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8 hours ago
Wednesday, 25 March 2009
GAZA FOOD BLOCKADE OVER
The government decided yesterday to allow as much food into Gaza as anyone wants to send in. If you see this mentioned in your local media, feel free to tell me. Even more interesting will be to see if any media outlets continue to talk about the hungry Gazans being starved by Israel: If they say so, we'll know they're lying. If they don't, we'll know they know, and we'll also know they didn't tell what they know.
taken from:Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations (http://yaacovlozowick.blogspot.com/)
MULTICULTURALISM AND ISLAMIFICATION IN BRITAIN - PART I
Just watch this movie.
Thanks to Nikon-Man for sharing this
Thanks to Nikon-Man for sharing this
IDF - PICTURE OF THE WEEK - OZ BATTALION
Oz Battalion of the Armored Corps Completes Training Exercise
ISRAEL NAVY'S BEAUTY QUEEN
Israel Navy's Beauty Queen
23 March 2009 , 11:56
Rani Sneh
Without a doubt, the most presentable Corps in the IDF is the Navy. White uniforms, impeccable ceremonies reflect an impressive sense of duty. It was therefore not surprising to discover that Miss Israel 2009 Adi Rodnitzki is also a corporal in the Israel Navy. Even less surprising is the fact that she serves as the secretary of the head of the Foreign Relations, whose job it is to present the Navy to the world. “This is an important role that represents the unit. In addition to office work, we participate in meetings with senior personalities from abroad,” commented Rodnitzki, “I enjoy my service and I am happy to be in the place I am.”
Miss Israel 2009, Corporal Adi Rodnitzki. Photo: IDF Spokesperson
"I learned to deal with situations that were difficult for me, physically and mentally. Learning about personal communications also contributed for my preparation as a soldier "
Corporal Adi Rodnitzki, as she won the Miss Israel 2009 competition . Photo: Michelle Dotcom, "Israel Today"
Adi, single, 20 years old and from Tel Aviv, has completed one and a half years of her service. She arrived to the Navy after finishing her basic training and notes that even at the time of her draft into the IDF she wanted the position that she now holds. “There are high quality people. Some of them speak foreign languages, which raises my interest level.” Adi was born in Israel and completed high school at the Alianz School in Tel Aviv, where she chose to study economics, psychology and French.
According to Adi, for many years people tried to convince her to participate in beauty competitions but she wasn't interested. Adi was a model for the Elite Agency and later joined the Look Agency. This was a turning point for her interest in joining the competition scene. “I met with representatives of Look and they asked me if I wanted to be a model in the competition. I thought about it, and told myself ‘Yes, I will go for it’. I asked how it was going to be arranged with the army and they told me that generally these things are approved by the IDF and that there shouldn’t be a problem. But it was a problem.”
In order to participate, Adi had to sign an agreement to defer her service for three months, during which she held intensive training and preparation for the competition. “Some of the rehearsals were not simple, but I really enjoyed them” she claimed. “The most significant rehearsal was in Haifa four days before the ceremony. We had rehearsals from seven in the morning until 11 at night” she says. The intensity and difficult rehearsals also helped her later in her performance as a soldier. “I learned how to work hard. The rehearsals and the pressure weren’t easy but they made me stronger. I learned to deal with situations that were difficult for me, physically and mentally. Learning about personal communications also contributed for my preparation as a soldier.”
“From the beginning of the competition until the end I got a lot of support from my friends in the army”
One of the things that surprised Adi the most was the support she received from the IDF, particularly her direct commander. “Normally, commanders don’t want their soldiers to leave and because of that I was afraid to ask her, but from the moment I did she was more excited than I was and that convinced me to do it.” She says her commander understood her need to leave the office for several months. “She called me during these months and also after I won, I received a phone call from her,” she remembers with a smile. Adi also received many calls of support from her friends in the Navy: “From the beginning of the competition until the end I got a lot of support from them.”
10 months of military service remain for the beauty queen and she fully intends to complete them even if things may have changed slightly. “I will not be in the army for a large number of hours, things will change. I do what I can.” Beyond the days where she is busy with interviews she is planning to compete in the Miss Universe competition in a few months. “The army will release me, I am not worried”, she stated. “It really doesn’t bother me, they release me every time I need to and when I don’t then I’m in the army. It is not contradictory,” she stresses. “I continue to do regular service as needed.”
from the IDF site(http://dover.idf.il/IDF/English/)
Tuesday, 24 March 2009
Monday, 23 March 2009
NO SURRENDER, NO RETREAT !!!
NO SURRENDER, NO RETREAT
" This video is intended to incite anger in the hearts of Americans. Let us never forget the threats we face. It is crucial to know our enemies and destroy them before they destroy us. As you look upon the images of September 11, which are featured in this video, look also at the faces of those responsible. The title of the song is "The Last Fallen Hero" Performed by: The Charlie Daniel's band
"Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,Lest we forget--lest we forget!" "
Thanks to HumbleInfidel (http://humbleinfidel.stumbleupon.com/) for posting this video. The text above is, also, his.
RADICAL ISLAMIC GROUP AND ISRAELI-ARAB COEXISTENCE
Jerusalem Issue Brief Institute for Contemporary Affairs founded jointly with the Wechsler Family Foundation
Vol. 8, No. 24 20 March 2009
The Role of Radical Islamic Groups in Israel: Implications for Israeli-Arab Coexistence
Lt.-Col. (res.) Dr. Mordechai Kedar
Many in the Arab world felt deep humiliation due to George W. Bush. The Islamic view is that Islam came to the world to replace Judaism and Christianity, and all of the sudden comes a religious Christian president and occupies Iraq, the capital of the Islamic Abbasid Caliphate and the beating heart of Arab history. So when Bush left office, this was viewed as a victory for Allah over the modern Crusaders.
The core question is to whom does this country belong? According to the Arab narrative, this has been an Arab Islamic state since the days of Omar, the caliph who conquered the country in the seventh century. According to Islamic tradition, he declared that the country between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River is waqf land, meaning it belongs forever to Muslims all over the world, and no one else could ever have it.
According to Islam, land can only go one way, to become Islamic, and it can never go the other way, just like Spain, Sicily, and parts of the Balkans, which at different stages of history were lands of Islam. This is why Hamas and the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood cannot even begin to consider recognizing the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish state on the land of Palestine.
At the same time, Jews feel that this country belongs to them. From the Jewish perspective, this country was populated by Jews and two Jewish kingdoms were here until 1900 years ago. We Jews were expelled with no justification and we came back to our country. This is what gives justification to the Jews having our state here and not in Uganda, Argentina or Birobijan. It even appears in the Koran that this country had been given to the Jews.
In 2006 a document approved by the Committee of Arab Local Authorities in Israel - entitled: "The Future Vision of the Palestinian Arabs in Israel and their Relations with the State" - opened with the statement: "Israel is the outcome of a colonialist action which was initiated by the Jewish-Zionist elites in Europe and in the West."
To call Israel a colonialist state means a total denial of Jewish history, and echoes the Islamic approach to Jewish history. According to this approach, since Islam came to the world in the year 622 CE with the hijra of Mohammed from Mecca to Medina, all of history before that time lost any meaning or significance.
