Hezbos In YOUR Backyard

Women Singing by the Reed Sea

2012-02-11T23:44:00.014-05:00

Once the Jews miraculously crossed the Reed Sea, and after they saw the dead Egyptians and their chariots washed up on the shore from which they just emerged, the men, led by Moses, sang a song of praise to God; And then their women, led by Miriam, did the same (Ex.15:20-21).

ותקח מרים הנביאה אחות אהרן את התף בידה ותצאן כל הנשים אחריה בתפים ובמחלת
... ותען להם מרים שירו‬ לשם

"Miriam the prophetess, Aaron's sister, took the drum [or tambourine] in her hand, and all the women followed her with drums and dancing. Miriam led them in responsive song, 'Sing to God ....'."

But our sages tell us the singing voice of a woman is erotic (Brachot 24a). How could these women have done something against the grain of Judaic law, which states a man must not hear the voice of a woman as she sings?

Two giants of Torah, as well as the Rebbe, tackled this question.

The Gaon of Vilna held that the women, in fact, did not sing. He bases his claim on the masculine form of the word "them", להם, interpreting this to mean that the women encouraged the men to sing. This, he said, is the meaning of the phrase "ותען להם מרים"; They told the men to sing.

This explanation, however, does not fit Rashi's explanation of what happened. According to Rashi, Miriam sang the verse and the women responded by singing that verse after her.

The Rogochover also deals with this question and says the women did sing, only their voices were drowned out by the drums they used while singing, thereby preventing the men from hearing their voices.

But here too the explanation does not tally with Rashi's explanation because Miriam's voice had to be heard otherwise how could the women respond in turn?

The Rebbe answers this question saying that Rashi himself provides the answer in a very clear-cut fashion. In his commentary on a prior verse, "... This is my God Whom I will beautify...." (Ex.15:2), Rashi explains the word "This" in the phrase "This is my God", saying the people so vividly sensed God they could point to this specter with their finger. Rashi then says, "That which [even] a maidservant saw by the sea, the prophets themselves never saw."

In other words, says the Rebbe, because Godliness was fully exposed to the Jewish people, because divine radiation became so tangible and omnipresent, the issue of eroticism had no place in such a reality. Nothing but holiness penetrated every human fiber.

The story of Adam and Eve exemplifies this idea. Before they sinned, "They were both naked, the man and his wife, and they were not ashamed." (Gen.2:25). There was no significance to nakedness. But as soon as they sinned, the Torah tell us, "... they realized they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves as loincloths." (Gen.3:7).

That is, the sin caused God to conceal His revelation by a measurable degree; What was complete, sublime holiness until now gave way for a negative element to enter the space and block the holy radiation of the divine presence. By thus distancing Himself from man's visibility, man now got room for unholiness to blend into his environment to become a liability to reckon with.

Now, after the sin, after the creation of a negative sphere of influence, there's good reason to ask, as God asks Adam, "Where are you?" (Gen.3:9), i.e., Where do you stand, do you stand on the right side of an issue or do you stand on its wrong side?

By sinning, Adam created for all his descendants a navigator's muddle that allows one to have splits in his personality, where on some issues he can be on the right side, and on others on the wrong side.

As another example, consider a naked infant running around the house. Nobody practically pays attention because of the child's innocence. But were that child a 14-year old running around naked, that would provoke an entirely different reaction because this age innocence no longer applies.

So, with regard to the situation when God's presence was felt on that miraculous day on the 7th day of their first Passover, in the first month of their freedom and formation as a nation onto God, in the year 2448, on their way to receive the Holy Torah in 43 more days, the Jews had no issue with eroticism. The only sensation they felt that day was nothing but sheer Godliness.

By the way, I want to add about the vision of the Rebbe, as demonstrated here, where the Rebbe could appreciate vicariously the actual experience Jews then felt, as did Rashi, and as Rashi alludes to when he says, "That which a maidservant saw by the sea, the prophets themselves never saw." Rashi says, in Genesis 1:4, regarding the light created on Day 1 of creation, "God saw that this light is inappropriate for use by evil people, so He stored it away for use by righteous individuals in later generations." This lofty light gives such individuals, especially the Prince of the Generation, the ability to see and feel from an entirely different dimension and perspective we others are not yet privy to. With this special, archived light, these few individuals in every generation can see from one chronological end of the world to the other.

Misplaced Trust

2012-02-07T11:36:00.005-05:00

In days of old (3,325 years ago), when Jews endured enslavement and hard labor in Egypt, God, through Moses, unleashed 10 plagues to force Pharoah and his countrymen to free the Jews and let them depart for the desert. Every month a new plague terrorized the oppressors; The plague smit for the first week, and for the next three weeks Egyptians got a respite - a time in which to reconsider and release the Jewish people. Moses would also warn the oppressors of each oncoming plague, giving the Egyptians further impetus to implement God's request, "Let My people go!".

Although Egyptians worshipped pagan elements, some of them now abandoned faith in their gods and came to realize the Jewish God prevails. When Moses announced the plague of deadly hail, these Egyptians, unlike their peers, heeded his warnings and took their prize steeds into their own houses with them.

Nevertheless, even these refined Egyptians, now cognizant of God's power and His affinity for the Jewish people, changed their minds once the Jews had escaped Egypt, and offered these fine horses to Pharoah who, through change of heart, now desired to hitch chariots of steel to them to chase the Jews and bring them back to forced slavery.

This mutable faith of Gentiles in God our sages address when they pronounce, "Even the best of Gentiles..." are quite worthless, if not worse. A Jew should always rely on God rather than entrust his expectations to the good will of even well-meaning Gentiles.

The Frustrated Donkey's Solution

2012-02-05T00:39:00.008-05:00

When a Jew arises in the morning to face the new day, the Code of Jewish Law exhorts us how best to challenge any lethargies that might rob us from our industrious ambitions: "Wake up - strong like a lion!".

But why, nevertheless, do we find ourselves frustrated with repeated failures to match our expectations? Why can we not have the power of the lion run through our veins from the very start of the day, so that we achieve what we really want to accomplish? Some of us want to wake up early, learn Torah, pray with devotion, exercise, make good resolutions, etc. but continually fail to follow through. Why?

I heard Rabbi Chitrik of Tsfat, in the name of Rabbi Yoel Kahan, answer this question this way: "If you go to bed as a donkey, don't expect to wake up as a lion; To wake up as a lion, you have to go to bed as a lion."

In other words, the morning begins with a good preparation for the morrow's awakening by doing what's right before we go to bed. If we stand strong with our nightly commitments to do what's right, e.g., saying Kriyat Shema, learning, spending time with the kids, and going to bed early - that is the only way to assure we'll get a mighty start the next morning.

Rescuing a Jew from the Dumps

2012-02-01T23:20:00.003-05:00

The Rebbe of Lubavitch ruffled the composure of many rabbis years ago when he dispatched his troops to reach out to Jews in places they regarded as spiritual pig sties. The criticism faded away and today the Rebbe's approach has become routine among even non-Lubavitch sectors.

The Rebbe plied his campaign with no less of a model to emulate than God Himself. When God "went down" (Ex.11:4) to kill the Egyptians during the tenth plague, God tells the Jews, "And among you there will be no affliction" (Ex.12:13). This means, explains Rashi, when an Egyptian sought refuge by visiting the house of a Jew, he was not spared; ie, "Among you there will be no affliction [but among them - there will be]."; Or, when the Jew visited an Egyptian's house, you might think the Jew too would be vulnerable, so God says, "Among you there will be no affliction [no matter where you will be]."

This event occurred the night of Passover, 2448, the very first time they celebrated this holiday, the same night God struck all of Egypt's firstborns. Moses had warned the Jews that night, "Nobody should leave their home until morning". (Ex.12:22)

Despite Moses' warning, despite the humiliation of Egyptians with 9 preceding plagues, and despite the many years Jews suffered enslavement at the hands of these Egyptians, some Jews, that night, still found no moral compunction paying a visit to an Egyptian neighbor.

Nevertheless, as base and as depraved the state of this Jew was, who visited his Egyptian neighbor on this of all nights, God Himself "went down" to spare this Jew's life, no matter what his ignoble state and sordid environment.

The Rebbe's critics, at the time, did not let up. How could he sends boys out to places where the "dirt" of their surroundings may well rub off on them, they complained.

Here the Rebbe drew support from Jewish law, from the laws of kosherizing (paradoxically). Meat processors that salt meat as part of the process, may have multiple layers of meat piled one on top of another, as long as salt separates them. Salt draws the blood from the meat, and the concern that blood oozing from a higher layer can be absorbed by meat in a lower layer was discounted because of this ruling: "While in emission mode, the meat cannot be in absorption mode."

Similarly with the Rebbe's emissaries, boys reaching out to fellow Jews; As long as they engage in the effort of exerting positive influence, they protect themselves from absorbing any negative influence.

Drug-Smuggling Story

2012-01-31T22:44:00.010-05:00

Eli Hecht was a roomate of mine for several weeks when we studied together in the late 90's in a Morristown, NJ Yeshiva for Jews becoming observant. I remember him as a modest personality, mild-mannered, speaking softly and sparingly, and always opting for a low profile.

Over a year ago, I was stunned to find out he was jailed in Spain for possession of illicit drugs. I knew of course he was innocent. Now, upon his release from jail, we learn what happened.

He had worked as fund-raiser for a Kollel in Tsfat for over 10 years. The emissary of the Rebbe at this Chabad Kollel, Rabbi Karombie, stayed closely in touch with Eli and often travelled to Spain to be at his side, and also showed up at all proceedings. The invoices collected from Eli's travels all those years from all over the world he presented as evidence and these helped persuade the 3 judges to declare him innocent and release him.

He fell victim to a "benefactor" in Costa Rica who asked him to please take some clothes to a widow in Spain. The drugs were embedded inside the small valise's walls. The cell they first threw him into also held Al-Qaeda prisoners. Shortly thereafter they transferred him to another cell because the guards sensed his life was in danger.

Once during this long ordeal, Rabbi Karombie had spoken to a well-known prosecutor in Spain. He told the rabbi, "Be prepared to accept a settlement where he'll have to sit in prison for a good few years." Thank God he was proven wrong, justice prevailed and now Eli can go back to his family and back to his work.

Eli met the culprit in Costa Rica in a synagogue! He invited Eli to his home, let him stay overnight, and even gave him a few hundred dollars before he asked for that "favor". Goes to show you where one's head can be while he is supposedly in communion with God. How shameful.

Christianity from a Jewish Viewpoint

2012-01-29T20:28:00.020-05:00

A Historical Conjecture on Christianity's Birth

God gave the Jews the gift of Torah. It wasn't all fun and games because Jews were hated for being made special by God.

Moreover, people begrudged God's other gift to the Jews, the Land of Israel, a prize given at the expense of its previous inhabitants.

Some Jews, feeling sorry for their detractors, sought to remedy relations by sympathizing with the other side, although the tug of Gentile temptations also would account for the desertion of this Jewish fringe.

Thirteen centuries after receiving the Torah, a splinter group of defiant or resentful Jews decided to break away from traditional Judaism and, along with Gentiles, concocted their own religion. How did they manage this feat? Unlike other Jews at the time, who had the capability to perform miracles but wouldn't - knowing implementation of such secret Torah powers would clash with nature that God created and cherishes, these renegade Jews spurned God's wishes and performed unnecessary miracles nevertheless, to draw Gentiles into their mix. Gentiles, unaccustomed and therefore fascinated by miracles, couldn't resist.

Was this new religion's launch based on reactionary politics? We get a clear sense that it was, based on the Talmudic text that had been restored from its earlier state of censorship. Even without that text, the very fact that censorship occurred in the first place indicates that the truth had upset the Christian authorities.

A good lie cannot be launched without combining it with some truth. These Jews could not take that which commanded enormous respect in the entire world and sideline Torah or denigrate it, for everyone knew Jewish history that dated back to the Sinai event. They would only lose credibility doing that. Instead, they took Torah and piggybacked their new religion upon it.

These Jewish organizers, seeking self-aggrandizement, which traditional Judaism frowns upon, rationalized away the yoke and value of Torah, implicating it with inferior status, to give their own artificial product the boost it required. They used miracles to impress their Gentile counterparts.

Thus began the new religion that regarded the basis of the former religion as "old" and the new writings, promoting a fresh view, as the "new" one. The logic was that the previous was divine, of course, only that now divinity took a new course, and those following the "old" course were missing out and not "getting it".

Did the ruse work? Most certainly; Many indeed were mesmerized by it. And until today, that which a fringe Jewish element began in rebellion, today has become a leviathan walking on its own.

The Essence of Torah

Of course, there’s nothing “old” about the original testament. Calling it "old" denigrates its author, the creator of the universe, for the implication of obsolescence also implies a rejection of God's omnipotence, as if God could not produce perfection from the start, or could not foresee future conditions. In fact, by making this claim they unwittingly admit God could make yet another such "mistake" that would require a 3rd testament once the prior two become obsolete.

A more fitting name for the original testament would be “The Living Testament”. Even more fitting is the translation of its Hebrew name, Torah -– “The Manual [of Life]”. God, Who creates the world continuously, had given the world, through His representative people, His eternal testament and will, through which He can guide His creation and whereby they, in turn, can remain faithful to Him in their daily interactions.

Torah serves as the framework from which mankind must draw its behavioral guidelines – forever. This book is absolutely perfect. It never underwent revision and never will. The work of an infinite God needs no revision (Eccl. 3:14). The words in Torah today are the same words God dictated to Moses over the course of 40 years, in the desert South of Israel, between the years 2448 - 2488 [since creation].

Jewish people today, e.g., Yemenite Jews, who until recently had been separated by millennia and by continents from their brethren in Europe, possess the exact same Torah, down to the last letter.

All of Jewish literature, which was produced in the whole world over the millennia, stands as a vast, upside-down pyramid standing on its tip. The tip holds it all up. That tip is the one, single premise - that Torah is infallible and eternal. Find one mistake in it, and the entire logical structure would come crashing down.

All Jewish books on code of law, all writings of the sages, former and latter, all customs and all oral tradition in everyday life in every corner of the world, the prayer books of every synagogue, every book in schools of Torah learning - all these mountains of Hebrew/Judaic literature (for Jews are prolific thinkers and writers) - stand on the one essential premise: That every Hebrew word in Torah, every letter therein, every punctuation, cantillation and mathematical attribute, the shape of every letter, including the "serifs" of each letter - depend on one unalterable, solitary absolute truth - that Torah and its oral tradition are perfect.

All of Jewish (orthodox) literature would fold like a house of cards were merely one fact in Torah proven to be false. There would be no point in upholding Torah, for perfection cannot embrace even a slight error. For example, if one day a species is found with split hooves but does not chew its cud, other than the swine, Torah would be deemed worthless. For Torah specifies that only the pig, of all species in the entire universe, has these two features. By the same token, were they ever to discover a fish with scales but no fins (Niddah 51b), or, for that matter, an animal with horns without split hooves, then too you may as well reject the entire Torah, for our sages assert this fact based on Torah, and if they were found wanting, all of Talmud and Torah should be discredited. Torah informed us of these facts millennia before taxonomists came upon the investigative scene, and, as far as the ocean is concerned, we haven't explored even 5% of its vast domain. But Jewish thought will not wait nor be hindered for lack of factual evidence meantime because, as said before, Torah facts are taken as true, with or without the evidence.

For those faithful to God, this colossal, ongoing, worldwide, Jewish confidence in God is merely a sign of God's omnipresence. For how could it be otherwise; Were God not to have this universal mandate, how would that look for Him?

There will always be detractors of Torah but this too derives from the benevolence of God. For were it absolutely universally accepted, then what free choice would remain for men to find reason to reject it? God wants man to think for himself and make choices, unlike the dog who given two opposite choices, would always choose the predictable one.

What does Torah tell us about the formation of new religions? It forewarns anyone who gets the bright idea to modify any of it. God warns us in Torah, "Do not to add to it nor subtract from it" (Deut. 4:2, 13:1) That command is an eternal obligation. Implying Torah has built-in obsolescence not only subtracts from it, but a replacement for it subtracts all of Torah, let alone that it belittles the greatness of The Creator and shuns His commands!

There is more than just audacity that hides behind the drive to antiquate Torah. It maneuvers to undermine the unity, perfection and goodness of G-d, as well as His Jewish nation and Judaism. Christian worshippers in our current era may not sense this because they no longer get offended by Judaism or Jews, as they used too centuries before, but surely the upper echelons of the church have to sense this. They claim that they are the beneficent and God in Torah is less so; They have the answers and God in Torah no longer does.

Torah naysayers have no shame to defy G-d, defy His eternity, His perfection and oneness; They defy His people, defy His plan for Israel as the ultimate Jewish homeland, defy the status of Jerusalem, defy the eventual rebuilding of the Temple and defy the Jewish Messiah. Their own agenda supersedes the God of Torah’s agenda.

What would be the right lesson for Gentiles to learn from Torah? I discuss this here.

Just as a producer of complicated machinery offers a user’s manual on how best to use his product, so too G-d gave guidelines to mankind -– all of mankind –- how best to have a good world and a good life. That manual is the Torah. It speaks for Jews and Gentiles alike.

Noah and his family, the progenitors of humanity, after “The Great Flood” in 1657, received 7 laws to live by –- the “Seven Noahide Laws”. On the other hand, Jews received 613 laws from the Torah.

Jews are special in G-d’s eyes because of a mission He gave them. They are meant to be His nation of Priests. They have the obligation to enlighten a world caught up in spiritual darkness. Jews are G-d’s lamplighters, teachers of Torah, an eternal people/nation vested with the responsibility to convey the 7 Noahide laws to the other peoples of the world. To be sure, it was not a glorious task during anti-semitic times. But today, when persecution of Jews has much abated, it becomes a less onerous task to undertake.

Yes, Torah is old; In fact, it’s now 3,324 years old; But it’s as relevant for everyone today as the day it was first given. It is a blueprint for contemporary living.

America - Winning a Distractionary Battle Will Lose the War

2012-01-23T22:21:00.033-05:00

The Islamic war against the U.S. rages on, only Americans don't see it because they always figure war is a physical confrontation. But Islam's war isn't confrontational. Sure some elements, like Al Queida, want to duke it out with us, but most of the damage we suffer is wrought by an Informational War. All that fighting abroad amounts to nothing but a diversionary tactic.

Americans see Europe drowning under the weight of its Islamic population, as the foreigners infiltrate, settle, multiply, embolden and become treasonous, and finally destroy the society from within, sucking the lifeblood out of an indigenous peoples' freedom and welfare; But what Americans do not see is - they are looking into a mirror!

Muslims, much as they hate each other, hate the West more and have united meanwhile to conspire against the West - to beat it from the inside. First settle the West's land, plant hundreds and thousands of organizations - all the while make sure to lie about the aim of Islam; Buy into the West's media and Ivy League universities, investing enough to sit on decision-making boards; And slowly but surely spread the propaganda of Islam being just another innocent religion.

The Holy Land Foundation trial in Texas revealed many documents that tied 95% of Muslim organizations in the U.S. with Islam's hidden agenda to overpower the West with disinformation, in affiliation with the radical Muslim Brotherhood.

This lie has suffused many sectors of American life, including education; From universities, down to the public school system. Even private schools are not immune and must now teach this rubbish of beautiful Islam, where the wonderful "prophet" married a lady of grace (saying nothing of the 6-year old this pedophile "married"), because these kids must pass their state "Regents" exams, which ask about this nonsense, as they would algebra and chemistry. My 14-year old has "The Rise of Islam" as part of her curriculum.

Not one day passes, particularly under this regime's administration, without signs that subvert our freedom. Here's the beginning of one, in the educational arena, an article posted 1/19/12, by Jason Koebler, in usnews.com:

Who Should Have Access to Student Records?
Education data can be useful, but privacy experts are concerned about data misuse.

Since “No Child Left Behind” was passed 10 years ago, states have been required to ramp up the amount of data they collect about individual students, teachers, and schools. Personal information, including test scores, economic status, grades, and even disciplinary problems and student pregnancies, are tracked and stored in a kind of virtual “permanent record” for each student. Etc.

This stealth war began some 50 years ago. So successful they are, even the FBI, the White House and the House of Representatives have been infiltrated by these disinformationists. So much so, that the 9/11 investigative report had to be redone (read: sanitized); And, like the Fort Hood report, makes no mention of words such as "Islam" or "terrorism" - not once! The Muslim Brotherhood has penetrated the highest echelons of American government e.g., CAIR, "Islamic Center of ...". Their administrators are seen pictured together with Bush and Obama. Bush may not have known how high this treachery had penetrated, but Hussein Obama surely does.

While we invest heavily in armaments and lives fighting scoundrels in far-off deserts, right here at home the arch-terrorists, as decoy professors, consultants and other distinguished positions, are happy with the distant side show that shows "radicals" to be losing, because they know and see their "moderate" victory here unfolding. They are winning and winning big. They know they are fighting a war the enemy has no grasp of yet, for America cannot sense the enormous Trojan Horse spillover in its midst.

What good is winning distractionary battles overseas, if a soldier, upon coming home, instead of receiving showered confetti, gets browbeaten for his patriotism? Is this what he risked his life for? They are heroes made to feel like suckers. We cannot even fly our flag anymore, lest it insult the neighbor.

You'd think 9/11 would have ratcheted up against the threat of Islam; A few years later and - "Islam had nothing to do with it"! McCarthyism may or may not have been justifiable, I don't know the history, but today such policy would be a boon against the Muslim threat we currently have simmering beneath us.

It's no coincidence a Muslim got into the highest office of this land. It's no coincidence he embarrasses America and emasculates it. It's no coincidence he destroyed the dollar. It's no coincidence the paragon of technical achievement of American ingenuity, NASA, has become a tool for Islamic propaganda. It's no coincidence we continue to house and finance the U.N., all while they snub fairness and morality. It's no coincidence all of Obama's friends and cohorts can be identified as corrupt, radical, racist, hateful, but always coddling the Muslim creed. They have the whole nation tongue-tied. The whole country is practically mute during this mutiny. Obama bows to Communist heads and Arab sheiks, but bares his teeth at allied democratic leaders - and not a peep. The media circle their wagons around him. He can set up TSA border guards, drop Black Panthers charges, run heavy guns to Mexican gangs, spew hate on clingers to bibles and guns, and no one raises their voice, no one complains of infringement of personal rights. Republican presidential candidates for 2012 also are pussyfooting, except for a few jabs at the lukewarm word "socialism" - when the real word ought to be "Fascism", "Communism" or "totalitarianism"!

America may also be flexing its muscles in Iraq and Afganistan to ensure itself a steady flow of foreign oil. But this too plays into the hands of Islamists at home who, in cahoots with "environmental wackos", suppress all means of oil exploration in our own land, to further undermine American strength and independence. We have so much oil that we musn't touch, but give money to Brazil to explore there. This is insanity, until you connect the dots.

America's carotid arteries are squeezed from many directions. She's already suffering some paralysis. By the time she becomes comatose, feudal caretakers will oversee her administration. I always wondered how mighty Rome faltered and fell. It suddenly becomes quite clear.

People - we are losing an informational war! We must strip ourselves of political correctness; It is doing us in. We have to call a spade a spade, a terrorist a terrorist, the war as an Islamic, Jihadist internal war. We have to begin demographic profiling; We must make sure all Moslem organizations with links to terror (at least 90% of them) cease to exist.

But none of this may well happen because in 2012 they will fight tooth and nail, and, by hook or by crook, they will win. That's when it will surely be over for America the Great."I am for peace, but even as I speak to them of this, they are for war." (Psalms 120:7) ("They" are those of a deceitful tongue.)

Shiloh - The Masquerading Missionary

2012-01-22T00:28:00.013-05:00

Thinking I was responding to some young, lunatic Jew who fell of his rocker and needed to be set straight, I took the time to try and formulate important issues and put these in proper context for him, and spent some time doing so. It didn't add up when I noticed nothing I said, but nothing, could penetrate his numbed skull.

