Even though it has been coming for years PM Sharon’s declaration that Jewish historical ties and claims to the land are not exclusive and other peoples could have legitimate claims to the land as well, killed any viability to secular Zionism
The ceding. of Gush Katif and removal of its population underscores the depth of the present government’s lack of ideology, the rifts between secular and religious, Dati and Charadi became all too clear. Among the various personalities interviewed on Arutz Sheva one thing is clear, a sea change in attitude must take place.
A Jewish child in Eretz Yisrael who sees Avraham Avinu as George Washington and not his or her own Zayde/ Saba is unconscionable. While the population becoming fully Torah observant is desirable but there must be a way to convey our tradition to the entire Jewish community within the state. Every country is invested in teaching its youth about its history and values, how else is patriotism nurtured? How else is a nation going to stay on track and true to its character? Otherwise, the apparatus of government serves only those in power and no one else. Only an on going sense of purpose and enduring values can counteract the intoxicating effects of power and privilege.
Jewish pride must surge through the Jewish population of the state. Appreciate of the deep spiritual and historic concretion between the people and land, the values, insights and concepts which have held Jewry over the centuries should serve the contemporary Israeli as well. Now this cannot be some bland lifeless curriculum, but the living dynamic force that is Torah. The notion that Torah belongs only to those in between knitted kippot with designs and the knitted kapplech tied with a knot on top must be dispelled. Torah as "...Morasha Kehilat Yaakov" must be put in to practice not just as platitude.
As important the rule of the Supreme Court needs reform now. Limits on standing, justicability, ripeness of claims and restricting the scope of jurisdiction to cases and controversies similar to the restraints placed on the United States Supreme Court in Article Three of the U.S. Constitution as a curb to the present judicial tyranny. As the state has a system granting authority to Clergy and Religious courts as well the Supreme Court’s present jurisdiction over these faith communities clergy and courts’ sphere of authority would and has impaired these institutions integrity.
These are broad ideas but these are dependant not so much who wins but a loud voice coming a sea of black and orange. Maybe the future begins with religious Jewry connecting on the common ground of Talmud and halacha and only then to the agree to disagree arena of haskafa.
Saturday, December 17, 2005
Thursday, September 29, 2005
Zionism's Kaddish
How does one bury an idea? Beliefs and the values flowing from as practical expressions of those beliefs define those who subscribe to like minded beliefs and values. Beliefs and values give one context and validate the foundation upon which a life is crafted. Imagine the significance of a world leader associated with one's values and beliefs proclaiming the foundations of one's worldview are no longer possible?
Prime Minister Sharon speaking to the United Nations essentially said kaddish for secular Zionism.
To declare that Jewry' claim to the land does not exclude others' claims to the land. What your Zaydeh would think of this Mr. Sharon? What would Menachem Begin A'H think of this? What would each Jew think of this when declaring NEXT YEAR IN JERUSALEM?
Mr. Sharon to unilaterally declare your country's departure from the heritage which spanned nearly 2,000 years. Mr Sharon has disengaged the State of Israel not just from Gaza but from Jewry and Judaism.
In the coming year let the prayer and hope of Jewry be for world peace. Not a man made fabrication but G-D's true peace the rule of MASHIACH .
Prime Minister Sharon speaking to the United Nations essentially said kaddish for secular Zionism.
To declare that Jewry' claim to the land does not exclude others' claims to the land. What your Zaydeh would think of this Mr. Sharon? What would Menachem Begin A'H think of this? What would each Jew think of this when declaring NEXT YEAR IN JERUSALEM?
Mr. Sharon to unilaterally declare your country's departure from the heritage which spanned nearly 2,000 years. Mr Sharon has disengaged the State of Israel not just from Gaza but from Jewry and Judaism.
In the coming year let the prayer and hope of Jewry be for world peace. Not a man made fabrication but G-D's true peace the rule of MASHIACH .