The End of the Bush Administration - A Victory for Allah
Some in the Arab world were very satisfied with the American election because to them it meant the end of the Bush administration. Many in the Arab world felt deep humiliation due to George W. Bush, above all else. The Islamic view of the world is that Islam came to the world to replace Judaism and Christianity, not to live side-by-side with them. Then, all of a sudden, comes a religious Christian president and occupies Iraq, the beating heart of Arab history, the capital of the Abbasid dynasty, which for 500 years ruled the Islamic empire. After a few days of fighting in Baghdad, this city came under American infidel rule.
Bush said right after September 11, 2001, that the Americans were on a "crusade." Immediately, his advisors told him not to use that word because it reminds Muslims of the Crusader Kingdom of 800 years ago, which the hero Saladin wiped out. But his statement was recorded and Al-Jazeera kept showing it. Muslims look at this from a religious point of view and many see what is going on in the region as some kind of test of whose god is more powerful: Allah or the Christian God. This is how too many people in the Middle East are viewing this now. So when Bush left office, this was viewed as some kind of victory for Allah.
One of the major differences between the Middle East and Western societies is the role of religion. We were brought up on the notion of a division between church and state, that the state is for everybody and religion is within your heart. This may be correct in the West, but it is not correct in the Arab world. In the Middle East, almost everything is connected to religion.
The Arab Minorities in Israel
Inside Israel, there are a number of different Arab minorities. There are Muslims, Druze, and Christians, from the religious point of view. There are Bedouins who live in the desert, which is one culture; rural peasants, which is another culture; and those who dwell in cities, either in Arab cities or in mixed cities, which is yet another kind of culture. So you cannot look at the Arab minorities in Israel as one package. You have to relate to them in different ways because they are different and they don't consider themselves as one group of people.
You can see this in the percentage of those who vote. The percentage of Arabs who vote for Arab parties in the Knesset is only 50 percent. The Arab sector in Israel altogether is about 20 percent of the population, which means in theory that Arab parties could have 24 members, or a fifth of the 120 Knesset members. However, the actual number of Arab Knesset members is around 10, and has been like this for years. Many Arabs do not even vote; they do not see the Knesset as a body that can represent them. In addition, the radical part of the Islamic movement is constantly calling on their people not to vote for the Knesset because that gives some kind of seal of approval to the Israeli state, which has no legitimacy to exist in their eyes.
The Acre Riots of October 2008: Why Didn't They Spread?
In the mixed city of Acre in October 2008, a car driven by an Arab went into a Jewish neighborhood on the night of Yom Kippur. This triggered five days of violence, demonstrations, breaking into shops, and burning apartments and houses.
At the time of the riots, Islamic Jihad and Hamas called on the Arabs in Israel to do the same thing in all the other mixed cities like Jaffa, Ramla and Lod. They tried to inflame the whole situation, but it didn't work. The calls to spread the riots to other places in Israel were not answered. Why didn't the riots spread to other cities? Because at the end of the day, both Jews and Arabs realize that coexistence is better than fighting.
To Whom Does the Country Belong?
In Jaffa, right next to Tel Aviv, there are processes that the Arabs don't like. Property is being taken by the state and given to contractors who are building new luxury housing near the sea, mainly for Jews, and this creates much resentment among the Arabs living there. This illustrates the key, bottom line question: To whom does this country belong? Every other question is derived from this.
According to the Arab narrative, this has been an Arab Islamic state since the days of Omar, the caliph who conquered the country in the second quarter of the seventh century. According to Islamic oral tradition, he declared that the country between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River was waqf land, meaning it belonged to Muslims all over the world, and no one else could ever have it. So how could the Jews come in the nineteenth or twentieth centuries and buy land there and establish an independent Jewish state, one that has no legitimacy to exist on Islamic soil? It was just like Spain, Sicily, and parts of the Balkans, which at different stages of history were lands of Islam. According to Islam, land can only go one way, to become Islamic, and it can never go the other way.
The wings of the Muslim Brotherhood believe that the Israeli state or the Jewish state has no right to exist to begin with. This is why Hamas and the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood cannot even begin to consider recognizing the right of Israel to exist. A temporary peace of ten or twenty years can be given to infidels when Muslims are not powerful enough to conquer their lands, until Allah gives the Muslims the ability to do so.
The Muslim Brotherhood looks at the Jewish state in Israel as if the Jews occupied the country and removed it from the bosom of Islam in which it existed until 1948. When you ask to whom the country belongs, this is the basis of the Islamic perspective.
At the same time, Jews feel that this country belongs to them. From the Jewish perspective, this country was populated by Jews and two Jewish kingdoms were here until 1900 years ago. We Jews were expelled with no justification and we came back to our country. This is what gives justification to the Jews having our state here and not in Uganda or Argentina or Birobijan. It even appears in the Koran that this country had been given to the Jews.
We say today that the two narratives are fighting. The Islamic narrative says that this country is Islamic, and the Jewish narrative states that this country in its entirety belongs to the Jews. However, while we want to keep the Jewish nature of our state, most of us are not willing to kick out the Arabs who live here.
The struggle of narratives is a problem that we all have to live with. There are problems in life which cannot be solved, and the contradiction between those two narratives cannot be solved.
The Future Vision of Palestinian Arabs in Israel
In 2006 a group of forty modern Arab intellectuals, politicians, and university lecturers published a very interesting document in both Hebrew and Arabic. The document, which was approved by the Committee of Arab Local Authorities in Israel - the most significant organ of Arabs in Israel - was entitled: "The Future Vision of the Palestinian Arabs in Israel and their Relations with the State."
Its opening statement reads: "Israel is the outcome of a colonialist action which was initiated by the Jewish-Zionist elites in Europe and in the West, was established with the help of colonialist states, Britain and France, and was strengthened by the influx of Jews into Palestine, especially in the aftermath of the Second World War and the Holocaust." At least they recognize the fact that there was a Holocaust. In many other places Arab deny even that.
In addition, Sheikh Ibrahim Sarsour, chairman of the United Arab List, the largest Arab party in the Feb. 10, 2009, elections for the Israeli Knesset, said in a speech: "Participating in the elections to the Knesset does not abolish our ideology according to which the rule on earth, or at least on Arab and Islamic land, should be Islamic and headed by the Caliph."1 The party won 113,954 votes and 4 seats.
In the Muslim Narrative, History Only Begins in 622 CE
To call Israel a colonialist state is to undermine Israel's legitimacy as the state of the Jewish people who see themselves as the owners of this country. It means a total denial of Jewish history, and echoes the Islamic approach to Jewish history. According to this approach, since Islam came to the world in the year 622 CE with the hijra of Mohammed from Mecca to Medina, all of history before that time lost any meaning or significance. Even the prophets - Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David, Solomon, Jesus - all became Muslims, according to the Islamic narrative. So since Islam denies what happened before Islam, they can say that Israel is an outcome of a colonialist action because the fact that Jews were here 1900 years ago, before Islam, has no meaning anymore since that was before Islam came into the world.
This leads us back to the way Islam as a religion looks at the State of Israel and its existence in this waqf land. The document of the Arabs in Israel, which we mentioned before, is replete with expressions of how Israel is an illegitimate entity and how the Arabs are the natives. This is the way they look at the state where they live.
