Wings of the Same Chicken

The forces that put President Bush into office are the same forces that put Obuma into office and are the same forces that will put the next American president into office! It makes no difference whether it is Obuma or Romney that will win in November because - both parties are owned by the same forces - both parties, as configured in their upper echelons, subserve the same goal. The only difference is Obuma will take the hidden agenda much farther and much faster, whereas Romney, also in their pockets, will further their cause at a slower pace.

Whoever wins the election will only win because that which is better for the Jew will be the decisive factor, because God controls its outcome. It's only that the Jew may not realize how the win would benefit him. For example, in the last election, as much as Obama hates the Jews, he did the Israelis a big favor, although they did not quite get it. For it was Obuma who finally weaned the servile Israeli off of hope in America, off of thinking he "needed" America and could rely on America. Although Netanyahu still grovels at Obuma's feet because he doesn't yet get it, Israelis have Obuma to thank for making them realize that what they need is trust in God and not faith in some foreign savior.

President Bush and President Obuma may appear as "right wing" and "left wing", respectively, but make no mistake - THEY ARE WINGS OF THE SAME CHICKEN! These two are the last two links in a long chain of presidential links whose goal is to divest people of their political freedom, of their money, of their free enterprise and of their free way of life. Romney or Obuma will follow this same axis of evil, only one will do it more discreetly and secretly, whereas the other will openly go full force with arrogant abuse of power (like, e.g., go after the private guy, or beef up the "TSA" at malls or roadblocks).

How can we be sure both are cut from the same cloth? Because the Republican party could not produce a sharp conservative to represent them. Instead they nominated a political dunce. The "Tea-party" conservatives, after their surprise gains in 2010, were effectively shut out. Any serious conservative candidate who could have turned the American ship around from heading into disaster has been eliminated. Palin, Cain and Santorum were derailed. Probably their lives or those of their loved ones were threatened. Just as sure as Breitbart's life was taken, and as sure as the medical examiner in Breitbart's sudden death was assassinated. America now has ruthless killers steering the country.

How is it certain no real change is on the 2012 horizon? Despite a false birth-certificate, a missing draft-card from the files, long-standing associations with subversive or hateful elements, and evidence of real criminality spewing from his office, the imposter president's presence still dominates and all opposition is virtually shut down. Not because Obuma himself can do it - but because those who placed him into this office are in control, in all the right places, strangling America to death. Focusing on Obuma the man, and not on his handlers, is wearing blinders; Your myopia will then miss the real show. You'll not grasp all the strangeness that's been going on, nor that which will be gushing down the pike pretty soon.

Both President Bush and President Obuma are mere pawns in the hands of their managers who architect behind the scenes. Long ago these people took over the national helm. They are the ones who placed Bush and Obuma into office. They are the "global money strategists" who seek to create a New World Order.

Bush and Obuma superficially come across as different in that their political parties are different and their respective "views" are different, one "conservative" and the other "liberal", but to believe they represent different strategies is to misinterpret the landscape. In fact, each pushes their same controllers' agenda, only one under the guise of a "Democrat's" platform while the other does so under the guise of a "Republican's" platform.

America's political system can be compromised by a powerful oligarchy, and therefore, much as it was good for most of while it lasted, for most people, it suffers because secretly it can be undermined by conspiratorial elements who can take it over to the detriment of the populace. The Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution held their sway quite well over two centuries. But because these were articles of men and not of God's absolute authority, they perforce could not remain eternally ideal. It could be and was often compromised. Soon that vulnerability will transform the original system into an unbearable culture or an enslaving environment for the common man.

This is why Torah remains the only cement, the only strong glue, that can be relied upon to keep the Jewish people and its religion strong and vibrant. No matter the oppression Jews faced, no matter their scattering across practically all countries on the globe, no matter they were tiny minorities, Torah held them all together. This is the only reason why the "Democratic state" of Israel stands today; Not because Israel's so-called Democracy (which it isn't) is healthy, but because Torah therein has many adherents. Otherwise, God forbid, Israel long ago would have gone to the hostile dogs that seek to devour it.

Gentiles too have in Torah a chance to redeem themselves. Socialism died when they realized the hollowness of this once-thought-ideal "ism". Now "Democracy" too is dying the same death; People realize this man-made ism also is an empty suit a big crook can fit into, a system amenable to trampling human rights. People worshipped Socialism before it died, and now people realize Democracy too is a false god. The only way Gentiles can save their day will be to turn to Hashem and follow the 7 Noahide Laws.

The Redemptive Era - Phase One

The Rebbe told us Moshiach's era has dawned. But many of us detect no change from how it was years ago. So what gives?

The Rebbe told us to "open our eyes", that is, to see that, in fact, we passed the threshold from the old world into the new one. This prefatory scene, however, despite its momentous significanace, appears to have affected the world with no fundamental change. We must conclude, therefore, the process has to incrementally progress to full-fledged completion, at least from the outset. So, despite what the surface reveals, we are nevertheless in the early stages of the Redemptive Era's development.

This is what Maimonides said about the first phase of Moshiach's era;

עולם כמנהגו נוהג

The world will proceed as usual.

This means the current events unfolding before our eyes spell "The Redemptive Era". If you see Israel being surrounded by more and larger threats than before, you hear the dog barking but he doesn't bite. If you fear for Israel's future, realize Arabs may well end up devouring each other instead, just as Egyptian first-borns of yesteryear murdered fellow Egyptians and freed the Jewish nation. If Jews seem threatened for being Jewish around the world, notice also how a protective glass shields them. If Israel seems inundated with foreigners and Gentiles, notice too the Jewish population remains strong and safe, and leave future concerns for God to handle. If some Jews suffer poverty, notice it is merely relative to an imagined wealth that isn't necessary. If you find many Jews remain far beyond the call of Torah duty, notice too a great wave of new oncomers has joined the Torah fold, against all odds - if judging by the strict code they are yielding to. And if most of Israelis remain as yet unorthodox, see nevertheless how the majority now believe in God and in Torah's holiness, despite the incessant bias from the media and government policies, and therefore have but a thin line that separates them from true Torah convictions.

Appearances remain nothing more than appearances. Jewish faith can change appearances and effectively cancel the apparent threats. The Jewish thought process has powerful ramifications; It can now actually nullify threats from transpiring. This is now how the redemption unfolds before our eyes - it looks like it will be bad, but it is, in fact, the concealed way of actually being fantastic.

"Opening your eyes" includes UNDERSTANDING that it is up to you to change the world with YOUR THOUGHTS because YOU CAN CHANGE THE WORLD. A Gentile cannot. Jews are God's representative people. Jews therefore have the inherent power to change the world faster by GOOD THOUGHTS and GOOD DEEDS. This is the power intrinsic in contemporary Jewry.

Hail the Rebbe King Moshiach who has left us with this legacy of power to bring on the Redemption. Will it and it will come to be - via you! Think good - and it therefore will be good!

