In Parashat Beha'alotcha, we are witness to a unique event: the choosing of leaders. The Torah even “lets us in” on which factors played part in how these Jewish leaders were chosen.
In chapter 11 of our Parasha, Moshe Rabbeinu reaches his breaking point - “I can't carry the burden of this people alone, for it is too heavy for me”, and asks G-d to find people who can share the burden of leadership with him. How does G-d pick these leaders? After all, there was no shortage of righteous and talented Jews around.
G-d immediately singles out a specific group from which the next Jewish leadership will be chosen:
“Gather to me seventy men of the elders of Israel, whom you know to be the elders of the people, and officers over them.” Rashi explains: “Those whom you recognize, who were appointed over them as officers in Egypt during the rigorous labor, and they (the officers) had pity on them (the Israelites) and were smitten because of them.” Though this may appear a rather surprising choice, a deeper probe into the matter will reveal to us a tremendous lesson, so pertinent for today. Who in the world were these Jewish police officers? In Shemot Chapter 5, Pharaoh lays down a rather heavy if not impossible edict on his Jewish slaves. They must produce a specific quota of bricks without even being given straw. The Jewish officers were ordered by the Egyptian taskmasters to oversee that this quota was met. If not, the officers would be blamed for it and beaten. Thus, they were in a dilemma. Either they can turn over their brothers and by doing so save their own skin, or they can refuse orders and be severely punished for it. In short, these “officers” were supposed to be Jewish “kapos”. But these policemen, unlike others who have been placed in similar situations in our sad history, refused to bear down on their already suffering brethren, and did not hand over the names of Jews who could not meet the quota. The result? The Egyptian taskmasters thrashed the “refusenik” policemen instead of the Jewish slaves: “And the officers of the children of Israel, whom Pharaoh's taskmasters had set over them, were beaten...” (Shemot 5:14)
If we think of this seriously, and not relate to it like to some “fairy tale” we heard in kindergarten, we would get goose bumps all over contemplating such heroism. What can be a more inspiring description of Ahavat Yisrael and caring for a fellow Jew by someone in a position of authority. Not only didn't they exploit their power, but these officers understood that sometimes they must bear the suffering of their brothers. This is what G-d saw. And He did not forget. The minute there was a need for leadership, He knew whom to turn to. G-d did not seek out people with charisma, nor did he pick talented organizers or even Torah scholars. One thing: Ahavat Yisrael.
The centrality of this attribute cannot be disputed. The two greatest leaders in Jewish history, Moshe Rabbeinu and King David, were former shepherds. The sages teach us that G-d tested them via their ability to care for their flock and show mercy on those they are responsible over.
Here we must stress a key point. Today, everyone speaks of “Ahavat” Yisrael. But too often it is merely a slogan. When selecting the leaders, G-d did not choose those who make nice speeches about “Ahavat Yisrael”. G-d wanted people with a “previous record”: a record of suffering for one's brothers; a record of placing one's personal welfare secondary to that of one's people.
How sweet it is to read again and again this Midrash about the Jewish policemen. After all, we are so familiar with the claims of the soldiers and policemen in Israel today: “I'm just a small cog in a big machine. I'm just following orders.” But that is not what the Jewish policemen did to their brothers in Egypt. The policemen saw the illegality and immorality in the cruel Egyptian decree, and refused the order! It is important to note that mesirut nefesh (self-sacrifice) for the Jewish People is not necessarily the readiness to die for them. Sometimes it may mean the readiness to be hated for your actions; the willingness to sit in jail for your people; or to be ostracized by the establishment.
Such leadership stands in stark contrast to the self-indulgent politicians of today. But know that only when such alternative leadership sprouts, Am Yisrael will be redeemed.