After some 10 comments - that's when it hit me! The bloody creep was a good-for-nothing missionary who would repeatedly quote some verse in Tanach, not knowing what he was saying. He would deride our Talmud and its sages. And no wonder; Because our oral tradition is what anchors Jews to our Torah, something he would find anathema, because his hidden agenda is to tout the "new" book instead of what he wants us to believe is "old".

His ultimate aim is to dissociate Jews from Torah. This guy figures to do it slyly, like the Yetzer Hara does it, by first dissuading the Jew of his Oral Tradition.

Anyone honoring our sages would find this lowlife as nauseating as I do. He signed in as Shiloh. Of course, his name's link leads to nowhere. The coward comments under the guise of being Jewish.

I should have known better. Responding to comments without seeing whom I'm responding to puts me at a disadvantage. I blog to educate or express an opinion, and I figure commenters have sincere intentions, as I do. Not these missionaries, though, who waste not only their own loathsome lives, so they could care less that they waste the time of others, especially Jews whom they despise. And for good reason - for they have nothing themselves of any value. And, they think, by stepping on Jews, they can thereby raise themselves. That's about the only way they know how to "rise" and take on "value".

Shiloh - I spit on you! And on every other stealth missionary.

Appeasing Mankind or Trusting God?

2012-01-19T15:10:00.028-05:00

"Political correctness", like a euphemism, means clothing words with inaccurate meanings, to slip through where frankness cannot get through. It is a calculated lie to have its intent deliberately misconstrued.

Torah does not mince words. It does not deviate from laser-straight truthfulness. It tells Jews in no uncertain terms how to achieve peace in the Holy Land.

Before the Jews were to cross the Jordan River, God provided them the exact formula for peaceful existence. To "exist" means for everyone to exist, meaning, without anyone suffering occasional tragedy from hostile or enemy elements.

"And God spoke to Moses ... Tell the Jews that after they cross ... into the Land ... they should drive out its inhabitants." Jews should, according to God, clear away, by chasing away (Rashi), all non-Jews who resided there in the first place, to turn it into a Land for Jewish people, "... Because for you [Jews] I have given this Land to inherit."

And the consequences if not: "And if you do not drive out the inhabitants, and you leave some to remain among you, then they will be a source of hurt for you, like nails in your eyes and like barbs in your sides, and they will continually trouble you. And as I had planned to do to them - I will do to you!" (Num. 33:50-56)

There simply is no other way. As long as Arabs/Gentiles dwell in Israel, as residents, Jews feed their own suffering. As long as political correctness supersedes the dictates of God, God will not slack off. As long as God's word does not take priority over that which the human mind wants to superimpose, regarding policy within Israel, its people cannot achieve the peace they purportedly desire.

This is the saga of the Jewish people. As long as Jews cannot unite under the shield of trust in Hashem, Hashem will not grant us tranquility. He wants to be our God. "I will take you to Myself as a nation, and I will be to you as a God." (Ex. 6:7) He wants to be our God, our Provider, our Guarantor, and He will not let us remain unhurt if some of us, whoever they may be, choose another authority, another benefactor, or another's assurances and gestures for peace.

Political correctness assumes politics of internal or international considerations override the policy God wants to establish for Israel. But as long as God is not given paramount consideration, Jews stand to lose - by continually inviting upon themselves what God had wanted to deal to the enemies of the Jews.

As long as Israel is not a Jewish land for the Jewish people, and for them alone, this sorry saga of occasional tragedy the Jews themselves bring upon themselves (ה' ישמור). If a Gentile owns land in Israel, or resides thereupon, he is actually living on land that belongs to some Jew, wherever he may now be living, because the entire Jewish Land is an inheritance to the entire 12 tribes of Israel and that will not and cannot change.

Obviously this flies in the face of so-called "Democracy", but to give this excuse more validity than it deserves is to give it dimensions of deity.

May God grant Jews iron fortitude and the pride of Jacob in their God and Holy Land, first and foremost to unify, and then to ignore political correctness and pressure, to carry out God's will, and sweep clean the Jewish land of all its Gentile residents, so we can fully achieve eternal peace for each and every Jew. And then God promises, "... you will live in security!" (Deut. 12:10)

Goliath Behind the Shield of David

2012-01-17T15:47:00.010-05:00

From COMMENTARY Magazine, Dec. 2011, by Arthur Herman

How Israel's Defense Industry Can Help Save America

Kibbutz Sasa sits one mile from Israel’s Lebanese border. Founded in 1949, it is the site of the tomb of the second-century rabbi Levi ben Sisi. It hosts groves of fruit trees and a dairy farm and has 210 members. Kibbutz Sasa is also the home of the main factory of Plasan, a company that started out making hard plastic containers like garbage cans in 1985. For four years now, American soldiers have driven more safely in Iraq and Afghanistan, thanks to Kibbutz Sasa and Plasan’s CEO, Dani Ziv.

It was Ziv who, in the 1980s, urged the company to take up the manufacture of protective ballistic vests for soldiers and police. In 1989, Plasan won its first contract to make body armor for the Israel Defense Forces, and then for IDF vehicles. When war came to Afghanistan and then Iraq, orders went through the roof, especially from the United States. Plasan’s profits soared some 1,500 percent, from $23 million in 2003 to $330 million in 2007. Today they stand at over $500 million, with 90 percent of the company’s orders coming from Europe and the United States.

Plasan specializes in a very dense plastic composite product that affords ballistic protection without significantly adding to the weight of the vehicle. “Their work is exceptional,” says a senior Israeli defense industry executive about Plasan. “To convince the U.S. military that you are a reliable outfit is no mean feat. They did it all alone, without any help from a former ambassador or defense ministry director general.”

Plasan-armored mine-resistant ambush-protected vehicles (MRAPs) have been serving in Afghanistan since August 2009, and contractor Oshkosh Company has another 8,800 on order. In 2009 Plasan even opened a factory in Bennington, Vermont, to do the work for its American contract. But while the 350 or so workers there are American, the technology is decidedly Israeli.

That applies to an even smaller company in Netanya, Israel, called Camero. Its engineers have come up with a way to use ultra-wideband wireless transmissions to see through walls—literally—and detect armed men and explosives on the other side. The Xaver 400 is barely the size of a laptop computer, but it’s dramatically shifting the odds in urban fighting in favor of the technology user, whether he’s an IDF soldier or a United States Marine. Indeed, in December 2010, one of Camero’s top clients became the Department of Defense.

What’s happening at Plasan and Camero is part of a silent revolution sweeping the defense establishments of the United States and Israel. After decades of being the Pentagon’s dependent in terms of military technology, Israel’s defense industry is now gaining a competitive advantage over its overregulated, bloated and lethargic American rival. Indeed, the United States is becoming one of its best customers. Goliath is finding shelter under the shield of David.

This situation is fraught with irony. It’s not only that America is now fighting the kind of wars Israel has been fighting for decades—small-scale, low-intensity, against an elusive terrorist enemy—and needs the skills and equipment Israel has to offer, including remote-detection devices such as unmanned drones, an area in which Israel has been on average 10 years ahead of the curve. Nor is it simply the fact that as U.S.-Israeli relations have cooled during the Obama years, Israelis are realizing that a strong and independent high-tech defense sector may be more crucial to Israel’s future than relying on U.S. help.

The Israeli way of doing defense business is changing the shape of the military-industrial complex. Smaller, nimbler, and entrepreneurial, Israel’s defense industry offers a salutary contrast to the Pentagon’s way of doing things. With the spending and budget crisis in the United States already putting immense pressure on the Pentagon, with all-but-certain declines in the percentage of the U.S. economy that will be devoted to defense in the coming decade, a second “revolution in military affairs” is going to be necessary. We are going to have to get more for less—much less. Israel points the way.

A good example coming from the more expensive end of the military-technology spectrum involving high-tech missiles is Rafael Advanced Systems. They’re the Israeli makers of the Iron Dome missile defense system, built to protect Israeli towns from mortars, rockets, and 155-millimeter artillery shells. Each Iron Dome unit fires four to eight missiles and is equipped with a Battle Management computer system designed by another Israeli company, MPrest Systems. It’s an all-weather mobile system with a range of 70 kilometers (about 43.5 miles)

For the Pentagon, developing and deploying a major new system like this can take more than a decade. By contrast, the Israel Defense Ministry gave Rafael the contract for Iron Dome in 2007, and by March 2009 the system was fully ready for testing. The first true shoot-down test had to wait until July that year. More tests followed in 2010, and by March 2011 Iron Dome was declared operational and has been deployed in towns near the Gaza strip to protect against Hamas’s attacks.

To intercept bigger ballistic missile, Israeli Aerospace Industry (IAI) developed the Arrow antimissile system in cooperation with the United States as part of Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative. The agreement to build Arrow came in 1989. The first missile, the Arrow 1, got its first test launch in August 1990. Less than four years later came its first test interception.

Although Arrow began as an American-Israeli joint initiative, the irony is that Israel’s interest in developing Arrow sprang from the failure of American-made Patriot antimissile batteries to intercept Scud missile attacks during the First Gulf War. Arrow relies on a coterie of Israeli companies to provide the interception system’s components. Elta, a division of Israel’s biggest private arms firm, Elbit Systems, provides the Green Pine early-warning radar. Tadiran (another Elbit division) makes the Communication, Control, and Command center. IAI devised the Hazelnut launch controls. Altogether, they have constructed one of the world’s most sophisticated defense systems. In 1995 the Arrow 1 was replaced with an even faster, more lethal version, Arrow 2, which, according to its developer, Dov Raviv, has a 90 percent probability of knocking out a ballistic missile—and can tell a warhead from a decoy.

Meanwhile, the Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency considers itself fortunate when it gets any successful missile shoot-downs from its land-based system. The first successful test interception from the American version of Star Wars came in August 2005—more than 10 years after the Israelis had done the same thing. Now Israel is looking to sell Iron Dome in the United States. And Rafael’s American marketing partner? Raytheon, the same company that developed the Patriot.

For decades Israel has been seen as the United States’ junior partner in all matters military and strategic. American defense companies were the unquestioned leaders in developing sophisticated modern weaponry, while Israelis focused on more standard items such as small arms (the classic Uzi) or weapons built to suit their unique battle conditions (the Merkava tank). The Patriot missile deployment in the First Gulf War only reinforced the perception that Israelis needed American military technology, and American military aid, in order to survive. Now it may be Israeli technology, in the shape of Iron Dome and Arrow, that ends up defending American cities instead.

The changing situation has also affected the American attitude to technology transfers between the two allies. General Uzi Eilam, former head of the Israeli weapons research-and-development agency MAFAT, remembers that when F-15s and F-16s from the United States arrived in Israel, “they came with systems in locked boxes, which we were not allowed to open.” The rule was, the closer the Israelis were to attaining the same technical breakthrough, the more willing the United States would be to share the technology. Today the Pentagon is speeding up the cooperation process, if only to prevent Israeli advances from heading them off at the pass.

It is striking how the Israeli defense sector keeps steadily leapfrogging from one challenge to the next. This is especially true for the acid test of any strong defense industry: foreign sales. Ten years ago Israel ranked 15th. In 2007 it surpassed the United Kingdom to rank fourth, behind the United States, Russia, and France. The day when it takes France’s place is not far off.

This is a remarkable achievement for a country of some six million people that is treated as a virtual pariah by much of the world. But virtual is the mot juste—for even though Turkey virtually froze relations with Israel two years ago, it’s still among Elbit’s best customers.

Read the rest of this great article here.

The Power of Jewish Blabber

2012-01-15T21:25:00.011-05:00

Once it was discovered Moses killed an Egyptian (who persecuted a Jew), Pharoah ordered his execution. With the help of divine intervention, Moses managed to escape and fled Egypt. One source says he was 12 years old (Sifsei Chachomim, Ex. 3:18); Another says he was 18 (Sefer Hayashar, p. 211). At any rate, he was a youngster at the time. By the time Moses returned to Egypt, he was about 80 years old.

Discovery of the Egyptian's murder that forced Moses to flee came as a consequence of two Jews squealing the information to Pharoah. That is to say, because Datan and Aviram tattled on another Jew, opening their mouths when they didn't have to, this led to Moses' absence for a duration of over 60 years!

It was thanks to young Moses, a prince in the palace of Pharoah, that Egypt instituted for enslaved Jews one day in the week to be their day of rest - the Shabbat day. It was, thanks to Moses, that the Egyptian rapist and torturer was killed. Imagine then how much more he could have helped the Jews had he remained within their sphere for a period of over 60 years.

Yet banished he was - and all because of the blabber of two Jews. And not just any two Jews, for these two were the worst among the Jews. Nevertheless, we see the extraordinary power blabbing has, even by the worst of Jewish elements, with its effect on the highest of Jewish personalities.

If the gossip of a lowlife has such detrimental force, imagine how much more injurious could be the gossip of a finer class.

Therefore, of the immense power of a Jew's "לשון הרע" we should take note and take heed!

It is not for nothing God placed two sets of "guardrails" in front of man's tongue. You first have to breach the lips, and then the teeth, before the tongue can begin to wag. The little wag of a Jewish tongue can whip the daylights out of another Jew. So the Jew must be careful to restrain what he exhales from his open mouth. For bad-mouthing another Jew has the power to kill.

The Fallibility of Man without Recourse to Torah

2012-01-14T22:19:00.011-05:00

Some "computer geeks" believe computers can be "taught" to make intelligent decisions as humans can, on the condition the computer gets enough data. But no two people think alike, so what does it mean "enough data"? We would have to exhaust all possible combinations of facts, for every human involved, for the computer to accurately "decide" correctly -- to everybody's satsfaction. Their premise, "on the condition the computer gets enough data", is preposterous.

If that weren't enough, even with the "smartest" computer, won't the computer need updates on a constant basis, because the world doesn't stop for the sake of computer input, does it? And if the world could stand still, can we unload all of what we have in our minds onto paper?

A few more stupid questions, to make a point.

Can a computer: "Become acquainted" with its inventor; "Understand" the urge of a barren woman to have children; Differentiate between a stable or fickle personality; Intuit man's constitution of limbs and inner organs that provide grip, vision, secrete insulin, maintain balance, or digest food? Can it register emotions of pain, love, hate, mercy, cruelty or sympathy?

Can a nest know its bird? Can an explosion understand its etiology? Can milk understand the cow?

Here's the point: As foolish as we deem the assumption of "computer-geeks" to gather all possible data into a machine, as absurd as it is to reckon a computer can understand enough about its inventor, it is infinitely more ludicrous to think man himself can fathom his Creator! After all, the cognitive gap between man and machine is infinitely more minuscule than that between the Creator of the universe and man.

The closest we can get is, we can begin to try to comprehend some things about our Creator, knowing we will never get close. All we can come up with, based on Torah, and nothing but Torah, is that God has certain attributes, and even when we say so, we know we know nothing substantial about Him. For example, Torah says God is benevolent, merciful, righteous, etc., and therefore man, who was created in "God's image", should also aspire to such attributes. How these features help define an infinite God makes no sense to us except that thereby we acknowledge our own need to behave accordingly.

Why Torah? Because this medium mediates between God and man. It is the only and ultimate authority to reckon by. It is this world's "Manual of Instructions". One set of instructions apply to the Jew, whereas another set therein applies to the Gentile.

God can infuse prophecy into a person, but magicians can also infuse or mimic what appears like "Godly powers". So how can man differentiate between the real and the fake? By referring to Torah, and only Torah. The giving of the Torah was a one-time event and no other absolute authority can ever replace it. Only by Torah standards can we decide definitively if something is "kosher" or not.

Can we then ascribe "Godly powers" to a human being? Only if that person measures up to the requirements stipulated in Torah law. One good example of this is the incident of Elijah the prophet, who asked the Jews to build an altar, which Torah prohibits. But, Torah tells us, as long as this is a one-time incident, and otherwise the prophet is God-fearing and Torah-observant, in such a one-time situation we must heed this prophet's demands.

Ascribing "prophetic powers" to someone is one thing. To go even further and say a human possesses divine properties, comparing a man to God, is outright silly. Of course, to justify this belief, they would have to shun Torah, conveniently enough, for example, by saying Torah is outdated or wrong.

But think about the absurdity of this assertion. For, by saying a man is half God or 30% God or somewhat God is like saying man is some percentage of what his mind has no idea of what he's talking about.

What results from such preposterous belief? What else if not absurdities?

Can the mind be deceived? Yes, as sure as people (but never Torah-people!) once thought the earth was flat.

The one and only source of absolute truth is Torah. Torah is virtually the only way to avoid straying into erroneous conclusions. As we learn in Torah, and in its derived literature, Talmud and Chassidus, Torah is, after all -- "the blueprint of the universe"!

What if one believes monotheistically, as do Moslems, who do not attribute Godly attributes to humans; Could they, who are prime examples of heinous hate and cruelty, have access to truth? Of course not, for the simple reason that they too have no anchor to Torah.

The Ron Paul Phenomenon

2012-01-11T22:41:00.007-05:00

Funny how freedom-loving persons who happen to harbor anti-Semitism in their marrow can so easily become discombobulated and fight against free speech when this particular nerve of theirs is rubbed. Ron Paul knows enough to cloak his Jew-hatred under layers of economic-sense parameters, or not so adroitly by lending credence to Israel's worst enemies, but his supporters, many at least, don't bother to conceal their contempt for anything Jewish. Like a wild dog suddenly confronted by a stray cat, these supporters erupt into aggressive attack mode and cannot calm down as long as a Jewish issue or presence lingers uncontested. Freedom of speech for Jews or Jewish supporters now becomes anathema to them, and they are blind to the contradiction.

To encounter an Amalekite is quite common a circumstance for a Jew raised or living among Gentiles. It is as definite as the Jewish law - that "Esau hates Jacob", and we sense this virulence in anyone bearing the Amalekite genome.

The Amalekites, as Torah attests, were the first nation in Jewish history to make war on the Jewish nation. They did it for no good reason. After the Exodus, the Jewish people headed South towards the lower tip of the Sinai Desert, parallel to the bank of the Red Sea just East of Egypt. Then, the entire male population of the nation of Amalek, from their land situated in the Northeast of the Sinai Desert, garnered their weapons and rushed Southward to catch up to the Jews, to fight them, to annihilate them. Never did this nation have any interaction with the Jews until then. Their lustful pursuit to kill Jews had no rationale. They simply could not help themselves. It was an automatic bitter hatred for the Jew. They could not stomach the idea of a free Jewish nation. In their loathing, they traversed more than half the desert to prey on their unsuspecting victims.

Today, millennia after Sancheriv exiled the Jewish people to far-off places and mixed up the tribes, and scattered the Gentiles as well, Amalekites too have been dispersed where only nature can take each one. As a collective body, therefore, they no longer constitute a nation, but their genes definitely still exist in individuals throughout mankind. The easiest way to discern the real Amalekite is simply to gauge his hatred. If the hate is unprovoked, vile, irrational, suddenly surfaces and the person is willing to practically self-sacrifice for the cause, he is almost certainly one with the Amalekite genome.

Hitler, no doubt, was an Amalekite, as were, of course, many of his cohorts who rose to help him enthusiastically. I suspect Pat Buchanan too. Others who most probably share this feature today are Farrakhan, Obama, Wright and Ayers.

Many Arabs too, no doubt, come from this seed, although they may instead come from the "wild" seed of Ishmael (see here). But here too the distinction is clear. Whereas Ishmael hates the Jew as does the Amalekite, the latter holds no such virulent hate for any other nation, while Ishmael's descendants hate all of mankind, even of their own.

Improvising on Oral Torah

2012-01-05T22:23:00.009-05:00

I occasionally surf over to Reform Jewish sites to see what stuff they're putting out. They represent our modern-day "Hellenists" and we have to nudge these good people over to Torah truth ever so carefully and gracefully, lest we shove them further away. Usually my comments get censored out. (Reform "bouncers"). Here's one that made it through.

I responded to a commenter, who knew some Hebrew, who said the following:

"There are no vowels in the Torah. Thus, את השמים ואת הארץ ( heaven and earth) can also be read as, “At hashamaim ve at haaretz”, meaning: "You are heaven and you are earth."

I wrote back:

You can say the same thing about ויהי ערב ויהי בקר יום אחד, "And it was one day and one night; Day one." (Gen. 1:5); You can say, since vowels are missing, what it really says is, "There was a crow and there was cattle, one day". Because crow and evening, and cattle and morning, contain the exact same letters, respectively!

There's obviously a problem here. Vowels are a part of oral Torah! The problem is - that part of oral Torah you do accept, as when you accept ויהי ערב ויהי בקר יום אחד to mean, "And it was evening and it was day; Day one," but another part of oral Torah you unwittingly deny - by creating your own "oral Torah" - namely, "You are heaven and you are earth."

That's not to say Torah cannot be explored in unique ways, but it must be done under certain guidelines, otherwise you "short-circuit" perfect code and make preposterous sense. This happens when we leave it to our own machinations, instead of relying on our sages.

You cannot twist text where it suits you and leave the rest intact. There are 13 particular ways to expound Torah, as our sages specify. (We read these specifications in our daily morning prayer.) In fact, even our sages carefully trod where no one trodded before. You see this often in Talmud where one sage says something by quoting another sage, in the name of yet another sage.

The very first premise to expounding, however, must be a complete respect for the original as being perfect, otherwise, like I said, you build castles in the air. With that premise in tow, we can cautiously look for our own secrets in Torah. But how wise would it be to look for these secrets if, like yours, they negate Jewish sensibilities (confining an infinite Hashem into finite physical entities)?

Such inventiveness actually denies oral tradition rather than adds to it.

During the Mount Sinai experience and in the aftermath years in the desert, God gifted the Jewish people with TWO Torahs - a written one and an oral one, later transcribed to constitute the Talmud.

If one TOTALLY denies the Talmud, as did the Saduccees in early Jewish history, that's bad enough. But to PARTIALLY accept Talmud is even worse! How can this be?

When Elijah the Prophet rebuked the Jews (during the "competition" he held with false prophets at an ad hoc altar), he declared, "How much longer will you straddle the fence? If you want to worship Hashem, then do so; And if you want to worship the foreign god, then do that!" (Kings 1, 18:39)

Note his precise words. Eliyahu was telling the Jewish people that even idol worship is better than straddling the fence! But why are fence straddlers worse than idolaters? Why does Elijah unleash such contempt for straddlers more so than for idol worshippers?

"Fence straddlers" dip into oral Torah, when and as it suits them, and into their own whimsical terrain, when and as it suits them. Such people seek convenience or self-aggrandizement more than they seek truth. For them spirituality plays second fiddle to self-satisfaction. They delude themselves into thinking they are "Torah Jews" because, after all, much of what they do is congruous with Judaism, and as for what they do otherwise, their love of self easily rationalizes away these "imperfections". Logic cannot budge such people. Much like a sick person who doesn't recognize he's ill.

Worse still is another effect straddlers have. They may influence others who lack insight or knowledge. For straddlers cannot be easily identified for what they are as easily as total deniers can be. A Jew knows enough to realize idol worship clashes with Judaism, but he may not detect the attitude of one who compromises his Judaism, as does his straddler friend. It is for this very reason gentile missionaries often prey on targets among this group of weak Jews by portraying a Jewish facade. A good lie always starts with a bit of truth to it! Rashi (13:27)

Jewish Liberalism's Achilles Heel

2012-01-04T19:22:00.006-05:00

I wrote this letter to a Jew who heaped abuse on the Chareidi sector for nurturing the likes of that Jew who committed a chilul Hashem for spitting in a young girl's face.

Dear ___ ,

I returned to reread your tirade against the charedi sector. Why is it, I asked myself, secular Jews, more than their religious peers, tend to adopt "liberal", or leftist, positions, especially vis-a-vis Israel. For example, taking for granted Israel's current awkward jurisdiction over "West Bank" issues, which they unquestionably support. Or, for example, disregarding the plight of Jonathan Pollard because it is a "sensitive" issue for Jews to get involved with. Or, as in this case, one idiot's behavior, used to mudsling at the religious element, as leftists in Israel all too often are just too happy to oblige to.

The answer, I believe, lies in your accredited sources of information.

In American media, for example, the "Palestinians" (a name conjured up in 1967) always get more than a fair share of "concern" for their welfare, let alone their vile hatred for anything Jewish. In Israel, the religious element is ceaselessly vilified in the media. (Only 2 years ago could a "religious channel" finally materialize.)