Who else can change it? Gentiles? Like those who mouth rap "music" with angry, stupid rhyming? Who can change it, a culture where youngsters walk around with their pants below their waists, exposing their underwear? Can you expect a people that allow abortive killing in the millions to bring goodness to the world? Can a society of loose morals bring about this sublime change? This Gentile generation and its decadent culture is quickly dying, taking America down to a decrepit state. Once God was its central platform, as in "In God we trust" or as in "endowed by the Creator", but that has been gradually chiseled away since the country's inception.

Look at pictures of city dwellers or even Hollywood films of a few decades ago. You immediately detect the change in modesty and nobility. Like Germany of 60 years ago, Americans profess to be on the right track but you can see brutish character wherever you turn; Any polish is only skin deep. The sanctity of family, once the lynchpin of a healthy society, has withered into perverse "relationships" - like "same-sex marriage". The medical institution has become a legitimatized industry of drug-pushers. Racial tensions are rising. Anti-Semitism again simmers. The dollar has been purposely brought to ruin. Fascists have taken control of the White House.

The god worshipped as "Democracy" is dead.

Only the orthodox Jew has the power to think good to make things better. Only the orthodox Jew can enable the Gentile to regain some of his power by teaching him to conform with the 7 Noahide laws as sanctioned by Moses. If he conforms, this remains his only avenue of hope - to align with Jewish interests. America is tailspinning irreversibly into an abyss of misery! Only God's overt lifeline can now be summoned by the Gentile for direct help! Woe to the blind who seek salvation from false gods and plodding the dogma of spurious faiths.

(I say the "orthodox" Jew because only orthodoxy is valid. The likes of "conservative" or "reform" or "reconstructive" or other "plastic surgical" types of reformists have no steel anchor embedded in Torah; All they have is some malleable romanticism with but no committment or proper respect for Torah's dictates or its origin. Reformist Jews more likely act against the better interests of society by seeking to appease or conform with the decadent Gentile element. Reformist Jews are Jewish quacks!

They fear being genuine Jews. They fear to pray as Jews prayed for millennia, as dictated by our sages. They lack faith in God - in His eternal providence. They seek to be "modern", as if contemporary lifestyle holds an advantage over that of previous era, as if our sages had no idea of what the future held. So they improvise their own nonsense and rules of conduct, like forbidding the wearing of kipahs in their "temple", or to have mixed seating, or creating lady rabbis, or calling up couples to the Torah reading, or to replace cantors with tape recorders. They desecrate the Sabbath and desecrate holy tradition. They fear to offend the Gentile, thinking - wrongly - the Gentile prefers a "modern", assimilated Jew over an "ultra" orthodox Jew whose ways could only stultify them with ancient customs. In other words, these reformists are birds of the same feather, no matter to what extent they deviate, because any deviation leads to appalling results - like, for example, the "conservative rabbis'" recent consensus in support of "same-sex marriage" - an outright abomination! These quacks all lack pride in authentic God-given Judaism, or, simply no nothing at all about it.)

The orthodox Jew is the cog of society's wheel. Whereas before the Redemptive Era that fact hadn't been obvious, but now, if we "open our eyes", we can readily sense the divine providence that follows this Jew's every breath, thought and step.

A Fool in the Making

If you want to clearly understand what the Facebook fiasco is all about, watch this insightful video. Do not forget we have a "community organizer" and Fascist mole running the White House.

(If Zuckerberg did not care to break his link with the Jewish people - that's his real fiasco - because all children he'd have with his Gentile wife will not be Jewish, he would care even less to break links with traditional capitalism and provide the government the reins it wants to control much of his enterprise. Money-wealth often chases a fool.)

A Brooklyn Lady Tells it Like it is

What Women's Media Needs to Know About Chassidic Women

When you slam Orthodox Jews because you think you're defending or somehow liberating the women of our communities, you're actually doing us a huge disservice.

Hi. I'm Chaya, and I am a Chassidic Jewish woman. I am also a media professional with a degree in Women's Studies from a large, very liberal university (magna cum laude, baby!).

In the past few days, I've been reading the backlash against "the asifa," a recent mass meeting of religious Jewish men meant to draw a few boundaries around Internet use in our homes (meaning religious Jewish homes; not your house).

Whenever religious Jews make a stink about some cultural issue, the media moves in on it with a bizarre kind of vengeance. Like yesterday, Katie J.M. Baker published an article on Jezebel about the event, in which she actually compared Jewish men to ants!

See: "While men in traditional Orthodox garb filed into Citi Field as steadily as a never-ending line of ants approaching an anthill…" Um, where have I seen Jews compard to insects before? Oh, wait, WWII.

As a resident of Brooklyn, the epicenter of all things hipster and the home of many, many clad-in-black religious Jews, I'd like to clarify a few things for all of you. Here are a few things you need to know about Chassidic women:

1. We are not imprisoned.

The last time I checked (which was right now), I am free to do whatever I want to do. Nobody is making me do anything. If I want to leave the community I live in, whether to go grocery shopping or to put on a pair of pants and go to a disco and snort coke, I can. Nobody is going to stop me. Would I wear a pair of skinny jeans and snort coke in a disco? No. Why?

2. We like ourselves the way we are. And most of us are happy.

Poor Deborah Feldman got the short end of the stick. She got a dysfunctional family and a crummy school. But listen: That happens everywhere. How many (non-Jewish or secular Jewish) friends of yours come from dysfunctional families and crappy schools and just couldn't wait to leave home? Did they represent your entire hometown?

We call becoming lax in religious observance and adopting a secular lifestyle "frying out." People fry out all the time. Most of us, though, feel like we are leading pretty rewarding lives.

Look at it this way: When your friends go to India to learn how to meditate and come home "leading spiritual lives" and suddenly won't go out for barbecue with you, you think it is cool. Your friend is leading a spiritual life. Spiritual lives involve boundaries and not just doing whatever your body feels like at that second. We lead spiritual lives. Leading a spiritual life is rewarding.

3. We find our husbands attractive.

You know those guys with the long beards and the black coats who are always reading something in Hebrew on the train and you're kind of freaked out by them? So they're our husbands.

My husband has a very impressive beard. He wears a black suit, and a kippah and a black hat. He is also the most handsome, hot, attractive man in the entire world to me. Nobody forced me to marry him. My father did not trade me to him for a flock of sheep.

Fun fact: Jewish law prohibits marrying someone who you're not attracted to. Another fun fact: In the Jewish marriage contract, one of the conditions of marriage is that a husband is obligated to sexually satisfy his wife. If my husband would deny "conjugal rights" to me, that's grounds for divorce. Pretty effing progressive if you ask me.

4. We have been happily shagging for millennia. Jews never had the concept of "original sin."

Judaism is the original sex-positive culture. What? You heard me right. Y'all need "sex-positive Third wave feminism" to help you feel like having sex is OK. Jews bypassed the whole Christian idea that all sex, even in marriage, is a sin. And Protestant asceticism just never happened for us.

