PA Agency: Jewish State Threatens All of Humanity - Defense/Middle East - Israel News - Israel National News
Shared via AddThis
Posts
20 hours ago
Thursday, 13 August 2009
Israel Matzav: Breaking: IDF soldier kidnapped near Ben Gurion Airport; UPDATED
Breaking: IDF soldier kidnapped near Ben Gurion Airport; UPDATED
The 'Palestinian' news agency Maan is reporting that an IDF soldier has been kidnapped near Ben Gurion Airport and is being held somewhere near Bethlehem (Hat Tip: Eliyahu P).
Israeli authorities said they were investigating reports of the capture of a soldier near Ben Gurion International Airport, in the center of the country, on Thursday.
“The matter is being investigated,” a military spokesperson told Ma’an when asked about the reports.
A previously unknown group calling itself the “Al-Quds Army” claimed responsibility for the reported capture in a statement sent to Ma’an.
“A group of our resistance fighters captured an Israeli soldier near Ben Gurion Airport and withdrew along with the soldier without incident … we will provide details about the captured soldier later,” the statement said.
Reliable Israeli sources also said that a state of security alert prevailed inside Israel in response to a phone call from a soldier who said he had been captured.
Israeli forces have also set up checkpoints on roads leading into major cities, though reports conflict about the nature and intensity of the reported security measures in Israel. Heavy security checks were also imposed on the road linking Tel Aviv to city of Modi’in (part of which, Modi’in Ilit, is a settlement ) causing a traffic jam.
The website of the prominent Israeli newspaper Haaretz said security checks caused severe delays near the airport.
Some Israeli news sites reported the security measures, but said they were the result of a “specific security warning,” the nature of which the Israeli military censor may have banned from publishing.
More details when I have them.
Read All at :
Israel Matzav: Breaking: IDF soldier kidnapped near Ben Gurion Airport; UPDATED
Israel Matzav: Human Rights Watch plays prosecutor, judge and jury
Human Rights Watch plays prosecutor, judge and jury
Human Rights Watch, which recently raised money in Saudi Arabia by bragging about how it 'does battle' with 'pro-Israel pressure groups' claims in a report released on Thursday that Israel shot eleven unarmed 'Palestinians' waving white flags in seven different incidents during Operation Cast Lead. For good measure, most of the eleven are claimed to be women and children. HRW said it conducted extensive investigations into each of these incidents by visiting the attack sites, examining ballistic evidence, collecting medical records, and interviewing multiple witnesses, at least three people separately for each attack. In one case, forensic pathologists examined a survivor.
While that may (and is designed to) sound impressive, I have to wonder how a forensic pathologist would examine a survivor:
Israel Matzav: Human Rights Watch plays prosecutor, judge and juryForensic pathologists determine the cause of death by examination of a cadaver. The autopsy is performed by the pathologist at the request of a coroner usually during the investigation of criminal law cases and civil law cases in some jurisdictions. Forensic pathologists are also frequently asked to confirm the identity of a cadaver.
Read All at :
Israel Matzav: Life Magazine photos of Israel 1948-67 Part 4: The Life and death of photographer Paul Schutzer
Life Magazine photos of Israel 1948-67 Part 4: The Life and death of photographer Paul Schutzer
This is the fourth and final installment in the collection of Life Magazine photographs of Israel 1948-67 published by Ben Atlas. They are pictures taken by Paul Schutzer, a Life Magazine photographer. Ben explains what happened to him:
Lenny wrote that Paul Schutzer “was embedded with an Israeli armored column moving into Gaza in the 1967 war. His half-track took a direct hit”. They found this film roll in the camera next to Paul Schutzer’s body. I went back to the archive and this is the last roll:
Here's a picture from the roll with Ben's caption:
You can see from the roll that Paul was taking several photos of this moving tank and then the tank takes a direct hit. Next is the direct hit on Paul Schutzer’s track and the three last photos by Paul Schutzer.Read All at :
Israel Matzav: Life Magazine photos of Israel 1948-67 Part 4: The Life and death of photographer Paul SchutzerIsrael Matzav: 'UN discriminates against Israel' says... Susan Rice?!?
'UN discriminates against Israel' says... Susan Rice?!?
I think we can bring out the flying pig for this one.
The United States' ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, criticized the UN General Assembly during a speech at NYU on Wednesday for discriminating against Israel. Israel Matzav: 'UN discriminates against Israel' says... Susan Rice?!?Rice said the 192-nation United Nations needed reform, continued to single out Israel for criticism and let "political theater distract from real deliberation," but she also described it as an "imperfect yet indispensable institution."