What other states have to contend with the fact that a significant minority is challenging the very legitimacy of the state? Even Arabs and Muslims in Britain or France are not yet challenging the legitimacy of those states, but here, in Israel, they feel free to do it.
Are the Palestinians Really the Natives?
But are the Palestinians really the natives? Many Palestinians, even in Israel, bear names like al-Masri (referring to Egypt) or al-Iraqi or al-Tarabulsi (referring to Tripoli in northern Lebanon). The minister of refugees in the Palestinian Authority was Abdallah al-Horani, meaning that either he or his parents came from al-Horan in southern Syria. They are not originally from this place. They immigrated here and their family names reflect the name of the place they came from. Since when are they Palestinians?
What about the Palestinians who live today in Lebanon and the West Bank and are still in refugees camps sixty years after 1948? Where else in the world do you see refugee camps for sixty years? But where do they have the right to return to, those who came from Iraq, Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria? To Haifa, where they worked for a few years for the British who brought them from Syria to work in the harbor, or to Syria and the other Arab countries where they originally came from? The world has bought this slogan of Palestinian refugees without checking where they came from originally.
The Only Arabs Who Live in a Democracy Live in Israel
Most Arabs today live either in Arab dictatorships or in democracies but in exile. No Arab state is a real democracy. The only significant group of Arabs who live in a democracy are the Arabs in Israel. Yet I would say the vast majority do not want to turn this state into an Arab state. Very few of them want to live in an Arab state. Everyone in Israel is free to emigrate, but there are no Arabs lining up to emigrate to other countries. They know exactly what the situation is because they see what goes on everywhere in the Arab world on Al-Jazeera, day and night: In Egypt, half of the population lives in unplanned neighborhoods with no running water, electricity, sewage, infrastructure, paved roads, or health care. Hardly anyone in the Arab sector in Israel lives in such conditions, except for some of the Bedouin in the Negev who willingly choose the culture of the desert.
The Arab sector in Israel does not want to change where they live into an Arab state. Maybe some in the Islamic movement would like to have an Islamic state here just like they want to have an Islamic state everywhere, to kick out the Arab regimes and establish a caliphate instead. But the majority of Arabs in Israel still prefer the current situation since, despite whatever discrimination they may experience, living in Israel is still far better than living in any Arab country in the Middle East.
The Arabs in Israel are much more clever than their brothers in the Palestinian Authority. The Muslims in Israel look at what happens in Gaza and do not envy those who live there. They don't envy the people of Iran under the regime of the ayatollahs either, where 95 percent of the Iranians are secular. And they don't want to live like the Shi'ites in Lebanon. Arab Israeli citizens are much wiser than that. They know exactly what the alternative is.
* * *
Note 1. See http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-3216531,00.html and http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/ 0,7340,L-3217055,00.html. The issue of a caliphate is not mentioned in the party's formal platform.
* * *
Lt.-Col. (res.) Dr. Mordechai Kedar served in IDF Military Intelligence for 25 years, specializing in Arab political discourse, Arab mass media, Islamic groups, and the Syrian domestic arena. Dr. Kedar teaches in the Department of Arabic at Bar-Ilan University and is a research associate at the Begin-Sadat (BESA) Center for Strategic Studies. This Jerusalem Issue Brief is based on his presentation at the Institute for Contemporary Affairs in Jerusalem on November 5, 2008.
This Jerusalem Issue Brief is available online at: http://www.jcpa.org
taken from:B'NAI ELIM (http://bnaielim.blogspot.com/)
ISRAELI BRUTALITY IN GAZA ?
The media is all agog about the stories emanating from Israel's internal deliberations about the recent Gaza operation. As regular readers will not be surprised to know, there is scant connection between the media narrative and the reality, though at least some of this could be rectified merely by reading the English translation of the discussion. Since my take is a bit long, and includes significant quotes from the discussion to demonstrate my points, I've posted it in article form, here.
I don't normally engage in promotion, but given the pervasive coverage and its perversity, feel free to send this article on to others if you think it's convincing.
taken from:Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations (http://yaacovlozowick.blogspot.com/)
ON BRINGING BACK GILAD SHALIT
My wife, that's Achikam's mother, has published an eloquent op-ed in Haaretz about the obligation of our government not to allow any soldiers to languish in the captivity of Hamas monsters. Haaretz didn't translate it into English, but perhaps we can fix that later on.
Update: David Boxenhorn was extraordinarily helpful, and posted a translation in the comments section. Thank you, David!
Someone else also prepared a translation, which my wife then worked on a bit, and I'm posting it here.
taken from:Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations (http://yaacovlozowick.blogspot.com/)
Sunday, 22 March 2009
FATAH OFFICIAL: ABBAS'FATAH DOESN'T RECOGNIZE ISRAEL
Fatah Official: Abbas’ Fatah Doesn’t Recognize Israel
Muhammad Dahlan, a senior leader of the Fatah party, which controls the Palestinian Authority (PA) and was co-founded by its current head, PA president Mahmoud Abbas, has openly acknowledged that Fatah does not accept Israel’s existence and has in fact never recognized the Jewish state.
And those people are getting millions of aid from all over the world… shameful!
WITOLD PILECKI
Double life of Witold Pilecki, the Auschwitz volunteer who uncovered Holocaust secrets
It was perhaps the bravest act of espionage of the Second World War. After voluntarily being imprisoned in the Auschwitz concentration camp for 2½ years, and smuggling out its darkest secrets to the Allies, Witold Pilecki overcame a guard and, with two comrades, escaped almost certain death.
Now new details have emerged of the extraordinary tale of the Polish officer who hatched a plot with the country's resistance to be rounded up by the occupying Germans in September 1940 and sent to the most notorious Nazi extermination centre.
At the time Auschwitz was predominantly a camp for captured resistance fighters, although Jews and anyone considered a threat to the Nazi regime were also being sent there.
Newly released documents from the Polish archives reveal how Mr Pilecki, going under the false name Tomasz Serafinski, went about setting up an underground resistance group in the camp, recruiting its members and organising it into a coherent movement.
“In order to assure greater security I have taken the view that each cell of five will not be aware of another cell,” he wrote in one of his reports smuggled out to the Resistance and which has now come to light.
“This is also why I have avoided people who are registered here under their real names. Some are involved in the most incompetent conspiracies and have their own plans for rebellion in the camp.”
Later he wrote: “The gigantic machinery of the camp spewing out dead bodies has claimed many of my friends ... We have sent messages to the outside world which were then transmitted back by foreign radio stations. Consequently the camp guards are very angry right now.”
Mr Pilecki's reports from the camp were channelled to the Allies via a courier system that the Polish Resistance operated throughout occupied Europe. By 1942 Mr Pilecki's organisation realised the existence of the gas chambers and he worked on several plans to liberate Auschwitz, including one in which the RAF would bomb the walls, or Free Polish paratroopers would fly in from Britain.
However, in 1943, realising that the Allies had no plans to liberate the camp, he and two others escaped. The new documents include a Gestapo manhunt alert after his escape.
Mr Pilecki ensured that a full report on the camp reached London, and the resistance group he started in Auschwitz continued to feed information to Britain and the United States, confirming that the Nazis were bent on the extermination of the Jews.
The archive material will again raise questions as to why the Allies, and in particular Winston Churchill, never did anything to stop the atrocities there. “We can only assume the British thought we were exaggerating,” said the Polish historian Jacek Pawlowicz. “I'm certain Poles shared their intelligence with MI6 and the highest levels of British Government, which, for some reason, remained silent.”