G-d likes it when a married Jewish couple has sex. Jews never got a message that sex is dirty. We think sex is good. It is so good that having it is actually a commandment. No, we cannot shag "anything that moves." No, we can't sleep around or have sex outside of marriage. But once you're married, sex is totally cool and awesome and G-d likes it.

I don't know who made up the dumb story about having sex through a sheet, but let's bury that old chestnut now. Having sex through a sheet is actually prohibited by Torah and we are commanded explicitly by G-d to get totally naked to shag. Just in case you're wondering.

5. Mikveh is awesome. We don't go to the mikveh because we're "dirty."

Holy moly! How many times have I heard feminists totally misread the Jewish practice of abstaining from sex during one's period and then immersing in a mikveh (a ritual bath)? It is hard to explain this one to people who grew up in Puritan America.

When you hear the word "impure," it has a totally different meaning than the meaning it has in the context of Torah. In Torah, you're dealing with states of being that are related to the service in the Beis HaMikdash (the Great Temple). It's called "ritual purity" and "ritual impurity." These states of being have nothing to do with being dirty or clean. You could, in fact, not shower for days and roll in the mud and you'd still be "ritually pure."

Are you confused? You should be. We think about these things in a paradigm that is so not the dominant paradigm.

All you need to know is that the practice of not touching your husband when you're on your period and then immersing in a mikveh is awesome. Most women's mikvehs are like spas. Picture the most beautiful spa you've ever been to, in a quiet all-girls safe space, and that's mikveh.

Incidentally, Orthodox Jewish women have one of the lowest rates of cervical and other reproductive cancers because of…wait for it…these customs. We do not have sex at times that our vaginas are vulnerable to infection (such as right after birth). Because we do internal checks for menstrual blood the week after we finish menstruating, the rate of early detection of (G-d forbid) tumors and cysts in the vagina is very high.

You think we are sexually repressed and afraid of our own bodies just because we dress modestly? Every single Chassidic woman you see sticks her own fingers in her own vagina at least twice a day for 7 days of the month. The chicks in my women's studies classes didn't even do that.

In conclusion…

When you slam Orthodox Jews because you think you're defending or somehow liberating the women of our communities, you're actually doing us a huge disservice. When you slam Jewish men, you're slamming us, too. Not in my name, gals.

The next time you see a Jewish lady in a wig pushing a baby carriage through Brooklyn, I hope you won't see an imprisoned waif who is just waiting to be liberated. Cuz we're not like that. We're strong. We're invincible. And we make delicious kugel. L'chaim, chicas!

Original link - here.

The Twilight Before Redemption

Like it or not, Islam is on the rise - radical Islam, of course, because they always predominate. It is now well embedded in the U.S. too, and soon enough that fact will become obvious, as obvious as it is to the Europeans. The fact that after 9/11 we see greater - not less - Muslim penetration, so much so the White House itself shills for the Islamic blueprint, like officially turning NASA into an agency for outreach to Moslem countries, ought to be enough of an indication.

Israel too, after its people have come out scorched from a European inferno, cannot right itself in the eyes of the nations. And as you know, we had leftists run our Jewish nation for most if not all this time, literally bending over backwards to appease the nations and pacify the enemy. And what did it help? What could easily be the best little country in the world to live in, for Jews, is, relatively speaking, still a disaster, where a wrong turn at some traffic signal, if you can't read Arabic, might bring you straight into the throes of hateful rock-throwers eyeing to smash your car and kill you. And the police of Israel, with their tail between their feet, will write a report. Where parts of the country must still remain Jew-free. Where, if you happen to live on land where a former administration told you to go live, a current administration may well drag you out of and hand your property over to the enemy. Where many kids growing up know more about Madonna than they do about Queen Esther.

And what about Israel's immediate neighbors. Syria gets help from a wealthy Iran and sinister Russia, who's parked some battleships along Syria's shores. Belligerent Iran is near nuclear-capable. Egypt looks to go berserk radical. Jordan is raising its snout because it thinks America is abandoning Israel (they are right!). Saudi Arabia is still pumping oil and God keeps their spigots wide open. Lebanon and Gaza are hotbeds of hate and lethal threat. Turkey is itching for action. The noose around Israel's neck appears to be tightening again.

Will it get better? For Jews the future picture looks black. The world could care less. Even in the U.S., where Jews flourished for many years, the Islamic serpent is shedding its old skin, soon to rear his ugly head, while the inidigenous Esau-hater of Jews will add fuel to the fire. In Israel, the left, with their money coffers always being filled, and the crooked elements that pander to the enemy, still have their hands on the helm.

All in all, the prospects certainly look awfully bleak for the Jew, wherever he may be. Unless, of course you believe God runs the world and is pushing Jews, nay, nudging them more and more to consider Him, consider His Torah, consider His commandments and consider Jewish pride - because, as is becoming palpable, the future of Moshiach is all but upon us. We stand literally inside of the threshold of the Era of Ultimate Redemption!

When it finally comes down to it and God separates the evil from the cauldron of world events, how many righteous Gentiles do you think will remain steadfast friends of the Jewish people? We'll be able to count them on one hand.

As for my own take on the many menacing countries surrounding Israel, it seems a lot worse than it really is; As bad as it looks for the tiny Jewish country, the Arabs will be kept to just barking, but God will make sure they cannot bite.

"And a redeemer is coming to Zion, and to those who return from iniquity, says God." (Is. 59:20). And, as Rashi often teaches us in Torah, "says God" expresses God's oath to the Jewish people.

It's All in the Mind

People don't quite understand just how powerful the mind can exert its influence on the body and spirit. You can have wealth and health because - it's all in the mind!

(And it always helps to have someone who believes in your potential.)

How to Counter Homosexuality - The Scourge of Society

Someone has to say something against the troubling trend in the U.S., and even in Israel, to "accept" homosexuality, or being politically correct to tolerate it. If conservative circles also won't speak out against this depravity, at least here I can tell the "surfer" Torah's perspective of it.

Torah shows utter contempt for male homosexuality!

"Do not lie with a man as you would a woman; That is a disgusting perversion." (Lev.18:22)

"Were a man to lie with a male as he would a female, both commit a disgusting perversion ...." (Lev.20:13)

Both these times that it makes mention of homosexuality, Torah also mentions bestiality. No wonder homosexuals despise Torah, at least those who know of this prohibition.

Even without knowing Torah's abhorrence of it, the very physiology of the act speaks for itself. First of all, because homosexuality is unproductive, inasmuch as no children can thereby be created, nature itself testifies to this unnatural physical alliance. A society promoting such perverse habits would grind to a halt in a few generations.

Secondly, the involved anatomy speaks for itself. The release of sperm into the path of excrement belies the value of this vile act. They take the orifice of human, contaminated waste as a replacement for the corridor of birth. This behavior renders sperm the equivalent of dung, rather than confer advantage to the seed's potential.