Religious Jews are, first and foremost, brought up with Torah and its commentaries as a backdrop to the ensuing theater of life. Secular Jews, in contrast, rely on the prevalent media.

This, I believe, is the Achilles heel of secularists; For one simple reason, and that is, because media sources can be bought out and used to promote propaganda!

For example, if a weed in your back lawn could cure cancer, the medical establishment, closely aligned and kept in check by "big-pharma", will never allow any respectable medical journal to publish this finding for it would severely cut into their profit from pushing patentable drugs. Were a journal to publish such an article, its revenue for ads would suddenly dry up because big-pharma's ads are what feeds and sustains this medium.

You tell us right from your article's beginning what your creditable source of information is: the New York Times - the very publication that couldn't see fit to highlight the atrocities done to Jews in WWII; The very one that whitewashes Hamas terrorists as "fighters"; etc. You get my point.

Similarly, when it comes to Torah thoughts, your first sources would probably be your college texts, or books originally written in English, rather than the traditional Jewish literature handed down over the millennia quoting nothing but our sages.

Anyhow - may we all merit God's mercy and finally become a united people, drawing infinite blessings. If you read up to here, thanks for listening.

A Shabbat Niggun

2012-01-03T20:44:00.004-05:00

Classical guitar music for the Jewish soul. By Nadav Becher.

Being Beholden to G-d

2011-12-22T15:09:00.008-05:00

So small a phrase as "Thank God" has awful resistance for some to bring to expression. Probably they fear the listener will recoil with horror at the thought the person speaking believes in "fairy tales". Meaning to say, the speaker wants to feel accepted.

But there are many who do express their gratitude by invoking the short phrase, "Thank God". And because they are so grateful, they want others to be grateful as well, so they have no qualms to assert their belief in God. Rather than wanting to be merely accepted, these speakers want to be influencers too. Rather than being timid, they want to be strong-willed. Rather than shy away from revealing their belief, they want to communicate it and, if need be, if they're questioned, they will easily explain their belief in a way where the listener should understand and he or she also become a grateful recipient of goodness, an occasion that even just breathing offers.

"How are you" is a commonplace greeting in America. "Thank God" should become at least as common, if not more so!

A Diary Entry - 1st Day of Chanuka

2011-12-20T20:21:00.004-05:00

A clipping from today's major leftist NY newspaper (Click on image to enlarge):

How Many Religions Are There in the World? Jew & Gentile: Two Modes of Proper Conduct

2011-12-15T12:18:00.017-05:00

Jews must convey to their Gentile peers the requisite for fulfilling the "7 Noahide Laws". We find this statute in Maimonides' paramount compendium of Jewish law, "The Strong Hand" (division "Judges", section "Kings", chapter 8, rule 10).

A Gentile with no faith in God feels free to behave as he wishes, especially in a free country, and, from the moment he rises in the morning, he has no plans for devout activities. For such a person, the 7 Noahide Laws may come as a rude awakening, for suddenly he's saddled with a new set of responsibilities he never would have imagined.

A religious Gentile may find it less traumatic to learn of the yoke he must bear to the Almighty, but he too will certainly be taken aback by this religious commitment he needs undertake, which he never knew existed.

As for the Jew who must impart this information to his Gentile peer, this responsibility is extremely distasteful. The Jew never had it in his tradition to proselytize. It's not in his blood to talk religion with a Gentile.

The Jew who lacks faith in God would, of course, scorn this task as being ridiculous. So degrading a chore as this, to convince others of fairy-tale machinations, he wouldn't even wish on his enemy.

As for the religious Jew, after a centuries-long tradition of being under Gentile rule, much of which meant being downtrodden and on the defensive, with only recently the phenomenon of racial equality becoming socially palatable, he is not accustomed nor does he relish this now-feasible calling. He'd rather be shackled and told to stay home than actively mimic the Gentile proselytizers he so despises, knowing they want to sell him on pennies so that he give up his gold. For him to have to spread the Noahide laws to Gentile peers is tantamount to being perceived as some sleazy insurance or used-car salesman.

So - we end up with Jews who shrink back from their responsibility to enlighten, and Gentiles who may well rebuff any new religious liabilities they will learn about.

The metaphor for this situation is the horse and buggy, with a passenger. The horse gallops along, and no matter if the passenger is smart or stupid, king or pauper, the horse, as far as it is concerned, could care less.

Similarly, that a person with obligations may reject or dismiss them - will not change the fact of the matter. The world gallops along its temporal course from one day to the next. One of these days, divine reckoning shall ask each of us if we fulfilled our duty on earth, and, by then, we will not be able to feign ignorance nor cast judgement aside. We'll be held accountable for our deeds.

We were created in God's image, which means we have the ability to think and reason, unlike other species.

So, to understand why disseminating, on the one hand, and accepting, on the other, the 7 Noahide laws is imperative, let's think and reason:

Suppose you host a guest in your home. Wouldn't you expect him to show appropriate manners? Would it not annoy you if he sits on your dinner table, carelessly breaks a crystal, or spits on the carpet? Would it not also offend you if such crass behavior were to occur mindless of your presence?

This anecdote symbolizes our lifetime on earth. We are the world's guests, given this incredible opportunity to live a life, by God our host. Do we disrespect the master of this domain and behave ungratefully?

You might ask, "But what constitutes 'appropriate behavior'? How is one to distinguish between what's really right from wrong?"

Think and reason again. The creator of any complicated gadget always leaves a set of instructions how to correctly operate his creation.

The same is true of the created universe. We creatures too have been given a manual of instructions. It happens to be the most widely read book in the world and the most popular in human history, until this very day! In the whole world, hardly a home exists without one, or at least without the ability to get one immediately!

Thought and reason should also lead you to understand and conclude that this fact is no mere happenstance. It's God's way to make sure we all have access to Him and His expectations of us. God also wants you to fill in the dots of so many more happenings around the world, especially events concerning His representative people, who have always been believers of His monotheistic presence, for that too will reveal important points in the mosaic of truth God wants people of thought and reason to realize and appreciate.

The very existence of the Jewish people is a phenomenon that transcends nature. It is the equivalent of a sheep that survives among 70 hungry wolves. The Torah is the glue that keeps the Jewish people true to their faith and miraculously assures their collective, if not individual, survival.

The book God gave the Jewish people is called Torah. The word means "a book of instruction". That name is deliberate.

The Torah, as it was gifted to the Jewish people 3,323 years ago, in its original Hebrew language, provides all the answers. Torah is your source for truth! As long as you allow others - other than observant Jews - to teach you what Torah says, or, as long as you find reason to follow those who shun the opinion of such Jews, you will never know the truth!

Not one letter has ever been added or removed from Torah since its inception, in 1312 B.C.. It suffered no revisions or modifications, and never will, because divine perfection gets it right the first time and remains eternally perfect. No translation of it can do justice to the original language. Unlike every other language, which is artificial, Hebrew is God's language.

Only observant rabbis profoundly intimate with Torah and Talmud (oral Torah tradition) can provide answers to questions of appropriate behavior.

The Torah prescribes two modes of appropriate behavior in this domain of God; One prescription is for the Jew; The other, for the Gentile. The Jew has 613 commandments (plus ramifications thereof) he must follow. The Gentile has 7 (with its own ramifications); These are the so-called Seven Noahide Laws.

So, what constitutes proper conduct in God Almighty's abode? What behavior befits the King's palace? There are two, depending on who you are. One protocol applies for Jewish people, and one for Gentile people. Each group has its own role in the world. The Jew is the Torah's beacon. The Gentile is the world's colonizer. Each has his own related set of commandments. Anything else falls short of these requirements and lacks divine sanction!

So, how many religions exist in the world? Who knows; There ought to be none! Torah endorses only two modes of proper conduct, one for Jew and one for Gentile, no more, no less. You can't beat this elegant simplicity, nor the inherent synergy.

As for the payoff - righteous Gentiles in this world earn their future ticket into the world of truth.

The "Downed" Drone

2011-12-13T12:25:00.013-05:00

For those who feel confident this horrible Obama-thing will blow over and everything will turn out roses again after 2012, are due for a rude awakening. They do not realize how rotten the core of our present American administration and its supportive infrastructure has become. They do not see how the media manipulates the political scenarios, nor how the Republicans, as sure as the Democrats, are also with their hands in the pot. They do not realize that even the likes of so-called conservative Newt Gingrich is also on their payroll. They do not realize how so many individuals depend on or leach off of the financial support of the administration; This goes for common folk as well as for multi-millionaire politicians. The longevity of this corruption will not hold the weight and will have to buckle, but not before the regime in power wins a 2nd term and then will proceed to purposely break the system and its adherence to the principles upon which it was founded, namely The Constitution.

So corrupt is the regime, it has no iota of moral fabric. To engineer their takeover and transformation of this capitalistic society into a socialist, totalitarian one, they have conspired to run guns into the hands of Mexican gangs so that the guns can find their way back onto U.S. soil, doing damage they hope, thus giving the administration good reason to "clamp down" on gun ownership, thereby executing the next phase of their takeover and do-over, because without guns people are completely at the "law"-enforcement's mercy.

The drone that fell into the hands of the enemy is another glaring example of such conspiracy in the works. Nobody "downed" that drone; That drone was purposefully put into the hands of the Iranians. The administration has its moles planted in the U.S. airforce, who purposefully handed over this drone into enemy hands, knowing full well that China, Russia or Iran will thereby be offered the American regime's secret support, to eventually overwhelm American military superiority and thereby bring about a new, universal world order of socialist structure. The same regime that emasculated NASA, the same that undermines America's desire to create a democratic Iraq, the same that now has TSA agents in place to halt the outflow of the dollar they plan to devalue, will, after it wins a second term, bring America to its knees - forthwith, faster than you can a raise a protest against.

We are quickly approaching the Ultimate and Final Era of Redemption. This article brought you the Previous Rebbe's prophecy - that Democracy will turn out to be the last "ism" to be destroyed prior to the Messianic era, and now we are about to see just how fragile and corrupt an ideal this man-made structure can become, and will self-destruct, just as Socialism proved to be worthless and was destroyed. Looks like this prophecy is coming on fast and furiously - all for the good of the Jewish people (despite those still hoping to hang on to this flimsy, corruptable ideal they put all their faith in).

(See here too, The Rise & Fall of Israel & America, Respectively)

(And here too, re: Current Events in Bright Perspective)

Hagar the Matriarch

2011-12-11T12:17:00.008-05:00

Ever hear an Arab talk about his "history"? Inevitably he mentions Abraham, the patriarch of the Jews, whom they'd like to possess for themselves, which is why they hate Jews so badly.

But did you ever hear them make mention of their matriarch? That would be like offering some semblance of worth to a woman, which is so non-Arabic, so non-Muslim; After all, they would argue, or at least think, how can you attribute value to a mere object of lust, any more than you could attribute greatness to a goat! In fact, the goat doesn't have to wear the burkha.

Most probably the "elders" of the Arabs/Muslims, who know about the true story of Abraham, at least those few who credit Torah for being the truth, and, realizing that Hagar was but a maidservant of the first Jewish matriarch, Sarah, whose only son she made sure would inherit Abraham's legacy, while Ishmael, Hagar's son, she chased away from her premises, making sure he'd never inherit anything pertaining to Abraham, could hardly take pride in their driven-away matriarch.

Do I come to mock another "religion"? Yes of course, because it is no religion in the first place. Belief in the One G-d is indeed righteous. If that is all that they would believe in - they would be a holy people. But they take that premise, and add to it the rubbish written by a pedophiliac, thief, murderer and hater, and, in the name of G-d, commit atrocities and delight in the atrocities of the likes of Hitler, so - taken together - it is NOT a religion at all, but rather a sick culture.

Ever hear of an Arab/Muslim who murdered in cold blood and did NOT invoke the name of G-d at the time of his inhumane crime? This is the sickness of a deep-rooted culture that begins from infancy. Offer them any leeway, any show of respect, and you end up undermining yourself.

A Natural Deodorant

2011-12-07T11:42:00.012-05:00

Deodorant companies won't tell you this, but the best and natural deodorant is - baking soda! Apply a little of its powder in the axillae and for the rest of the day odor is eliminated. Not only is the substance natural, it works much better than artificial deodorant, and it's practically free.

Baking soda has no smell, does not stain clothing, retains its power for hours long, even on the hottest of days, is cheap, and, most important, does not contain dangerous ingredients such as aluminum, which practically all artificial deodorants contain.

Young people are often most likely to purchase the artificial deodorants, out of sheer ignorance, and most often they know nothing about the risks these can have on their own health, or on those who have to smell the spray when it is sprayed on. What they don't know is that clean sweat has no smell. Armpits and their sweat serve a bodily purpose. Artificial deodorants not only have dangerous substances that can be absorbed from the pores into the body, they also impede the natural, and therefore necessary, elimination of waste products from the armpits.

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Other uses of this wonderful product:

Skin tears between the toes. Most creams don't work resolutely because shoes are full of bacteria and fungii. A good strategy is to put some powder into the shoes at night, and seal each shoe within a plastic bag. In the morning shake out the powder or vacuum it out. The rest of the day your shoes will be bacteria- and fungal-free.

Closet odor. Place a small dish with powder into the closet. The sodium bicorbonate will absorb the bad odors.

Removes stains from clothes. Just add 3 spoons of the stuff into the washing machine.

Shining teeth. Just add some of this powder onto your toothpaste. (Especially if you smoke!)

Got ants? Spread some powder around there.

Other uses include cleaning grime from pots, smell from thermos bottles and stains on carpets.

Direct Conduit for Hashem

2011-12-05T21:59:00.013-05:00

Translation of the above note:

Because a Rebbe's answer is, after all, "The word of Hashem was spoken to me, Whose word is on my tongue."

In many Chabad ceremonies, a family often distributes to guests "gifts" (תשורה) for their reading pleasure. Such booklets contain historical anecdotes of personal encounters with the Rebbe, or those of relatives, or letters to or from the Rebbe, which the family unveils to share with their guests.

This image I cropped from such a gift handout, and share with you. I hope you appreciate the significance these few hand-written words of the Rebbe imply. They could just as well have been written by Moses, the leader of his generation. As we see in Deut 18:15, "A prophet from among you, like myself, Hashem will raise for you [every generation], to whom you should listen."

I can well appreciate during these concealed times the enormity of this last trial for many fellow-Chabadniks, how much more so for Chassidim of other affiliation, and especially more difficult to grasp for those outside the realm of Chassidut, for this concept of נשיא הדור, the Prince of the Generation, has now become strained, just as strained, if not more so, as the day Moses was expected to come down from Mount Sinai the first time -- when some felt he tarried. But a trial it is. Only this one is the final trial. Yet he who holds fast, and is willing to explain why, will convince enough Jews to accept the implication, a few more of which will trigger the "critical mass" for acceptance, needed for his re-revelation.

(As for why the Rebbe slightly modified the above quote, from Shmuel 2, 23:2, in this case replacing the word דבר for רוח, we do find it when the Rebbe wants to specify and explain a specific word, as here, that רוח means דבור. Regarding this concept, see also Tanya p. 278 (top).)

Amnesty from Hell - Psalm 23

2011-12-01T15:30:00.008-05:00

The Previous Rebbe reveals for us what King David thought when he authored Psalm 23 (translated below, from הקריאה והקדושה, pp.781-2). It behooves every Jew to understand this short Psalm, for whom it was written in the first place. As a preface, I repeat what the Tzemach Tzedek said, that Moshiach will rejoice with the simple Jews, those who set aside their "brains" lest it interfere with their faith in the tzaddik's words. The "wise ones" will then have good reason to be jealous.

A friend once told me this about happiness - in Hebrew, שמחה: It consists of two inner letters and two outer letters that read מח שה, meaning "the mind of a sheep". True happiness is achieved by following the tzaddik's words as a sheep follows trustingly its shepherd. Much of the following relates to words of a tzaddik and the benefits of relying on and trusting Hashem, allowing oneself to be shepherded in His ways.

Our sages tell us, when a Psalm opens with the words "מזמור לדוד", this refers to a song King David created while yearning for divine insight. During such spiritual uplift, he would speak some divine truth, a profound holy lesson, for the sake of the Jewish people.

On the other hand, if it opens with "לדוד מזמור", this implies an occasion when unexpectedly he was infused with divine insight and then felt compelled to sing out a prophecy.

In Psalm 23, which we explain below, the divine poet renders a deep and holy lesson - that no real achievement is acquired in the world unless it is offered by Hashem, which is why Jews must always remain bound to Hashem, both in good times and, Hashem forbid, in bad times.
_ _ _

"מזמור לדוד ד' רעי לא אחסר"
"A song of David. When God is my shepherd, I lack nothing."

When individuals or nations help themselves, or when they're helped by other individuals or nations, this help is imperfect and lacks lasting happiness. Only when Hashem offers help or leads ("pastures") an individual or nation, is the help flawless. We naturally conclude, therefore, we must let ourselves be guided by Hashem, following in only His ways, if we yearn for success and complete joy in life.

"בנאות דשא ירביצני על מי מנחות ינהלני"
"He makes only me lie down on grassy pastures. He leads only me along calm waters."

True economic success, for an individual or nation, comes only from Hashem. Only He can provide tranquility and political freedom. Self-made economic success and political independence are neither complete nor enduring; These cannot bring full satisfaction for various reasons; It cannot last long and it is flawed to begin with.

"נפשי ישובב ינחני במעגלי צדק למען שמו"
"He refreshes my soul; He leads me in rightful paths - for the sake of His name."

Divinely-offered success provides more than physical or material happiness; It also provides internal, spiritual joy. That's because those faithful to Hashem are lead by Him in the right paths. Their success isn't based on falsity, theft, robbery or murder. They have a clean conscience. Their soul too is refreshed from this success, as is the body. This contrasts with achievement attained by those who abandoned Hashem. Then there is no tranquility because their conscience plagues them constantly and punishment for having made these material gains frightens them because of the transgressions and sins involved. Their physical success and emotional happiness are thus flawed.

Only success that Hashem provides refreshes both the soul and the body. Why? Because He does it "for the sake of His name", so people should know that when Hashem provides success - it is true success, free of heartaches or misgivings.

"גם כי אלך בגיא צלמות לא אירא רע כי אתה עמדי שבטך ומשענתך המה ינחמני"
"Even when I walk in the valley of death-shadows, I fear no bad because You are with me; Your rod and cane are a comfort for me."

The divine poet here addresses two issues: Man's death, which can lead to Hell, and exile, which "valley of death-shadows" refers to, either for the individual or for a nation.

Regarding death and Hell, our sages tell us, that when the spiritual overseers of the nations [every nation has its overseer] complain why is it the sinful Jewish nation gets no Hell whereas other sinful nations do, they are shown the heavenly decree - that every sinful nation must go to Hell together with the god they worshipped! The same is true for every individual! If someone worshipped Hashem, then, even though he wasn't fully righteous, he cannot go to Hell for his smaller sins because his God, Hashem, cannot go with him! "I fear no bad because You are with me!" He who worships Hashem, therefore, has no fear of Hell because Hashem is with him! This means, in fact, his sins are regarded as minor, and get wiped away by punishments [in this world], but not by Hell.

Here then is another benefit for allowing oneself to be led by Hashem - it removes the option of Hell in the world-to-come.

The Jewish nation, in general, is therefore actually safe from Hell because as a collective they generally worship Hashem; Which is why they can say, and do say, regarding Hell, "I fear no bad because You are with me!"

After the Jewish people sinned, since they could not be sent to Hell, they had to be sentenced to exile. Despite exile, as a collective, they are not in danger of downfall [extinction], as happened to many other exiled nations who lost their land and their independence.

Jews in exile are sustained in life by "Your rod and cane"; By the divine rod that whips, and the divine Torah, which is their cane that prevents Jews from falling. Jews never achieve complete tranquility in exile as do other nations who also lost their independence.

By the divine rod, Jews get whipped in all their lands of exile; They know they are victimized because of the divine Torah they possess, a Torah from which they do not want to be torn away from despite all the dirt heaped upon them. The rod and the Torah are therefore Hashem's goodness and consolation for the Jewish people. Were it not for the whipping rod that casts the sinning countries in a despicable light, and were it not for Torah that demonstrates that the Jewish nation is more beautiful and, spiritually, heavens higher than the sinning, whipping countries, the Jews would long ago have had their downfall through assimilation. Our consolation and entire hope on final redemption rest strictly on Hashem's "rod and cane" that He has us contending with.

This is then another benefit for letting be led by Hashem: That we as a collective cannot go to Hell and that we cannot go extinct during exile!

The fact that we must contend with the rod and the cane during exile, which prevents us from going under, is a sign He wants to redeem us, to return us to the Holy Land, and provide us with luscious pastures, along quiet waters - which means economic plenty and political independence and tranquility!

"תערך לפני שלחן נגד צררי דשנת בשמן ראשי כוסי רויה"
"You prepare for me a table against my enemies. You anoint my head with fragrant oil; My cup satiates me."

The Godly poet relates another advantage in letting oneself be led by Hashem, even in exile - the valley of death-shadows. Even in exile Hashem gives to those who earn it a prepared table, wealth and honor, in order to anger all enemies of the Jews. For not abandoning faith in Hashem, the Jewish people, even in exile, and despite enemies who heap dirt upon them, get a great name, in the sense of "שמן תורק שמך על כן עלמות אהבוך" ("For your flowing oil [whose fragrance one smells from afar] you are renowned, therefore maidens love you.") [Song of Songs 1:3]. Even the anti-Semitic nations have to acknowledge Jewish greatness and talent, and they want Jews should intermingle with them. For this reason, the cup of many Jews is a full one that satiates them. Nations and their officials need access to Jewish resourcefulness, so they appoint Jews to high office, which satiates the appointees either economically or with honor. All this comes as a result of maintaining belief in Hashem; All this for not giving up their Jewishness.

And this is truly a great wonder - that youngsters from the Jewish "Gypsy" [nomadic, unconventional] nation manage to rub shoulders with royalty, to become finance ministers, authors, lawyers and governors - a phenomenon that could never happen to person from a real Gypsy nation!

"אך טוב וחסד ירדפוני כל ימי חיי ושבתי בבית ד' לארך ימים"
"Just goodness and favor will follow me all days of my life, and I will yet even sit in God's house for long years."

According to circumstances where Jews sinned and thus warranted exile, since then all Jewish days are full with goodness and favor that Hashem gives them. Without true miracles, the Jewish nation could never have possibly survived amid 2,000 years of hate and persecution. And finally Jews will, speedily in our days, live to see the ultimate redemption and remain the most free and luckiest people, in their holy, divine land, forever.
_ _ _

So, King David gave us, in this small chapter 23, a complete thesis about the happy opportunity Jews have, to be led by Hashem alone, by following the ways of Torah. Briefly expressed, he enumerates all the benefits we derive therefrom, in good times or bad, God forbid, when we transgress somewhat.

God-given success is whole, flawless, as it was during the short era under the reigns of King David and King Solomon, when Jews enjoyed true economic "grassy pastures" and complete political "tranquil waters", because then the Land of Israel was the richest and most respected nation in the world. God-given success is a delight for both soul and body, for it comes as a reward for following in Hashem's path; It is free of painful thoughts or fear of punishment that come bound with unkosher success.

Also after death, the God-fearing person is happier than everyone because he cannot go to Hell, just as the Jewish people collectively are free from Hell.

Even suffering through exile, for which their sins are to blame, Jews are guaranteed from becoming extinct and, moreover, they have comfort knowing they will one day be redeeemed, based on an undoubtful sign, that even in exile a Jew can enjoy wealth and honor, simply by remaining a God-faithful Jew, vis-vis anti-Semites who, upon seeing this, burn inside with fire.

And surely Jews would incur a much lighter exile were they to be better Jews, correctly observing the Torah, instead of being satisfied for not being completely Gentile-like, as many Jews do in the more-or-less assimilated circles.

The exile turned out to be a long chain of miracles, due to the goodness and favor Hashem showered upon us, for which we will merit a complete redemption from which our happy future will never again be taken away from us.