From ' The Writings of Rav Binyamin Ze'ev Kahane, HY”D ', commentary on Parashat Beha'alotcha
Sunday, June 3, 2012
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
Parashat Nasso - Naked Betrayal - Rav Meir Kahane
Hashem spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to the Children of Israel and say to them: Any man whose wife shall go astray and commit treachery against him [“u-ma'alah bo ma'al”], and a man could have lain with her carnally, but it was hidden from the eyes of her husband, and she became secluded and could have been defiled ...The man shall bring his wife to the Kohen and he shall bring her offering for her... (Num. 5: 11-13,15)
In Me'ilah 18a we find:
"Ma'al" can only mean “change” [i.e., acting differently from what G-d commanded us to do]. Thus it says, “If a woman deviates and commits a “ma'al” against her husband” (Num. 5:12) [i.e., switching mates for a strange man]. It also says (I Chron. 5:25), “They committed a “ma'al” against the G-d of their ancestors and strayed after the gods of the nations of the land” [i.e., they they switched from worshiping G-d to worshiping idols.]
A woman who profanes her holiness by turning to harlotry is called a “zonah”, and a married woman who commits adultery is called a “sotah”. Both words convey deviation, altering the role one was commanded to follow (see Torat Kohanim, Vayikra, Parsheta 11).
In actual fact, change and deceit are one. Whoever veers from his role is untrue to it. Change, deceit and “me'ilah” are all one, as well, because “me'ilah” means casting off one's yoke, which is what one does when he wishes to alter his role and lie about his mission in the world.
“Me'ilah” means betraying [begidah] one's duty, and “me'ilah” [deceit] and “begidah” [treason] resemble “me'il” and “beged”, two words for clothing. Our clothing symbolizes the Divine yoke and holiness G-d placed on Adam, naked of mitzvot and holiness, as a covering. “Me'ilah” and “Begidah” indicate the removal of this spiritual garb. As Ibn Ezra (Lev. 5:15) writes, “If anyone commit a trespass [“ma'al”]: I.e., he removes his “ma'al”, his covering, from the same root as “me'il”, cloak.”
If someone casts off G-d's yoke, he is a “ben beliya'al”, a person without a yoke [“beli ol”]. This expression connotes and evildoer, as we find regarding the apostate city: “Base people [bnei beliya'al] are gone out from the midst of you” (Deut. 13:14). Sifri comments (Re'eh 93), “Persons who broke off G-d's yoke.” Similarly, Sanhedrin 111b teaches, “Bnei beliya'al”: Persons who broke off the yoke of Heaven from their necks.” Yet they are not just “beli ol”, without a yoke, but “beli ya'al”, the serve no benefit [“to'elet] to anyone. Man was created only to accept the yoke of G-d's kingdom, and if he shirks this, then he serves no purpose and is better off dead.
The sin of such a person is “me'ilah”, which connotes “change”. As our sages said (Me'ilah 18a):
If anyone commits a trespass [“ma'al”] (Lev. 5 :15): “Ma'al” always refers to some change, as in, If any man's wife go astray and act unfaithfully [“ma'al”] against him” (Num. 5:12), or “They broke faith with the G-d of their fathers and went astray after the gods of the peoples of the land” (I Chronicles 5:25).
“Me'ilah" refers to change involving straying from the path, changing one's role, pursuing something foreign. The “mo'el” betrays his duty, the command given him. It is as though the “mo'el” has removed the cloak [“me'il”] that covers him, like the adulterer [“boged”] removing his clothing [“beged”]. Both are naked because they cast off their “me'il”, their “beged” and their “ol”[yoke].
In the Temple, the Torah established a “me'ilah” offering to atone for the person who betrayed the holy objects of G-d, deriving benefit from them as if they were non-holy, and transferring the holy to a non-holy domain. When G-d created the world, He defined and separated His beings and gave them borders and places of their own, domains to which they belong. The word domain [“reshut”] also means “place”, and can also connote a license to be somewhere or do something.
A woman is set aside specifically for her husband. When she fornicates, she betrays him and her own domain, because her domain was sanctified and set apart. She received permission to be in her husband's place, and he becomes her domain. She has no license to be with another man who is not her domain.
Similarly, the Jewish People were set apart fro G-d. He is their portion and inheritance. When they substitute idolatry or a foreign culture in His place, this constitutes change, straying, betrayal. The general rule is this: man was created to accept unto himself the yoke of Heaven and thereby to transcend his own egotism and fulfill his purpose in the world and the purpose of the world itself. Whoever breaks off his yoke betrays his task and forfeits his domain on this earth, because his presence here, in fact, his very creation, is no longer of benefit.