Human nature forces upon homosexuals a cognitive dissonance, a spiritual discomfort from being in conflict with their physical endowments. Whereas all the world propagates naturally under man-woman alliances, these men acquire beliefs and emotions that conflict with those of normal people. They become promiscuous, arrogant and void of morality. They become averse to holy aspirations. Because they shun procreation, they lack concern for children - and therefore for other people, or for the future of civilization. What's more, they can easily slide into pornography, pedophilia, sadism or bestiality.

Man's natural emotional attachment to a woman homosexuals transfer to males instead. This explains the superficial affectations they display to other males, but there is a deeper consequence. His psychology suffers because man's nature is predominantly to give, whereas a woman's nature is predominantly to receive. Yet here, in a perversion of roles, a giver tries to become a receiver, and whatever giving occurs is effectively nil because the receptivity is artificial.

To relieve mental stress, they seek to coerce people to accept their orientation, for the more people they can convince this perversion is "normal", the more their own deviate course resembles the norm.

Because grown men cannot be convinced to abandon a sane mentality, commonly - the homosexuals' victims are innocent children or unsuspecting youth! Homosexual adults secretly salivate when a youngster innocently walks within their proximity. Homosexuals are, in fact, a peril to society.

As long as they can indulge with selfish glee, they could care less if they tear down society's mores. Now that they have "liberal" politicians to back this perversion with sanctions, their next goal is to institute "same-sex marriage". Little by little they bring chaos to civilization. While they are at it, they also are in the forefront that fights against religious tolerance and for the rights of pornographers.

One good way to hide from people the truth of homosexual perversion is to refrain from the word "homosexual" and replace it with a "better-sounding" label - being "gay". Of course it has nothing to do with gaiety but those pushing the liberal agenda continue to use and thus endorse the euphemism. What better way to whitewash the ugly?

Rationalization is most often the recourse taken by the homosexual to explain his "tendencies". After all, he claims, his homosexual desires are innate. He may as well tell us man-woman attraction is unnatural.

See how arrogant they can be! Never mind that nature disagrees, for, like we said, were it "natural", life would come to a halt, genealogy would serve no purpose, and sperm would hold no advantage over feces. And never mind the marvelous workings built into nature just to ensure reproductive capability.

But they also negate Torah, the word of God, that twice calls their behavior "a disgusting perversion". Would a benevolent God impose upon His creatures an edict to go against their instincts? Why would God compare it to bestiality? D0 they claim bestiality as innate too?

We must show homosexuals mercy. Usually they begin their perversion innocently. It could have been in a boys' school, where boys romp free in shower stalls, for example. It could have been a roommate's sideswipe. It could have been virtually any inadvertent behavior that builds on itself. Often these first encounters become quashed in due time. But the most common way is to be duped by an adult pervert. We must show mercy because it might be difficult to unlearn this sordid habit. Only the inveterate, brazen homosexual who upholds respect for this vulgarity should be regarded as evil, those who arrogantly wave their banner of deceitful "pride".

Their "liberal" mindset seeks to destroy society's moral fabric. A recent example was New York city's "gay parade". This was a march of adults. But who did they stand in as "the grand marshal" of the parade? A 10-year old boy! The poor kid probably believed he achieved greatness thereby. The adult organizers not only did not care children bystanders would see this parade, they wanted other children to watch and "learn". What could be more loathsome than to see perverts openly dragging civilization into the sewer?

On the day these perverts have their "Gay Pride Parade", normal people also should go out on the streets with their families and make a parade of their own, an "Express Relief Parade" - to express their relief for being normal, happy families, which isn't something we ought to take for granted as long as perversion remains so blatant a stain on society.

One point deserves repetition. Homosexuality takes the sanctity out of marriage. The holy union between man and wife, that which God ordained for the sake of procreation and for the union of two "halves", they find irreverent. The irreverence generalizes across all their behaviors. They prefer a measure of anarchy to destabilize normal society, so you find many of them secretly inviting Islamic terrorism by advocating political correctness. You find many of them in the educational system encouraging false science and integrating this into children's and collegiate textbooks. For example, many subscribe to the global warming hoax and certainly they champion hollow "evolutionism" to deny God and creation. These restless souls often are preoccupied in all matters that negate sanctity of freedom, of worship, of property rights, or the sanctity of anything "endowed by the Creator with certain unalienable rights" that keep a society from disintegrating.

Israel - Why All the Focus?

The same picture, depending on how you choose to look at it.

- - - - -

Is it not remarkable so many Arab/Muslim countries, comprising much of two continents, with more land mass than Israel one-thousand fold, cannot concentrate on normal living as long as that tiny sliver of land called Israel remains viable? All those people in all those countries just can't gain their composure unless they sweep the few Jews left there into the sea.

Just as amazing is the rest of the world's focus on tiny Israel; Instead of telling Arabs/Muslims to "Shut up!" and "Get on with your lives!", they too, across all the continents, just can't mind their own business; They feel they have the right to meddle in the Arab-Israeli "problem".

So the whole world practically, in one way or another, just can't keep to their own affairs without imposing upon tiny, itsy-bitsy Israel.

To be sure, scattered here and there, proponents and sympathizers of tiny Israel exist, but, on the whole, it's usually a "bullying" affair. What a phenomenon to behold! As if among 10,000 people in a room, one, who's trying to keep a low profile, irks them all.

So - why all the focus? Why are all eyes around the world continually drawn to the Jewish land? Why all this fuss over Jews all the time?

Jews short on historical perspective, those who share horizons with their Gentile counterparts who see what exists today and not what transpired over centuries and millennia, cannot be expected to understand this puzzle. These Jews see only the tip of their own historical iceberg. Therefore they take this bullying from around the world to heart. They therefore cow to liberal elements who attribute legitimacy to Arab claims. They therefore offer up compromises to appease non-Arab countries that exert pressure.

In contrast, Jews who hold Torah and its prophecies close to their bosom, see in panoramic scope what takes account of the traditional Judaic perspective. These therefore take comfort from all this badgering. They see the same bullying, the same pressures, only they see all this as if they were sitting on clouds above the din looking down below seeing history unfold before their eyes just as predicted in the Holy Books.

They know the long history of Jewish travail and its ultimate purpose, to refine the world, much like the refinement of gold from earth's raw ore, to prepare the people of the earth for a loftier experiential purpose. They know and now finally sense the proximity of Moshiach and the Era of Ultimate Redemption soon to burst forth onto the world theater. They saw and felt the birth pangs of this utopia with the passing of the Holocaust; They noted the redemption of the Holy Land, after it purposely laid bare two thousand years waiting for their return; They saw Torah orthodoxy return and strike deep roots, thriving against the strong winds of assimilative forces; They saw how against mighty odds tiny Israel miraculously scored victories in every single war it was forced to fight.