All this we learn from 6 short verses, in 57 words! The most profound, truthful, complete and shortest explanation why it is the best of fortunes to be a Jew walking in Hashem's ways by observing Torah and Mitzvot.

Unfortunately, many Jews lost both worlds only because they knew not the contents or meaning of this very chapter of Psalms, small as it is!

Jacob's Dream

2011-11-29T19:28:00.013-05:00

About 150 years ago, scientists grouped all things into "having life" or "not having life". On the other hand, our sages, who go back 2,000 years, had claimed everything in this world has a "soul".

Were the sages wrong? Could "dead" stuff, like stones, have a "soul"?

But then scientists discovered the atom and some of its components. It turns out today's physics agrees there's no such thing as lifeless stuff. All matter teems with dynamic forces.

The Encyclopedia Britannica writes, "All atoms are roughly the same size, whether they have 3 or 90 electrons. Approximately 50 million atoms of solid matter lined up in a row would measure 1 cm (0.4 inch). Compared with the overall size of the atom, the nucleus is even more minute. It is in the same proportion to the atom as a marble is to a football field."

The atom's tiny nucleus holds all the protons and neutrons. Its lightweight electrons spin around this nucleus, some reaching the outer limits that define the atom's "football field" boundaries. In proportion to that "marble-sized" nucleus and the negligible sizes of the circling electrons, even if there were 90 of them, the amount of empty space inside this single atom is immense. Imagine how many more "marbles" could fit into this enclosed empty space. The proportion is something like multi-billions to one. This should give you an idea of how much more "air" exists inside an atom compared with the amount of "solid" inside it.

Each proton or neutron weighs 2,000 times as much as an electron. Most of the atom’s volume, therefore, consists of a cloud of electrons of very tiny mass, which means the atom's weight is, for all practical purposes, the weight of its nucleus; And most of its volume, most of that "football field", is, for all practical purposes - empty!

Shoot a bullet at a rock or steel wall, it'll deflect, because it cannot penetrate the mass. But Rutherford, in 1910, blasted atoms with radioactive waves and these waves - went right through. He blasted them thousands of times and each wave went through as if through empty space, for each time he hit his targets on the other side of the wall.

Although they could not visualize the atom, scientists devised a hypothetical physical model of one. It was like a small solar system with a bunch of tiny "stars" (electrons) revolving around the "sun" (nucleus), only the relative distances between these "stars" were much more spacious.

Amazingly, with so much space making up the atom, as difficult as it might be to imagine, even big things are - almost hollow!

Take the body of a man, for example. Implode all its material by removing all the empty space, and we'd end up with a speck of dust hardly visible with a magnifying glass! And the weight of this dust speck would be the weight of the man!

If we were to take the planet earth and squeeze out all its empty space, we'd end up with a sphere of only half a mile in radius.

With this information, we more easily understand Rashi's explanation of Jacob's dream in Beth El, when G-d tells him, "The land upon which you lie I will give to you and your descendants." Says Rashi, "G-d folded up all The Land of Israel beneath him." (Gen. 28:13)

In effect, science confirmed what our sages posited thousands of years ago, namely, that all matter has a "soul", which means a divine potential, a life-force - something we cannot see, that keeps them moving. Not only is all physicality mostly void of matter, but this "nothingness" is actually its existential truth.

Science begins to comprehend, in its own way, that matter has no existence apart from its energy - and its energy is infinitely greater than the mass. Could we but harness the atomic energy in one speck of coal, we could propel all the world's big ships from America to Israel and back. That we can reduce all matter of a man's body into a miniscule grain of sand shows just how meager is the body in comparison with the gigantic proportions of its divine soul.

Like an Eagle Awakens Her Nest

2011-11-24T14:51:00.008-05:00

"Like an Eagle Awakens Her Nest"

כנשר יעיר קנו

(Deut. 32:11)

Jews are like just-hatched chicks of the mother eagle. They look around but see no mother just yet. So too the Jewish people scurry about, mostly oblivious to the God that watches over them.

The way the mother eagle, upon returning to her nest, to feed or visit her chicks, does it is interesting. Were she to simply fly in and land in front of them, her size and speed would frighten them to death. So she first lands nearby, out of sight, and then begins to shake branches or make movements to draw their attention from afar. Then she slowly will advance towards them.

So to we Jews may not behold God if He were to suddenly present Himself, as happened in Mount Sinai when the Jews received the first two commandments from God Himself. It says there, they had to be miraculously resuscitated, when, with each commandment, the fright killed them. They then persuaded Moses to be the conduit and through him, instead, receive the remaining 8 commandments.

This is how God is preparing us for the Final and Ultimate Era of Redemption. He cannot reveal Himself suddenly. He does it gradually. First He brings Chassidus into the world. He raises a dynasty of Rabbis who, with every passing generation, spread Chassidus more and more, each Rabbi reaching out much more than his predecssor, taking these waters of the utopic fountain of eternity to wherever Jews find themselves. By now, there hardly remains a Jew worldwide who has not been touched by the Lubavitcher Rebbe.

Unlike the nitty-gritty stuff that makes up the Talmud, and unlike the harsh approach of Mussar to rally the Jews to observance, Chassidus is lofty and mellow. It brings to light new aspects of Torah heretofore concealed from even the greatest minds. Chassidus awakens the soul with sweet-talk of God and the value of the Jewish soul. It talks of the role of Moshiach, the meaning of a conduit, and what redemption means. It talks about God's eventual revelation to us in dimensions as of yet unbeknown to us.

Before the Sabbath dons on us, the obligation of the Jew on Friday is to have a foretaste of the Sabbath - by tasting a bit of the dish prepared for the approaching Sabbath day. Similarly, on the eve of the eternal Sabbath, we, today, at the threshold of the Era of the Final and Ultimate Redemption, must get a foretaste of the Eternal Sabbath era. How so? By studying Chassidus, or, at the very least, studying about Moshiach! In order that we stand prepared.

The Rise and Fall of Israel & America, Respectively - part 2

2011-11-22T21:21:00.015-05:00

(Cont'd from Part 1)

"And his hand grasps Esav's heel." (Genesis 25:26)

Says Rashi, "This is a sign Esav will not manage to complete his reign until Jacob rises up and takes it from him."

Taking it from him does not have to mean by force. Esav can lose his control with self-defeating behavior, that which God finds reprehensible.

Esav possessed qualities of the hunter with military prowess and guile, whereas Jacob learned all day in the study halls of Shem and Ever. Historically, judging by the longer trend, Esav seems to have outdone Jacob. Nevertheless, the day would come when "the many will serve the young one." (25:23)

"The many" probably refers today to America (Esav). Eventually, then, who will America yield its greatness to, like it or not? To "the young one", Jacob, today's Jewish nation. Jacob was conceived before Esav (Rashi 26:26), but he appears on the scene later, when holding on to Esav's heel during birth. The Jewish people got back their Holy Land nearly two centuries after America had become a nation and then a world power. Esav, which is America, then, is the "old", and Jacob, the newly-minted Jewish people who have returned to their original soil, are the "young".

Just how would America lose control? We can learn from Esav's behavior. First of all, he was preoccupied with war, sometimes justifiably, sometimes not. And he came home utterly tired,

"... ויבוא עשו מן השדה והוא עיף"‪.‬ (25:29)

America too was preoccupied with war, sometimes justifiably (eg, WWII, Japan) and sometimes not (eg, running guns to Mexican gangs, Libya). Just as Esav tired of war, similarly an anti-war sentiment arose in America that spawned the "Hippie" movement, and it gave a chance for leftists to percolate through and rise up into the ruling infrastructure.

But what really brought Esav down was more than just selling his birthright because he shunned divine worship; He also overtly showed contempt for it! (25:34) "ויבז עשו את הבכורה"

This same attitude manifests today in America, in its Democratic party's radical liberalism in general, and in Obama, in particular, who shows contempt for American honor, chastises those "clinging to God", seeks to remove God from mention on its currency, in its pledge of allegiance, and from society in general - thereby wiping clean the American heritage of any mention of God.

More than that, as the Kli Yakar (Gen. 25:34) explains, Esav was a murderer (as sure as America tolerated and legislated the murder of so many unborn children for so many years), he was into lewdness (as sure as America promoted, if not tolerated, homosexual perversity and same-sex marriage), and he antagonized divine worship (as is so obvious with this mouthpiece in highest office, who sat in a pew listening to "pastor" Jeremiah Wright spew hate for 20 years).

If one sanctions perversity and murder, he surely sanctions theft. And we note today just how corrupt American politicians have become in channeling millions into their own coffers, at the expense of the public they were meant to serve.

The latest egregious transgressions are: Obama's trillion dollar "stimulus" money kicked back to corrupt bankers, many millions to Solyndra executives and even to its laid-off employees, more such thefts using other such figurative companies, governor Corzine's theft of billions "missing" from his company, Obama's house acquisition from convicted criminal Tony Rezko, ... and the list goes on and on.

If gangsterism is endemic in American politics, at least it was until now concealed. But with the Obama regime, it's all now clearly in the open and the administration is becoming heavy-handed against its accusers.

You see the arrogance and duplicity in his face. Look how Obama dismissed the voter intimidation case against some members of the Black Panthers. Look here how he pardoned convicted dope dealers and a jewel thief. Yet poor Jonathan Pollard remains in isolated detention 27 years now, and Moshe Rubashkin too endures an unjust prison sentence, because of obvious, antisemitic bias.

Will Obama win in 2012? I am afraid so. The regime, and by that I mean that huge, rich Fascist machine in control of Obama, who placed him there in the first place, after having groomed him for this heist, is now well embedded all over the controlling infrastructure in key areas. They will steal the election in 2012 if they have to. Why am I so sure? Because Republicans can call out Obama on his false birth certificate, on his dismissal of the voter intimidation case, on the targets of the stimulus money, on Solyndra's fraud, on Lezko’s deal, on gun-running, etc., but all we hear against these offenses is a screaming silence, with every powerful bureaucrat hushed up over the impeachment option and, rather, dealing with irrelevancies thrown out by fascist Democrats and their mainstream media cohorts. The Fascists will have their day in 2012 I do fear.

That's my take of the worldy goings-on these days. The sole comfort we can take from all this precipitous deterioration in human rights and values is that they are the post-delivery birth pangs of Moshiach. God will deliver as He promises in Torah! The long-shot will finally win.

The Rise and Fall of Israel & America, Respectively

2011-11-20T19:08:00.019-05:00

It appears political landscapes are reshaping as Torah foretells, right before our eyes. In reference to Jacob and Esau, Torah tells us, their powers never equate; Only one dominates during an era. "... The upper hand will go from one government to the other ..." (Genesis 25:23)

Until now, Israel (Jacob) cowered beneath the shadow of giant, powerful America (Esau). Israel mimicked and cultured whatever fad its American idol begot, be it earrings on men or TV programs such as "Kojak". They even outdid their idol by radicalizing policies, such as taking the "anti-racism" mantra to favor its Arab inhabitants over its indigenous religious element, or parading homosexuality along Jerusalem's streets to tout its loyalty to "anti-discrimination", or simply by secularizing lifestyle. It felt it owed allegiance to America, and whatever financial or military help it could get from America was its very lifeblood. They lost the traditional Jewish faith in God as the Almighty and as their source of welfare and success.

But we notice in Israel, recently, a significant swing in mindset; Whereas for many decades the left was able to inculcate their non-Torah ideology and remain void of genuine Jewish pride, all the while obsequious to America, the tide towards the right is now palpable, with many becoming observant, or at least cognizant of God and traditional values, and even in non-religious circles many have re-aligned with the political right. What's more, America is being alienated from Israeli awe and respect it once commanded.

Simultaneously, we note the Israeli economy shows strength while the once-powerful America and its dollar are clearly on the decline, whatever the reasons behind this. As for Europe's affluence, it appears to be gasping its last breaths. (No small wonder considering all the Jewish blood spilled on its soil.)

"... And Yakov's hand grasped Esau's heel ..." (Genesis 25:26) The body is a metaphor for time; The heel represents the end of the temporal range. Rashi explains, "It's a sign that Esau will eventually lose his dominion as Jacob takes it from him." Eventually refers to the many years after dominion, as the heel is relatively distant from the once-coronated head.

"When this one rises, this one will fall." Looks to me, finally, Israel is on the rise and America and Western ideologies are in a free-fall. Probably we're witnessing the end-game, wherein the final triumph will be Moshiach's revelation.

Tsur once became great by sucking up Jerusalem's wealth after the latter's destruction (Ezek. 26:2). The Zionist irreligious agenda had destroyed Jerusalem's values and automatically America sapped this lost strength for itself and became all-powerful. America, founded on belief in God, waxed in religiosity, albeit mixed with partial idolatry, while Israel waned, seeking to divorce itself of Godly faith.

But now a reverse trend is charging ahead. America is in a tailspin. The "Democratic" party has been usurped by the Fascists and "Republicans" have long lost their predeliction for conservative values. Those that maintain them are quickly sidelined. Those that compromise their values are in bed with the Democrat rats.

The dollar is now hanging on fingernails only because it is artificially propped up, to assure another win for Fascist Obama in 2012. Once that happens the dollar will plunge precipitously and the dollar bubble will have bust, with all its trillions in circulation temporarily backed by nothing but false statistics and co-conspiring media lies. Once the mannequin now in power wins again, the dollar will die a quick, ugly death.

The Israeli economy, meanwhile, forges ahead. The stock market is strong and businesses are blooming. I'd rather lay my bets on the Shekel, if not on precious metals.

The utopian horizon has finally come into view and Moshiach's revelation is imminent - thank God!

Part II - here. --- Source of Images here.

The Real Bank Robbers - Beware!

2011-11-16T20:10:00.010-05:00

Have a little nest egg nestled away in a cozy bank account? Be prepared to act swiftly. And if not now, when?

(Most videos I post last a few minutes at most. This one runs some 40 minutes, but I figure it's important. You'll never hear this stuff from mainstream media.)

Faster Than the Speed of Light - Rebbe Letter

2011-11-13T12:50:00.017-05:00

Back in 1956, 55 years ago, in a letter to a professor of physics, the Rebbe discussed the inadequacies of scientific conclusions, particularly in regard to Albert Einstein's "Theory of Relativity".
(Igrot 12:394-7)

It's one thing to hypothesize based on experimental or mathematical findings, he said, but to go beyond that and make absolute claims is inappropriate, and, in fact, incompatable with the definition of science.

The Rebbe specifically cites the example of the speed of light that scientists regard as an absolute value that cannot be surpassed. They have no right to draw such a conclusion, he implied.

The mathematics to support the untenable supposition would run afoul if the speed of light could be surpassed because it would then include a factor (the square root of a negative number) that cannot have in the real world a physical counterpart. The theory is just a theory, said the Rebbe, not a true fact to be sure.

But because people held the revolutionary findings of Einstein as sacrosanct, they held tightly to the theory it posited; They considered the speed of light to be an absolute value - a maximum limit that can never be exceeded.

Recently, however, sophisticated experiments in physics coming out of the CERN group in Europe (link) point to findings that defy the limit set by Einstein. Scientists found neutrinos with velocities greater than that of the speed of light! So revolutionary are these findings, these scientists themselves are begging others to examine and see where they "went wrong" with their assumptions or findings. Then too, all those conclusions based on an absolute speed of light, such as time and mass dilation or length contraction, will have to be re-evaluated within a new theoretical framework, or, simply, trashed. In the words of an observer, it will require "a complete rewriting of our understanding of the universe".

A translation of the Rebbe's letter, by Rabbi Shimon Silman, can be found here: - issue #805, page 24.

As High as a Jew Can Climb, He Can Descend

2011-11-10T12:24:00.008-05:00

Here's an article by Ann Coulter that sheds light on a corrupt and ugly mastermind in Chicago politics.

DAVID AXELROD'S PATTERN OF SEXUAL MISBEHAVIOR

Herman Cain has spent his life living and working all over the country -- Indiana, Georgia, Minnesota, Nebraska, Kansas, Washington, D.C. -- but never in Chicago.

So it's curious that all the sexual harassment allegations against Cain emanate from Chicago: home of the Daley machine and Obama consigliere David Axelrod.

Suspicions had already fallen on Sheila O'Grady, who is close with David Axelrod and went straight from being former Chicago mayor Richard M. Daley's chief of staff to president of the Illinois Restaurant Association (IRA), as being the person who dug up Herman Cain's personnel records from the National Restaurant Association (NRA).

The Daley-controlled IRA works hand-in-glove with the NRA. And strangely enough, Cain's short, three-year tenure at the NRA is evidently the only period in his decades-long career during which he's alleged to have been a sexual predator.

After O'Grady's name surfaced in connection with the miraculous appearance of Cain's personnel files from the NRA, she issued a Clintonesque denial of any involvement in producing them -- by vigorously denying that she knew Cain when he was at the NRA. (Duh.)

And now, after a week of conservative eye-rolling over unspecified, anonymous accusations against Cain, we've suddenly got very specific sexual assault allegations from an all-new accuser out of ... Chicago.

Herman Cain has never lived in Chicago. But you know who has? David Axelrod! And guess who lived in Axelrod's very building? Right again: Cain's latest accuser, Sharon Bialek.

Bialek's accusations were certainly specific. But they also demonstrated why anonymous accusations are worthless.

Within 24 hours of Bialek's press conference, friends and acquaintances of hers stepped forward to say that she's a "gold-digger," that she was constantly in financial trouble -- having filed for personal bankruptcy twice -- and, of course, that she had lived in Axelrod's apartment building at 505 North Lake Shore Drive, where, she admits, she knew the man The New York Times calls Obama's "hired muscle."

Throw in some federal tax evasion, and she's Obama's next Cabinet pick.

The reason all this is relevant is that both Axelrod and Daley have a history of smearing political opponents by digging up claims of sexual misconduct against them.

John Brooks, Chicago's former fire commissioner, filed a lawsuit against Daley six months ago claiming Daley threatened to smear him with sexual harassment accusations if Brooks didn't resign. He resigned -- and the sexual harassment allegations were later found to be completely false.

Meanwhile, as extensively detailed in my book "Guilty: Liberal 'Victims' and Their Assault on America," the only reason Obama became a U.S. senator -- allowing him to run for president -- is that David Axelrod pulled sealed divorce records out of a hat, first, against Obama's Democratic primary opponent, and then against Obama's Republican opponent.

One month before the 2004 Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate, Obama was way down in the polls, about to lose to Blair Hull, a multimillionaire securities trader.

But then The Chicago Tribune -- where Axelrod used to work -- began publishing claims that Hull's second ex-wife, Brenda Sexton, had sought an order of protection against him during their 1998 divorce proceedings.

From then until Election Day, Hull was embroiled in fighting the allegation that he was a "wife beater." He and his ex-wife eventually agreed to release their sealed divorce records. His first ex-wife, daughters and nanny defended him at a press conference, swearing he was never violent. During a Democratic debate, Hull was forced to explain that his wife kicked him and he had merely kicked her back.

Hull's substantial lead just a month before the primary collapsed with the nonstop media attention to his divorce records. Obama sailed to the front of the pack and won the primary. Hull finished third with 10 percent of the vote.

Luckily for Axelrod, Obama's opponent in the general election had also been divorced.

The Republican nominee was Jack Ryan, a graduate of Dartmouth and Harvard law and business schools, who had left his lucrative partnership at Goldman Sachs to teach at an inner-city school on the South Side of Chicago.

But in a child custody dispute some years earlier, Ryan's ex-wife, Hollywood sex kitten Jeri Lynn Ryan, had alleged that, while the couple was married, Jack had taken her to swingers clubs in Paris and New York.

Jack Ryan adamantly denied the allegations. In the interest of protecting their son, he also requested that the records be put permanently under seal.

Axelrod's courthouse moles obtained the "sealed" records and, in no time, they were in the hands of every political operative in Chicago. Knowing perfectly well what was in the records, Chicago Tribune attorneys flew to California and requested that the court officially "unseal" them -- over the objections of both Jack and Jeri Ryan.

Your honor, who knows what could be in these records!

A California judge ordered them unsealed, which allowed newspapers to publish the salacious allegations, and four days later, Ryan dropped out of the race under pressure from idiot Republicans (who should be tracked down and shot).

With a last-minute replacement of Alan Keyes as Obama's Republican opponent, Obama was able to set an all-time record in an Illinois Senate election, winning with a 43 percent margin.

And that's how Obama became a senator four years after losing a congressional race to Bobby Rush. (In a disastrous turn of events, Rush was not divorced.)

Axelrod destroyed the only two men who stood between Obama and the Senate with illicitly obtained, lurid allegations from their pasts.

In 2007, long after Obama was safely ensconced in the U.S. Senate, The New York Times reported: "The Tribune reporter who wrote the original piece (on Hull's sealed divorce records) later acknowledged in print that the Obama camp had 'worked aggressively behind the scenes' to push the story."

Some had suggested, the Times article continued, that Axelrod had "an even more significant role -- that he leaked the initial story."

This time, Obama's little helpers have not only thrown a bomb into the Republican primary, but are hoping to destroy the man who deprives the Democrats of their only argument in 2012: If you oppose Obama, you must be a racist.

(Link)

Satmar Adopts a Chabad Niggun

2011-11-08T22:26:00.007-05:00

The Lubavitcher Rebbe taught a new niggun every Simchas Torah until the year his mother, Rebbetzin Chana Schneerson, passed on. One of them, sung in this 1-minute video, has filtrated into the repertoire of Satmar music as well! They improvise a bit by adding an occasional "oy". This must be a "tish" they're at, and it looks packed. The video is amateur, but the impression is great. One day, soon, all chassidim, and all yidden, from the world over, will sing together -- at the tish of Melech HaMoshiach!

Nuggets from a Shabbat Meal

2011-11-06T23:02:00.011-05:00

A few nuggets I remember from last Friday night's Shabbat meal, when a minyan of bochurim graced us as guests.

----------

The Rebbe wrote a letter responding to someone who wanted an explanation of the Midrash that says, that from the verse "And Avraham told Sarah 'tell them you're my sister' (אמרי נא אחותי את)" our sages learn out that for a sick person one is allowed to shecht [slaughter] on Shabbat to feed him ( מכאן - ששוחטים לחולה בשבת). He asked the Rebbe, what does Avraham's statement to Sarah have anything to do with shechting and feeding sick people on Shabbat?

The Rebbe answered saying that although the Egyptians were sinners, they knew of the 7 Noahide laws and took these into consideration nonetheless. The Egyptians, he explained, wanted to transgress regarding Sarah, so they considered two options in the matter, and the severity of their consequences. One option was to rape Sarah and then suffer the punishment for "Aishet Ish" (A married woman - אשת איש), which constitutes many sins as a cumulative punishment for every moment of the ongoing transgression; Or, they could kill Avraham, suffer from only one punishment, for murder, and then suffer no punishment thereafter for indulging with the now-unmarried woman, no longer with the status of "Aishet Ish". Avraham knew they would choose the latter therefore.

(Avraham was confident nothing would happen to Sarah, because her righteousness would protect her; And indeed it did. But he behaved as was naturally expected of him in asking her to say she was his sister so that they need not kill him.)

From THIS episode - from Avraham's requesting Sarah that she call herself his sister - our sages learn that shechting for the sick is better than feeding him traife; For every bite into traife is a sin, whereas shechting on Shabbat is a sin - but only one, afterwhich the sick person can eat the kosher food!

If not for the Rebbe's explanation, who would ever make sense of this midrash?

--------

Story: A young Chabad bochur walked to a shul on Sukkot and asked the Rabbi if he can address the congregation to give over a dvar Torah. The Rabbi said okay, but some elder congregants complained, questioning why so youthful a person should be allowed to address them.

The young man went up to the podium and asked his audience, "Can someone tell me why, in order to purify some vessel, you need only a slight amount (כל שהוא) of water (enough to wet it from all sides) if its source is from a "mayim chayim" [wellspring - מים חיים], whereas if the water is a mikveh (מקוה) you need a minimum of 40 se'ah (סאה)? When nobody answered he explained that a wellspring derived directly from G-d's doing and therefore even the slightest amount is good enough to purify, whereas a mikveh, because it is man-made, requires at least 40 se'ah.