How few, indeed, are the elite! Even so, we were commanded to study and to teach, to preserve and to practice G-d's idea of Jewishness as it was given to us, as we were truly and straightforwardly commanded. We must reject every trace of foreign culture, of falsification and distortion, and accept the yoke of Heaven.
Woman is the symbol of man's love and desire, for there is no love in man's nature greater than his love for woman. Precisely for this reason G-d created man and woman, so they would be bound together with fierce love and desire, ready to sacrifice for each other and to give of themselves to an extent unheard of in any other relationship. They would be willing even to sacrifice their lives for each other, so strong is that love. Being so fiercely bound to another human being is the apex of man's breaking down his selfishness, arrogance and evil impulse. G-d created this bond so that man would understand from it – at least in part – how powerful must be his love for G-d. Thus, if a husband is ever unfaithful to his wife, it constitutes betrayal of the true concept of love and a dreadful lie looming over the marital relationship. G-d decreed that this must be an exclusive relationship founded on mutual trust, a symbol of the prohibition against the dreadful sin of polytheism, worshiping idols as well as G-d (Ex.20:3).
At the same time, an evil woman is a symbol of the opposite – idolatry. Whoever falls deeply in love with a woman who incites him to sin, even to heresy and idolatry, brings death unto himself. In his fierce love, he will be ready to do all she asks, even commit terrible sins. Thus, a woman can either symbolize love of G-d, or, Heaven forbid, love of heresy. After all, even heresy involves emotional attraction. As Berachot 12 b teaches:
Why was the third paragraph of the Shema (Num. 15:37-41) established to be recited daily? R. Yehuda bar Chaviva said, “Because it contains six elements: 1) the mitzvah of Tzitzit; 2) the Exodus from Egypt; 3) the yoke of mitzvot; and admonitions against 4) heretical belief; 5) immoral sexual thought; and 6) idolatrous thoughts...” Indeed it was learned: “After your heart” (Num 15:39) refers to heresy, and it says (Ps. 14:1), “The fool says in his heart:'There is no G-d'”.
Here we have proof that heresy depends on the heart and involves desire and attraction. Hence the woman, symbol of male desire, can either symbolize devotion to G-d or pursuit of heresy. Rashi interprets the verse, “I find more bitter than death the woman” (Eccles. 7:26): “Death is the harshest of ten harsh things created (Bava Batra 10a), and I find 'woman' – i.e. heresy – harsher still.”
Listen then to the truth.Let us savor the bitter fruits of our love affair with the world of gentilized civilization. It is a war for the hearts and souls and minds of the Jews. It is a war between those who wish to be amongst and like the nations, the gentiles, to embrace their culture and ideas and values and abominations; and between those who recognize their uniqueness and chosenness and who embrace the holiness of a separate, distinct, isolated, different people, living apart from all the others, unsullied by the abominations of cultures conceived in impurity and born in profane vanity.
The values of Judaism are, in so many areas, and so overwhelmingly, different from those of western-gentilized Hellenism. What is ethical and what is moral and what is merciful and what is just? The answers of Judaism and of Hellenism are far apart. Political equality? Democracy? Tolerance of abomination? Freedom in social, personal affairs? The role of authority? Poles apart are the views of the Jews and the Hebrew-speaking gentiles.
Sinai is cast away for Times Square and the purity of the Chosen people is exchanged for the material vomit of Los Angeles. The modesty of holiness is contemptuously abandoned and the nation wallows in the nakedness of gentile culture.
“Thou hast built thy lofty place at every head of the way and hast made thy beauty an abomination and hast opened thy feet to everyone that passed by and multiplied thy harlotries.” (Ezekiel 16:24-25)
Let us rise and garb ourselves with the cloak of sanctity; wrap ourselves in the regal robes of holiness. Every Jew a sacred child of G-d, the State of Israel the hallowed palace of the King of Kings. Let the Sabbath sing forth in joy from every home and the food that enters the mouth be as pure as the words that leave it. Let values be clean as the fresh mountain air of Zion and let degeneracy and vanity vanish as the morning mist before the warm sun of Jerusalem. Let hatred and violence and evil against brothers be buried beneath the centuries-old memories of common suffering.