And now they watch these last few moments of exile, as much of the world scrimmages against its people, how this little country remains in the headlines, no matter what week or day of the year it is. Something obviously is coming down the pike, and it can only spell "Era of Final and Ultimate Redemption". For this reason Torah-true Jews take comfort.

They know divine providence is forcing the world's attention on the one people whose fate will touch and involve own lives, for they will encounter cataclysmic changes, be they benign or mortal, as a new world order is ushered in, one with more tangible divine expression - one from which the good will remain standing firm and evil will be obliterated.

The bickering serves a purpose. Sides must be taken. No one can remain apathetic. They will have to align with either the good or the bad. A separation must be operative before extraction of the unwanted element is disposed of. Good and evil sides will become distinct.

This focus serves to generate busy interactions whose ultimate purpose is to separate the impure from the pure. Thereby, when the right moment arises, evil will be vanquished and the Jewish people and her true friends will hail and rejoice in a world liberated from evil once and for all.

The Holocaust in Support of Rebellion

A Jewish Author wrote:

"This idea of God as half-security blanket ... is completely antithetical to the idea of God I was raised with. The God I was brought up to worship was a mercurial force requiring annual appeasement in the form of High Holiday services, when the entire congregation would gather to personally apologize to Him for eating bacon and cheating on our taxes, and beg Him not to kill us this year.

"... I mean, if He couldn't be bothered to intervene in the Holocaust why intervene for me .... There is no plan. I'm one of billions scurrying around a senseless universe. And honestly, the idea couldn't come as more of a relief."

In response:

The single argument that consistently arises among rebellious Jewish disbelievers in God reverts back to the Holocaust. How could a "wise" and "beneficent" God, they ask, have destroyed 6 million people - and of His people no less?

This question takes as its premise that this God must be understandable, as least enough to provide a good answer for so obvious an injustice.

By demanding an answer, this question, in effect, wants to cast God in anthropomorphic guise, as a God that makes "human sense", which really tells you more about the questioner than it does of his object of inquiry. The questioner reckons his mind will grasp the explanation and the scope of that explanation, and if not, this God cannot fit his reasoning. Hereby we sense the mindset of an inflated ego.

As to why the Holocaust occurred, we cannot answer. The Jewish prophets relayed the words of God to the Jewish people, "For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways." (e.g., Isaiah 55:8)

In fact, says Maimonides, God's thoughts, unlike man's, are not set apart from Him, as thoughts and the thinker can be separated in man; God and His thoughts are - one and the same! How can this be? We cannot even begin to fathom this reality; We'll simply never know.

But our ignorance of God should not surprise us. Can a nest know its bird? Can an explosion understand its etiology? Can milk understand the cow? In other words, can a product know its maker? The idea that man can get to "know" his creator is infinitely more ludicrous.

That's not to say God keeps us completely in the dark. He gave us Torah and prophecies from which we can learn how best to behave and interact with the world at large - to please Him, as well as for our own benefit.

That we have questions about God's leadership is fine; But to take this doubt as justification for abandoning Him - really is more a self-serving convenience than a reasoned response on whether to acknowledge a controlling omnipotent deity. To perceive the world as "senseless" can only come from a simmering, restless mindset oblivious of all the wonderous phenomena and natural aesthetics that surround us. For every process in the universe, from the nanoscopic to the astronomic, reveals beautiful and amazingly intricate organization. Despite the full-scoped continuous blueprint of brilliant planning displayed by nature, the tunnel-vision of this Jewish author sees "no plan", no organization. Were she to walk the desert and find lying in the sand a fine-tuned Swiss watch, her high-strung mind might just conclude that "random events" created that masterpiece, and by mere accidents of nature it ended up by her feet.

No doubt the argument of "no plan and no organization" is a whimsical add-on to the author's main protestation - that which relates to the Holocaust. The anger for the Holocaust effectively renders all thought of universal planning and organization as practically irrelevant. The author's anger gets in the way of reasoning with equanimity, and until that primary emotion cools off, it will block any logic or reasoning from consideration. On the other hand, it may well be she seeks a good reason for rebelling, and by flaunting a "respectable discourse" she can convince herself and justify her break with tradition.

Anger and its associate, the inflated ego, Torah tells us, interfere with persuasion. But once that anger dissipates, space now becomes available for the brain, perched over the heart, to convey to the heart plenty of good reasons to reject anger and, instead, appreciate and trust our benevolent God Almighty.

Talent from God

This young lad, who plays Billy Joel's "Piano Man", some idiotic psychiatrist (most of whom are psychotic) labeled "autistic". Genius would be much more appropriate a label (only the psychiatrist couldn't fathom the kid's heights from so low a depth from which he observed. The kid probably immediately assessed the numbskull and ignored all the stupid questions that offended his sanity.)

Truly wondrous! 6 years old and reading notes on the fly too.

Original link.

I'm not saying children cannot have brain problems. But psychiatrists they certainly do not need. Psychiatrists are "make-believe doctors of the brain". They know absolutely nothing about the brain, not any more than your average Joe on the street. The reason children develop brain symptomology may well have to do with doctor-induced poisons like mercury vaporizing from dental amalgam or because of mercury from vaccinations they receive. The psychiatrist, the glorified idiot doctor who goes around with pen and notepad to record the dreams of his subjects - belongs in a jail. Because after he makes his "diagnosis", he subjects his patients, often children, to a lifelong regimen of pill-popping, as well as stigmatizes his patients as being "psychotic" - for a lifetime. And to wean these patients thereafter off their toxic drugs, drugs that usually turn these poor people or kids into walking zombies, becomes near impossible. Psychiatrists are flagrant monsters in the guise of white-robed "doctors".

Jewish Demise from Unsuspecting Quarters

"In every generation," the Passover Hagadah tells us, "people rise to destroy us, and Hashem saves us from their plots".

Those who wish evil upon the Jewish people fall into one of two categories; Either they want to extinguish the Jew's spiritual bond to Hashem; Or they wish to destroy the physicality of Jewish presence.

The Greek king Antiochus tried to extinguish Jewish spirituality. He instituted harsh decrees to force Jews to forget their Torah and break their faith in Hashem.

Haman, on the other hand, chief viceroy to the Persian king Achashverosh, tried to exterminate the Jews scattered throughout the 127 countries of the empire by killing every Jewish man, woman and child.

In recent history we can point to two such notorious villains as well, Stalin and Hitler.

Stalin successfully destroyed millions of Jews - spiritually. He forced Jews to break with Torah and faith in Hashem, by destroying synagogues and yeshivas and banning religious observances. Hitler, on the other hand, in his attempt to engineer "the final solution", murdered some six million Jewish people throughout Europe, from infants to the elderly.

It's not known that Jews helped Haman, but it is known Jews helped Antiochus. It's not known that Jews helped Hitler, but it is known Jews helped Stalin.