After his escape Mr Pilecki was captured fighting in the Warsaw Uprising in 1944 and spent the rest of the conflict in a prisoner-of-war camp. In July 1945 he joined Free Polish troops in Italy, from where he agreed to return to Poland and gather intelligence on the Soviet takeover of the country.
He was, however, caught by the Polish Communist regime. In a twist of fate, a Polish Jew administered the torture during his interrogation. Mr Pilecki's wife was invited to visit and he told her that his time in Auschwitz was child's play by comparison. After a show trial he was given three death sentences and shot.
The new material includes his charge sheet, which has 132 subsections, each listing a separate alleged crime. “From July 1945 to May 1947 the accused worked against the Polish state as a paid resident of an overseas intelligence agency,” one accusation reads. “The worst crime committed against the state was that he was acting in the interests of foreign imperialism, to which he has completely sold out through a prolonged period of work as a spy.” The implication is clear: Mr Pilecki was providing information on the Soviet-backed regime that was finding its way to MI6.
After his death Mr Pilecki was demonised by the Communists and his heroics re-emerged only after 1989.
His son, Andrzej Pilecki, who was 16 when he learnt that his father had been executed, said: “There'd be no better memorial to my father than for the young to learn of his example. I was at school at the time, it was a terrible shock, but now after 60 years of waiting I am thrilled to see justice.”
The new archive releases also reveal touching details. In a smuggled letter dated October 18, 1943, to his ten-year-old daughter he wrote: “I am very happy to hear you are such a devoted housemaid and that you like to take care of the animals and our plants in the garden. I, too, like every kind of bug and beetle as well as the beans and the peas. I like everything that lives. I'm very glad to hear that inside my children there are the same thoughts that I have.”
The Chief Rabbi of Poland, Michael Schudrich, said that Mr Pilecki was “an example of inexplicable goodness at a time of inexplicable evil. There is ever-growing awareness of Poles helping Jews in the Holocaust, and how they paid with their lives, like Pilecki. We must honour these examples and follow them today in the parts of the world where there are horrors again.”
The historian Michael R.D.Foot said that the life and death of Mr Pilecki brought shame on the British and the Allies, who turned a blind eye to Stalin's European ambitions as well as the Holocaust. “The Foreign Office's betrayal of Poland is the darkest chapter in its history, even if that betrayal was a strategic necessity,” he said.
taken from TIMESONLINE (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article5891132.ece)
Thanks to Israeligirl67 for sharing this
THE GUARDIAN OF ISRAEL DOES NOT SLEEP
A major terrorist attack was thwarted Saturday night, motzaei shabbat. Security found explosives in a parked car outside of a crowded Haifa mall, when one of the explosives malfunctioned.
If the bombs would have gone off, many Jews would have been injured or killed, G-d forbid. It is a miracle that one of the devices malfunctioned and that authorities found and disabled the bombs. This is testimony to HaShem's amazing love and mercy for His people. HaShem is constantly protecting and guarding over His nation. During the recent war in Gaza, we were privileged to see so many tremendous miracles, of rockets falling on empty schools, empty homes and kindergartens, of rockets hitting synagogues moments after the congregants had exited. During 8 years of bombardment and 10 000 rockets, there have been only a handful of casualties. Why? Is it because of Hamas' poor aim or the superiority of Israel's defense system? No! It is all thank to our Father in Heaven.
Every Jew must say: THANK YOU HASHEM! Thank You for Your many miracles and kindnesses that You perform every single day to Your people Israel, the numerous ones that we are aware of, and the thousands of miracles that we are unaware of.
"Behold, the Guardian of Israel neither sleeps nor slumbers." (Psalm 121:4) There is no clearer proof of G-d's existence and sovereignty than the continual preservation and survival of the Jewish people and the State of Israel. Israel is surrounded by a sea of blood-thirsty anti-semites longing for is destruction, cruel enemies who want nothing more than the death of the Jewish people. In 6 separate wars, they have attacked Israel and been defeated, by HaShem's loving grace. They have launched numerous assaults, attacks, bombardments and strikes against Israel, all to no avail.
"Plan a conspiracy and it will be annulled, speak your peace and it will not stand, for HaShem is with us." (Isaiah 8:10) To the enemies of Israel, you will never succeed in destroying the people of Israel. The Jewish return to Zion is a miracle, a divine decree and cannot be prevented. G-d promised in His Torah that those who bless us will be blessed and those who curse us will be cursed. The choice is up to you: whether to aid and support the return to Zion or to oppose HaShem and His will. Either way, our existence and prosperity is assured. Neither the Arabs, nor the US, EU or UN will ever succeed in uprooting us from our land. They are powerless before the G-d of Israel.
The Passover Hagaddah says that "there are those who rose up against our fathers and against us. It was not one alone that stood up against us to wipe us out, but in every generation they arise to annihilate us. But the Holy One, blessed be He, saves us from their hands." The fate of Hamas and Fatah, Hizbullah and Ahmadinejad, will be the fate of Pharaoh and Haman, Hitler and Stalin. And Am Yisrael will live for ever and ever!
THANK YOU HASHEM!!
taken from:For Zion's Sake
CANADA BARS GALLOWAY FOR SUPPORTING HAMAS
Canada Bars Galloway For Supporting Hamas
11:00am UK, Saturday March 21, 2009
Respect MP George Galloway has been blocked from visiting Canada because of his support for Hamas, the country's immigration office has said.
George Galloway (L) hugs Senior Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Gaza
Mr Galloway was reported to be giving a speech in Toronto later this month but has been denied entry because he is said to be a threat to national security.
Immigration minister Alykhan Velshi said: "I'm sure Galloway has a large Rolodex of friends in regimes elsewhere in the world willing to roll out the red carpet for him.
"Canada, however, won't be one of them.
"We're going to uphold the law, not give special treatment to a street-corner Cromwell who brags about giving 'financial support' to Hamas, a terrorist organisation banned in Canada."
IRANIANS WITH A CLENCHED FIST
There are mounting indications Barack Obama's hope the world will join him in being civilized nice and pleasant may not happen, at least not yet. The top Iranian fellow, Ayatollah Ali Khamenai, that's the boss of Ahmed Ahmedinajad, mind you, gave a feisty speech before a crowd of tens of thousands of Iranians, who responded by chanting Death for America.
This is one reason I'm generally in favor of enemies talking to one another: in the good scenario, they talk, find agreement, and cease being enemies. In other cases, they talk, re-affirm for themselves that the other side really needs to be confronted, and carry on with the enmity with new resolve. A win-win situation.
The NYT, however, sees it differently. Their response to the Iranian clarity is to call for America to be even nicer, lest the Iranians haven't yet understood this is the Obama administration, not that horrible Bush fellow. They've dug up an Iranian economist named Saeed Leilaz, dubbed him "a prominent political analyst" - which for all I know he may be, but he certainly isn't the only one around - and he urges the NYT readership not to take Khamenai seriously:
Prominent political analyst Saeed Leilaz said Khamenei's comments did not amount to a rejection of better ties with the Obama administration. Rather, Iran's current hard-line leaders need to publicly maintain some degree of anti-U.S. rhetoric to bolster their own position, especially with their conservative base, he said.