Similarly, said he, although he himself is young and slight, but because he is directly connected to the wellspring that is the Rebbe, by being his chassid, he can deliver his Torah words and need not be of usual age to qualify. Then he went on with his speech.

----------

A man wanted a shidduch badly so he made the effort to visit the Rebbe one Sunday during the distribution of dollars and wait in line to ask the Rebbe for a blessing. When he asked for his bracha, he got a dollar from the Rebbe, who then said to him, quoting the Torah, "For this is very much near you" (כי קרוב עליך הדבר מאד). The fellow went away from the event thrilled that soon he will find his long-awaited match. But time went by and his expectations dissipated. Six years after this encounter, he finally married.

One day the husband wanted to get a picture of himself, back when was by the Rebbe. He knew pictures were available for every person who got a dollar from the Rebbe. He found out he could locate this picture online by going to "jemstore.com", there search for "My Moment with the Rebbe" and download the picture for a small price. There they filmstrips, with each frame available for inspection.

When he entered the date and time of his encounter with the Rebbe to search for his picture, he noticed that in the very next frame after his the person to get a dollar from the Rebbe was - none other than his wife! (That is, he was the last "feed" in the men's line before it halted, for right after him the woman's line began to "feed" forward and his wife was the first in that line to meet the Rebbe).

All these years he figured "For this is very much near you" meant in terms of TIME; Now he realized the Rebbe had something else in mind - not "near" in time as much as he meant - near in PLACE!

Belief in The Creator - Then and Now

2011-11-04T12:15:00.006-04:00

It's customary to think belief in a Creator is a matter of faith and not a matter of intellect or logic. As if it's a matter of personal choice; He who wants to, believes, and he who does not want to, does not believe. As if it cannot be a matter proven with rationality, but, rather, a matter of simple, inner conviction.

Man has both a potential for faith and posseses the power to reason. In fact, faith and reason lie on separate planes, for indeed, man's soul can have faith in something that is entirely beyond his intellect and reason.

Nevertheless, recognizing the existence of a Creator need not remain in the domain of faith exclusively. A good dose of reasonable thought will also lead to an inevitable conclusion - that a Creator of the universe exists! Given to such thought, man no longer "believes" in a Creator, he "knows" it!

The first to reach this mental conclusion, our sages tell us, was some four thousand years ago, in the person of Abraham. Maimonides describes Abraham's search for the driving force behind the universe. He began to ask the right questions even as a young child, and concluded that there must be one supreme power that created everything and controls it all. In a world filled with idolatry and statue cults, Abraham discovered faith - in the One Supreme Being.

This belief gave birth to the Jewish people, who then bequeathed this faith in One to all of humanity.

It came a long way. It began with Abraham smashing the idols in his father Terach's store. It made its way through struggles with false prophets during the early history of the Jewish people. And finally it transformed to a heritable monotheism that all of humanity can now accept.

Yet another obstacle not too long ago then materialized, a seemingly formidable roadblock. In the two last centuries major breakthroughs in science gave people something with which they could replace God. Science was quickly cracking the secrets of creation, and formulas and laws could be imputed to displace belief in a supernatural force. Intellect could now outmaneuver belief with intricate explanations of Nature's phenomena.

But here too the new wave of rebellion faded. Just when science became extremely sophisticated, just when it revealed the incredible level of complexity in every tiny factor newly discovered, theory became completely upended and - behold - it was moving inexorably in the direction that Torah and Judaism originally stood for. The further science probed into the secrets of the world, the more it revealed how impotent it stood before the awesome intricacies that existed even in the tiniest morsel under inspection. The claim that things arose by managed randomness or that circumstance played a role became ever more ridiculous and laughable.

Even today, after having split the atom, sent telescopes into outer space and landed on Mars, after creating the greatest and fastest computers, TVs and cellular telephones, we cannot help but remain awestruck at a how little we know about the mechanisms inside - even one cell of the body, or even in one cell of a fly's wing. All that creation entails simply boggles even our "sophisticated" mind.

No question we often come across events when our minds question the Supernal Being. But here we see just how limited our rationale is, and how strong our faith must kick in, for, as the prophet Isaiah (55:8) proclaims, "For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are My ways yours!"

Lech Lecha: Get going!

2011-11-03T15:35:00.009-04:00

This week's Torah portion, "לך לך", starts with a command to our forefather Abraham, "Get yourself going from your land ... to the land I will show you."

G-d demanded of Abraham to leave his land, his birthplace and his father's house, to go to some unknown place. Rashi explains that G-d did not reveal to Abraham his destination in order to endear him to the land he yearns to discover.

A deeper perspective is this, as per the Alter Rebbe; By obeying the command, "Keep going", i.e., when the Jew unchains himself and sheds all measures and boundaries that his spiritual worship had heretofore taken on, and leaves this plateau to reach for a higher one, he will reach the plateau of "that which I will show you"; G-d will reveal to him the essence of man's Jewish core.

Let's merit to live with our forefather Abraham, to reach higher plateaus, by shedding bad habits and imaginary boundaries, and we'll merit seeing the real essence of our Jewishness ... and may we soon dance together, at the 3rd Temple, with King Moshiach!

Syrians Slaughtered

2011-11-01T22:09:00.000-04:00

Bashar Assad's security forces have now killed over 4,000 Syrians; In Homs more than 1,200; In Daraa more than 700; In Idlib more than 500; And about 500 in Chama.

A voice from the Syrian opposition groups said that in the 7 months of uprising against the government, about 4,000 civilians have been killed across the country - and not 3,000 as claimed by U.N. organizations.

This message was given over by Rachel Lipkin, assigned to an Arabic listening channel of Voice of Israel.

The Rebbe's Letter to a Prospective Rabbi

2011-10-31T10:11:00.003-04:00

By the Grace of G-d

23rd Adar I, 5717

Brooklyn NY

Mr. _____

Chelsee 50

Mass.

Greeting and Blessing:

I received your letter of February 12th, in which you give a brief account of your background and education, and that you are now considering entering the appropriate institution where conservative Rabbis are trained. You ask my opinion on this matter.

My opinion can only be based on the opinion of the Holy Torah, and as it has been formulated by Maimonides, to the effect that he who admits that the Torah is G-d-given, except for one verse which he holds was given by Moshe Rabbeinu himself, such a person is regarded as denying the whole Torah.

Even without the said ruling of Maimonides, this would be self-evident and logical. For one has to be consistent: Either one accepts that the Torah is Divine, in which case a human being with his limited intellect, inasmuch as all creation is limited, cannot possibly fathom the Divine Wisdom that is in the Torah, and cannot, therefore, select passages from it which appeal to his intellect and discard others which do not.

On the other hand, if a human being is so presumptuous as to use his own discretion with regard to the Torah, and accept or reject accordingly, this means that he regards the Torah as something which does not go deeper or beyond his human understanding. Consequently also, the Torah in his opinion has no greater binding force than that dictated by human reason, which in effect means no binding force at all, since no human being can impose his views on any other human being.

From the above, it is clear that Conservative and Reform Rabbis who follow the approach of reform and compromise on religion, completely misrepresent the true Jewish religion and, moreover, mislead those who are under their influence in believing that their own form of convenient "religion" is the kind for which our ancestors have given their lives for thousands of years. They will have their followers believe that their type of man-made religion is the religion revealed to us by G-d on Mount Sinai, and this is the greatest possible fraud. When a career is made of this type of religion, and human conscience and profoundest feelings are made a "trade-in-stock" in this unholy business, then a greater depravity cannot be imagined.

In view of what you write about your own background, I think it is superfluous to emphasize that there is a great difference between a person falling on occasion to withstand a temptation and therefore committing a transgression, and one who tries to justify such sins of omission and commission by saying that they are not transgressions at all, or that the Torah itself permits one to use one's own judgement, for in the latter case it is nothing but falsification of the truth, which is what Conservative and Reform preach. The fact that a Conservative Rabbi may himself be a thoroughly religious person, and observe in his private life all 613 Mitzvos, does not alter the situation if he represents the Conservative movement and disseminates its doctrines.

From the above, it is also evident that the use of the title "Rabbi" in its traditional sense is completely contradictory when it is applied to a conservative, and is in itself misleading and fraudulent to the unsuspecting congregations. Hence, to select such a career in the first place, in my opinion, is completely out of order.

It is well-known that there are many members in Conservative congregations, and sometimes even so-called spiritual leaders in the movement, who themselves negate completely the Conservative philosophy, accepting and following fully the whole Torah, and, in the latter case, have accepted positions as rabbis in Conservative temples for various reasons. This is also the case with regard to the person to whom you refer in your letter, who obviously does not belong at all in the Conservative movement, nor in the so-called "New" brand of Conservatism, which goes under the name of "Modern Orthodoxy". On the other hand, it is clearly obvious that such a situation is pregnant with constant inner conflicts, which are often even outwardly apparent. Therefore, it is certainly advisable and illogical to select a career which is bound to bring with it constant conflict and friction, both within himself and in relation to the environment, etc.

You write that hitherto you have succeeded in safeguarding your immunity from outside influence. But surely this does not jusify to place yourself in a situation which contains more than the average elements of temptations and trials, a road which is fraught with dangers and pitfalls. Rather the contrary, inasmuch as Divine Providence has been kind to you and has safeguarded you from such influences in the past, you should, once and for all, make up your mind to break away from that dangerous path.

If you are bent on a rabbinical career, surely it would be more desiarble for you to enroll into a proper Yeshivah which prepares and trains for the Orthodox rabbinate. If this seems a more difficult climb, nothing stands in the way of determination and will.

With blessing,

(signature)

"TorahCare" = Preventive Medicine

2011-10-27T22:32:00.019-04:00

Torah's outlook on medicine, by today's standards, looks upside-down. Health care from Torah's perspective advocates a predominantly PREVENTIVE health care system -- not a

WAIT-TILL-IT-BREAKS-THEN-FIX-IT health care template.

Doctors should be paid for preventing sickness or disease. When people get sick - that's when doctors should be footing the bill!

Our society has it backwards and that's why society abounds with sickness, and that's why medical prices are skyrocketing. When you focus on treatment of sickness, then, because of high technology that's used, which continues to become more sophisticated, it always costs more. For example, the "Obamacare" solution is 97% about treating sickness. How pathetic!

Were the emphasis on preventive treatment, medical costs would plummet!

Torah is light. Torah is truth. The Torah way to practice preventive health is detailed in Maimonides (Hilchot Deah, chpt. 4).

In rule 30, he goes so far as to offer his personal GUARANTEE that a person will remain healthy all his life and never require a doctor until the day he dies when one follows the Torah's way to maintain health. How can Maimonides guarantee it? Because he relies on Torah.

Were people to abide by Torah's laws, medical costs would be negligible, people would live longer, would hardly get ill, will take time to exercise, eat well, sleep well, and one's perspective would be positive and rosy.

How do we know prevention is Torah's way of practicing medicine? It says so clearly in Rashi (Ex. 15:26), "God provides you with Torah and its commandments so that you should spare yourself of diseases, as the doctor says to the person 'Don't eat that which bring you back to illness'...". Clearly, Torah's way is the preventive way.

By the way, this Rashi also supports the fact that the number one way to illness is by what we put into our mouths (see here too).

Some Horror Pictures

2011-10-26T11:18:00.008-04:00

Got this email. Because my folks, ע''ה, survived the holocaust, I empathize with the sender's sentiments, even though I'd have worded the slides differently. I show them here to document this atrocity in one more place on the face of this globe; To counter the deniers, and to remind people what people can do to people.

Shalit's Release - A Rebbe Story

2011-10-25T22:18:00.004-04:00

Here's a story about a "Rebbe Dollar" given to Gilad Shalit's mother.

Maybe someone should now hand one to Esther Pollard for the sake of her poor husband, who needs our prayers. May God bless him soon with a release too, and for Mr. Rubashkin as well.

Glenn Beck - "We're All Jews"

2011-10-24T23:06:00.004-04:00

Although Glenn Beck, towards the end of his speech, quotes Rut, who converted to Judaism, wherein she simply and eloquently identifies with Jews and Judaism - while he is christian, his reason for quoting her was to identify with Jews for humanity's sake, and he therefore is most worthy of praise. The point he made about standing in the gas chambers of Auschwitz, and several more, were poignant and, to Jewish ears, remarkable as they were unusual, coming from the lips of a gentile.

Jerusalem or Damascus - The Rebbe's View

2011-10-24T09:17:00.003-04:00

With Syria now embroiled in rebellion and likely to become a flashpoint for broader, regional flare-up, the Rebbe's perspective on this landscape deserves attention because, according to him, Jerusalem and Damascus pivot on the same fulcrum; Only one can rise while the other must fall! What was true in 1973 during the Yom Kippur War may well hold currently as well.

The Idiocy of Evolutionism

2011-10-23T18:25:00.024-04:00

The stomach wall is as thin as a potato chip. Yet it manufactures and secretes hydrochloric acid, one of the most potent and corrosive acids known -- without the slightest damage to its thin wall. That's because it also produces an alkaline mucoid substance to keep the stomach from auto-digesting.

If one were to believe evolutionists, it would have to be that first came the "development" of the alkaline-base secretory ability, followed by the acidic production much later. Otherwise, there could be no possibility for the stomach to survive the acidic assault. On the other hand, without HCl production, pepsinogen cannot convert into pepsin, and proteins cannot then be digested, and death would ensue.

Either way, then, evolutionists face a "catch-22".

In a human being's scrotal sac, sperms cells are manufactured and stored. In another human being, meanwhile, her ovaries are busy preparing ovum cells ready for ovulation.

Upon mating, a spectacular drama unfolds, one that even Hollywood could never have imagined. Millions of sperm cells suddenly rush out, swim against the forces of gravity and mount all obstacles as they seek out the tiny fold at the higher side of the uterus. Of the millions that started out, only a few thousand sperm remain by the time they whiplash their way down the fallopian tube. These strongest contenders race through this last leg of the complex labyrinth, in their bid to win the race. Of these hundreds of thousands, only one sperm will finally earn the trophy - a race that can be won in under 10 minutes.

Although they never took this marathon trip before, sperm cells are well-prepared, as if they were briefed by prior intelligence. Each cell charges forward in this once-in-a-lifetime, mysterious and urgent mission. Throughout the race, up the vaginal wall, through the cervix, along the uterine wall, through the tiny orifice that leads to the Fallopian tube and along the fine tube for some 8 centimeters, sperm need no flashlight to light their way in valiant rivalry. Each performs as if it could win this race, although in fact only one out of several billion will extend its lifespan to what seems like eternity; All the others will die within 24 hours.

While the sperm makes its dash for impregnation, the ovum "egg" of the female had meanwhile, or some hours before, also undergone its own dramatic voyage. This started by gravitating to the surface of its ovary, from where it was ejected like a skydiver free falls from a plane. It either lands on the pelvic wall and then actively seeks out the fringed ends of either Fallopian tube, it too without the aid of a flashlight; Or, more likely, as agile as a monkey, it latches itself onto the fringes of the nearest tube during its fall. From there, the ovum rolls deeper into the tube, about 2 centimeters, waiting there to knight the winning sperm cell.

Although many sperm cells arrive at her beck, she chooses one and only one to be her mate. If sperm arrive more than 24 hours late, the ovum dies. Otherwise, it too lives what might seem an eternity. The odds for this to happen are billions of times more likely than it is for its male counterpart, whose odds to live beyond one day is minuscule.

The intracacies of this successful "blind date", as those involved in producing the potent hydrochloric acid by the stomach's thin wall, are but two examples that speak to the marvelous wonders of God. Every species, of the many millions, whether they live in water, in or on earth, or in air, and every function, of which there is an enormous diversity - each and all of these involve the most amazing, mind-boggling processes.

I pity the fool who, to shield his weak ego against ignorance, pushes the timeline for these wonders so far back as to feel better because the further back the mystery began to "develop", the more it "makes sense" to him why he, now, lacks the knowledge to "explain" how or why it happened this way. How much simpler and elegant, and sensible, it is to merely acknowledge, as Chassidus teaches, that every moment is a recreation, by God, of wondrous life -- out of nothingness!

Reflecting on Evolutionary Theory

2011-10-18T14:24:00.020-04:00

How did the Anal Sphincter evolve?

Being that the colon's stools simply plopped out without warning upon arriving at the orifice at the far end of the anal canal, it made a horrible problem among those lingering thereabout. The lingerers became nauseous and could not tolerate the mess and stench, so they would get angry and kill the offender. They did this even though they themselves possessed the same evacuative apparatus. Thus they killed each other unless one was "wise" enough to self-isolate as much as possible from social contact. This led to an isolationist mentality. Besides the low birth rate from random murder, for eons this isolationism further enhanced the low birth rates among the polluters.

Despite the low birth rate, after some billions of years, give or take a few hundred milllion, a sphincter "happened" to develop ("mutate") as a "congenital defect" in some person or animal. This mutation came with the built-in feature of being able to be turned off and on, or rather, shut or open, under voluntary control. This discovery led to unexpected delight, for now isolation became an unnecessary strategy to live a longer life, for rather than having to flee for one's life, one need only clamp down. Other sphincter mutations, in contrast, left the sphincter closed all the time, and this killed the organism shortly after birth. ("Bloated, Not-So-Sudden Infant Death Syndrome").

Only those possessive of the mutated, functional sphincter could congregate with abandon. These sphincter-enabled people then joined forces, eventually becoming the upper class of society. Politically they created a "Non-Crapper" party, in opposition to the "Smelly" class. This upper crust of the species began to further differentiate itself as intelligent beings because the ability to congregate in turn gave them the ability to learn from each other. Finally, by reproducing among themselves only, avoiding wedlock with loose anuses, they became the majority and, eventually, removed all trace of the lowly class they derived from - by shameless genocide.

The Long Short Road

2011-10-17T23:45:00.013-04:00

Many ways serve to promote worship of Hashem, except Chabad's modus operandi is unique for taking the "long, short road". That is, to "get it" quickly, you first must cultivate "it" properly.

Two examples of this technique:

1) Take the case of a thief trying to break into a home to steal. When the owner realizes what is going on, he starts screaming to chase the thief away. But doing so did not solve the problem. On another day, the thief will try again in another way, and one of these days will succeed.

There's a harder way to take to try and thwart the thief; Doing it indirectly. While he's in the house, get him to sit at the table and convince him that stealing is counter-productive. Although this approach calls for ingenuity, this will get to the root of the problem and he will quit.

2) Take the case of someone whose blood vessels suffer integrity and this brings about lesions on his skin of his whole body. An unwise doctor might take some cream formula and treat the wounds as they show up. Although the cream might help, it will not halt new lesions from appearing, nor will any be amenable to cure.

The better way is to treat the problem at its root, by curing the blood vessels. Doing this will likewise cure the dermatitis.

Similarly, many non-chassidic, and even some chassidic, approaches base their ways to bring one closer into God's service by chasing "behavioral symptoms" and trying to cure these. They "put out the fires" as they apply cream to a skin wound, or take a stick to chase away anger, arrogance, jealousy, lust, etc. These are but temporary solutions that do not change the person from within. The Chabad chassidic way to deal with these problems is to influence and change the essence, which will likewise already cure much of everything else.

Without first expending energy and ingenuity with proper inculcation, the shorter road is nothing but an illusion, whereas after taking the long road, any problem thereafter can easily resort to the short road.

Clouds of Glory

2011-10-17T00:38:00.004-04:00

It didn't seem possible under natural law, that many millions of people, from infants to elderly, on an hour's notice, from all over the district of Goshen in Egypt, could arrive to their point of departure in the city of Ramses. But this was what the Jews had to do on the night of Nissan 15, 2448.

By then the Jews were quite accustomed to astonishing miracles; In fact, a whole year went by where with every passing month a new and fabulous miracle would occur to break the back of Egyptian control over Jewish servitude.

Sure enough, another miracle now swept in - in the form of friendly clouds, serving as "flying carpets" upon which all Jews were taken aboard.

These "Clouds of Glory" not only transported the Jews, and their possessions, from their residences, to Ramses, but, from there, took them all to their next encampment site, Sukkot, a distance of 120 kilometers, again at breathtaking speed.

Under the leadership of their redeemer, Moses, miracles seemed to have become a daily phenomenon.

These miraculous clouds proved to be even more miraculous. A week later they shielded the Jewish masses against the artillery of the Egyptian army chasing from behind.

The clouds were 7 in number. Like walls around the multitude, four clouds from four sides engulfed them; Another cloud, beneath their feet, straightened out the path they would walk, and killed snakes and scorpions in its way; And a seventh one hovered above them to protect them against the sun, while proving shade.

These clouds had even more roles to play over the 40 years they would accompany the Jews in the desert, until the Jews entered the Holy Land. It was then the Jews were commanded, "In huts shall you sit for seven days ... so your generations will know that in huts I placed the Jewish people when I took them out of Egypt." (Lev. 23: 42-43) And, in the words of the Alter Rebbe in his Shulcan Aruch, "These were clouds of His glory that engulfed them to shade them and protect them against heat stroke or dryness; And as a model of this we were commanded to make shaded huts (sukkot) so we remember His miracles and wonders, and thus must we direct our thoughts when sitting in the sukka to remind us of the exodus from Egypt."

Was Christopher Columbus Jewish?

2011-10-11T22:14:00.004-04:00

Here's a great article by a pastor, Ray Bentley, regarding the likeliood Christopher Columbus was Jewish. It's rare to see a man with strong faith in a counter-faith giving objective and unbiased analysis of what may well be the Jewish perspective.

The amount of knowledge Columbus had of Tanach is amazing. The date of final expulsion of Spanish Jewry in 1492, and the setting of sail the day after, and so much more evidence, makes this a really interesting read and points to one almost certain conclusion: Colombus was Jewish!

Was Christopher Columbus Jewish?

A Prophetic Book and the New World
by Ray Bentley

I sat down to read an amazing book recently, titled The Book of Prophecies, filled with astounding insights and prophetic statements, some very controversial. What makes it so amazing is that this book, a collection of the author's writing and favorite passages from other authors, was written around 1501 and the editor/author is someone I've heard of all my life but never - I mean never - even heard that he published such a book.

The author is Christopher Columbus; while he wrote this book, during the late 15th century, a terrible event known as the Inquisition swept through Spain and other parts of Europe. People were being tormented, burned at the stake and expelled from the country, and no one was targeted more heavily than the Jewish population, which had grown considerably over the centuries. Jewish conversos (converts) would be arrested and accused of not being true Christians. They wouldn't even know who was accusing them; evidence would be presented in secret. Then they would be tortured until they confessed to being heretics. Then, once they confessed, they would be killed.

Jewish immigrations into Europe escalated after the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD, but even before Christ, Jews had begun to settle in the Iberian Peninsula - they were referred to as Sephardim, which comes from the Hebrew term for Spain, Sepharad, used in the Bible. So strong had this community become, that the apostle Paul recognized the need to minister there (Romans 15: 24-28).

Part of this community included Christopher Columbus, a man dedicated to his Christian faith, but who by ancestry was most likely Jewish. He had earned the favor of the king and queen of Spain, with his vision and scientific knowledge. In fact, he had managed to raise the money to embark on what would become one of the most significant voyages in the history of the world.

But it was a dangerous time for all Jews, even favored ones. Historians note that the voyage was originally scheduled for later in 1492. But the inquisition overshadowed all plans; an edict had been signed demanding the expulsion of all Jews by August 2, 1492 (which ironically coincided with Tisha B'av, the day of mourning. If you haven't already read the article on our website about this day, I encourage you to do so here .)

Our voyager gathered his crew, boarded his ships that night, and set sail for the new world, on August 3, 1492. Christopher Columbus obeyed the edict along with almost 300,000 other Jewish people.

The rest you can read here.

One Man's Trash is Another Man's Treasure

2011-10-10T11:17:00.002-04:00

We walk along a path that takes about 70 or 80 years to traverse. When we arrive, many believe the path simply comes to a dead end and we become the fodder of maggots. Some trekkers, on the other hand, see this trip as one to prepare them for yet another that follows, one that will take infinitely long to traverse.

Some people believe the world is ruled by Nature, an eternal tapestry of "laws" that never changes. Others believe Nature is a veil behind which a transcedental power hides and eventually will transform our existential panorama and its parameters to a "higher" dimension of experience.