Besides these two sorts of Jewish destruction, yet another form of destruction arose from the Jewish quarter, probably unwittingly, in recent Jewish history. These unsuspecting destroyers of Jewry comprise the secular leftists, the "reform" Jews (whatever brand their reform takes), or the ignoramuses. These three groups, in effect, also render nothing short of a Jewish holocaust. They first suffer a spiritual suicide, because they, their children and grandchildren abandon Torah observance and tradition, and then these assimilated offspring intermarry and drop out of the Jewish gene pool, which effectively translates into a passive, physical genocide. After all, Jewish men who marry Gentile women break their branch of genetic Jewish continuity. What Hitler or Stalin would have done to them, these do for Hitler and Stalin in abstentia!

This present generation's counterpart of Haman or Hitler is the Iranian regime, among others.

Apropos of the group of Gentile haters who seek to destroy Jews spiritually, a present menace looms large. This hostile bunch seeks the demise of Jews - on the sly. They are the Catholic missionaries funded by America's Southern Baptists who by stealth work to "convert" Jews. By stealth - like the pig who flaunts his split hooves to onlookers and says, "Look, I'm kosher!" (when, in fact, it lacks the internal physical sign for being kosher). Obviously the Jews they bait are the ignorant ones, those weak on Torah knowledge. They have well over 300 million dollars budgeted for this cause. You already find them peddling their piddling spirituality in every large city of Israel, under some "Messianic" rubric [A theme they steal from authentic Judaism]. In the U.S. they have succeeded in persuading some 300,000 Jews to regard their human idol as a god. They succeed because these baited Jews hunger spiritually and cannot find or cannot meet Jewish representatives to satisfy their hunger. One of several missionary agencies for this duping purpose is called "Jews for Jesus" (יש''ו).

In the end, of course, the outcome will be "... and Hashem saves us from their plots". But meanwhile, because all Jews constitute one family - one big collective body - if the left arm hurts, the right arm wants to help. The best way to fight these destroyers is to teach the truth of Torah to these Jews "roaming in the dark". Torah is the glue that binds Jews to Judaism. This blog, for example, might just serve one day to attract the hungry soul of one lone Jew in some far flung corner of this world who, upon learning the truth, returns to Hashem; And by saving that one soul - I will have saved an entire world.

May Hashem Free Jonathan Pollard Now!

The gematria of
יהונתן בן מלכה
yields only one passuk

in the entire Torah -

in Parshat Noach (8:15)
that reads
וידבר אלהים אל נח לאמר
and the very next words are:
צא מן התבה

May this be God's will now,
amen!

The next two words are:
אתה ואשתך
... so he may reunite with his dear wife.

The Format of Moshiach's Emergence

The Talmud (Shabbos 89a) describes the inner conflict of Jews who sinned with the Golden Calf. In their eagerness to find a replacement for Moses, the leader of their generation, an optical illusion they saw in the clouds above, a man on his death bed, finally convinced them Moses had died and could now be replaced. They had but a few more hours to wait for the completion of a full 40-day-hiatus, but their impatience tripped them up.

The essence of their sin was that they relied on their visual perception rather than abide by the words of the leader of the generation, who told them "At the end of 40 days I will arrive, before noon" (Rashi Ex.32:1).

This episode of the past, says the Arizal, bears significantly upon the future (Sha'ar Hagilgulim, Preface). He explains, that the last generation of exile, that which immediately precedes the Era of Redemption [ours!], will be a recycling of the first generation, the generation of Moses that sinned by the Golden Calf. (The souls of the former generation will be recycled into the bodies of the latter generation.) Why? In order to amend the sin of the Golden Calf, those Jewish souls will have to withstand the same test a second time, but this time succeed. In that which they failed the previous time they must pass the next time. Which means those souls of the first generation will receive the very same trial, for only a triumph over the very same trial can rectify the sin that discredited them in the first place. Only a passing of this trial can uproot and eliminate the sin they bore since (Maimonides; Rules of Repentance, Chpt 2, Law 1).

And just like they dropped from so high a level, as when they tangibly experienced the divinity of God during the event of the Ten Commandments at Mount Sinai, to so low a level as worshipping an idol, so too rectification by this same trial will reverse their low state and allow them to regain the high ground, in fact to be launched to an even higher level of experiential holiness than ever before, namely, into that of the Era of the Final and Ultimate Redemption.

What then is that same trial? They will perceive the death of the leader of their generation and the test will be to heed his words without letting their physical perceptions draw them to run afoul of his exhortations. The Rebbe told us we are the last generation of exile and the first generation of redemption (many scores of references, beginning with Bosi Legani, 1951). He expects us to believe this, despite what apparently seems as the disappearance of the leader of this generation, as if to signal the dawning of a new generation.

The same trial indeed manifests today. The Rebbe they say is dead and buried; That nature had taken its unwavering course and our perceptions, those of fleshy eyes, concur with this assessment. We saw the Rebbe shrivel with age, become ill and finally, after a hospital stay, interred at the Montefiore Cemetery.

Are we to believe the Rebbe's words now, when before he said, "Whereas for the leader of this generation - interment is inapplicable, any more than it is applicable to the Rock of the Shtiya [in Jerusalem's Temple in the Holy of Holies]" (Shoftim, Elul 7, 5752), or who said, "There is a reality of Moses, the first redeemer is the last redeemer - a soul in an eternal body." (Ha'Azinu, Shabbat Shuva 5750), (and many dozens more such pronouncements)?

And if the Rebbe said "A Rebbe's response is after all 'The words of God He spoke to me and His words are on my tongue' (quoting Shmuel the Prophet 2:23:2)", should we not listen to him, even if it conflicts with our senses?

Thankfully we have plenty of Torah sources to support us in this last period of our struggle. Rashi told us what to expect, "In the future, our Moshiach will conceal himself after he will have revealed himself, only to again reveal himself" (Daniel 12:12).

Said Rabbi Brachya, in the name of Rabbi Levi, "Just as what happened to the first redeemer will happen to the last redeemer - just as the first redeemer revealed himself to them and then goes and is concealed from them, so too the final redeemer reveals himself to them and goes on to conceal himself from them" (Midrash Rabba: Bamidbar 11:2, Ruth 5:6; Psikta Rabati 15; Psikta of Rav Kahana5:8).

"His sovereignty was temporarily placed in limbo, regarding the first redeemer, so too the last redeemer will be concealed, then return and be revealed." (Yalkut Shimoni Ruth 2:603).

"My beloved resembles a deer, just as a deer is spotted and then disappears, is spotted and then disappears, so too the first redeemer is seen, disappears, and then reappears ... Yehuda in the name of Rabi says to Kirsin, so too the last redeemer is revealed to them and, in turn, is concealed from them." (Midrash Rabba Shir Hashirim 2, 9:3)

Chassam Sofer (שמות ד‫'‬ה למה זה שלחתני): "And this was a great trial that he [Moses] disappeared for 6 months, and so will be in the days of Moshiach our Righteous, he will disappear after his revelation, as the Midrash tells us."