''Iran's ruling Islamic establishment needs to lessen tensions with the U.S. and at the same time maintain a controlled animosity with Washington,'' he said. ''Iran can't praise Obama all of a sudden.''
Khamenei will also likely stand his ground as long as he remains concerned about the United States' ability to destabilize Iran, he said.
For its part, the Obama administration must take practical steps such as lifting a ban on selling Iran spare parts for passenger aircraft or considering unfreezing Iranian assets in the U.S., Leilaz said.
You tell 'em, Leilaz.
taken from:Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations (http://yaacovlozowick.blogspot.com/)
UK JOURNALISTS ARE FOOLS
My routine, many mornings, includes visits to the NYT website, Haaretz, and the Guardian, before going to visit various bloggers. The other day the NYT had an item telling that PSA testing, a standard test to discover prostate cancer, apparently isn't very useful. A few minutes later, when I got to the Guardian, they had an article telling the opposite: that PSA tests could save lots of lives. I briefly toyed with the idea of poking fun at the Guardian on an issue far removed from by usual topic, but then went to do more important things.
In the meantime, someone else has done the job for me: only he shows it was the entire British media that got their story line all wrong, and he says this actually isn't very amusing.
So newspapers ignore one half of the evidence and fail to explain the other half properly. In the past, nobody could catch them, and nobody could compete with them. That has now changed. Anyone can write, and publish online, and appear in Google news alerts: the NHS, medical research charities, individual academics, journals' press offices.
These people are intelligent, informed, and they can explain things clearly, without worrying about eyecatching hysteria, or space, or hyperbole. Some will be silly, some won't be. If they ignore half the evidence, they will be busted in the comments, mocked, and sensible visitors will never come back. They can also link directly and transparently to scientific papers, which mainstream media still refuse to do.
Journalists insist that we need professionals to mediate and explain science. From today's story, their self-belief seems truly laughable.
In other words, they're a bunch of incompetents, at best, those British journalists. This brought forth the obvious question:
Here`s a serious thought - is poor science reporting just part of a wider malaise? Why expect science to be an exception if the quality of the UK press in general has plummeted? I think this may well be so.
For example, the tone of say, the Guardian`s (or Telegraph`s) main political and social comment also displays the same air of over-excitement, high emotional levels (sometimes feigned, of course), lack of logic, inability to handle numerical data, etc. There is a clear desire to stimulate the reader in a swift way - perhaps the papers think that they are competing, not with, say the works of Proust, but with video games, porn, TV, drugs and alcohol for the reader`s attention. Hence the combination of celebrity/football/TV coverage and a coverage of `serious` matters too that is similar in style to the `lighter` stuff. I.e. it is ALL lightweight.
Frankly, can you really have confidence in the UK newspapers` coverage of genuinely complex issues like Gaza or Iraq?
A truly startling thought, isn't it?
taken from:Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations (http://yaacovlozowick.blogspot.com/)
Saturday, 21 March 2009
Friday, 20 March 2009
ITALIAN COUPLE DONATE WEDDING MONEY TO SDEROT
Italian couple donates wedding money to Sderot
Young couple from Rome gives money received at their wedding to project aimed at improving the life of disabled individuals in rocket-battered town
A newlywed Jewish couple from Rome, Italy have recently donated all the money they received from guests in their wedding to handicapped residents of Sderot.
The money went towards providing seven families in the rocket-battered town with new computers with LCD screens, printers, computer desks and a one-year internet connection.
The equipment will be installed at the residents' houses by volunteer students who will also teach the residents how to use it.
The disabled residents are members of the "Supportive Community" project in Sderot that has been operated in the last year by the Amal Siudit home nursing chain in partnership with the Joint Distribution Committee-Israel, the Sderot municipality and the Welfare Ministry.
The project, which currently involves 60 families, provides disabled individuals in the southern city with a safety network and support solutions at times of crisis or emergency.
The services provided by the project include on-call volunteers who are always available for immediate assistance, small repairs at home, medicine and food supply during emergencies, social activities, and a 24-hour hook-up to a distress center.
Dalya Korkin, executive director of Amal Siudit, explained that "using a computer is one of the means to boost disabled people's independence and enable them to have access to information and to create social ties on the internet."
Hana Morag, Amal Siudit's director in Sderot, added: "In Sderot, with the reality of ongoing Qassam attacks, the possibility to improve the life of the disabled is particularly important."
taken from:Ynetnews.com (http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3686482,00.html)
THE BATTLE FOR LIBERTY, THE STRUGGLE AGAINST DESPOTISM
“The Battle for Liberty, The Struggle Against Despotism.” An Interview with Author Jamie Glazov
For six years, Jamie Glazov has been my editor at Frontpage magazine. While he is still the editor there, Glazov is now also the author of a new and very important book, one that was hard for me to read, but even harder for me to put down. It was “hard” because, like so many others, I was once an admirer of the Left , a woman of the Left; that story.
Glazov’s sobering, gripping, and very well written work, United in Hate: The Left’s Romance With Tyranny and Terror, ( WND Books/WorldNetDaily), should be required reading at every university. Psycho-analysts, many of whom are, themselves, in “denial,” and left-wing intellectuals everywhere, need to grapple with Glazov’s information and point of view. His subject concerns the survival of the human race and the tragic blood letting that has been done in the name of progressive, even salvational ideology.
The modern infatuation with tyranny; the belief that if humanity is to improve humanity, that they can only do so through cruelty, repression, and mass murder, including genocide, is a terrifying reality and one that Glazov analyzes carefully, almost surgically. Although the information is now in about Stalin, Mao, Castro–and their most logical and terrifying descendents, the Islamist-jihadists, nevertheless, thinking, caring leftists and fellow traveler progressives, dare not acknowledge the evil that has been done for the sake of “good,” lest doing so will force them to take responsibility and experience guilt for all the blood shed on their watch.
Freud might say that Glazov is trying to strengthen Eros, the life force, in us and is doing monumental battle with Thanatos, the death instinct. In this work, Glazov has gone beyond Alice Miller and Eric Hoffer.
I congratulate him and I strongly recommend the work.
Earlier today, I interviewed him. Although we may have more to say to each other, I wanted to share this with my readers quickly.
——————————————————————————–
Q: What kind of response to the book have you received so far? Has anything surprised you? If so, what?
A: The response has been very positive. I am a bit surprised that United in Hate has been gaining critical acclaim — as WorldNetDaily.com has reported. There has been a wide reception, and I’ve been invited on many big radio shows, including G. Gordon Liddy, Michael Savage and Dennis Prager. The reviews have also been positive and the book hit pretty far up on the Amazon rankings (in the 200s). Within hours of United in Hate’s release, the book was No. 1 among books relating to communism on Amazon. So this is pretty encouraging and exciting.
Q: Have there been any mainstream, liberal, or left reviews? Even attacks, which would have to acknowledge that your book and ideas exist.
A: Naturally there have been no mainstream, liberal or left reviews. This is just a given and I don’t expect them to ever materialize. You know about all of this very well Phyllis, yourself being a freedom fighter that the Left has tried to push into spheres of invisibility. This is what the Left does to its political opponents when it cannot eliminate them: it simply writes them out of history and reality, just as Soviet history books simply wrote people it didn’t want to exist out of its history books.