That is to say, some people believe World is synonymous with Nature and its inherent rules. They think physical energy of various forms and formations, as they maintain or change over time - have always been around, always will be, never had a beginning and will never end. Other people, on the other hand, believe a beginning happened; Where absolute nothingness turned into existence - by a Creator, who happens now, in this "era" of universal existence, to hide behind a veil of Nature made to appear eternally self-sustaining.

Whereas no radical differences of physical appearance exist between these two groups, their differences of mindset create significant behavioral differences. One group, for example, constrain their lives only by rules instituted by men, with no compunction to break these rules when men take no notice. And, void of subservience to a higher power, their morality and that of the dog, for example, evaluate to the same standard.

Whereas those who believe a higher authority than Nature prevails, feel beholding to that power and behave accordingly. For example, this group will often congregate in prayer, move their lips in supplication, ask for blessings and steer their lives as if that eye in heaven records every detail of their existence. What passes for "prayer", for example, for this group, appears to the other group as people talking to the wall.

Another example of radical difference is their conversation. The first group will talk of nothing but that which relates to physicality or materialism. The other, in sharp contrast, you might overhear saying, "We should merit the Redemption now!", or "God bless you!", something the first group would regard as fantasy-land chatter.

It brings to mind the poem of Robert Frost, with this one exception: Those who take either of the two paths aforementioned, spurn the path taken by the other.

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I marked the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Again, I wish you all a happy, sweet 5772!

From Rags to Riches - then, Much Higher!

2011-10-06T16:48:00.016-04:00

Dror, an Israeli tourist, decided to put America's promise of potential riches to the test.

He rented out some cart space at a mall and began selling cheap merchandise around the New Year winter season, when Americans do much shopping. He earned quite well and decided the next year to "expand", renting vans, filling them up with merchandise, parking them at the malls, to alleviate the problem of storing and retrieving more merchandise when inventory levels needed refreshment. The next year he further expanded into many malls. Indeed he was earning much money.

One day he got a call from his sister in Israel who informed him she was soon getting married and could he please come to the ceremony.

Dror was in a quandary. He had now long overstayed his U.S. visa requirements. Were he now to leave the U.S., he'd never be allowed in again. So he decided on this plan: He will leave the U.S. and make his way back into the U.S. by way of Mexico, which he knew had porous borders.

After his sister's wedding he flew to Mexico, found the escort he sought near the Arizona border, and for $200 joined a group that was set to cross the border by walking through. Very soon another group crossed this group's path and Dror was persuaded to join this other group, which was going to walk across the border through the desert. Dror felt somewhat uneasier with this new group but didn't let that bother him.

On the second night he awoke and found himself alone in a desert. The group was gone, his large bag was gone too, and only the small bag he used as a pillow remained his only possession. He opened this bag and found a bottle half-filled with water. Not sure of what to do, he decided to continue walking in the same direction he earlier embarked on. He had finished his water long ago and now felt tired and needed rest. He spotted a tree and next to it laid down, again putting his "pillow" under his head. But now he felt a hardness and opened the bag to find it contained a book. The book, written by Chaim Sasson, one that explains the Rebbe's claim to fame, entitled "Now I Have Come to Know" (עתה ידעתי), made him think. He turned to God and said, "God, if You get me out of this situation, I promise to become religious." He laid down again.

Not 5 minutes passed and he hears ringing. He realizes his cellular phone, which he now found in one of his jacket pockets, was ringing. A friend was calling him. Dror told the friend of his predicament. The friend then made a few calls.

It turns out Dror had already entered U.S. territory. The Arizona police found him and took him to jail. A few days later he appeared before a judge. The judge asked him, "Where are you from?" Dror answered. "What city". He told the judge. "What street?" Now Dror felt uneasy about this scrutiny; He told the judge. "What address"? Dror felt the judge was crazy.

It turns out this judge had lived in Israel as a child, right next door to where Dror lived! The judge maneuvered and helped Dror "fix" his paperwork in such a way that he would not have a problem returning to the U.S. after his deportation. And so it happened that Dror was deported, but could come back to the U.S., where he had more than a million dollars in his bank account.

Dror kept his word and became religious. He also returned to his previous enterprise, and in the process lost all his money. So he packed his bags and went to learn in the Chabad yeshiva in Ramat-Aviv. A chavrusa of his at the yeshiva, who dined at my Friday night Shabbat table, told us this story.

On Jewish Destiny - good video

2011-10-06T00:36:00.012-04:00

Some see based on fleshy eyes, relegating conclusions to nothing beyond. Others see with what they believe is their God-given mind's eye, beyond Nature's constraints. For the latter, here's a great video that touches on the Jewish essence.

Jews live by rules that transcend Nature. Their role in this World preempted creation. Each lives eternally despite an impression based on Nature's veil. Even after departure from this World they remain a cohesive unity, coalesced to God and Torah.

The faith of Abraham, the perfect belief system based on Torah that would entirely collapse if even one element proved false, God's language and its revival, the Land of Israel that is the holy property of all Jewry - these and more are the crown jewels of the eternal trio: God, the Jews and Torah. Happy and righteous are those Gentiles who share this noble attribution, for they too will thus merit the anticipated utopia, a new super-Natural era close at hand.

Upside-Down Medicine

2011-10-04T23:03:00.018-04:00

I don't know about you, but when I see a conventional doctor, you know, the one with a stethoscope draped around his neck, I think of a buffoon, even a murderer. The further I can get away from him, the better I feel. The one exception I make is the emergency medical man. Otherwise, most are either legitimized drug pushers or promoters of invasive surgery.

Never once in my nearly 7 decades of life did any of these allopathic ("straight") doctors ask me what I ate for breakfast, lunch or supper. This, even though what a person puts into his mouth is the number one reason for illness! (See here.) Never once did any ask me if I do exercise.

Many times it's a quick background "interview" - They give you a form with checkboxes and tell you, "Check off the diseases you had and those your parents had; List the medications you are on"; Now they almost "know" your entire history.

Idiotically, they look at symptoms as if these were the disease itself. Example: You go to the doctor and tell him you have a cough. "Oh", he says, "You need a cough suppressant" and prescribes the drug he's pushing today for that symptom. Does he not know the cough is your body's way of telling you it needs to expel an invasive or irritating substance? Why suppress the body's healthy reaction? Is this not stupid? He should really tell you, "Go home, keep coughing if you have to, and wait until it passes."

Example: You have fever, so you go to your doctor (why you would go is crazy too!). He finds no open wounds and figures you got a bacterial or viral infection. He checks your heart sounds with his stethoscope, and takes some blood for lab work. Useless procedures to be sure. Finally he gives you an aspirin-like drug to "lower your temperature" and an antibiotic (which is useless for a virus) to "fight infection".

But why?! The body developed fever because that is its own, best way to fight off disease! That's how God set up the system to work. For every 1 degree rise in temperature, the immune system (and the exchange system of substances) works 10% better! A rise in temperature reduces the spread of infection! Administering an antibiotic reduces the patient's chances of more quickly fighting off this same offending bacterium the next time it strikes; Worse, it also creates the opportunity for a resistant strain of this bacterium to develop. Antibiotics also increase the body's toxicity load. Fourth, they also destroy the good germs in the intestines that we need that synthesize for us vitamins B and K. Now I ask you - is the doctor stupid or what? He should have explained to you what might be going on and encourage you to eat nutritious food and then say, "Go home and don't worry, the body can deal with it".

Here's a good analogy that depicts today's medical viewpoint. Imagine you have garbage outside your house and rats there are darting about. You be the "doctor" to cure this problem; What would be your "treatment of choice"? If you intend on killing the rats as the cure, would you succeed? What good is it to go after the SYMPTOM when the SOURCE of the problem still draws rats?! And that's exactly how the American medical establishment tackles medical problems - by going after symptoms and ignoring the cause. In the case of this "rat disease", they would "treat" the problem by shooting the rats. However, not only will rats continue to come, but you've now also thrown into the already toxic load more toxicity; In this case, you've added bullet shells and dead rats that also have to now be cleaned up. Would it not have been wiser to simply clean up the mess and the symptom will have thereby cleared up on its own accord?

The trouble is manifold because patients themselves practically demand drugs. Why, were they to walk out of the doctor's office without a prescription in their hands, they'd probably be disappointed! They have been taught to accept the foolish outlook doctors promote. This despite the fact that patients are never cured for hypertension, diabetes, oseteoporosis, or, you name it. Antibiotics is the exception, if correctly applied, but the body could well have done that on its own, with proper diet and/or fasting (as the body's loss of appetite suggests). Patients are simply "treated" - but never cured, never rid of the pills they have to pop for the rest of their lives. That's medicine?! Doctors should be paid for PREVENTING disease, and if their patients come down sick - doctors should pay the bills!

Alas, the abuses of medicine are many, long-established, well-ingrained, from the education and licensing systems to insurance and hospital industries, well-greased by bribed politicians, well-publicized by controlled advertising revenue - so it's up to us to learn on our own. The internet today makes that possible, whereby we can seek information beyond the purview of nonsense conventional medicine advances. We have an open window today to truth and clarity. Will this window stay open for long? No doubt, here too they now seek how to close it off from the truth that will dam their rivers of profit.

Four Species as One Unit

2011-10-03T22:48:00.038-04:00

The chill in the autumn air escorts us into the Succot holiday. As we spend much of our time under the outdoor Succah branches, we'll have to cope with rain, shine or chill. The fact that this commandment beckons during these cool days and not on nice, warm summer days, augments the evidence it is God's commandment and not one we decided for ourselves.

A unique aspect of this holiday, which it shares with Passover, is its gesture to unify all of Jewry into the holiday's orbit.

Of the four types of Jews, the Etrog symbolizes one who has Torah knowledge and fine character, as this fruit's taste and smell signify. The Lulav symbolizes the Torah scholar without fine character, for the Lulav (Date Palm branch) signifies a tasty fruit, but one without a smell. The Hadassim (Myrtle branches) that have fragrance but bear no fruit signify the Jew with fine character who lacks Torah knowledge; While the Aravot (Willow branches), which have neither taste nor smell, represent the barren Jewish condition.

But should any one of these 4 species go missing, the mitzvah of Lulav-shaking in the Sukkah cannot be accomplished; All 4 are mandatory and mutually inclusive!

The "4 sons" Torah alludes to, which we recite in the Haggadah, also are all invited to participate at the table during the Passover seder.

One point the mitzvah of the 4 species comes to teach is that Jewish people comprise, collectively, one body; Jews are comprised of "brain" and "brawn", either "smooth-hewed" or "crude", and each is as critical as the next - because inherent in each Jew is the equalizing "spark of God" that animates his soul. For some this light shines through to influence his character, whereas for others the bodily cloak of desires still needs refinement before the light can penetrate.

Here's the same point from another angle. Let's take the concept of "Penitence", a term relevant to these days before Yom Kippur. In English, or to Gentiles, this means something entirely different from its Hebrew term, "תשובה".

Penitence implies a resolution for correcting one's behavior after having done something wrong. What was done is done and now, having regretted his past action, the person goes forward with a clean slate, as if the past becomes irrelevant. The Hebrew term, on the other hand, teaches a different message.

The Hebrew word for penitence literally means 'returning to God'. The core of every Jew, which derives from a benevolent God, is also good and pure. That he did something wrong, for which he needs to repent, came as a result of environmental circumstances that shrouded his innate connection to God, which led him to err. As soon as he realizes he did wrong, he does "תשובה" - which means he returns, back to his original innate connection with God.

Instead of "penitence", a better translation of the Hebrew word would be "a Godly homecoming". The root of the Hebrew term, after all, means, "to return".

To further illustrate, the antonym of the Hebrew word for "penitence" is: "To return to doubts". This inherently implies that the truth of his essential bond to God, for the meanwhile, is clouded in his mind.

The Rebbe taught us there is a 5th son too these days, a product of our times. He's the one who does not even know about the Succot or Passover holiday. So powerful have been the forces of assimilation in recent Jewish history, that Jewish tradition of the past did not even find the need to address such wayward souls. These have been, for the most part, "kidnapped at birth", so to speak, because they grew up in a culture so foreign to Judaism, as is the American culture, or as that which Israeli governments have tried to infuse into their public school system and media, one that pushes to secularize and alienate the Jewish mind from tradition.

We Jews who know better must reach out to these people and teach them Torah values anew. Why? Because if the left hand itches, the right hand wants to relieve the itch.

The Fall of Islamofascism

2011-09-27T15:35:00.016-04:00

Just when the Islamofascist venom infected the bloodstream of Western society, causing convulsions in Europe and threatening to destabilize other Western societies, a miracle, being forged for the Jewish people, runs well-hidden behind this specter. Paradoxically, though Arab peril seems to be waxing, Yishmael's downfall is, in fact, in the making.

The Purim miracle, unlike that of Chanukah's for example, wove itself through the fabric of day-to-day events without breaking Nature's rules. An observer of daily events in ancient Persia would never have noticed the many "coincidences" that intertwined to produce the one big miracle. In ancient Jerusalem, on the other hand, this observer would easily have spotted the miracle of the rout of Rome's huge, well-equipped army by a handful of Maccabees, or that the Temple's one day's supply of oil lasted 8 full days.

Of the two sorts of miracle (let alone that Nature itself is an ongoing miracle), the Purim-type is the "greater" miracle (as if God needed extra effort to camouflage the miracle within regular, day-to-day events.)

We now have a Purim-like miracle transpiring for the Jewish people. Let's step back to scan the unfolding picture. The birth pangs of Moshiach brought us from the holocaust back to our Holy Land, after some 2,000 years. Jews continued to suffer, mostly from Muslim terrorism, because the labor contractions can continue a while longer, even after birth.

The all-powerful Soviet Union vaporized and hundreds of thousands of captive Jews fled for freedom and opportunity.

Israel's hostile enemies, the Arab and Muslim dictatorships, are beginning to fall. Iraq's sadist despot, Saddam Hussein, was overthrown, captured and hanged. Tunisia, who many years gave Palestinian terrorists refuge, recently collapsed.

Egypt went next. Although the country appeared stable, the economy suffered horribly because most of its money went into boosting military might. It exploited the "peace" with Israel by spending billions on armaments, including hundreds of F-16s, Mirage 2000s, Apache and Black Hawk helicopters, scores of missile ships, thousands of American artillery canon and tanks (including the Abrams, which ranks with Israel's Merkava), modern anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles, as well as sophisticated systems for electronic warfare and surveillance.

Mubarak encouraged international incitement against Israel and turned a blind eye to the smuggling of weapons into the Gaza Strip. With Mubarak gone, chances are high much effort will shift to improving the lot of the citizenry and economy. Perhaps a form of democracy too will sprout.

Much of Libya's huge wealth was channeled into support for terrorist organizations. The Pan-Am disaster over Lockerbie was a Libyan initiative. Reagan called Quaddafi "the most dangerous person in the world". Enormous amounts of armaments were purchased. He bought more tanks and artillery than his own army could deploy; He promised to transfer these to those who would war against Israel (as he did during the Lebanon War, and as he helped Egypt during the Yom Kippur War). For this purpose he also had long-range missiles in place and developed the capability of aerial refueling. Libya too no longer poses a threat to Israel.

Syria's aggressive tyrant will also soon fall. He fostered strong ties with Iran. He set up a nuclear reactor (that Israel later destroyed). He armed the Hezbollah in Lebanon, built an anthrax production facility and runs a big army. The protests he now tries to quell are in major cities, like Damascus and Halab. Even army officers and soldiers are rejecting orders. Syria's revolution would bring a severe blow to Hezbollah, being that Syria served as its conduit for arms from Iran. Iran too would suffer because Syria today is its only ally in the Middle East. In a heartbeat, the peril at Israel's North border that had approached the flashpoint for conflagration has dissipated.

A short while ago, fear mounted that Turkey and Syria might join forces against Israel. And now, just as Turkey rattles its sabers against the Jewish state, Syria's strong relations with her neighbor suddenly deteriorated, because Syria was killing many Moslems as he tries to crush the revolution, to the point where Turkey threatened to go to war unless Syria stops the killings.

Iran too has miraculous "coincidences" to take note of. The huge protests there, violently suppressed, reflect the little faith the populace has for its leadership party. As for Iran's nuclear aspiration, significant delays mark its progress. Many of their centrifuges became dysfunctional by the Stuxnet virus, and important nuclear physicists are dropping like flies.

Many more Arab dominoes have yet to fall.

What Torah lesson might these facts refer to? The last words of the last verse of the Torah portion Chayei Sarah, regarding Yishmael's ancestors, literally reads, "... on the face of his brethren he fell". The first words of the next verse, the first verse of portion Toldot, reads, "And these are the chronicles of Isaac...". The famous commentator, the Ba'al Haturim, reveals the significance in juxtaposition of these two verses. "This comes to teach us that when Yishmael will fall at the end of exile, that's when the son of David will emerge" (Gen 25:18). In other words, once Moslem dominion begins to decline, the Jews and Moshiach will be on the ascendancy.

In a nutshell, what we are witnessing is the terrorism support base of the Middle East disintegrating, all while the redemptive process for which we eagerly look forward to stealthily waxes. We are witnessing the bright light at the end of the tunnel. Happy 5772! Moshiach now!!

Unbroken Treaties

2011-09-25T19:17:00.018-04:00

The Torah portion of Netzavim starts out with the treaty God wrought with the Jewish people before they entered the Holy Land. "You are all standing here today ... to partake in a treaty with God ... that God ratifies for you today."

(Deut. 29:9-11)

The term "treaty" means, in Biblical Hebrew, an everlasting promise between two; A contract that no side can later reject.

An earlier treaty between God and the Jewish people occurred at Mount Sinai when God presented the Jews with the Holy Bible, where they "passed a treaty ... at Horev" (Deut. 5:2). This treaty designated the Jews as God's choice for His representative nation. "In you God chose to be his favored nation from all other nations" - an irreversible, eternal choice.

The very first treaty between God and the Jewish nation was struck with the first Jewish forefather at the Treaty of Parts. "On that day God passed a treaty with Abraham, saying, to your descendants I gave this very land, from the Egyptian river until the the great river, the River Pratt" (Gen 15:18); This is the land of "ten nations" that straddled the Jordan River, which was given to the Jewish nation as an eternal inheritance.

Any nation pushing to deny this divine truth ends up effectively denying itself a continued existence.

Once Torah was given and its laws formalized, with a distinct set set aside for Gentiles (the "7 Noahide Laws") and another for Jews, the law clearly states that not even an iota of the Holy Land Jews possess may be given away.

This holds true even if religious coalition members in an Israeli cabinet support giving away possessed land.

In 1992 (10 Shvat) the Rebbe of Lubavitch warned that "autonomy talks" will lead to formation of a Palestinian terrorist state, bringing hazard to Jewish life. Were we to raise our voices and say what Torah wants us to say, no matter how absurd we may think it sounds to the Gentile audience, we will find, in fact, to our surprise, that that, and only that, can forge a path to understanding and appreciating the divine truth it reflects. The Rebbe asserted "the world is ready!" for Moshiach and therefore there's no doubt about it. Never mind the few who chafe hearing these words. They may be loud, but they represent a minority. Most people appreciate the special times we live in and thirst to hear the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

People know plenty of broken treaties. They also know of, can see, and appreciate the unbroken eternal treaties between God and the Jewish people. Those who support this treaties are deemed righteous and guarantee for themselves a bright future; Those that don't - guarantee their own downfall into oblivion.

Eve of Elul 25, 5771; How We Must Respond to the U.N.

2011-09-22T23:05:00.009-04:00

Regarding Elul 25, in the Jewish year 0000, Torah tells us, "In the beginning G-d created the world ... ."

On the very first verse in Torah, Genesis 1:1, on the very first word, Rashi tells us how to respond to the world's nations who call Israel robbers for invading and conquering THEIR land. Rashi spells out exactly what to answer these accusers! (see here!)

5,771 years after the Elul 25 of creation, on Friday, eve of Elul 25, 5771, the chief terrorist of the so-called "Palestinian" people will claim - in the United Nations (the world's nations), before a world audience - that Israel and Jerusalem are their territory and the Jewish nation robbed them of it.

Netanyahu will probably bring forth other arguments, unfortunately. Probably he will not invoke the rights we got to the land from God, as per the Torah accounts.

But as long as he does not say as Rashi tells us to say, we will still have a rough ride of it. Only by stating the Jewish claim as Rashi dictates - only this way will pave the way for the world's nations to ACCEPT the Jewish stake in the Land of Israel. We have Torah's say-so!!

Netanyahu should say, "The whole earth belongs to God. He created it and He gave it to whom He saw fit. It was His will to give it to them, and it was His will to take it from them and give it to us!" Anything else, like invoking the sanction of the U.N. back in 1948, or any other "treaty" or armistice, or border issue, or terrorist issues will not cut it. God wants us Jews to tell the nations of the world what He wants to hear us say. Only this recital will sway the world to finally lay off of Israel and bear down on its enemies!!

When Rashi lived over a millennium ago, there were no nations that would even dream of calling Jews robbers for conquering Israel because Jews had no army, had no formal collective cohesion; All they had was a scattered, minimal presence across the globe, bitterly oppressed, tortured and killed. To think the Jewish people would later have the Land of Israel under their control was - if not prophecy - then certainly wholesome innocent faith in God's promise to return us to the Holy Land. It behooves us to appreciate the depth of Rashi's faith and join him in telling the Gentiles of the world the real reason the Land of Israel belongs to the Jews.

The Transparency of Jewish Identity

2011-09-18T16:40:00.012-04:00

Jew and Gentile may look alike, but hardly think or behave alike. Nowadays, given the plague of Reformism in America many Jews contracted from birth, and the blight of an inferiority complex Zionism infected Israelis with, this assertion is less apparent but, nonetheless, should hold true. For this is what our holy Torah expects of Jews. In the portion "Ki Tavo" it says, "All nations of the world will see the name of God conferred upon you." (Deut. 28:10).

We learn therefrom that Jews must radiate an aura of holiness in Gentile eyes, so God's presence be made tangible.

When Jews pray, study Torah or involved in doing ceremonial mitzvot, the occasion cannot draw a good comparison, for the Jew does these activities isolated from the public. When can resemblance to a Jew spur comparative evaluation by the Gentile? When the Jew is preoccupied with permissible activities beyond those of ritual. Only where they overlap, can behaviors be evaluated for their genuine differences. For example, in the way the Jew eats, drinks, or conducts business. In such cases the Jew must project an identifiable, "holy" ingredient.

Those behaviors shared by all peoples - that's where the Jew must convey "holiness". That's the behavior the Gentile should recognize uniquely Jewish in that it reflects a consideration of God's presence.

When God chose the Jewish people, not only were their souls chosen - but their bodies too were chosen. For this reason, everything a Jew does must reflect this chosen-ness. That which resides in the innermost recesses of the Jewish heart must also find expression in everything he does. The strong light of the refined Jewish soul easily can diffuse through its course bodily prism to continually broadcast God's presence to the observer.

The Rebbe Writes re: Conversion

2011-09-15T15:30:00.012-04:00

The following letter the Rebbe wrote to someone who asked him about converting to Judaism. I post it for its postscript.

By the Grace of G-d
16th of Av, 5739
[Aug. 9, 1979]

Mrs. H
Anchorage, Alaska 99504
Blessing and Greeting:

I am in receipt of your letter of July 27, in which you write in regard to conversion in accordance with the Halachah, which, of course, is the only valid conversion.

Needless to say, it is difficult to deal with such a matter through correspondence. The best thing would be if you could speak personally to a practicing orthodox Rabbi, for it is a very important and serious matter. If for some reason this is impossible to do without delay, you ought to write to one of the competent Rabbinic authorities, such as the Union of Orthodox Rabbis (address below), in whose domain it is – not in mine. And since they treat such matters in confidence, you can write to them quite freely in every detail.