"There is no substitute for the legitimacy the UN can impart or its potential to mobilize the widest possible coalitions," she said. "There is no better alternative to sharing the costs and burdens of UN peace operations and humanitarian missions around the world."Read All at :
Israel Matzav: Someone in San Diego gets it
Someone in San Diego gets it
This blogger describes himself as a former designer of the metro page for the San Diego Union Tribune. He also needs a job. If I owned a newspaper, I'd hire him as a features writer. He gets it. Israel Matzav: Someone in San Diego gets itI hate to say it, but it should come as no surprise to anyone that the man who sat in the pews at Jeremiah Wright’s church for two decades would have imbibed some of the anti-Semitism that was preached from the pulpit. In this, President Barack Obama follows the lead of noted useful idiot and terrorist tool Jimmy Carter.
Read All at :
Israel Matzav: Al-Guardian blames Israel for Hamas' religious repression
Al-Guardian blames Israel for Hamas' religious repression
Gaza is clearly moving in the direction of becoming a strict Islamist Caliphate like Iran and Saudi Arabia, and al-Guardian's Ben White knows who's to blame: Israel, of course.Israel Matzav: Al-Guardian blames Israel for Hamas' religious repressionBut why is this happening now? One answer is that these developments in Gaza are a consequence of the state of siege that the tiny territory has been under – a society that has been fenced-in, starved, and seen its very fabric torn apart by unemployment and wanton military destruction. In the words of a Gaza human rights worker, isolation bred "extremism and dark ideas".
Eyad Sarraj, a prominent Gazan mental health expert and psychiatrist, noted that Hamas is focusing on the likes of "women's dress" and "segregation of the sexes, especially in public or in schools". Rather than prioritising "honesty or financial probity", the obsession is with "sex", because "these things are visible and people are easily intimidated because such issues address their traditional anxieties".
Albert Memmi wrote in The Coloniser and the Colonised the way in which the colonised can seek "refuge" in religion, offering individuals "one of the rare paths of retreat", and the group "one of the rare manifestations which can protect its original existence". It is similar to an observation made by the director of Jerusalem's Women's Centre for Legal Aid and Counselling to CNN, that in "societies suffering from long-term military conflict … 'religion and traditions become more important' and are frequently 'used to oppress'".Read All at :
Israel Matzav: Can we make this into a Republican campaign poster?
Can we make this into a Republican campaign poster?
On Wednesday, President Barack Obama called Robinson a "crusader" for women and those without a voice who "illuminated a better future for our world."
Read All at :
Israel Matzav: Can we make this into a Republican campaign poster?Israel Matzav: Iran getting worried?
Iran getting worried?
Is Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad getting worried about an Israeli attack on his nuclear facilities? Well, it sure sounds like it. On Wednesday, Iran announced that it will introduce a resolution at the 150-nation IAEA meeting in September that will seek to ban attacks on nuclear facilities 'anywhere in the world.' Obviously, Iran is specifically worried about their own facilities being targeted by Israel. Israel Matzav: Iran getting worried?Iran says the proposal, revealed to The Associated Press by diplomats and confirmed by a senior Iranian envoy, is not linked to veiled threats by Israel of an attack as a last resort if the international community fails to persuade Tehran to freeze its nuclear activities.
Instead, all of the diplomats said the Iranian initiative seeks support for a generally worded document prohibiting all armed attacks against nuclear installations anywhere, when 150 nations convene for the September general conference of the International Atomic Energy Agency.Read All at :
Health Care in Israel
Health Care in Israel
I got a bit of flak for writing about the American health care issue, which must have raised my appetite for more. How else to explain my decision to talk about health care in Israel?
I'm aware - believe me, I'm aware - that Israel is smaller than the US. Why, the whole country has less of a population than the larger American cities, its geographical size is smaller than some of the American metropolises, and I'm not even talking about Houston which is slowly swallowing all of southern Texas. (Which raises the interesting question why Israel so fascinates most of the world, while Houston merely gobbles up the surrounding plain. You'd think we were a superpower). I also recognize that America has three or four separate layers of government while all we've got is one, and even that one is rather inept. So I'm not saying what works in Israel might work in the US. Probably not. This post is merely to be informative, and you needn't jump down my throat.