Sfas Emes (Rosh Hashana 11) writes, "It is rudimentary that the arrival of the son of David is separate from the redemption, for after all Moses arrived to Egypt before the redemption and could thus be revealed and be concealed, etc., similarly with the last redeemer, etc."

Rabbeinu Bechaye (Exodus 5:22): "And know that the issues of the first exile resemble issues we will face in the last exile ... and so the future redeemer will be revealed and, in turn, will be concealed, for this redemption will resemble the Egyptian redemption in many ways ... and once the threshold time nears, plenty of troubles will befall and wax - and this is the sign for Israel's salvation."

Midrash Pirkei Haychalot (Rabati 35:6): "At that time Jewry will change their minds; They will scoff Moshiach and say, 'Woe for us that we mistakened him for Moshiach'. God said to them, 'Now you will see his light ... and all who believed in him cannot be wiped from the book of life."

Ramban (ראה באור הרמב‫'‬ן על פרשת הנה ישכיל עבדי):
He says, initially Moshiach will reveal himself only to "that sect that yearns for him" [his chassidim, I suppose]. "And scripture relates concerning Moshiach, 'When many will put you to waste, etc.' that is to say when they lay you to waste - by mocking you in your first stage of arrival...."

The Holy Arizal (Sefer Gilgulim, preface, chpt 13) [NOT Sha'ar Hagilgulim]: "Moshiach will reveal himself and he will be recognized by few people, whereas others will not yet recognize him. Afterwards Moshiach will recede from view, as body and soul ... after which Moshiach will be revealed completely, then they will recognize him and all of Jewry will gather to him."

Joab 19:25: "And I knew my redeemer lives".

Midrash Raba, Shir Hashirim 2:25: "And he who believes him and follows him and awaits him - lives".

Psikta Rabati 35: "And your King Moshiach will come ... and God proclaims to the righteous of the generation and says to them 'Righteous of the world! Even though words of Torah endear you, it isn't nice of you that you waited for my Torah but did not wait for my kingdom."

See too here what Rabbi Nachman of Breslov had to say about this precursor era.

Receiving the Countenance of Moshiach!

Until the 3rd of Tammuz 1994, all Lubavitch (Chabad) Chassidim, and many Jews around the world, believed the Rebbe to be Moshiach. Thereafter, once nature apparently shredded mystical expectations and took its course on the aging, ailing rabbi, that belief disintegrated for most Jews, although a considerable number of his Chassidim continue to have faith he lives on as King Moshiach; As if nothing changed for the Rebbe; Only how we see the Rebbe has changed.

Until the Sabbath day of Chayei-Sarah in 1992, Jewry had Maimonides to guide them in how to prepare for Moshiach. A Jew, he said, must "... believe in Moshiach ... he will come any day, and even if he tarries, ... still await him." After that Sabbath day, however, the Rebbe ratcheted up this long-held faith from a rather dormant, inactive state to an alert, more watchful mindset. In that momentous talk, the Rebbe said, in effect, that "awaiting" Moshiach was over. From now on, he said, "Your task is - to receive the countenance of Moshiach!"
(לקבל פני משיח)

Whereas Maimonides just mentioned the bare word "Moshiach", the Rebbe added to this and spoke of the "Countenance of Moshiach". Maimonides used the passive verb to "wait for"; The Rebbe, on the other hand, used the active verb "to receive". He transformed the preparation for Moshiach from a hopefulness to a pursuit.

As the Rebbe once said to Chief Rabbi of Israel, Mordechai Eliyahu, ע''ה, in 1992, "The redemption stands at the threshold of the door and awaits for every Jew to open the door and drag the redemption into the door!"

Intuitively, for those who regard the Rebbe as Moshiach and not just as of peak-profile personality, the Rebbe's words resonate clearly. They figure it means - acknowledging the Rebbe as Moshiach. As if to say, "The only thing remaining for Jews to do is to accept Moshiach for who he is!"

But the Rebbe's choice of words still leaves enough room for ambiguity for those less inclined to deem him as the Moshiach.

Had he just come out vaguely and said our task is, "to receive Moshiach" (לקבל משיח), there would have been no point to it. How can we "receive" someone we don't know? Just saying "receive Moshiach" removes the identity factor. It would make no sense pointing to a generic Messianic figure and leave his listeners in a lurch to receive someone they don't recognize.

On the other hand, the Rebbe did not want to just come out and say "I am Moshiach" (explained here). So instead, he used this indirect figure of speech to say the same thing!

This roundabout way of issuing the order, then, (i.e., by invoking the phrase "to receive the countenance of Moshiach") may well be an ingenious way to say the same thing, although it begs clarification.

Countenance (פני) in Hebrew means "face", as if to say "accept him - he whom you recognize". It can also mean "inner essence", as if to say "accept him - and what he stands for". Or, a third meaning of לקבל פני is "to greet someone", as if to say "prepare to greet him". Since no single definition holds sway, perplexity can slip into ambiguity and at worst leave an abstract imprint.

The overall impression the Rebbe left on those denying he meant himself was, on its own, not bad. They felt he meant that emissaries (and all Jews whom they can influence) shift their yearnings for Moshiach into high gear and imbue this new aspect in an all-encompassing way. How? By delving into Moshiach literature and to anticipate the Era of Redemption soon to happen. And, furthermore, this attitude and expectation should infuse us with gusto to prepare for Moshiach's arrival. And while Chabad itself was already percolating with this expectant energy, especially in the latter years, it must now trickle through to embrace and galvanize all of world Jewry. With such a glorious agenda, the identity of Moshiach could be safely sidelined!

But the Rebbe never used words that lacked precision. And the above identity-free understanding of "receiving Moshiach" may not be the entire sweep of the Rebbe's words. He meant to say something of great import, even of earth-shaking import because his whole speech was pushing a new mission. He demanded of all his emissaries to adopt a new mindset from which to project upon all with whom they come in contact from now on. No matter what their functions had been, from now on a new mission supersedes all previous communication. The emissary must reconfigure his approach to imbue first and foremost this new approach the Rebbe set forth that eventful day. If this new approach cannot penetrate every interaction and aspect of the emissary's functions, he will have failed in his mission! It stands to reason this means to get all his contacts to eventually accept the Rebbe as Moshiach.

It was a new mission not because it did not exist before; It was new because, whereas before it could accompany other campaigns, henceforth it became the kernel of all campaigns, the focus of light that projected through onto all other missions to bind them all collectively into a new singularly vital perspective.

_________

I personally struggled to determine the Rebbe's clear intent of that statement since 20 years ago. Recently it occurred to me I might have hit upon something significant, recalling the phrase "receiving the countenance" we find elsewhere in Jewish tradition. We find it in the Jewish custom of making a "reception of countenances" (קבלת פנים) between bride and groom, as the precursor ceremony just prior to the wedding's canopy ceremony.