“I will betroth you unto Me via faith, and you shall know the L-rd” (Hosea 2:22). The “faith” referred to is the knowledge that there truly exists a Creator of the world, and that He is L-rd of hosts, the G-d of history and of truth. Such knowledge, and man's submission to G-d's ways and commandments, is man's purpose, and “this is the doctrine Moses placed before the People of Israel” (Deut. 4:44).
Compiled by Tzipora Liron-Pinner from “The Jewish Idea" and from "Forty Years" of Rav Meir Kahane, HY”D
In Me'ilah 18a we find:
"Ma'al" can only mean “change” [i.e., acting differently from what G-d commanded us to do]. Thus it says, “If a woman deviates and commits a “ma'al” against her husband” (Num. 5:12) [i.e., switching mates for a strange man]. It also says (I Chron. 5:25), “They committed a “ma'al” against the G-d of their ancestors and strayed after the gods of the nations of the land” [i.e., they they switched from worshiping G-d to worshiping idols.]
A woman who profanes her holiness by turning to harlotry is called a “zonah”, and a married woman who commits adultery is called a “sotah”. Both words convey deviation, altering the role one was commanded to follow (see Torat Kohanim, Vayikra, Parsheta 11).
In actual fact, change and deceit are one. Whoever veers from his role is untrue to it. Change, deceit and “me'ilah” are all one, as well, because “me'ilah” means casting off one's yoke, which is what one does when he wishes to alter his role and lie about his mission in the world.
“Me'ilah” means betraying [begidah] one's duty, and “me'ilah” [deceit] and “begidah” [treason] resemble “me'il” and “beged”, two words for clothing. Our clothing symbolizes the Divine yoke and holiness G-d placed on Adam, naked of mitzvot and holiness, as a covering. “Me'ilah” and “Begidah” indicate the removal of this spiritual garb. As Ibn Ezra (Lev. 5:15) writes, “If anyone commit a trespass [“ma'al”]: I.e., he removes his “ma'al”, his covering, from the same root as “me'il”, cloak.”
If someone casts off G-d's yoke, he is a “ben beliya'al”, a person without a yoke [“beli ol”]. This expression connotes and evildoer, as we find regarding the apostate city: “Base people [bnei beliya'al] are gone out from the midst of you” (Deut. 13:14). Sifri comments (Re'eh 93), “Persons who broke off G-d's yoke.” Similarly, Sanhedrin 111b teaches, “Bnei beliya'al”: Persons who broke off the yoke of Heaven from their necks.” Yet they are not just “beli ol”, without a yoke, but “beli ya'al”, the serve no benefit [“to'elet] to anyone. Man was created only to accept the yoke of G-d's kingdom, and if he shirks this, then he serves no purpose and is better off dead.
The sin of such a person is “me'ilah”, which connotes “change”. As our sages said (Me'ilah 18a):
If anyone commits a trespass [“ma'al”] (Lev. 5 :15): “Ma'al” always refers to some change, as in, If any man's wife go astray and act unfaithfully [“ma'al”] against him” (Num. 5:12), or “They broke faith with the G-d of their fathers and went astray after the gods of the peoples of the land” (I Chronicles 5:25).
“Me'ilah" refers to change involving straying from the path, changing one's role, pursuing something foreign. The “mo'el” betrays his duty, the command given him. It is as though the “mo'el” has removed the cloak [“me'il”] that covers him, like the adulterer [“boged”] removing his clothing [“beged”]. Both are naked because they cast off their “me'il”, their “beged” and their “ol”[yoke].
In the Temple, the Torah established a “me'ilah” offering to atone for the person who betrayed the holy objects of G-d, deriving benefit from them as if they were non-holy, and transferring the holy to a non-holy domain. When G-d created the world, He defined and separated His beings and gave them borders and places of their own, domains to which they belong. The word domain [“reshut”] also means “place”, and can also connote a license to be somewhere or do something.