Israel has a social security system (bituach leumi) which serves as a safety net for various things. If you can't work for a while because of health matters it kicks in. If you're permanently disabled. If you're called up to reserve duty but would like to keep on getting your salary. if you've got children under 18 it pays you a monthly stipend. It even ensures a minimal pension once you've reached 65 0r 67 (women or men) though no one could live off it. And it offers many additional useful things. In return, every adult after military service must pay a tax of a few percent, depending on income, and employers also chip in; if you're a student or unemployed you still have to pay something like $50 a month.
It's nice to have, bituach leumi, it doesn't abolish poverty or anything of the sort, and all Israeli citizens have it. Even the Arabs of East Jerusalem who are somewhere between citizens and permanent residents have it- a word about them later.
About 15 years ago we also got universal heath care, though for many of us the difference from our prior condition was not dramatic. The universal tax for this is similar to the social security one, which means that the middle class pays about 5% for each, totaling 10% beyond income tax. Or more accurately, before income tax, since everyone pays, while some 50% of workers don't pay income tax.
In return for the tax, everyone must be a member of one of three Kupot Holim, which are exactly like HMOs but different. You choose which one you wish to join, and every six months there's a period when people are allowed to switch. The kupot are not allowed to turn you down. There aren't major differences between them by now (there were back when the law was first passed); each has slightly different nuances of service, and some have better infrastructure in different parts of the country. (The one we're in apparently offers fewer doctors outside of Jerusalem, I'm told). You more or less choose your doctors from a list; many doctors are on all lists. Medications are available for a small fee, which means expensive ones are essentially free. Each visit to a specialist (not a GP) is taxed at 18 NIS, or about $5. The types of lab tests and procedures you're likely to need in a normal state of health short of catastrophic ailments are mostly covered; sometimes you need to haggle a bit with the system, but at an acceptable level.
All of this is determined by the government. There's a committee of specialists which determines what the universal coverage is, and updates it annually; the government then has the final say. Some years there's a public outcry because some expensive new medicine isn't yet on the list; in most cases it then will be sooner or later because politicians like happy voters. The universal coverage is called Sal Briut - the basket of health. We're as good as anyone with euphemisms.
The sal briut isn't bad, but it's far from perfect. So each Kupa offers supplementary plans, which cover additional stuff. These plans aren't very expensive, though if you want the full monty and have a largish family it does accumulate. Middle class folks, so far as I can tell, all have the full supplements. Once you do, you really are covered to a reasonable extent, even in case of catastrophes. There can be waiting lines but not anything a Briton wouldn't find an improvement to their NHS. If you activate the supplemental coverage even those can go away, unless you want a specific procedure with a specific surgeon who only works 32 hours a day and can't fit you in right now - but you could go to a different specialist.
I've accompanied a family member through cancer treatment a few years back (she's fine, thank God), and the Kupa did make a mild hassle about this medicine not that one, but it was a hassle for us; the patient got the treatment she needed and there was never any doubt she would. A colleague a few years ago needed a brand new medicine that had just appeared on the market so her family bought it; a year later it was already in sal briut.
People I know who enjoyed top-notch American health care tell me what they had was better than what we have; mostly they seem to be talking about the bureaucracy of being ill. There's no Mayo Clinic in Israel, and indeed some procedures at the very top of the profession can't be had here. (They can't be had in Kansas, either). But not that many. As a general rule, it's probably better to be ill here than even in most of the developed world, and certainly no worse.
Israel-Palestine conflict: can't have a post without that, can we. You did notice that I said all Israeli citizens enjoy sal briut coverage, and I'm not going to add the obvious. It's needless to say. Foreign workers, not being citizens, aren't covered; it's my understanding that if they're here legally their employers are supposed to insure them; if they're here illegally, not. There's an organization named Physicians for Human Rights. On the Israel-Palestine topic they're about as anti-Israel as you can get, but they also deal with health issues of foreign laborers, and you've got to admire them for that.
East Jerusalem's Palestinians. If they claimed Israeli citizenship before the late 1970s, they're Israelis. A large majority of them didn't, so Israel unilaterally foisted permanent residency on them, and gave them bituach leumi and health care. One of the best kept secrets of the Israel-Palestine conflict issue is that each time anyone seriously talks about partitioning Jerusalem, the Arabs of East Jerusalem get a strong case of jitters. A Palestinian state would be a great thing to have, and they agree East Jerusalem must be in it, but relinquishing Israeli social security and health coverage is something no sane person would want to do. Which is one reason some theorists of human-rights-as-a-way-of-sticking-it-to-the-Jews now claim that even once Israel leaves East Jerusalem, it must continue to pay for the locals' health care until the end of their natural life span. I spoof you not.