Look at how non-conservative institutions in the literary culture – the New York Review of Books, the New Republic, the New York Times, and the Washington Post – have studiously ignored the works of David Horowitz since he moved out of leftist ranks. Tell me if I missed something, but what liberal medium in the literary culture covered your book, Phyllis, The Death of Feminism, that dealt powerfully and courageously with how Western leftist feminists have abandoned women who suffer under Islamic gender apartheid? And you are right by the implication of your question: by ignoring United in Hate, the Left is able to simply pretend that the ideas that it puts forward do not exist.
Q: Have you been invited to speak on any non-conservative radio or television programs? On any university campuses?
A: No, of course not. The Left is not interested in dialogue. At Frontpagemag.com, David Horowitz has for years been asking me to invite liberals and leftists to come and have dialogue with us, and a few of them agree sometimes, but the overwhelming majority just call me names in return or tell me to forward some kind of nasty personal attack to David. While we invite dialogue, can you imagine The Nation inviting David Horowitz for a discussion on its pages?
I may in the future give some talks on some campuses, but I’m going to need to have some body guards, seeing that radical leftists and radical Muslims aren’t to interested, in, well, let’s just say a peaceful exchange of ideas.
Q: As you well understand, I ask these questions first because your answer constitutes important political information, straight from the cultural “front.”
But now, to the book itself. How long did it take to write?
A: I have been thinking of it almost all of my life, because my guts were in pain as I witnessed leftists denouncing America, the country I hold dear, and making excuses for the worst tyrannies in the world. After 9/11, when I saw the Left celebrate the crime against humanity that the Islamists perpetrated, I decided to sit down and write something that would expose the impulse that leads leftists to embrace murderous monsters. It took me three years to write it.
Q: Tell me something about your background in terms of your family and your own educational pedigree.
A: I was born in the Soviet Union. It was a regime that massacred millions of my people. It was one of the most evil regimes in world history. My parents, Yuri and Marina Glazov, were dissidents and they stood up against the despotism. My dad was a warrior for freedom whose torch I have proudly grasped to run further with. My mother is a poet who dedicated her life to the soul’s yearning to create and to move toward the Divine. She could never stomach the totalitarian state’s lust to suffocate the human being’s imagination, individuality and creativity. And she has stood on the frontlines all of her life against that serpent in its earthly incarnation. Because of that, she has always played a huge role in my thirst for freedom and my passion to defend it.
We were able to eventually escape the Soviet hell and come to America. I fell in love with this country, and I have dedicated my life to defending it and its beautiful values.
I have a Ph.D. in History which has given me a strong foundation to make a study of the pathologies of the Left.
Q: What would you like to accomplish with this work? Give me the idealistic answer, then the realistic answer.
A: My book is written to expose the Left. I wish for United in Hate to help rip the mask off of the Left – the mask that helps leftists pretend that they are humanitarians who care about social justice. But they couldn’t care less about social justice. If they did, they would be screaming with moral indignation in the streets in defense of the victims of honor killings behind the Islamic Iron Curtain. They would be outraged at ideologies and systems that impose forced segregation and forced marriage and forced veiling on women. They would be engaged in mass demonstrations against the reality that 6,000 girls a day are genitally mutilated in the Muslim world and they would demand a denunciation of the Islamic teachings and ideologies that engender that holocaust against women.
If leftists cared about real actual people and real actual human rights, the name Aasiya Hassan would be constantly on their lips. She is the Muslim woman who was recently beheaded by her husband Muzzammil Hassan in Buffalo. Where is the Left in its demand for an international investigation of this crime? Where are the Women’s Studies Departments all across American campuses calling for committees and government and non-government bodies to immediately launch investigations into what Islamic theologies inspired and sanctioned this beheading? Where are their cries that such theologies be immediately repudiated and brought to account?
Ideally, United in Hate will help arm many people across the world with the knowledge of the leftist charade and therefore help all freedom loving people to confront and defeat the Left and its destructive agenda.
Realistically, what will the book accomplish? Well I don’t know. Even if a handful of people can understand the malicious agenda of the Left better, and even if a handful of people get inspired to get on the frontlines to fight for our freedoms — and on behalf of the persecuted peoples under Islamism, even that can make a difference in our battle for liberty, and in our struggle against despotism.
VILIFIED : TELLING LIES ABOUT ISRAEL
Israel is victim of the most vile libel. Anti-semites and Israel-haters have made the most obscene comparisons between Israel and the Nazis (l'havdil elef alafei alafim havdalot). Jews and all good people have to respond forcefully to these lies.
taken from:For Zion's Sake
AN IMAGINARY MEGA-CITY
Last month's edition of The Atlantic had an interesting story by Richard Florida about what the recession may do to different American cities. Counter-intuitively, he says the places that sinned the most may still come out on top, and above them all, New York. This is because NY is the most important of the mega-cities, clusters of megalopolises:
The University of Chicago economist and Nobel laureate Robert Lucas declared that the spillovers in knowledge that result from talent-clustering are the main cause of economic growth. Well-educated professionals and creative workers who live together in dense ecosystems, interacting directly, generate ideas and turn them into products and services faster than talented people in other places can. There is no evidence that globalization or the Internet has changed that. Indeed, as globalization has increased the financial return on innovation by widening the consumer market, the pull of innovative places, already dense with highly talented workers, has only grown stronger, creating a snowball effect. Talent-rich ecosystems are not easy to replicate, and to realize their full economic value, talented and ambitious people increasingly need to live within them.
Big, talent-attracting places benefit from accelerated rates of “urban metabolism,” according to a pioneering theory of urban evolution developed by a multidisciplinary team of researchers affiliated with the SantaFe Institute. The rate at which living things convert food into energy—their metabolic rate—tends to slow as organisms increase in size. But when the Santa Fe team examined trends in innovation, patent activity, wages, and GDP, they found that successful cities, unlike biological organisms, actually get faster as they grow. In order to grow bigger and overcome diseconomies of scale like congestion and rising housing and business costs, cities must become more efficient, innovative, and productive. The researchers dubbed the extraordinarily rapid metabolic rate that successful cities are able to achieve “super-linear” scaling. “By almost any measure,” they wrote, “the larger a city’s population, the greater the innovation and wealth creation per person.” Places like New York with finance and media, Los Angeles with film and music, and Silicon Valley with hightech are all examples of high-metabolism places.
Later, he sums it up: dense and intense means creative and successful.
Let's run with his idea for a moment. Each of his mega-cities is larger than the State of Israel. However, if you postulate a cluster of cities from Beer-Sheva at the south of Israel's metropolis, up north to Beirut then east to Damascus and down to Amman, you've got an entity that does compare, in size and population, to some of his examples. Its diversity could easily equal many of the others, what with the kaleidoscope of Jews in Israel; Palestinians (not very monolithic they, and apparently the most enterprising of the Arabs) in Israel, Jordan and (sigh) Palestine; the crazy ethnic quilt of Lebanon, and the traders of Damascus if only someone would let them be part of the rest of the world.
I know, Shimon Peres already wrote a book about the "New Middle East", and we rightfully all made fun of him for it. But his underlying point was legitimate. If the Arabs who surround us were to decide competing with the modern world is better than hating it, and living with us is preferable to futilely trying to get rid of us....