A woman is set aside specifically for her husband. When she fornicates, she betrays him and her own domain, because her domain was sanctified and set apart. She received permission to be in her husband's place, and he becomes her domain. She has no license to be with another man who is not her domain.
Similarly, the Jewish People were set apart fro G-d. He is their portion and inheritance. When they substitute idolatry or a foreign culture in His place, this constitutes change, straying, betrayal. The general rule is this: man was created to accept unto himself the yoke of Heaven and thereby to transcend his own egotism and fulfill his purpose in the world and the purpose of the world itself. Whoever breaks off his yoke betrays his task and forfeits his domain on this earth, because his presence here, in fact, his very creation, is no longer of benefit.
How few, indeed, are the elite! Even so, we were commanded to study and to teach, to preserve and to practice G-d's idea of Jewishness as it was given to us, as we were truly and straightforwardly commanded. We must reject every trace of foreign culture, of falsification and distortion, and accept the yoke of Heaven.
Woman is the symbol of man's love and desire, for there is no love in man's nature greater than his love for woman. Precisely for this reason G-d created man and woman, so they would be bound together with fierce love and desire, ready to sacrifice for each other and to give of themselves to an extent unheard of in any other relationship. They would be willing even to sacrifice their lives for each other, so strong is that love. Being so fiercely bound to another human being is the apex of man's breaking down his selfishness, arrogance and evil impulse. G-d created this bond so that man would understand from it – at least in part – how powerful must be his love for G-d. Thus, if a husband is ever unfaithful to his wife, it constitutes betrayal of the true concept of love and a dreadful lie looming over the marital relationship. G-d decreed that this must be an exclusive relationship founded on mutual trust, a symbol of the prohibition against the dreadful sin of polytheism, worshiping idols as well as G-d (Ex.20:3).
At the same time, an evil woman is a symbol of the opposite – idolatry. Whoever falls deeply in love with a woman who incites him to sin, even to heresy and idolatry, brings death unto himself. In his fierce love, he will be ready to do all she asks, even commit terrible sins. Thus, a woman can either symbolize love of G-d, or, Heaven forbid, love of heresy. After all, even heresy involves emotional attraction. As Berachot 12 b teaches:
Why was the third paragraph of the Shema (Num. 15:37-41) established to be recited daily? R. Yehuda bar Chaviva said, “Because it contains six elements: 1) the mitzvah of Tzitzit; 2) the Exodus from Egypt; 3) the yoke of mitzvot; and admonitions against 4) heretical belief; 5) immoral sexual thought; and 6) idolatrous thoughts...” Indeed it was learned: “After your heart” (Num 15:39) refers to heresy, and it says (Ps. 14:1), “The fool says in his heart:'There is no G-d'”.
Here we have proof that heresy depends on the heart and involves desire and attraction. Hence the woman, symbol of male desire, can either symbolize devotion to G-d or pursuit of heresy. Rashi interprets the verse, “I find more bitter than death the woman” (Eccles. 7:26): “Death is the harshest of ten harsh things created (Bava Batra 10a), and I find 'woman' – i.e. heresy – harsher still.”
Listen then to the truth.Let us savor the bitter fruits of our love affair with the world of gentilized civilization. It is a war for the hearts and souls and minds of the Jews. It is a war between those who wish to be amongst and like the nations, the gentiles, to embrace their culture and ideas and values and abominations; and between those who recognize their uniqueness and chosenness and who embrace the holiness of a separate, distinct, isolated, different people, living apart from all the others, unsullied by the abominations of cultures conceived in impurity and born in profane vanity.
The values of Judaism are, in so many areas, and so overwhelmingly, different from those of western-gentilized Hellenism. What is ethical and what is moral and what is merciful and what is just? The answers of Judaism and of Hellenism are far apart. Political equality? Democracy? Tolerance of abomination? Freedom in social, personal affairs? The role of authority? Poles apart are the views of the Jews and the Hebrew-speaking gentiles.
Sinai is cast away for Times Square and the purity of the Chosen people is exchanged for the material vomit of Los Angeles. The modesty of holiness is contemptuously abandoned and the nation wallows in the nakedness of gentile culture.