I'm aware - believe me, I'm aware - that Israel is smaller than the US. Why, the whole country has less of a population than the larger American cities, its geographical size is smaller than some of the American metropolises, and I'm not even talking about Houston which is slowly swallowing all of southern Texas. (Which raises the interesting question why Israel so fascinates most of the world, while Houston merely gobbles up the surrounding plain. You'd think we were a superpower). I also recognize that America has three or four separate layers of government while all we've got is one, and even that one is rather inept. So I'm not saying what works in Israel might work in the US. Probably not. This post is merely to be informative, and you needn't jump down my throat.
Israel has a social security system (bituach leumi) which serves as a safety net for various things. If you can't work for a while because of health matters it kicks in. If you're permanently disabled. If you're called up to reserve duty but would like to keep on getting your salary. if you've got children under 18 it pays you a monthly stipend. It even ensures a minimal pension once you've reached 65 0r 67 (women or men) though no one could live off it. And it offers many additional useful things. In return, every adult after military service must pay a tax of a few percent, depending on income, and employers also chip in; if you're a student or unemployed you still have to pay something like $50 a month.
It's nice to have, bituach leumi, it doesn't abolish poverty or anything of the sort, and all Israeli citizens have it. Even the Arabs of East Jerusalem who are somewhere between citizens and permanent residents have it- a word about them later.
About 15 years ago we also got universal heath care, though for many of us the difference from our prior condition was not dramatic. The universal tax for this is similar to the social security one, which means that the middle class pays about 5% for each, totaling 10% beyond income tax. Or more accurately, before income tax, since everyone pays, while some 50% of workers don't pay income tax.
In return for the tax, everyone must be a member of one of three Kupot Holim, which are exactly like HMOs but different. You choose which one you wish to join, and every six months there's a period when people are allowed to switch. The kupot are not allowed to turn you down. There aren't major differences between them by now (there were back when the law was first passed); each has slightly different nuances of service, and some have better infrastructure in different parts of the country. (The one we're in apparently offers fewer doctors outside of Jerusalem, I'm told). You more or less choose your doctors from a list; many doctors are on all lists. Medications are available for a small fee, which means expensive ones are essentially free. Each visit to a specialist (not a GP) is taxed at 18 NIS, or about $5. The types of lab tests and procedures you're likely to need in a normal state of health short of catastrophic ailments are mostly covered; sometimes you need to haggle a bit with the system, but at an acceptable level.
All of this is determined by the government. There's a committee of specialists which determines what the universal coverage is, and updates it annually; the government then has the final say. Some years there's a public outcry because some expensive new medicine isn't yet on the list; in most cases it then will be sooner or later because politicians like happy voters. The universal coverage is called Sal Briut - the basket of health. We're as good as anyone with euphemisms.
The sal briut isn't bad, but it's far from perfect. So each Kupa offers supplementary plans, which cover additional stuff. These plans aren't very expensive, though if you want the full monty and have a largish family it does accumulate. Middle class folks, so far as I can tell, all have the full supplements. Once you do, you really are covered to a reasonable extent, even in case of catastrophes. There can be waiting lines but not anything a Briton wouldn't find an improvement to their NHS. If you activate the supplemental coverage even those can go away, unless you want a specific procedure with a specific surgeon who only works 32 hours a day and can't fit you in right now - but you could go to a different specialist.
I've accompanied a family member through cancer treatment a few years back (she's fine, thank God), and the Kupa did make a mild hassle about this medicine not that one, but it was a hassle for us; the patient got the treatment she needed and there was never any doubt she would. A colleague a few years ago needed a brand new medicine that had just appeared on the market so her family bought it; a year later it was already in sal briut.
People I know who enjoyed top-notch American health care tell me what they had was better than what we have; mostly they seem to be talking about the bureaucracy of being ill. There's no Mayo Clinic in Israel, and indeed some procedures at the very top of the profession can't be had here. (They can't be had in Kansas, either). But not that many. As a general rule, it's probably better to be ill here than even in most of the developed world, and certainly no worse.
Israel-Palestine conflict: can't have a post without that, can we. You did notice that I said all Israeli citizens enjoy sal briut coverage, and I'm not going to add the obvious. It's needless to say. Foreign workers, not being citizens, aren't covered; it's my understanding that if they're here legally their employers are supposed to insure them; if they're here illegally, not. There's an organization named Physicians for Human Rights. On the Israel-Palestine topic they're about as anti-Israel as you can get, but they also deal with health issues of foreign laborers, and you've got to admire them for that.