Tuesday, August 16, 2005
A lament, a call from the depths
As the unthinkable takes place it is hard to place one's emotions. It is doubtful the soldiers and police enjoy their duty as human beings they should not, as Jews each act in carrying out the expulsion should disgust them and I fear scar them.
As for those who live in Gaza imagine the sense of what can only go beyond abandonment when one area Rabbi observed I will have to continue paying a mortgage on a house that is destroyed.
Imagine those offered money for their Gush Katif home that cannot even purchase anything similar elsewhere in Israel where Real Estate is at a premium.
Whenever I visited Eretz Yisrael I always felt a sense of home and that Jewish life in the diaspora was surreal and now I see growing intolerance in America and in Israel a not welcome here sign.
The part that is too easy is to be angry. Rather it is time to realize how desperate the secular leadership is and to know the only thing left to offer any sanity in a Jew's life is the knowledge that no matter what Jewry will survive until the Messiah's arrival , may G-D send him now!!!!
As for those who live in Gaza imagine the sense of what can only go beyond abandonment when one area Rabbi observed I will have to continue paying a mortgage on a house that is destroyed.
Imagine those offered money for their Gush Katif home that cannot even purchase anything similar elsewhere in Israel where Real Estate is at a premium.
Whenever I visited Eretz Yisrael I always felt a sense of home and that Jewish life in the diaspora was surreal and now I see growing intolerance in America and in Israel a not welcome here sign.
The part that is too easy is to be angry. Rather it is time to realize how desperate the secular leadership is and to know the only thing left to offer any sanity in a Jew's life is the knowledge that no matter what Jewry will survive until the Messiah's arrival , may G-D send him now!!!!
Sunday, July 24, 2005
The Most Disappointing thing is
As the three week mourning period between the 17th of Tamuz and Tisha B'Av begins tragedy yet looms large on the Jewish horizon.
The proposed departure Israeli from GAZA is no longer popular. Daily, Israelis are increasingly opposed to what can only be called maddness. Oppossion is not just settlers or national religous or other right wingers. Daily as the reality that a Gaza given to the PA only provides a new home for terror bases that can strike in to the heart of Israel. People from Pevery segment of society are saying no.
But what is worse is how by legalizing the expulsion The Israel Supreme Court has declared that the interests of Jewry and that of the State are not bound up together.Think about it.
The proposed departure Israeli from GAZA is no longer popular. Daily, Israelis are increasingly opposed to what can only be called maddness. Oppossion is not just settlers or national religous or other right wingers. Daily as the reality that a Gaza given to the PA only provides a new home for terror bases that can strike in to the heart of Israel. People from Pevery segment of society are saying no.
But what is worse is how by legalizing the expulsion The Israel Supreme Court has declared that the interests of Jewry and that of the State are not bound up together.Think about it.
Friday, June 10, 2005
The Israeli Supreme Court rule today that disengagement is legal. According to the Arutz Sheva report the Court went as far as to declare YESHA as not part of Israel.
The only true Zionist I knew was my Savta A'H anything that hinted at natural splendor was similar to something she had seen in Eretz Yisrael. The land that Jewry yearned for was Beit Lechem,Chevron and of course the Temple Mount in Yerushalyim. The stories of Jewish history in the land takes place where the Justices claim is not Israel.
The bankrupt nature of The Court's and government's ideology is clear in how it has embraced definitions of Jewishness that are at variance with Jewish law. The result, an Oleh serving in the IDF while bearing allegiance to Nazism.
The thought of there becoming two nations Israelis and Jews should disturb all Jerry
maybe instead of a wedge a bridge needs to be in place instead.
The only true Zionist I knew was my Savta A'H anything that hinted at natural splendor was similar to something she had seen in Eretz Yisrael. The land that Jewry yearned for was Beit Lechem,Chevron and of course the Temple Mount in Yerushalyim. The stories of Jewish history in the land takes place where the Justices claim is not Israel.