Oh well. Just a thought.
taken from:Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations (http://yaacovlozowick.blogspot.com/)
WAR CRIMES IN GAZA?
As anyone who knows me will tell, I'm not one to shy away from allegations of Israeli wrong-doing. When we do things wrong we need to recognize, understand, own up, learn for the future and move on. This in one of the most important ways to ensure our overall morality at war, since we're going to be at war for a long time yet.
Haaretz has just launched a series (so they say) of articles in which soldiers who fought in Gaza tell of wrongdoings. I'm linking to the first article here, and may link to the next. As war crimes go, these stories published so far are not particularly horrendous; they tell of lax orders and lack of care, not of an intention to kill civilians, but let's see what the next installments tell. I expect Haaretz will publish the whammies in their weekend (=Friday) edition.
taken from:Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations (http://yaacovlozowick.blogspot.com/)
UNIVERSAL TORAH: VAYAKHEL & PEKUDEY
UNIVERSAL TORAH: VAYAKHEL & PEKUDEY
By Rabbi Avraham Greenbaum
(Special additional reading for Shabbat HACHODESH: Exodus 12:1-20 giving the laws of the month of Nissan, "Ha-Chodesh", and the festival of Passover in preparation for the coming season of our Redemption. Special Haftara from Ezekiel 45:17-46:18 about the inauguration of the Future Temple.)
VAYAKHEL: Exodus 35:1-38:20,
GATHERING OF THE PEOPLE
The parshah of VAYAKHEL opens with the words: "And Moses gathered together all the Community of Israel." (Exodus 35:1). According to our sages, Moses' gathering of all of the Community took place on the day following Yom Kippur, when he had secured atonement for the sin of the golden calf.
This gathering consisted of all of ADAS YISRAEL, the Community of Israel. The Zohar (beginning of VAYAKHEL) states specifically that this Community was made up of all who remained faithful to the true Covenant of Israel, accepting no deviation from the Torah and no prophet other than Moses. The Zohar emphasizes that they could only build the Sanctuary after being purged of all the Mixed Multitude who went astray after the golden calf, which was half ox (Edom, Christianity) and half donkey (Ishmael, Islam). Both deviated from the finality of the Torah and the supremacy of Moses as G-d's true prophet, seeking to displace them in different ways by erecting new prophets and intermediaries standing between man and G-d. They and all the nations are excluded from membership of ADAS ISRAEL and from contributing to the Sanctuary.
The materials and manpower for the construction of the Sanctuary for the One G-d were to be contributed only by this Community of true Israelites, those willing to abide by the Law of Moses. This accepts no intermediary between man and G-d and permits no form or idol in worship. The only forms permitted in G-d's Sanctuary and Temple and nowhere else are those of the two golden Cherubs over the Ark of the Covenant and the other Sanctuary vessels. The only scriptures are the Sefer Torah.
The commandment to build the Sanctuary was addressed to the whole Community of Israel. Each member of this community was to have his or her personal share in this joint national project of building the Sanctuary that Moses was to announce. For the true Israelite, there is no intermediary between man and G-d. Man faces G-d directly. Each one contributes -- and each one has responsibility for his own actions. Only one who truly INTENDS to do what he does can be said to be responsible for what he does and, if he does good, fairly take the reward. Only then is there merit in his contribution.
How can one INTEND what he does? Taking precedence over all the commandments about contributing to and building the Sanctuary addressed to the Community of Israel is the commandment to observe the Shabbos -- to spend one entire day every week WILLFULLY ABSTAINING from many kinds of actions and activities.
Moses' discourse to the Community of Israel about the building of the Sanctuary opens with the following words:
"Six days labor shall be performed, and on the seventh day you will have a holy Shabbos of rest in honor of G-d: anyone who performs a labor on Shabbos shall be put to death." (Ex. 35:2).
It is a commandment to labor -- "Six days labor shall be performed". Part of that same commandment is the commandment to observe the Shabbos by willfully abstaining from labor when so commanded. So stringent is this commandment that its willful infringement is punishable by execution. The example of forbidden labor given in the Torah text is that of kindling fire on the Sabbath day, which is infringed by acts as simple as flicking on a light-switch, lighting a cooker or starting a car ignition.
The ability to observe Shabbos and the ability to engage in truly meaningful labor on the other days of the week are bound up together. Only when a person can consciously abstain from action and willfully NOT perform a particular range of actions as instructed by G-d on Shabbos can he be said to have true INTENTION when he does perform the action in honor of G-d on the six days of the week. Only then does his action have true merit.
Only the observance of the commandment to abstain from labor on the Seventh Day in honor of G-d gives true meaning to the building of the Sanctuary in the wilderness and the Temple in Jerusalem in G-d's honor.
* * *
PRAXIS
The greater part of our parshah of VAYAKHEL is devoted to a detailed description of how Betzalel and his fellow craftsmen made the Sanctuary and its vessels in accordance with the plan whose details we studied three parshahs earlier in TERUMAH. While TERUMAH taught how they were to be made when they were still on the level of thought -- BE-KOACH, in POTENTIALITY -- our parshah of VAYAKHEL teaches how they came to made BE-PHO'AL, in ACTUALITY, on the level of ASIYAH, action.
It is significant that all of the laws of what constitutes forbidden MELACHAH, labor, on Shabbos are learned from the 39 archetypal forms of labor that were involved in the making of the Sanctuary on the six days of the week. It is only when we abstain from performing forbidden labor on Shabbos BECAUSE IT IS SHABBOS that performing those labors "for G-d" on the six weekdays can be said to be truly intentional and meritorious. The labors that are forbidden on Shabbos are called MELECHET MACHSHEVET, a labor that involves MACHSHAVAH -- i.e. it is intentional.
When we observe the Shabbos FOR G-D, abstaining from forbidden labors because that is His command, this gives the intentional labors that we perform on the other six days of the week in pursuit of our livelihood and all our other needs the sanctity of BUILDING THE SANCTUARY. Our intention in pursuing all these needs is that we may serve G-d, pray and keep the commandments. Our going about our daily lives in our homes, at work and elsewhere is all part of BUILDING THE TEMPLE, a dwelling place for G-d's presence. For each one of us has our own contribution to make to the construction of this Temple. Each person's mitzvah and good intention help to draw G-d's Indwelling Presence into this world and within the sanctity of our homes.
According to a tradition handed down by the Kabbalah, Betzalel accomplished the "labors" required to build and construct the sanctuary vessels through manipulations of the 22 Hebrew Letters of Creation, as taught in Sefer Yetzirah. Successful manipulation of the letters to produce actual physical constructions in the world without performing any physical action requires the greatness of a Betzalel or the Maharal of Prague, who created a Golem. Nevertheless, even a simple Israelite has the power to "manipulate" the letters of creation by using them to compose prayers to G-d to bless his material efforts in the actual world of Asiyah with success. With the help of G-d, our very words themselves have the power to serve as vessels within which G-d's presence can dwell in this world. Through our words we contribute to building the Sanctuary -- the House of Prayer -- to G-d.
May we soon be worthy to contribute to the Building of G-d's House in Jerusalem quickly in our days. Amen.
* * *
PEKUDEY:
Exodus 38:21-40:38.