East Jerusalem's Palestinians. If they claimed Israeli citizenship before the late 1970s, they're Israelis. A large majority of them didn't, so Israel unilaterally foisted permanent residency on them, and gave them bituach leumi and health care. One of the best kept secrets of the Israel-Palestine conflict issue is that each time anyone seriously talks about partitioning Jerusalem, the Arabs of East Jerusalem get a strong case of jitters. A Palestinian state would be a great thing to have, and they agree East Jerusalem must be in it, but relinquishing Israeli social security and health coverage is something no sane person would want to do. Which is one reason some theorists of human-rights-as-a-way-of-sticking-it-to-the-Jews now claim that even once Israel leaves East Jerusalem, it must continue to pay for the locals' health care until the end of their natural life span. I spoof you not.
taken from Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations
UNIVERSAL TORAH: RE'EH
UNIVERSAL TORAH: RE'EH
By Rabbi Avraham Greenbaum
Torah Reading: RE-EH, Deuteronomy 11:26-16:17.
Haftara: Isaiah 54:11-55:5.
AND YOU SHALL CHOOSE LIFE
"See: I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse." (Deut. 11:26). Moses asks us to see and understand the most important fact about our existential condition: that we are free. Each of us is placed within a unique matrix of circumstances that set the overall parameters of our lives. Yet within those parameters, we are constantly faced with options and divergent pathways, and our task is to choose between them. Our freedom is a trial because while we may see (or imagine we see) where we want a given pathway to take us in the short-term, as time-bound humans we can never know the long-term consequences of our choices at the moment we actually make those choices.
Only G-d has perfect knowledge of all the short- and long-term consequences of the options that face us. While He gives us the freedom to make our own choices, He offers us guidance based upon His knowledge. Thus the Zohar calls the commandments of the Torah "advice". Each commandment is advice about which turn to take at each juncture in the road of life. Nothing compels us to follow the commandments: if there were any compulsion, we would not be free. G-d wants us to have the merit of choosing our destiny for ourselves -- He wants us to see and understand for ourselves, and to make wise choices. "SEE: I am setting before you a blessing and a curse" . "And you shall choose LIFE". (Deut. 30:19).
Moses was addressing the Children of Israel in the plains of Moab, where they were poised to enter the Promised Land under Joshua. Moses instructed them to perform a powerfully striking ceremony on entry into the Land. This was designed to imprint deeply in the consciousness of the nation the terms on which they would possess the Land. Six of the twelve tribes were to stand on Mount Gerizim and six on Mount Eival, while the Priests and Levites were to stand in the valley between them chanting a list of fundamental Torah prohibitions, blessing those who observe them and cursing those who violate them. (The actual performance of the ceremony is described in Joshua chapter 8.)
Our parshah of RE'EH opens with the beginning of Moses' instructions about this ceremony (Deut. 11:26-32). Further instructions and the text of the chant are given four parshas later in KI TAVO (Deut. 27:11-26. Thus we find that the main body of the book of Deuteronomy is "sandwiched" between the beginning of Moses' instructions for the ceremony of blessings and curses at the start of RE'EH and his further instructions for the ceremony given in the middle of KI TAVO. The main body of Deuteronomy is made up of the detailed commandments in many different areas of life contained in the parshiyos we read on this Shabbat and for the next three weeks.
The remainder of parshas RE'EH, the whole of parshas SHOFTIM and KI TETZE and the first part of KI TAVO thus constitute the "repetition of the law" that gives the book of Deuteronomy its name. In Torah literature, this book is called MISHNEH TORAH, "the repetition of the law", while the Greek words that make up the name Deuteronomy mean exactly the same -- the repetition of, or second law. It is not that this law is any different from the code of Exodus (as set forth in parshas MISHPATIM) or that of Leviticus (set forth in parshas KEDOSHIM). Rabbinic exegesis of Torah law in the Midrash and Talmud shows that all the different passages supplement one another and constitute a single, unified code. The law is "repeated" because it is only through MISHNEH -- constant repetition and review -- that we bring the Torah deep into our hearts and make it rule our lives.
The sandwiching of the code of Deuteronomy, the MISHNEH TORAH, between the beginning and end of the instructions for the ceremony of blessings and curses on entry into the Land comes to emphasize that keeping the Torah is the essential condition for Israel's possession of the Land. The opening parshahs of Deuteronomy set forth the fundamentals of faith and trust in G-d, love and awe and the other basic traits we are asked to cultivate. Now we come to the detailed laws of the Torah, as set forth in this and the ensuing parshahs. It was over this complete code, with its foundations and all its details, that Moses struck a Covenant with Israel in the plains of Moab, as recounted in KI TAVO, which we will read shortly before the New Year and Days of Awe.