The bankrupt nature of The Court's and government's ideology is clear in how it has embraced definitions of Jewishness that are at variance with Jewish law. The result, an Oleh serving in the IDF while bearing allegiance to Nazism.
The thought of there becoming two nations Israelis and Jews should disturb all Jerry
maybe instead of a wedge a bridge needs to be in place instead.
Monday, May 30, 2005
Betrayal!!!!!
The emotions are still raw. To think someone as morally directed like the President to assert that anything past the 1949 armistice lines between Israel and Jordan needs Arab approval shocks the senses. To sweep away Jewish claims to the Old City of Jerusalem, the graves on the Mount of Olives, Rachel's Tomb and the Cave of the Machpaleh with a wave of the hand redefines callousness.
The failure to recognize that throughout the generations, nearly two millennia Jewry has looked to the Land of Israel. The emotionally charged worship on Yom Kippur and the Passover Seder is punctuated by the declaration NEXT YEAR IN JERUSALEM! For President Bush and by extension the American government to ignore this belies at best ignorance or worst an anti-Semitism worthy of Ambassador Kennedy.
To think there are no Jewish voices speaking in the President's hear is unlikely the support Mr. Bush enjoyed within the Orthodox community was nearly unanimous. Mr. Bush's loyalty to friends is the stuff of legend, what happened?
The change in Arab leadership? Could Abbas" suit and proper grooming pass for civility? Or an embrace of the Western attitude toward compromise? Unlikely.
The question the administration must answer why the animus to Judaism? Why does there HAVE to be a 23rd Arab state and the Jews cannot have even one full place on the globe to call their own?
What
The failure to recognize that throughout the generations, nearly two millennia Jewry has looked to the Land of Israel. The emotionally charged worship on Yom Kippur and the Passover Seder is punctuated by the declaration NEXT YEAR IN JERUSALEM! For President Bush and by extension the American government to ignore this belies at best ignorance or worst an anti-Semitism worthy of Ambassador Kennedy.
To think there are no Jewish voices speaking in the President's hear is unlikely the support Mr. Bush enjoyed within the Orthodox community was nearly unanimous. Mr. Bush's loyalty to friends is the stuff of legend, what happened?
The change in Arab leadership? Could Abbas" suit and proper grooming pass for civility? Or an embrace of the Western attitude toward compromise? Unlikely.
The question the administration must answer why the animus to Judaism? Why does there HAVE to be a 23rd Arab state and the Jews cannot have even one full place on the globe to call their own?
What
Monday, May 23, 2005
APained Cry
As this is being written interesting things are going on. Prime Minister Sharon is in the US to speak before AIPAC but has no political meetings planned. The Arab leader Abbas is visiting the White House. Yet it is the subtle actions of the First Lady that gives me pause.Ms. Bush is visiting Israel and made it her business to visit but Jewish and Arab institutions. Additionally, the First Lady wished to honor Islam, Christianity and Judaism by visiting various holy sites in Jerusalem. To honor Islam Ms. Bush visited the Temple Mount /Al-Aksa mosque area. In effect this would have the effect of recognizing Muslim dominion over the Temple Mount's surface. Ms. Bush in her capacity as First Lady is arguably expressing the United States' policy that it rejects Jewish historical connection to the Temple Mount and accept Islamic claim to judging holiest site.To be sure it is a leap to assert someone as decent as Ms. Bush could be cast as Anti Semitic nor could that be said about the present American administration. It stands to reason that the First Lady's itinerary was approved by the Israelis and they were apparently insensitive to what amounts to a denial of judging belief in the return to the Temple Mount with the Third Temple and MASHIACH that is the unbearable shame. As Hillel taught " If I am not for myself who will act on my behalf? "
Tuesday, May 03, 2005
Which Way?
It has been awhile so here is a new point to ponder. There is considerable debate about the nature of the US Constitution. There are those who argue that the document is living and breathing and so would be subject to each generation's reexamination and interpretation. The thought that the document which serves as the law of the land would be subject to zeitgeist would render the constitutional authority meaningless. After all with no baseline of standards how would the system of government and laws contemplated by the framers retain authority?