Though you write that you have spoken with an orthodox Rabbi, I see from your letter that you’re still confused, and the sooner your status is rectified the better.
With blessing,
(signature)

Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the USA and Canada
235 East Broadway, New York, NY

P.S. I gather from your letter that you are aware of the general attitude of the Jewish religion not to encourage proselytizing, and, indeed, to discourage would-be converts. A Gentile who wishes to embrace the Jewish faith is often reminded at the outset that Gentiles, too, have a divinely ordained purpose in life to promote the rule of justice and decency and the other basic Seven Divine Precepts, with all their ramifications, which have been given to all mankind (the descendants of Noah, hence the so-called Seven Noahide Laws), thereby attaining spiritual fulfillment.

You should therefore not be surprised that you have not been encouraged in your desire for Geyrus (conversion) according to the Halachah, which is the only kind of valid conversion. For, obviously, any other form of conversion has no validity whatsoever, since it would be a self-contradiction to adopt a new religion in a way which is contrary to that religion. And since Halachic conversion requires a total commitment on the part of the proselyte to strictly adhere to all the laws – the do’s and the don’ts – of the Jewish religion, which, in your present place and circumstances is well nigh impossible to fulfill, there is an additional strong reason to discourage you from taking that step. For, with all your best intentions, you would not be able to conduct a full Torah-true life in your present place – the first condition of Halachic conversion, lacking which there can be no conversion.

Since it is a very serious matter, I am reiterating here what has been indicated in the main body of the letter, namely, that before you take up residence in a city and neighborhood where you can be certain of being able to carry out the said unequivocal commitment to conduct the everyday life in accordance with the Jewish Code of Law (Shulchan Aruch), there is no point in talking about Geyrus. Unless after discussing the matter with an orthodox rabbi, and despite his reasoning and discouragement, a basis may be found for pursuing the matter.

I trust you will accept the above in the proper spirit, since it is first of all my duty to clarify the true aspects of the situation, and it would be in your best interests, as well as your family’s, to follow the path of truth.

I would paraphrase this as, "If you want to go into deep water, you better know how to swim."

He's a Muslim Mole!

2011-09-13T20:51:00.021-04:00

Is is not amazing so much demeaning, underhanded and criminal behavior surrounding this man is being swept under the rug, like his patently false birth certificate, running arms to Mexican gangs, appointing Muslim czars, allowing secret entry to the White House to unknown people, tongue-slipping he's Muslim, reading from teleprompters, ramming through legislation without caring what's in them, spending trillions of dollars and the recipients remain unknown, removing Republican car dealers from their businesses, raising billions in taxes, lying through his teeth, playing golf instead of showing concern for natural disaster victims, not saluting the flag, associating with unremitting anti-semites and terrorists, keeping borders porous, unnecessary searching of innocent people at U.S. airports, American flags being banned from display, dropping the Black Panthers vote-intimidation case, ... and the list can just go on and on? Did you not suspect something fishy is going on?

This 3-min. video clip regarding Avi Lipkin's revelations is shocking! But it sure fits with the larger picture for which the many dots can now better be connected. The mosaic behind the facade is becoming revealed point by revealing point. Hopefully it will unravel quickly now.

Then read here what Daniel Greenfield writes about Obama and you'll see clearly what is alluded to above.

Moaning in the Wind

2011-09-12T22:33:00.004-04:00

A rabbi handed in his resignation after 6 months at the job. The board was stunned. They said, "Rabbi, just let us ask you one question; Can you tell us 'Why'; Was the salary too low?"
"No, the salary was fine."
"Was there a problem with the board of directors?"
"No, you are a wonderful bunch of people."
"Did the congregation bring you displeasure?"
"Not at all, I enjoyed them."
"Then rabbi, please answer us this one question, 'Why'?"
"Because this is the first question I've been asked in the 6 months since I've been here!"

Like this rabbi, I too feel like resigning. There is no point in running a blog except to occasionally throw out an insight of Jewish worth gleaned from rabbinic sources that's worth repeating. There's no money, honor, or medals in blogging. And it takes plenty of time too.

As a Chabadnik who lacks the courage our youth have to take off every Friday and devote the day going out into the communities to reach out to fellow Jews and Gentiles, I do my tiny share by writing this blog.

But I hardly get any comments!

I hesitate telling you this because I am not soliciting comments per se. I simply have no guage by which to measure if what I'm doing is worth my time because of this lack of feedback. I don't know if people are reading what I am writing. I've been blogging now for some three years and sometimes I think I'm just churning water, spinning my wheels for nothing. I notice other blogs do draw many more comments than mine; Much more. Is it simply because those blogs draw so many more surfers than mine? I just don't know.

Truth is, I'd rather have surfers who come to read rather than those who come to comment, for there are such blogs where comments look like a rowdy classroom!

I used to occasionally group-email to a mailing list of friends to drum up some readership, but I've stopped that. Instead, I added a widget where people can add their email address if they wish to get my blog's email feeds. If I don't have to stick my unsolicited nose into everyone's mailbox, I'd rather not. I prefer a low profile.

So for now, I'll just hunker down and continue this thankless venture I got myself into, but I did want to share my feelings with you people out there, wherever and whoever you are.

And, by the way, if you do occasionally drop by, then I tip my 10 gallon chassidic hat to you and say, "Much obliged".

What the Rebbe Thought during the Riots

2011-09-11T15:43:00.005-04:00

Twenty years ago, 3 days of riots unnerved the Jewish community of Crown Heights, when Jews feared to leave their homes because police stood by as blacks rioted in the streets yelling "Death to the Jews". One Jew, Yankel Rosenbaum, tragically lost his life when 16-year old Lemrick Nelson, Jr stabbed him in the back.

The Rebbe delivered a talk on the 3rd day of the pogrom. What did the Rebbe speak about; What did the Rebbe have on his mind? On the 11th of Elul, 5751, the Rebbe quoted the Ba'al Haturim, who says (on verse Ex. 19:6) that in the future all Jews will become elevated to the status of "Kohen Gadol", the High Priest. The Rebbe elaborated on the implications of this statement; He said that in the near future all Jews will be permitted to enter the inner sanctum - the Holy of Holies chamber inside the Temple during Yom Kippur. Of course this will have to be accompanied by bringing special sacrifices for the occasion.

A better question would be, when did the Rebbe NOT have Moshiach in mind.

How to React to the Rubble of Migron

2011-09-07T11:23:00.014-04:00

Israel's army pulled off a bold move in response to international pressure on Israel, thereby relieving the tension with superb action. The chokehold she felt around her neck, placed by America, Europe and Turkey, slackened and gave her much more breathing room with this brilliant, well-planned move. Even the PA could only gawk at this display of heroism.

One midnight last week, when the stars fooled people into sleeping, but lit the path for stealth soldiers, the platoon managed to sneak up on dormant clowns fool enough to build houses on what they were suckered into believing was Jewish territory.

In a matter of minutes, they chased the clowns from their beds, demolished the 3 houses in Migron, and felt happy for their stellar performance.

It's hard to laugh at such tragedy, at the incessant oppression of Jews who want to make Israel their homeland. It's hard not to admire the steel will of these Jews who are determined to scorn the wails of Jew-hating foreigners and those in power who seek to quiet and soothe them. So many others in Israel, unfortunately, cling to the media-driven belief that Israel "needs" to cultivate foreign goodwill and therefore submit to foreign demands.

These Jews in power and their media supporters look at Torah with disdain. While Torah urges Jews to be "a nation that should live apart from, and not reckon as, the other nations" (Num. 23:9), they, on the contrary, want people to believe "Torah is outdated, just a book of fairy tales; It's unrealistic and cannot apply to our modern era." They want us to trash what God behooves of us.

Arabs build expansive cities wherever they can and nobody in authority dares pout or say a word. But let a Jew try building on his land and his world must cave in. Instead of Jewish pride, our "leaders" display secular arrogance.

This week's Haftarah provides the rebuttal to last week's sad episode: "Expand the place of your tent, the perimeter of your dwellings; Stretch, don't spare; Lengthen your tents' cords and strengthen and set farther the tents' pegs!" (Isaiah 54:2)

The Cure for Nauseous Jewish Soil

2011-09-04T22:27:00.014-04:00

Why did The Holy Land lay barren before Israel's farmers made it blossom with produce? Certainly Gentiles knew how to farm land. Early history proved this geographical hub to be of optimal strategic value; Why then could they not settle the land as they did everywhere else?

The Torah foretold, 3,300 years ago, that one day in the future, Jews will be exiled from the Land of Israel. In a prophecy spoken by Moses, he said, "When you have been established in the land for a long time ... you will then ... perish from the land ... God will then scatter you among the nations ...". (Deut. 4:25-27)

For this land has an unusual attribute other lands do not have. It can suffer "nausea"; For The Holy Land, just as a healthy body that ingested poison reacts by vomiting out the offensive intrusion, can "vomit out" the Jewish people whose quota of sins exceeded an intolerable level. The land then shuts down and no longer can cultivate crop. Otherwise, as long as Jews mostly "... safeguard My decrees and laws ... the land ... will not vomit you out." (Lev. 20:22)

Here's confirmation from a reliable source what the Land of Israel looked about 150 years ago. It's a quote from Mark Twain, who visited Israel in 1867. ("Innocents Abroad", Vol. II, Harper and Brothers, 1922, NY)

“We traversed some miles of the desolate country, whose soil is rich enough but is given wholly to weeds, as silent, mournful expanse. A desolation is here that not even imagination can grace with the pomp of life and action. We reached Tavor safely. [Tavor is in the Northern Galilee, the most fertile part of the land.] We never saw a human being on the whole route. We pressed on towards the goal…, renowned Jerusalem. The further we went, the hotter the sun got, the more rocky and bare, repulsive and dreary the landscape became. There was hardly a tree or a shrub anywhere. Even the olive and the cactus, those fast friends of a worthless soil, had almost deserted the country. No landscape exists that is more tiresome to the eye than that which bound the approaches to Jerusalem. Jerusalem is mournful, dreary and lifeless. I would not desire to live there.”

As long as Jews are not settlers of this land, or, as long as the occupiers of it are foreign nations, "I will make the land so desolate that even your enemies who live there will be astonished!". (Lev. 26:32)

If you think about it, it makes eminent sense. For as long as Gentiles cannot comfortably stay in the land, they will move on, sooner or later. No one will want to make their stay there permanent. And therefore there will be no archaeological proof of this permanence either. The Jews lived on that land over 1,00 years and yearned to return to it for two nearly two millennia, while no nation meanwhile would endure there - or lay claim to Jerusalem. As long as the food markets could provide nothing but meager pickings, the land proved hostile to every nation but the Jewish one.

Thank God, we've all been ushered into the pre-Messianic era, and 60 years ago we got back our land. This too Moses told us in prophecy: "God, your Lord, will bring you to the land that your ancestors occupied, and you too will occupy it". (Deut. 30:5)

And chassidut teaches - the more Israeli society today turns to God, the more productive we can expect the agriculture to recover from its nauseous collapse!

Fear of Commitment

2011-09-02T00:08:00.009-04:00

On a "Reform Judaism" blog site, a comment appeared in response to an article. The commenter spoke of his "fear of going to a spiritual place from which I would not return".

This, I believe, manifests the crux of the matter for people who search their souls for truth and will not let convenience sway them from that straight-as-a-laser path of truth. The unconscious realization that truth might lead to the necessity of commitment, having to take the consequences of discovery from the realm of thought to the realm of action, carries with it an unconscious fear that new behaviors must now be embarked upon, old ones dispensed with, and new challenges therefore lie ahead. It takes a giant to pull off this gigantic effort, if for nothing else but to test his new discoveries.

It bears taking note that a theoretical evaluation of one's findings, as opposed to a behavioral endorsement of them, cannot be a valid substitute. For, unlike perhaps other endeavors, Judaism is behaviorally dependent. The Jews in the generation of Moses took upon themselves to do before they could understand, because only by doing can many important aspects of Judaism be understood. "We will do and we will [then] understand", they declared, prior to receiving the Torah (Ex. 24:7). This was not just an arbitrary whim. It is a characteristic Jewish imperative. It reminds me of the once-very-successful TV commercial that went, "Try it - You'll like it!" For in Judaism, not trying inevitably leads to not liking (and if not immediately, or in one generation, certainly by two or three).

The upheaval a behavioral change of repertoire may entail is not trivial. It is not for nothing one of the first laws in the book of the Jewish Code of Law requires the practitioner to be "Bold as a leopard, light as an eagle, swift as a deer and strong as a lion, to do the will of your father in heaven."

Do You Own Your Body?

2011-09-01T13:49:00.012-04:00

You think your body is your own, do you? Well, know that Torah thinks differently. Here's how we know.

Torah dictates, says Maimonides (Laws of Sanhedrin, end of chpt 18), that a man's confession of a financial debt obligates him to pay up, even against the testimony of 100 witnesses. But were he to confess to murder, the court must ignore his confession! A minimum of two witnesses is mandatory to invoke the death penalty (or to receive lashes), as it states (Deut. 17:6), "By the say of 2 witnesses or 3 witnesses shall the guilty one be put to death."

Some commentaries explain that a person is master over his chattel or property and therefore his confession obligates him; Whereas his body and soul are given over to him as a deposit for safekeeping and cannot be eliminated based on his confession. His body and soul are not his own to destroy.

At first glance, this explanation makes little sense. God, creator of the universe, owns it all. He owns a man's property as well as the man's body - so why the difference in law between the two confessions?

The reason is simple. God allows man to be master of his property, but the body and soul are only placed in his care for safekeeping, and therefore man is not master of his body or soul. He cannot simply do what he chooses with his body. For example, he must not commit suicide, nor may he mutilate his body. A confession, therefore, cannot remove the body from one's duty to safekeep it for God.

How careful must we be to safeguard the health of our body and soul? When it comes to commandments, very few in Torah come with a qualification of being extra careful. Of the few that do, is the one to take care of our body and soul: "And you should take great heed of yourselves". (Deut. 4:15)

Torah's perspective of the body's ownership is purposely scorned by those who seek to divorce God from their agenda. The vile "Planned Parenthood" institution, and the support it got from recent administrations, is a case in point. They wish to promote promiscuity as well as promoting the murder of babies. They typically claim a woman's body is her own, and she can do to it, and its contents, as she pleases. Instead of promoting responsible behavior, and honoring the sanctity of the body and life, they seek to cheapen morality by defiling young susceptible minds and to defile the sanctity of the person. They are dragging America from the aristocratic, virtuous country it once was, to become just another whorish Sodom.

To take care for one's own body and to care for another person's body - amounts to the same thing, as we've seen. Another area where abuse of this principle runs rampant is our society's corrupt pharma/medical establishment, wherein, for example, they poison drinking water with flouride, resort to unnecessary surgery and body mutilation (as by removing breasts, or by irradiation), poison in the name "therapy" and run a legalized drug-pushing operation (as in vaccinating by needle, or prescribing pill-popping regimens); Wherein lifetime "treatment" - not cure - is their only intent.

Free Choice - Ordained by Torah

2011-08-31T16:04:00.006-04:00

A most fundamental Judaic principle relates to "free choice". Man, and only man, benefits from this privilege. The opening verse of Torah portion "Re'eh" teaches this tenet. It says, "... I offer you blessings and curses ...".

Two words here deserve focus. The word "I" is the same word with which the segment of the "Ten Commandments", in an earlier portion, starts off with. The word "offer" connotes a gift; As this verse does, which speaks of offering blessings. But how then can these two words that imply beneficence also be used to provide curses?

Every aspect of Torah is perfect and therefore we must understand how the offering of curses is indeed a good feature.

Imagine then the world without the presence of bad. If goodness were the only reality, if humans had no tendency to do bad, thereby being forced into constant good behavior, man would lack the capability for free choice.

Of all creatures in the world, only man has free choice. Without capability to also choose bad, mankind would be no different than any other, lower creature.

It turns out, therefore, God's granting to man "curses" as well as "blessings", raises mankind to a unique position among the world's creatures. By implanting the inclination for evil as well as for doing good renders mankind its exalted status, without which it would be relegated to being merely another specie of animal.

The rewards for choosing right from wrong is another issue, and in fact involves another tenet of Judaism - how rewards for free choice are distributed. For this also involves the belief in the world-to-come, the world of truth that awaits one who passes on from this world of good-mixed-with-bad. For rewards for deeds in this world can be held back until the person reaches the world-to-come. So let not the irony of seeing a righteous person who suffers while an evil person enjoys a lavish lifestyle in this world confuse you.

For if the free choice option embedded in your psyche be misconstrued as an arbitrary device, you will have missed the whole point of its benefit, for which you can only hurt your own destiny.

The Month of Elul - A Time for Self-Evaluation

2011-08-30T16:12:00.014-04:00

The month of Elul is a time for self-accounting. Elul (אלול) in Hebrew is the acronym of "I am to my Beloved and my Beloved is to me." (Song of Songs 6:3)

אני לדודי ודודי לי

On the other hand, in verse 2:16 it says, "My Beloved is to me and I am to Him."

דודי לי ואני לו

Why here do we read these terms in reverse order?

Commentaries explain that the "me" refers to the people of Israel, and the "Beloved" refers to God. The Song of Songs portrays a loving relationship between God and the Jewish people.

This love affair can come about in one of two ways. Either God initiates the relationship, showing man the love He has for him, and man thereafter returns the love, as implied by the verse "My beloved is to me and I am to Him." Or, on the other hand, man can initiate the affair, showing his love to God first, and then God reciprocates by showing His love to man. This is connoted by "I am to my Beloved and my Beloved is to me."

To illustrate, there usually exist two sorts of stories by those who have "returned" to God. Some of these people speak of some divine revelation or intervention that occurred to them, as on some mountain peak in Thailand, or during a horrible traffic crash, or some special moment, when they felt the loving Hand of God. Such a situation relates to "My Beloved is to me ...".

In contrast, other such people never experienced a revelation or special miracle. They simply arrived at an intellectual conclusion they need to investigate the path of Judaism, and after a long process of search they concluded that truth lies in Torah, so they began to serve God. Only at a later stage did they begin to feel the love that God has for them. This type of affair is alluded to by "I am to my Beloved ...".

Were we to ponder the Jewish calendar, we'd find two months that parallel these two situations: The months of Nissan and Elul.

Nissan in Hebrew means "miracle". During Nissan, many miracles happened to the Jewish people during their exodus from Egypt, when God demonstrated His strong love for them, even though they did not deserve it on merits. Only at a later time did the Jewish people reciprocate with love of their own. The month of Nissan therefore fits the verse "My Beloved is to me ...".

But Elul is void of miracles, Godly revelations or special holidays. It's a month of working on oneself, of learning Torah and doing mitzvot, a time of thoughtful prayer and inner, self-reckoning. It's a time for climbing, of exerting oneself. When man achieves, on his own initiative, a closer relationship to God, God will then respond to him or her with love. Our sages illustrate this relationship as follows, "Wedge for Me an opening the size of a pinhole, and I'll expand it for you to the size of an auditorium".

Which is why Elul reflects "I am to my Beloved," - which then draws down "and My Beloved is to me".

The Alter Rebbe (the 1st Lubavitcher Rebbe) provided a metaphor for the month of Elul. It is that of a king who all year dwells in his palace. Only a privileged few can gain face-to-face access to him in his inner chambers. But there is one period during which the king makes himself available to the commonfolk, by going out to them in the fields. These folk, even dressed in their work clothes, now have the opportunity to meet the king. From there they can accompany the king to his palace.

This king is God. All year long God is in His heavenly palace, and in order to receive his attention, people have to achieve incredible spiritual heights or exceptional deeds. But during the month of Elul, God is near every individual, present at our location wherever we are, and gives us the chance to change, listens to us and responds by responding with a kind countenance and a smile.

Let us therefore exploit these days of mercy by examining our behaviors to see where they can be improved and thereby get closer to God. As it says, "Return to Me and I will return to you!" (Malachi 3:7)

Emanuel Moreno - A Hero's Assassination Covered Up?

2011-08-28T00:09:00.027-04:00

In late October, or, more likely, in the first week of November, 2006, a man was introduced to a crowd of thousands who gathered in "770" (a synagogue in Brooklyn that serves as "headquarters" for the world-wide Lubavitch chassidic movement) for some Chabad-related occasion. The speaker didn't look Chabad-like, but that is not uncommon. I don't recollect the occasion's raison d'etre. In any event, his speech was spell-binding. When I happened upon Arutz 7's story last week of the passing of Emanuel Moreno, telling of the 5th yahrzeit of a "secret IDF officer" whose story is shrouded in "national security", I immediately made the association. The speaker never mentioned Emanuel by name. It's only I who suddenly made this connection, because the "secrecy" imprint raised my suspicions, and for another reason that I'll tell later. The speaker, apparently in the upper echelon of political and/or military Israeli circles, or a man seemingly in the know, spoke of abuses executed by the political/military Israeli establishment. One particular evildoing he detailed for us. The details differ significantly from Caroline Glick's story of this hero's passing.

Here's how I remember it 5 and 1/2 years later.

Emanuel was climbing up in the ranks of his political party and was somewhat religiously oriented. His success threatened the higher-ups, afraid he was going to rise even higher and thwart their own political ambitions. So they wanted to "take care of him". They plotted this ploy. He was known to be a military dare-devil and the scheme they painted for him made him out to be the perfect man for the daring mission. They told him - towards the end of the Lebanon war, that they needed him to capture officers of Hezbullah and bring them back, in order to make the Israeli army's performance during this war appear more creditable. He was told that many Hezbollah officers were to be found in some hotel in some city in the Northeast of Lebanon. Now, as I read about the passing of Emanuel, and map-googled Baalbek, this city "fits" the picture. This is the other reason that reinforces my hunch of intrigue.

He got to the mission's target city and found that the hotel had, in fact, no ranking officers of Hezbollah therein. One thing was sure, however, there were extremely many Hezbullah operatives in the vicinity. He radioed to make his report and to ask for some aerial assistance to escape. Nobody answered his calls. In desperation, because Hezbullah fighters were buzzing about everywhere, and his group now found out, he realized he had no choice but to rely on his own limited resources.

The reason the plotters targeted this city, said the speaker, was for its location. It was close to the Syrian border, far from the Lebanese coast, making naval escape impractical, and far from the Israeli border. Emanuel was literally surrounded by hostile elements and isolated from his army when no one answered his desperate calls.

The helicopters that brought him to this location were two transport helicopters. They remained the only means by which to make the return trip. He called the pilots and they informed him they will need to abandon their site very soon, giving Emanuel very little time.

Emanuel told his soldiers his final strategy for escape. He told them they will all pack into their two jeeps. Both jeeps will then race full-speed to the rendezvous site to make it in time before the helicopters leave. He told them that chances may well be the first jeep will make it through safely but the second one will absorb many bullets. He got into (or ?drove) the second jeep.

They made it to the helicopters, just as he predicted; The first jeep got through relatively unscathed, but his trailing jeep took many hits. The way I remember it, the speaker said Emanuel died of his wounds during the flight back on the helicopter.

The conspirators' plan for Emanuel's elimination had worked.

The details I recall here and the alleged connection to Lt. Col. Emanuel Moreno are open for investigation. It may shed light on this hero's real story, which isn't consonant with the media's innocuous, scant take of it. Maybe with more dots to connect, a different picture will emerge. Criminality is certainly plausible, given the troublesome facts surrounding people such as Uzi Meshulam, Jonathan Pollard, Yitschak Rabin and Baruch Goldstein, to name a few.

To See or Not to See, with Your Mind's Eye

2011-08-25T19:50:00.005-04:00

A recurring maddening issue in Jewish history is the need to fight reformism. Prior to World War II, the "Haskallah" movement sought to reform Judaism, with their motto, "Be a Jew at home, but blend in among society." In earlier times we had Hellenists and Saduccees, and today we have "Reconstructionist, Conservative and Reform" movements. The Previous Rebbe, while his chassidim fought against Soviet atheism (and later won), came to America in 1940 to take up the fight to bring religious Judaism to this hemisphere as well. As one of his tactics, he published the "Reading and Holiness" monthly journal and distributed it freely to all synagogues and organizations. Here follows an article therefrom, translated from Yiddish, written in Aug. 1941, p. 172.

This week's Torah portion starts out discussing blessings and curses, later to be cited on Mounts Grizim and Eival. The first words are, "See! I offer you today blessings and curses," and the portion's name is "See!"