The most striking feature of the Code as set forth in Deuteronomy compared to the laws in Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers is the constant return to the centrality of Jerusalem and the Temple in the life of the nation. "To the place that Hashem your G-d will choose from all your tribes to place His name there to dwell -- search it out and come there!" (Deut. 12:5). On conquest of the land, the Israelites were charged with totally uprooting and destroying all vestiges of Canaanite and any other kind of idolatry in order to ensure the success of the pure monotheistic order they were to establish in their place. The unity of G-d could not be revealed through the multiple shrines of the heathens "on the high mountains and on the hills and under every leafy tree". G-d's unity is revealed only when the consciousness of all Israel and of the entire world is focussed on the House of HaShem on Mount Moriah, the "Mountain of Teaching". For "the Torah will go forth from Zion and the word of HaShem from Yerushalayim".
Later in the Code of Deuteronomy (SHOFTIM, Deut. 17:8ff, etc.) we will encounter Mount Moriah as the seat of the sages and elders of the Sanhedrin, Israel's true Supreme Court, whose proper place is in the Hewn Chamber on the Temple Mount. However, in our present parshah of RE'EH, the focus is on Jerusalem and the Temple as the center of the nation's religious life, which itself is inextricably bound up with agriculture and the economy. Blessing reigns in Israel when the first-born animals and animal tithes are offered on the Temple Altar; when meat is consumed not purely out of lust, but in order to partake of peace and thanksgiving offerings; when the first-fruits are presented in the Temple; when Terumah is given to the priests and the tithe to the Levites, while the Israelites take up their second tithe to eat in holiness and purity within the boundaries of Jerusalem. "Three times in the year, all your males shall appear before the Lord your G-d." (Deut. 16:16).
Complete blessing can dwell only when the law is scrupulously observed. "ALL the word that I am commanding you, you shall guard to do: YOU MUST NOT ADD TO IT AND NOT SUBSTRACT FROM IT" (Duet. 13:1). Some of the severest sanctions in the Torah are reserved for those who encourage others to deviate from the law, such as the false prophet, those who lead whole towns astray, and notably the MEISIS ("inciter to idolatry" -- Deut. 13:2-19). The Torah insists that sanctions may be imposed only through due legal procedure -- "And you shall search out and investigate and question thoroughly" (Deut. 13:16). Nothing could be further from the Torah law on the eradication of idolatry than the practice of those who "burn their sons and daughters in fire to their gods" -- those who send young male and female suicide-terrorists to indiscriminately kill innocent men, women and children and babes in arms in the name of religion. The severity of the law of the Torah is directed not at innocents but at smooth-tongued, malicious, evil and dangerous inciters who whip up entire nations to madness.
But "You are children to HaShem your G-d": our best protection against the smooth-tongued incitement to stray from the Torah to which we are exposed every day is our own personal holiness and sanctity. Thus the laws in our parshah against incitement are followed immediately by the laws of holiness and abstention from the consumption of forbidden species of animals, which causes spiritual degradation. We are to regulate our physical appetites. We are to tithe our crops, and instead of simply eating the fruits immediately at home in order satisfy our bodily needs, we are to take a tithe (Maaser Sheni) to eat in Jerusalem "in order that you will learn to revere HaShem your G-d all the days". Self-restraint applies not only to farmers but to those involved in the money economy as well. Thus our parshah contains the laws of restraining our appetite for wealth through giving charity and loans to the needy, and remitting debts in the Sabbatical year. Again and again we are charged to remember the poor and needy, the Levite, the widow and the orphan.
Through our compassion, we will arouse the compassion of the Almighty as we prepare to enter the month of ELUL, the time of Teshuvah. love and compassion. The letters of the name of Elul are the initial letters of ANI LEDODI VEDODI LI: "I am my Beloved's and my Beloved is mine".
Shabbat Shalom!!! Chodesh Tov Umevorach!!!
Avraham Yehoshua Greenbaum
--
AZAMRA INSTITUTE
PO Box 50037 Jerusalem 91500 Israel
Website: www.azamra.org
_____________________________
Change email address / Leave mailing list: http://ymlp159.com/u.phpYMLPID=gbmbwegsguqeuguyq
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