On the other hand to claim the language of the document means what it says and the text adequately blies the framers' intent is equally misguided. As anyone who watches an old movie or television program can attest, words do not always retain their meaning. Nor do attitudes, certainly the framers of the Bill of Rights who denied women the vote and at the very least tolerated slavery at the rate of 3/5 a human per person. Changed their perspective in subsequent amendments.
The Constitution is not a D-vine law with an eternal quality nor is it a malleable mass without shape or contour.
.
On the other hand to claim the language of the document means what it says and the text adequately blies the framers' intent is equally misguided. As anyone who watches an old movie or television program can attest, words do not always retain their meaning. Nor do attitudes, certainly the framers of the Bill of Rights who denied women the vote and at the very least tolerated slavery at the rate of 3/5 a human per person. Changed their perspective in subsequent amendments.
The Constitution is not a D-vine law with an eternal quality nor is it a malleable mass without shape or contour.
.
Saturday, April 16, 2005
MAYBE IT IS NOT A GOOD IDEA
Anything said here is said with the understanding that I do not live in Eretz Yisrael nor would I be eligible for military service, so my comments are made at arm's length. Also in no way is anything here intended as being anymore than advocacy for a point of view and no more. Whatever course of action one takes it must be under the guidance of Rabbinic authority.
Jews being uprooted from their homes and communities is hardly a novel historic event. It similarly not unusual that the displaced Jews would cede their homes to their oppressors. Yet the evacuation from Gaza would have Jews carrying out actions previously reserved for Cossack and Storm Troopers is now the mission of the IDF.
Any soldier in any army is trained to promote and defend his or her country. Any soldier is trained to obey orders. Therefore, tasking a soldier to act against his or her countrymen is contrary to a soldier's training. Additionally, if the corps is values based then the moral dilemma is intensified. Overlay, any sense of Jewish history and identity to the mix and the moral conundrum becomes surreal, a Jewish soldier in the Jewish army of the Jewish State, a state founded to offer haven from the insecurity of the diaspora to world Jewry is facing an direct order to put other Jews out of their homes.
Indeed news reports form Israel offer that special units are being formed with non-Jews and Leftists who do not have any moral objections to evicting Jews from their homes.
There are active concerns about potential military mutiny and mass civilian protests. The Sharon government has begun restricting the freedoms of speech, assembly and movement of persons possibly aligned with anti disengagement activities.
Talk is increasing when exactly the area will become a closed military zone, i.e. closed or limited access to media coverage. Without the prying eyes of cameras government agents, police and soldiers can act without restraint.
To argue that the disengagement is the product of a democratically elected government, this rings hollow. No one would deny a sense of betrayal when the fellow who declared "Read my lips--NO NEW TAXES" went ahead and raised them. Sharon a patron of settlements an alternative to the failed approaches of Mr. Barak and Rabin (A'H). Likud party predecessor Heruit was known for its vision of Jewish state on both banks of Jordan. The vote to go ahead with disengagement from Gaza was carried by a coalition combining part of Likud, Labor and Arabs and not the will of the people who elected Mr. Sharon. .
While it is commonplace for political enemies to ally for a joint purpose there is something far more troubling here- the Sharon government wishes to turn on those citizens who previously championed their ideals.
The societal fissures that disengagement has exposed within Eretz Yisrael wounds that may never completely heal.
The effect the planned disengagement has already taken on Israeli society is chilling. It defies logic that at a time the United States is encouraging democracy in the region and positive movement to reform is taking hold an Israeli government should feel compelled to repress its citizens to fulfill Washington's design.
All this would be worth it if of course peace and normal relations would result. However, peace resulting from the abandonment of GAZA is ambiguous at best. Compromise is perceived in the West as a way to resolving conflict to mutual satisfaction. The creativity to think outside the box to craft a conlusion is seen in Arab eyes as a lack of dedication to one's cause and therefore indicative of weakness. Consequently, emboldening the Arab leadership to set the bar even higher.