Understandably, we all prefer blessings over curses, yet most people still bring upon themselves the curses. Spiritual blindness is to blame; We either do not see, or we see the curses as blessings. To recognize the difference between them, we must be able to see.

For the main difference of a blessing and a curse has to do with seeing, for, put a blessing in front of a blind man and beg him to choose it or try to convince him, and he'll purposely choose the curse and do the wrong thing and become cursed, unfortunately.

We don't need a better example of this than the current burning question among most of society regarding the future course of world civilization or the question among Jews regarding the future fate of the Jewish people. Too few people see the cursed direction the world is taking, blind to the destruction that will take place. And too few Jews see the blessing in returning to God and the approaching Era of Ultimate Redemption.

Generally, mankind does not want civilization to decline, yet still it takes the criminal path that undermines civilization. The depiction "And the earth filled with violence" (Gen. 5:11) prevails and nobody figures to take the blessed path by desisting from all the criminality, all the wars, all the oppression, and removing all the burden imposed upon the weak - the only means by which civilization can be saved.

The same goes for Jews; Most of us do not see blessed path of earnestly returning to God, by which we can avoid the coming "birth pangs of Moshiach" and merit very soon the Era of Ultimate Redemption. This era is definitely arriving, yet despite this, people choose the wrong path, the cursed path, by waiting for a redemption that relies on the dubious hope for social righteousness.

Neither society at large sees where lies its blessing or curse; Nor the Jewish people see the correct path. They all seek blessings but cannot see; And they all hate curses but blindly draw these upon themselves. This is the very issue Torah here addresses: For, in having recourse to blessings or curses lies the danger of not seeing, the danger of not seriously contemplating to see where, in fact, lies the blessing and the curse.

The name of this Torah segment therefore bears a great lesson for us Jews. Each Jew must see, ponder and envision - not go blindly, nor trust dubious hopes, nor take a path that hasn't proved its worth to the Jewish people. The blessing lies in the following (Deut. 11:27): "A blessing, if you obey the commandments of the Lord your God." The wrong path too is defined for us: "And a curse, if you do not obey ...."

"See!" - No one should be blind. We can see if we want to see. Were this not so, Torah would never enjoin us to see.

545 People

2011-08-23T19:16:00.005-04:00

Charley Reese, a journalist for the Orlando Sentinel, is retiring after 49 years. This was his last column.

You can paraphrase his article as 545 vs 300,000,000. (I got it from here).

545 PEOPLE

By Charlie Reese

Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them.

Have you ever wondered, if both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits, WHY do we have deficits?

Have you ever wondered, if all the politicians are against inflation and high taxes, WHY do we have inflation and high taxes?

You and I don’t propose a federal budget. The President does.

You and I don’t have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations. The House of Representatives does.

You and I don’t write the tax code, Congress does.

You and I don’t set fiscal policy, Congress does.

You and I don’t control monetary policy, the Federal Reserve Bank does.

100 senators, 435 in the House, 1 President, and 9 Supreme Court justices equates to 545 human beings out of the 300 million are directly, legally, morally, and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country.

I excluded the members of the Federal Reserve Board because that problem was created by the Congress. In 1913, Congress delegated its Constitutional duty to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered, but PRIVATE, central bank.

I excluded all the special interests and lobbyists for a sound reason. They have no legal authority. They have no ability to coerce a senator, a congressman, or a President to do one cotton-picking thing. I don’t care if they offer a politician $1 million dollars in cash. The politician has the power to accept or reject it. No matter what the lobbyist promises, it is the legislator’s responsibility to determine how he votes.

Those 543 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that what they did is not their fault. They cooperate in this common con regardless of party.

What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive amount of gall. No normal human being would have the gall of a Speaker, who stood up and criticized the President for creating deficits….. The President can only propose a budget. He cannot force the Congress to accept it.

The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, gives sole responsibility to the House of Representatives for originating and approving appropriations and taxes. Who is the speaker of the House? John Boehner. He is the leader of the majority party. He and fellow House members, not the President, can approve any budget they want. If the President vetoes it, they can pass it over his veto if they agree to.

It seems inconceivable to me that a nation of 300 million cannot replace 545 people who stand convicted — by present facts — of incompetence and irresponsibility. I can’t think of a single domestic problem that is not traceable directly to those 545 people. When you fully grasp the plain truth that 545 people exercise the power of the federal government, then it must follow that what exists is what they want to exist.

If the tax code is unfair, it’s because they want it unfair.

If the budget is in the red, it’s because they want it in the red ..

If the Army & Marines are in Iraq and Afghanistan it’s because they want them in Iraq and Afghanistan …

If they do not receive social security but are on an elite retirement plan not available to the people, it’s because they want it that way.

There are no insoluble government problems.

Do not let these 545 people shift the blame to bureaucrats, whom they hire and whose jobs they can abolish; to lobbyists, whose gifts and advice they can reject; to regulators, to whom they give the power to regulate and from whom they can take this power. Above all, do not let them con you into the belief that there exists disembodied mystical forces like “the economy,” “inflation,” or “politics” that prevent them from doing what they take an oath to do.

Those 545 people, and they alone, are responsible.

They, and they alone, have the power..

They, and they alone, should be held accountable by the people who are their bosses.

Provided the voters have the gumption to manage their own employees…

We should vote all of them out of office and clean up their mess!

Glib "Nutritious" Advertising to Fool People

2011-08-18T19:31:00.011-04:00

A popular product promoted for its nutrition is "Ensure Powder". The manufacturer "formulates" similar nutrition products for babies and suckling infants too.

At the bottom of this post is this can's list of ingredients. Let's take a look at some.

The first three are all sugars. The federal rule is to list the ingredients sorted by weight in decreasing order. By breaking up the sugars into 3 types, it seems the sugar content thereby is reduced because each name is not immediately identified as a sugar by the often ignorant public. Still, here you have the top three ingredients being sugar. It may as well have been written as: "Sugar, Sugar, Sugar".

In other products that contain water they often pull the same trick. They manage to place water before the sugars - by separating the sugars into different types. But if you add all sugar weights together, sugar would easily take first place in the list of ingredients.

The fourth ingredient (really the second) is a fat. The next "nutritious" element is a sodium compound.

Soon after comes "Artificial flavor" - a laboratory chemical. Then come more sodium and sulfate products. There's even "Cupric Sulfate" among them; Last I checked, it's considered "too toxic for use"!

Of course, the best way to sell garbage is to have people praise it to the hilt, saying "how wonderful it is". Here, as an example, is this "review" by some lady when she fed this product to her grandchild:

Product Rating: *****
Pros: Greatly improves health
Cons: expensive
Bottom Line: It turned our little Kathie into a thriving ball of energy.

Is it any wonder doctors live significantly shorter lives than the average lifespan!

P.S. I just picked this product randomly. It's probably not even kosher.

INGREDIENTS:
Corn Syrup, Corn Maltodextrin, Sugar (Sucrose), Corn Oil, Sodium & Calcium Caseinates, Soy Protein Isolate, Artificial Flavor, Potassium Citrate, Magnesium Chloride, Calcium Phosphate, Sodium Citrate, Potassium Chloride, Soy Lecithin, Ascorbic Acid, Choline Chloride, Zinc Sulfate, dl-Alpha-Tocopheryl Acetate, Niacinamide, Ferrous Sulfate, Calcium Pantothenate, Manganese Sulfate, Cupric Sulfate, Thiamine Chloride Hydrochloride, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride, Riboflavin, Vitamin A Palmitate, Folic Acid, Biotin, Chromium Chloride, Sodium Molybdate, Potassium Iodide, Sodium Selenate, Phylloquinone, Cyanocobalamin, and Vitamin D3.

Satmar & Chabad Relations (cont'd)

2011-08-16T17:32:00.008-04:00

A story is told, when the pamphlet "Neturei Karta", once published in Jerusalem, reached the desk of the Previous Rebbe, he handed it to his son-in-law (the Rebbe) and said, "Take your newspaper".

He said this because the Rebbe supported Satmar chassidim, and it's known he sent them funds as well.

Also well known is what the Rebbe said about Satmar's activities in Israel, that "if the 'Neturei Karta' would not be doing the 'dirty work', then we would have to do it instead." (eg, the protests against building on graveyards, protests against Shabbat desecrations, and many more protests against the many forms of Zionist sacrilege.)

After Zalman Shazar, the 3rd president of Israel, had a private audience with the Rebbe, one of many, Shazar said he felt as if the Rebbe was much more aggressively overzealous for strict orthodoxy than the Previous Rebbe; Furthermore, he said, had the Previous Rebbe not established a Chabad community in Israel (Kfar Chabad), he doubted whether the Rebbe would ever have taken such a step.

Rabbi Geldzeiler, from Lakewood, confided to Rabbi Rapp of Brooklyn that he once showed the Rebbe a booklet he composed of his Torah findings. Passing by the Rebbe, he told him that the Satmar Rebbe had also reviewed it. He said it and tried to swallow his words. The Rebbe then said to him, "You don't have to mention the Satmar Rebbe with a frown. You should know he's a friend of mine and I'm a friend of his. As for our differences, these were caused by 'Datan and Aviram'".

"Before" and "After" White House Smiley Pictures

2011-08-15T22:24:00.007-04:00

We all sense, those in touch with political ongoings, just how discombobulated American politics and economics suddenly became with the election of whom I think is a Muslim or Communist mole in the White House. We sense it and monitor it with foreboding. The entire capitalistic system seems to have taken a jolt and now totters and reels. Shifting winds bring dark clouds of gloom. A sinister infrastructure seems to be pulling strings, puppeteering the president and many other halfwits implanted throughout the country acting as administrators who hold the reins over many key positions.

Jews feel this trepidation closer to heart because of the significant change in policy towards Israel. The enmity towards Israel has become quite tangible in many ways, if before it lurked as an undercurrent.

Here's an example of the latter. Compare the captions under both "smiley" pictures. These pictures were posted on the White House website (link). The original, "before" picture contained the words, "Jerusalem, Israel" in its caption. (This was taken by photographer Daniel Harper, who revealed the story.) The "after" picture, has the word "Israel" expunged. The implication of the decisive rub out is clear - Jerusalem no longer belongs to Israel from America's perspective! (Note the irony in the smiles.)

(The erasure story is here. A video clip of it is here.)

Jews "Kidnapped from Birth"

2011-08-15T01:04:00.005-04:00

In the "desert" of Southern Florida you find many many Jews who have suffered a drought of Judaism, since they were born. Many with Jewish mothers don't even realize they are Jewish. Octogenerians abound who haven't once in their many years on Mother Earth donned a pair of phylacteries. Ask them if they ever put on "tefillin", and they'll think it's a brand of sun lotion.

Jewish education to a Florida Jew has nothing to do with anathema. It's simply a matter of having been "kidnapped from birth" by a foreign culture. These people never broke away from Judaism. They simply never got exposed to the real thing. Their lives began with Gentile-like culture, continued with Gentile-like culture, and never knew anything else. They suffer from sheer Americanism.

But, at least, when they get rescued and are given some water of Torah to drink, it may revive them enough to seek to quench their thirst, for thirst they surely have. For a Jewish soul cannot achieve tranquility without some divine intimacy, no matter how many baccalaureates or degrees trail after his name. A Jewish soul not anchored in Torah feels itself being tossed around on stormy waters like a rudderless ship.

These pictures are from a fellow, an emissary of the Rebbe, who, undaunted by what people might think, reaches out to these Jews, doing his best to touch them with some Jewish love.

Dr. J. Berman of Sarasota wasn't embarrassed to show his Jewish pride in public at the airport in front of hundreds of travelers. Everyone there looked in amazement.

It created a chain reaction. Here is another Jew, an attorney from Tampa, in the airport, on his way to a nephew's Bar-Mitzvah in New Jersey. He was so inspired by what he witnessed, he decided to do it himself.

Iris sees her husband get "wrapped" for the first time in his life, at age 80!

The girl to the right, from Sarasota, just discovered she was in fact Jewish. She got interested in what we were doing. So I showed her the internal parchment scrolls inside the tefillin and explained to her the spiritual act of the Bar-Mitzvah. She then revealed to me her mom was Jewish. She never experienced anything of Jewish nature. As we parted ways I wished her well in discovering her newly-discovered identity. She is another typical Jewish girl from the Tampa Bay area.

Gush Katif Remembered

2011-08-12T03:18:00.018-04:00

The Mishna (Taanit 4:6) lists 5 calamities that struck Jews on Tisha B'Av. Some 500 years ago, also on this day, Jews were banished from Spain.

Then came, on this day, yet another banishment, in ways even more painful. In 2005 (it was scheduled on Tisha B'Av, but actually took place the next day), Jews were brutally evicted from their residences, businesses and properties of Gush Katif. Many were third generation citizens.

You would think a Jewish government would know something about significant Jewish dates. Yet they chose Tisha B'Av to do their dirty work. Jews of Gush Katif were told Tisha B'Av was the final day, by which time they were required to abandon their birthrights.

The 5 calamities the Mishna lists that befell on Tisha B'Av are: The decree to forbid entry to the Holy land for the generation of the desert; The 1st and 2nd Temples were destroyed; The city of Beitar was captured; And, Jerusalem was smashed to rubble after the destruction.

For generations other unfortunate events occurred on Tisha B'Av, the harshest of them being the expulsion from Spain. On August 2, 1492, King Ferdinand of Spain proclaimed that no Jewish foot may remain on Spanish soil.

Then came the recent expulsion from Gush Katif. It's one thing when Gentiles oppress Jews. Jewish law tells us "Esav hates Yaakov", so we can somewhat understand the cruelty committed.

But how can we begin to fathom cruelty when a Jew commits such atrocity to another Jew? Can we compare an eviction of Jews perpetrated by Gentiles in a Gentile nation to one where a Jewish government in a Jewish country does the same to its own people?

What further aggravated this eviction was the handover of the birthrights to Israel's worst enemies - an act so perverted it boggles the mind! And, to add salt to the wound, the birthrights robbed from Jews and handed to the Arabs was meant to resolve a border conflict that had wrought much tension. The proponents of the expulsion so argued. Those against the expulsion knew full well it was a delusion, with a horrible payback. The latter were right because it created what today is a much more dangerous state of affairs, with greater risks to life.

The exile we are in is both a physical exile and a psychological one. As long as Jews see themselves as just another nation, relating to their Judaism as an incidental fact, without taking pride in the vast heritage and delight that Torah and Jewish tradition offer, the exile mentality will persist - and Jews may well fall victim yet again to such aberrant behavior (God forbid!); For Jewish destiny cannot steer a path to redemption hitched on desires for assimilation. The Jewish soul cannot smooth a path against its innate grain by subverting the Torah injunction "And they shall be a people onto themselves" (Num 23:9).

There's an internal exile and an external one. May we soon see the day when Jews become proud to be Jewish, proud of their heritage, proud of their Torah and customs, thereby divesting their internal exile. With that achieved, the external exile too will vanish - to yield for all Jews and all mankind a long-awaited, eternal utopia.

A Jew "Confronts" a Skinhead

2011-08-11T12:42:00.008-04:00

A Jew who recently became religious lives in Germany. In his new-found enthusiasm, seeking to learn more, the better to steer his new course in life, he packed his bags for a trip to New York, to visit the Lubavitch headquarters in Brooklyn, where he could fully "charge up his motivational batteries" for future challenges. I met him in shul ("770") two hours after he arrived. He was still worn to a frazzle from an experience he told me about, which occurred to him at the Munich airport.

While in the airport, he looked down, saw a wallet on the floor and picked it up. He decided to take it to the airport police and let them handle the lost item. He opened the wallet and saw it held a large wad of cash. He began to count the money as he made his way to the police. He already counted $3,000 and still there was about another $2,000 left uncounted.

Suddenly he realized how foolish it would be to bring this lost item to German police, who would simply help themselves to the cash. So he pocketed the item and turned back.

He made his way to his boarding gate and waited in line. He looked around and noticed a young man frantically looking about the airport's floor, running here and there, searching around pillars and under benches. This young German had all the signs of being a "Skinhead", in dress and shaven head. The Jew kept watching until finally the fellow went towards his gate. The Skinhead's line was moving forward and soon he would be inaccessible inside the gate.

The thought recurred to him he should hold on to the money. After all, Skinheads hate Jews. German ones how much more so. He also made quick calculations he was going to 770 where plenty of opportunity exists to distribute charity. Finally the Jew decided he was going to run and reach the Skinhead before he disappears beyond the gate.

"Is this what you were looking for?" said the Jew. The Skinhead's eyes opened wide and his jaw dropped. "Yes", he practically shouted, "Thank you! Why are you doing this?" The Jew pointed his finger upwards and said, "Because there is a God and He sees all!" Asked the Gentile, "What can I ever do to thank you?" The Jew told him he should believe in God. The Skinhead promised he would. The Jew pulled out a card with the "Seven Noahide Laws" printed on it, which he always carries for "reach-out opportunities", handed it over, and quickly told the Gentile about these obligations. "I'll keep this card to the last day of my life," said the Skinhead out of sheer relief and emotion.

The Jew went back to his gate and swelled with Jewish pride, thinking he did the right thing, because he committed a great act of "kiddush hashem", sanctifying Hashem's name.

He told me, it took a lot out of him, but in the end he was happy he did it.

- - - - - - - -

UPDATE: The total amount, my friend wrote to correct me, was about $10,000! The Skinhead was from Lithuania Russia. Once the Jew gave him the money and left him, he ran after the Jew to tell him that, in effect, the Jew saved his life because this money constituted his entire earnings and savings. He repeated he will always remember what a religious Jew did for him. He also said he never in his life met a religious Jew!

The other corrections: He did, in fact, take the wallet to the police station, keeping the money in his pocket. The wallet was on a bench when he found it.

Sarkozy's Cozy with Chabad

2011-08-10T01:41:00.020-04:00

French President Nicolas Sarkozy sent the following letter of blessing in honor of the Rebbe's birthday, 11 Nissan, on April 20, 2009:

In honor of the celebration of the 107th birthday of the Rabbi from Lubavitch King Moshiach, may he live good, long years, I request you extend to the members of the Neuilly congregation my warm and friendly regards.

I wish to renew the faithful connection and real friendship I have for the Lubavitch community.

I'll be happy, honorable sir, if you will accept my fond feelings.

Nicolas Sarkozy

This relationship between Sarkozy and the Rebbe's emissary in Neuilly, Rabbi David Zavi, began back when Sarkozy was mayor of the city. Despite efforts by Catholic circles to prevent the Chanukah menora from being erected in the city's center, the mayor came to Rabbi Zavi's aid and - himself gave confirmation to erect the proud Jewish symbol.

Over the years, as the mayor rose in political ranking, he occasionally showed up at Chabad events. There he learned about the belief Chabad chassidim had regarding their Rebbe and Moshiach.

When that letter in honor of the Rebbe's birthday arrived from Sarkosy, Rabbi Zavi randomly inserted it into one of the 30 volumes of letters the Rebbe had written. It happened he inserted it on the same page a letter from the Rebbe was addressed to Zalman Shazar, the third President of Israel.

This incidence reinforced Rabbi Zavi's attempts to promote his friend's run for highest office before the elections. Many Jewish leaders preferred other candidates. But Rabbi Zavi persisted, for, after all, he had gotten a sign from the Rebbe.

In the meanwhile Mr. Sarkosy took upon himself to publicize the 7 Noahide Laws among Gentiles, besides accepting them upon himself as well.

The rest is history.

Readers should note Sarkosy always holds a "Rebbe's dollar" on his person all the time.

UPDATE (Oct. 2011): Just goes to show you how much rubbish a story actually can turn out to be, no matter what the facts - for Sarkosy has betrayed Israel by voting for the admission of the so-called "Palestine" nation into UNESCO.

Consoling the Bereaved

2011-08-09T15:26:00.009-04:00

An elder chassid of Crown Heights had gone to console mourners in the Kletsky family. It was packed. He sat behind several rows of people and felt reluctant to say anything because most everyone there belonged to other chassidic groups and he was the only Chabadnik there at the time. Despite many hesitations, however, he stood up and began to speak.

He related how the Rebbe once responded to a man who came to him to complain, for he was childless for many years and then finally Hashem gave him a child - yet Hashem took this child away from him after so few years of life.

The Rebbe told him how Hashem sought among the Jews, looking for who among them is worthy to be presented with this cherished gift for a number of years, and decided, "to give it to you". Yes, it was not a gift for many years, but it was a most precious gift for while it lasted.

As the chassid told his story, he broke into tears but managed to finish it. He also noticed there were hardly any dry eyes in the crowd.

The father of Leiby then spoke up and told the chassid he finally felt consoled because of the Rebbe's words.

Back in Crown Heights the chassid related what happened to the father of Gabi Holtzberg, who then also went to console the Kletsky family.

Gush Katif Painfully Recalled on Tisha B'Av

2011-08-08T19:18:00.012-04:00

Those protesting for affordable housing cannot succeed – unless they repent for having stood by silently as Jews were expelled from their homes in Gush Katif. So says Rav Daniel Stavsky of Jerusalem, in a brief segment of his weekly Torah lecture.

“Those who ask for homes, for housing, and six years ago did not protest the expulsion of 10,000 Jews from their homes, and the demolition of their homes – it didn’t pain you then? You did not take to the streets? You have no right. You have no right,” the rabbi declared. “You didn’t care, it didn’t pain you, you didn’t go out to the streets. Now you want ‘a home, a home, a home.’ You have no right.”

(I want to add: Perhaps the protestors cannot buy or rent a home. But that isn't nearly as bad as having been thrown out of your homes, robbed of your homes and seeing your homes handed over to your worst enemy!)

Neturei Karta Revisited

2011-08-08T14:05:00.013-04:00

A Brooklyn rabbi told over a story he heard 2 weeks ago from a Satmar Chassid:

"It happened back then, when some took the name of 'Neturei Karta', and spoke in favor of the Arabs who were fighting in Eretz Yisrael and against the Jews. In response to this the Satmar Rebbe (זצ‫'‬ל) [Rabbi Yoel] delivered a talk before his congregants and said: In the prayer of Shmona Esrei, in the paragraph of ולמלשינים [informers], even before we get to the part that speaks about the "heretics" and the "deniers", we first mention the worst of these, the "informers" - that is, those who talk against Jews with the enemy, י‫'‬ש; They are the first who must be negated, and only thereafter do we request renunciation of heretics and deniers.

"Included in this negativity is the disgrace that so small a faction can bring to the Neturei Karta."

(We spoke earlier of the Neturei Karta, and if any one is under the impression they are a multitude, I want to correct the impression. This bunch that seeks audience with the likes of Arafat or Ahmedinajhad, even hugging and kissing them, comprise no more than a dozen or two chassidim. Most Neturei Karta chassidim disapprove of this shameful behavior.

But don't expect the vermin in the Western liberal press to forego this photo opportunity to belittle the Jews when it presents itself.)

Who will Build the 3rd Temple?

2011-08-07T23:00:00.005-04:00

The 3rd Temple that will replace the 2nd Temple destroyed in Jerusalem will descend from heaven entirely built, according to sources (eg, Sukah 41a).

But how could this be; One of our 613 commandments explicitly states we must partake in building God's "House of Choice"? What then will it be, God-made or man-made?

The Rebbe, as he usually aligns what otherwise appear to be antithetical claims, explains: We have it from tradition the 3rd Temple will descend from heaven as a beautiful, finished building - except, its gates will be missing!

When the Babylonian enemy surrounded the 1st Temple, prior to destroying it, a miracle occurred and the earth swallowed the Temple's gates, as it says (Eicha 2:9), "Its gates sunk into the ground". These gates were built by King David (Sota 9a).

Says the Rebbe, to complete the 3rd Temple, Moshiach will "float" these gates up from the earth and, together with all the Jews, will install them into their proper places.

(As to how all Jews can participate in this event - the same way they all participated in the daily "Tamid" sacrifices - by way of 12 representatives, one from each tribe, being at location for the event.)

You might think, "How trivial the task given the Jews" to install gates to the building. But think again; For a house without a door is as good as already broken into. This last task, of placing doors, is what secures the building, which now can fittingly be called - a house (בית), as in בית הבחירה or בית המקדש.