A LESSON IN GOOD GOVERNMENT
The parshah of PEKUDEY brings the second book of the Torah, Exodus, to an end, concluding the subject of the construction of the Sanctuary, which occupies the last five of its eleven parshahs -- almost half the book.
"These are the ACCOUNTS (PEKUDEY) of the Sanctuary." (Ex. 35:21). Following the detailed explanation we have had in the previous four parshahs about the form of the Sanctuary and its vessels, we are now given a full "breakdown" of the "budget" of this national project -- how much gold, silver and bronze, etc.-- together with an exact account of what they were used for.
Much of the silver came from a "head-tax" on the entire nation, while the other materials were contributed by many different people, some wealthy, some poor. All were entitled to know what was done with their contributions. The Torah sets everything forth clearly for all to see.
This Torah lesson about "transparency" in good government is particularly timely today, when corruption is rife in business and government all over the world, and literally billions of dollars of tax-payers' money find their way into private pockets.
When Moses was later accused of bad government (Numbers 16:13-14), he could stand up and pray: "Do not turn to their offering: not a single donkey have I taken from them and I have not harmed one of them".
* * *
THE CENTRAL IMPORTANCE OF THE TZADDIK
The "accounts" of the Sanctuary project include blue, purple and scarlet dyes, one of the most important uses of which was in the garments of the High Priest. This leads us into the detailed account contained in our parshah of how these garments were actually made by Betzalel and his fellow craftsmen. This description of the making of the priestly garments in ACTUALITY, on the level of ASIYAH, parallels the description in parshas TETZAVEH of the form of the garments when they were in POTENTIAL, in the Divine Will. [Similarly, the description of the actual making of the Sanctuary and its vessels in the previous parshah, VAYAKHEL, parallels the description of their form in TERUMAH.]
The world of ASIYAH attains its perfection when we take its best materials -- gold, precious stones, rich, colorful fabrics -- and use them to make the Sanctuary and priestly garments, which give expression to eternal truths about G-d's relationship to the Creation, and how man draws close to G-d. The description of the making of the priestly garments puts the spotlight on Aaron. It is the Cohen-priest, the archetypal Tzaddik, who secures atonement through the Sanctuary services and through his very garments.
Yet the central figure in our parshah as a whole is in fact Moses, the Lawgiver, who established the Sanctuary and the entire system of atonement within which the Cohen functions. Only Moses had the power to take all the different component parts of the Sanctuary, put them together and make them into one.
Our parshah lists in great detail all the component parts of the Sanctuary that were brought to Moses on their completion. The work had been done at great speed. The command to bring the materials was given on 11th Tishri, the day after Moses' third descent from Sinai, while everything was ready only seventy-five days later, on 25th Kislev. Nevertheless, all the component parts lay there for three months until the appointed time came for the seven-day induction of the priests, followed by the consecration of the Sanctuary for regular services on 1st Nissan.
When the appointed time came, Moses alone was instructed to erect the Sanctuary, place all the vessels in position, and conduct the very first services. (Moses officiated as the Priest during the seven-day induction of Aaron and his sons.) Our parshah tells how Moses performed the superhuman task of erecting the Sanctuary all by himself. The detailed account of Moses' induction of Aaron and his sons into the priesthood and the Consecration of the Sanctuary is taken up by the Torah in Leviticus (in parshas TZAV and SHEMINI).
Moses' unique role in putting everything together and erecting one Sanctuary is a second lesson in good government besides that of the need for transparent cleanliness, as discussed above. The very foundation of good government and organization is that it should be in the hands of a true Sage, whose only purpose is to serve G-d, as exemplified by Moses (who single-handedly erected the Sanctuary) and King David (who designed and collected all the materials for the Temple). Our generation is waiting for this true Sage to be revealed.
It is hopefully a sign of the imminence of Melech HaMashiach that today, the temporal government has been taken over by unbelievers, as predicted in the Talmud (Sotah 49b): "In the 'footprint' period before Mashiach. government will turn into atheism". Nevertheless, even in this time of exile, as we dream of the building the physical Temple, we are daily engaged in building a spiritual Sanctuary: G-d's House of Prayer. This is our true national project, and it is accomplished even today when we all contribute our prayers.
In the words of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov:
"Every single prayer that each one prays is a 'limb' of the Shechinah (Divine Presence). All of the 'limbs' and component parts of the Sanctuary are 'limbs' of the Shechinah. And not one Israelite has the power to put all the limbs and parts together, each one in its proper place, except for Moses alone. For this reason, it is necessary to bind all our prayers to the Tzaddik of the generation, as it is written, 'And they brought the Sanctuary to MOSES' (Ex. 39:33). And the Tzaddik knows how to put the parts together to make a complete structure, as it says there, 'And MOSES erected the Sanctuary' (Ex. 40:18). It seems as if every day we are crying out to G-d yet we are not saved, and some of our people, the Children of Israel, err in their hearts thinking that all the prayers are in vain. But in truth the Tzaddikim in every generation take all the prayers and lift them up, putting each component and each limb into its proper place, building the structure of the Shechinah little by little, until finally the entire structure will be complete, and then Mashiach will come and finish everything." (Likutey Moharan Vol. 1, Lesson 2).
Rabbi Nachman's above teaching draws out the Messianic allusions contained in the conclusion of this week's parshah of PEKUDEY, when Moses FINISHED the work. This was on the 1st of Nissan, when "the Cloud covered the Tent of Meeting and the Glory of G-d filled the Sanctuary." (Ex. 40:33-4).
The month of Nissan -- in the spring, time of rebirth -- has always and will always be a time of redemption for us. As we now conclude our study of the second book of the Torah, the "Book of Names" -- SHEMOS, Exodus, the Torah focuses our minds on the redemptive quality of the month of Nissan. This is signified by the fact that it was on 1st Nissan that the Shechinah came to dwell among the Children of Israel with the inauguration of the Sanctuary.
The book of Exodus started in a state of exile: "These are the names of the Children of Israel who came to Egypt with Jacob, each with his house." (Ex. 1:1). After their grueling servitude followed by the plagues that afflicted the Egyptians, the light of redemption truly began to shine on the 1st of Nissan: "And G-d spoke to Moses and to Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying: This month is for you the first of the months." (Exodus 12:1-2). After narrating the drama of leaving Egypt, the Splitting of the Sea, the Giving of the Torah and the loss of innocence with the sin of the calf, Exodus concludes with the structure of the World of Repair as exemplified in the form of the Sanctuary.
It was when the Shechinah came to dwell in the completed Sanctuary on 1st Nissan that "He called to Moses and G-d spoke to him from the Tent of Meeting." These are the opening words of the third book of the Torah, Leviticus, which introduce the commandments relating to the sacrifices that were to be offered in the Sanctuary. These portions were revealed to Moses on 1st Nissan.
* * *
In the merit of completing this cycle in the study of SHEMOS and entering the book of VAYIKRA, may we see the true Sage and Leader of the Children of Israel revealed quickly in our times. Amen.
CHAZAK! CHAZAK! VE-NIS-CHAZEK!
"Be strong! Be strong -- and we'll get strong!"
Shabbat Shalom! Chodesh Tov UMevorach
Avraham Yehoshua Greenbaum
--
AZAMRA INSTITUTE
PO Box 50037 Jerusalem 91500 Israel
Website: www.azamra.org
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