What is this ceremony for? Bride and groom had seen each other and courted before and vowed to each other their loyalty to pursue a marriage together. Then, during the week before this ceremony, they must not see each other. After that week, the "reception of countenances" serves as the occasion in which they meet for one last time before the knot is tied. Here they accept each other formally and explicitly. This final face-to-face meeting before marriage has become the traditional Jewish formality.

Now imagine, if you will, that instead of seeing the expected bride (or groom), another person was there in their stead. Imagine the uproar that would cause. Because this last prenuptial meeting serves to give the okay, before witnesses, for the wedding to proceed as planned. It constitutes their mutual, formal acceptances - after which they join in blissful marriage.

It is the same with the Rebbe's message. We knew who he was until that Sabbath. But, from now on, said the Rebbe, take your "knowledge" or "acceptance" - to a higher level. As long as you remain on this lower level of commitment, it can drag on. If you want the Era of Redemption (the "marriage to Redemption") to materialize, then know that from now on your task is, through and through, to imbue it all with "accepting my countenance"; As if to say, "Just as sure as bride and groom will next be under the canopy, so too we can already enter into the Era of Ultimate Redemption if you formally accept me as your Moshiach."

This is the mindset the Rebbe wanted all his emissaries to accept and project upon all with whom they came into contact. This would be the way to speed up the timetable for Moshiach's final revelation. Without a significant mass of Jews to acknowledge his sovereignty over them, the Rebbe cannot declare and force himself upon his folk. The Jews must appoint the king, and not that the king must forcefully coerce his flock to follow. (Would the groom forcefully pull the bride to the canopy when she refuses to go along?)

Here's my translation of the Rebbe's opening remarks [upon which he elaborated from beginning to end] that day: "Inasmuch as now we open the International Conference of Emissaries - emissaries of the Previous Rebbe, the leader of our generation [the Rebbe always invoked the Previous Rebbe as the generation's leader, but we know it certainly meant himself], emissaries from the entire world, from all its 4 corners [note the far reaches he means to project this message] - we need, first and foremost, to take account of its foundation [from now on to establish a new perspective] and to dispatch the mission of the emissaries in this generation, generally speaking, and specifically - the newness in the outreach mission that very recently accrued [every leader of the generation, from Moses until today, receives timely missions for the generation to accomplish, as Hashem sees appropriate for this point in history]: To receive the countenance of Moshiach [here the Rebbe coins this new mantra] our righteous, in the Era of the True Redemption."

He then spells out how this all-important fundamental must penetrate the core of every function the emissary partakes in, and if the emissary fails to operate in this mode - which he should do with every fiber in his body and power of his soul - he effectively forfeits his role as being the Rebbe's emissary.

_________

Yet another time we find the phrase "accepting the countenance of" happens in the Shabbat song of Lecha Dodi:
(לכה דודי לקראת כלה פני שבת נקבלה).

Here too the hymn's theme revolves around a bride - the "Shabbat bride". What is the point of this "going out to greet" when the meeting is sure to happen anyway? Because you do not wait for her to come to you - you go out and greet her! You do not wait passively for her to arrive - you take action by going out and greeting her before she even gets to you on her own. You go out of your way to advance her arrival!

Shabbat as a holiday reflects eternity - the utopia the world is destined for, the period for which its existence of near 6,000 years was created for in the first place. It is the period ushered in by none other than Moshiach.

A telling story relates to "accepting the countenance of" and the Lecha Dodi. The Rebbe told this story in 1958 (Shimini). On Fridays the Arizal would always towards evening take his students into the fields of Tsfat to greet the advancing Shabbat. One Friday he requested his disciples to escort him to Jerusalem to greet the Shabbat there. This meant under his powers they could make this rather long trip in miraculous time. Many agreed on the spot; Others however said they first need to consult their wives. The Arizal let them know the lack of unanimous spontaneity to follow him squandered the opportunity for world Jewry to advance, right then and there, their final redemption! In other words, the lack of total devotion and faith in the leader of the generation, which expressed itself in the guise of good rationale (such as "peace with the wife"), forestalled for many centuries the coming of Moshiach!

Why did they not wholeheartedly accept his words? Because their intellect interfered with total submission to the leader of the generation. Similarly in the Rebbe's case; People's "intellectual" resistance interferes for that which should pour forth spontaneously - were their mindsets calibrated for Moshiach's arrival now!

Unfortunately, many cannot suspend their own intellect in favor of the generation leader's wishes; They have to go and ask their own opinion, as it were, in spite of the Rebbe's request to accept him. They can think of superior reasons to doubt the Rebbe at his words, so why cast rationale aside? As for this paramount issue of Moshiach, so paramount that the entire universe was created for this singular purpose, they can afford to leave that for another day!

The Rebbe wants to advance the arrival of Moshiach; He tells us how, and urges us on beyond the passive waiting Maimonides spoke about. He knows he now holds the rank of Moshiach. He stays concealed but longs to come out from behind nature's veil. He wants to be greeted! For no Jewish king can reign without a people wanting him as their king. But alas how hard it is to rid the Jew of his inner exile, how hard it is to deprive him of his appetite for that which the Gentile world sets their daily table with.

The first time Jews were redeemed, they were whisked out of Egyptian exile in one day, on the first day of Passover 3,324 years ago. That redemption left many Jews behind. Those unwilling to leave never left. If this time the redemption process takes a slower pace, it may well be because so many have the exile mentality they are unwilling to abandon, and, as the Rebbe assured us, every Jew will be taken aboard this time around, without no Jew left behind, on this trip into the Era of Final and Ultimate Redemption.

_________

If you see this phrase of לקבל פני משיח in a different light, please let me know.

_________

Some disquieting questions emerge with this "insight":

Take the fact that groom and bride cannot see each other for a week before the קבלת פנים. Eerily, this appears to hint at the situation we face today, where the leader of the generation seems to be leading but cannot be seen - eerily in the sense that the Rebbe foresaw this trial period of "darkness" - a period of the Rebbe's disappearance from the world's theater, and we have to withstand the trial and pass the test it for the purpose of making a קבלת פנים as the precursor to the real festive ceremony immediately to follow, namely, the Era of Final and Ultimate Redemption.

Another eerie aspect of this allusion: The groom during the קבלת פנים comes to cover the bride's face, but not until he first sees her. Remember how Yaakov was duped into marrying Leah instead of Rachel? With us too, then, the idea is to identify Moshiach for who he is, but tempting us with darkness to make us believe the Rebbe forfeited his role to usher us under the canopy of the Era of the Final, Ultimate Redemption.

Rescue of a Whale

I wish I could have been there to see this amazing drama, and especially the show of appreciation by this majestic, gentle animal.







(7 min.)


(You can see more marvelous wonders of Hashem by going down the Labels list at the right, towards the bottom, and click on "Wildlife".)