to let her do this.

When Ruth chooses a field among the many possibilities to glean in, the Megillah uses an expression which is probably a thinly-veiled reference to "hashgachah pratit," supervision by Hashem over events in the lives of individuals, a basic assumption of the Jewish faith. The verse says, ironically, she "just happened" to find herself in the fields of Boaz. Now this Boaz was a great scholar in Israel, and was also a relative of the deceased Elimelech, which placed him in line to be a "redeemer" of the property of Elimelech, and to marry Ruth, according to the Laws of the Torah - with one problem!

The Torah excludes the nations Amon and Moav from eligibility for marriage within the Jewish People, because they had denied bread and water to the Jewish People when they wanted to travel through their territory on the way to the Land of Israel. Not only that, but Balak, the King of Moav, had also hired the Midianite Prophet, Bilaam, to curse the Jewish People, because that was his specialty. This would have excluded Ruth, a Moabite princess, from the possibility of marriage with Boaz, if not for a little known oral tradition which excluded female Moabites and Amonites from the marriage-exclusion principle, because they had not participated in any way in the anti-Israel crimes mentioned above.

Ruth begins to work in the fields of Boaz. Boaz arrives in the fields, greeting his workers with "May Hashem be with you!" and receiving the response of "May Hashem bless you!" His attention is attracted by Ruth because she is going about her business in a very quiet, modest manner, unlike the behavior of the other gleaners. He learns her identity from the foreman of the fields, and invites her to remain on his fields till the end of the harvest.

When Ruth returns to Naami, and informs her where she has been working, Naami realizes that Hashem has been working here from behind the scenes to bring Ruth and Boaz together. At the end of the harvest, she advises Ruth to dress in her finery and go to Boaz, who is working in his threshing barn, to ask him during the night to be the redeemer of the property of Elimelech, and to marry Ruth. Ruth agrees to do so.

In the middle of the night, Boaz realizes that a woman is present, and asks her, in the dark, to reveal her identity. Ruth does so, and makes her request. In formulating his response, Boaz decides that it is time for the male/female distinction with regard to the Moabite exclusion to become more widely known.

However, there was another Jew who was a closer relative, and who therefore was first in line to be the redeemer. This individual, at this stage in the story, is referred to by the name "Tov," which may or may not, again, have been his real name but, in any case, means "good." When a person still has the opportunity to fulfill a responsibility, he is considered good. However, when confronted with the possibility of redemption, and advised that Ruth is also involved, Tov declines to accept the role because he is afraid to get involved with the Moabite controversy, and is referred to as "Ploni-Almoni," Mr. So-and-So.

When Boaz heard the refusal of Ploni-Almoni, he announced that he himself was ready to act as the redeemer. He invited ten people to be witnesses to the wedding (from which we learn that ten witnesses are required to be present at a wedding). The congregation blessed the couple: Boaz, the great scholar and leader of Israel, himself one of the Judges, and Ruth, the modest and kind convert to Judaism, who had come from Moav out of love for Naami and for the Torah of Naami.

Soon after the marriage, a son was born to Ruth, and Naami took the child in her bosom. The neighbors said, "A child has been born to Naami," because the mother was Ruth, a daughter-in-law who was more loyal and devoted to Naami than "seven sons."

And they called the name of the son "Oved," which means "one who worships," who was the father of Yishai who, in turn, was the father of "David HaMelech," King David. David, descendant of Ruth, would later meet "Galyat," Goliath, the Giant, descendant of Orpah, on the battlefield between the Philistines and the People of Israel. When Galyat would curse the Jewish People, David would rise up against him, empowered by the Name of the G-d of Israel Whom Galyat had blasphemed, and slay him. It is King David, who was able to combine the characteristics of a great warrior and of the "sweet singer of Israel," from whose descendants ultimately will emerge the "Melech HaMashiach," the Anointed King, the Redeemer of Israel.

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