True, I do not know everything Mr. Sharon and his ministers know but given all there is to lose Is this really a good idea?
Latter
Bennie
Jews being uprooted from their homes and communities is hardly a novel historic event. It similarly not unusual that the displaced Jews would cede their homes to their oppressors. Yet the evacuation from Gaza would have Jews carrying out actions previously reserved for Cossack and Storm Troopers is now the mission of the IDF.
Any soldier in any army is trained to promote and defend his or her country. Any soldier is trained to obey orders. Therefore, tasking a soldier to act against his or her countrymen is contrary to a soldier's training. Additionally, if the corps is values based then the moral dilemma is intensified. Overlay, any sense of Jewish history and identity to the mix and the moral conundrum becomes surreal, a Jewish soldier in the Jewish army of the Jewish State, a state founded to offer haven from the insecurity of the diaspora to world Jewry is facing an direct order to put other Jews out of their homes.
Indeed news reports form Israel offer that special units are being formed with non-Jews and Leftists who do not have any moral objections to evicting Jews from their homes.
There are active concerns about potential military mutiny and mass civilian protests. The Sharon government has begun restricting the freedoms of speech, assembly and movement of persons possibly aligned with anti disengagement activities.
Talk is increasing when exactly the area will become a closed military zone, i.e. closed or limited access to media coverage. Without the prying eyes of cameras government agents, police and soldiers can act without restraint.
To argue that the disengagement is the product of a democratically elected government, this rings hollow. No one would deny a sense of betrayal when the fellow who declared "Read my lips--NO NEW TAXES" went ahead and raised them. Sharon a patron of settlements an alternative to the failed approaches of Mr. Barak and Rabin (A'H). Likud party predecessor Heruit was known for its vision of Jewish state on both banks of Jordan. The vote to go ahead with disengagement from Gaza was carried by a coalition combining part of Likud, Labor and Arabs and not the will of the people who elected Mr. Sharon. .
While it is commonplace for political enemies to ally for a joint purpose there is something far more troubling here- the Sharon government wishes to turn on those citizens who previously championed their ideals.
The societal fissures that disengagement has exposed within Eretz Yisrael wounds that may never completely heal.
The effect the planned disengagement has already taken on Israeli society is chilling. It defies logic that at a time the United States is encouraging democracy in the region and positive movement to reform is taking hold an Israeli government should feel compelled to repress its citizens to fulfill Washington's design.
All this would be worth it if of course peace and normal relations would result. However, peace resulting from the abandonment of GAZA is ambiguous at best. Compromise is perceived in the West as a way to resolving conflict to mutual satisfaction. The creativity to think outside the box to craft a conlusion is seen in Arab eyes as a lack of dedication to one's cause and therefore indicative of weakness. Consequently, emboldening the Arab leadership to set the bar even higher.
True, I do not know everything Mr. Sharon and his ministers know but given all there is to lose Is this really a good idea?
Latter
Bennie
Thursday, April 14, 2005
Welcome,
The Name Daat Yachid means, One Person's Opinion. Not that my thoughts are always right or do I need them to be right, they are however based on a perspective that is the combined product of the education, experience and personality which thank G-D is a continuing work in progress.
From time to time posts will comment on current events or issues that are personally meaningful. Dear Reader please agree or challenge but let all who read this blog agree let's keep everything civil and respectful.
Latter.
Bennie
The Name Daat Yachid means, One Person's Opinion. Not that my thoughts are always right or do I need them to be right, they are however based on a perspective that is the combined product of the education, experience and personality which thank G-D is a continuing work in progress.
From time to time posts will comment on current events or issues that are personally meaningful. Dear Reader please agree or challenge but let all who read this blog agree let's keep everything civil and respectful.
Latter.
Bennie
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