“Thou hast built thy lofty place at every head of the way and hast made thy beauty an abomination and hast opened thy feet to everyone that passed by and multiplied thy harlotries.” (Ezekiel 16:24-25)
Let us rise and garb ourselves with the cloak of sanctity; wrap ourselves in the regal robes of holiness. Every Jew a sacred child of G-d, the State of Israel the hallowed palace of the King of Kings. Let the Sabbath sing forth in joy from every home and the food that enters the mouth be as pure as the words that leave it. Let values be clean as the fresh mountain air of Zion and let degeneracy and vanity vanish as the morning mist before the warm sun of Jerusalem. Let hatred and violence and evil against brothers be buried beneath the centuries-old memories of common suffering.
“I will betroth you unto Me via faith, and you shall know the L-rd” (Hosea 2:22). The “faith” referred to is the knowledge that there truly exists a Creator of the world, and that He is L-rd of hosts, the G-d of history and of truth. Such knowledge, and man's submission to G-d's ways and commandments, is man's purpose, and “this is the doctrine Moses placed before the People of Israel” (Deut. 4:44).
Compiled by Tzipora Liron-Pinner from “The Jewish Idea" and from "Forty Years" of Rav Meir Kahane, HY”D
Monday, May 21, 2012
Parashat Bamidbar - Dear Jew, you are precious to G-d! - Rav Meir Kahane
Hashem spoke to Moses in the Wilderness of Sinai ..., saying: Take a census of the entire assembly of the Children of Israel according to their families, according to their fathers' household, by numbers of the names, every male according to their head count. (Num. 1:1-2).
Tanchuma, Bamidbar, 20, teaches:
A man had glass vessels, and he would take them to the market, set them out and gather them back up without ever counting them. Because they were of glass, he did not keep track of them.
He had other merchandise, fine pearls, which he would count before taking to the market, before setting them out, and before gathering them back up. Because they were pearls, he loved them. In the same way, so to speak, G-d said, “I did not count the nations, since they have no importance for Me, as it says, 'all the nations are as nothing before Him, they are accounted before Him as things of naught and vanity' (Isaiah 40:17). Yet, you, Israel, 'are borne by Me from birth, carried by Me from the womb' (Isaiah 46:3). Therefore, I count you constantly.”
Thus it says, “Make a tally of the male firstborn among the children of Israel” (Num. 3:40)
Israel are G-d's “reshit”, first and foremost among all the nations, and superior to them all. Israel are also G-d's firstborn, as it says, “You must say to Pharaoh, 'This is what the L-rd says: Israel is My son, My firstborn'” (Ex. 4:22). The word for firstborn, bechor, is close to the terms bachur and nivchar, connoting selection, because the firstborn is the one G-d selects, and then “the birthright – bechora – is legally his” (Deut. 21:17), the bechira, i.e. selection.
It is probable that the word bechira, selection, which includes examination and thought about what and whom to choose, is close to the word bakar, a root meaning to examine, clarify and choose, as in the verse, “No distinction must be made – lo yivaker – between better and worse” (Lev. 27:33).
Israel are G-d's chosen people, His treasure, His children, majestic and royal. As R. Shimon said (Shabbat 128a), “All of Israel are the children of kings.”
And R. Ashi said in Zevachim 19a:
Huna bar Natan told me, “I was once standing before[the non-Jewish]King Izgadar, and my sash was too high and he lowered it, saying: 'The Torah calls you "a kingdom of priests and a holy nation"' (Ex. 19:6).
My father and teacher [Rabbi Yechezkel Shraga Kahane ztz”l] once pointed out to me that, unfortunately, a large segment of the nation, and perhaps a majority, acknowledge their Jewishness only because of the hatred of the non-Jews who do not allow them to assimilate and disappear. For this, a Jew who keeps Torah and mitzvot is obligated to recite the blessing “She lo assani goy” (“Who didn't make me a non-Jew”) which [also] can be translated “That not the non-Jew made me [be a Jew]”. Rather, I myself, chose to be part of the Jewish People because of G-d's Torah.
Israel endures forever! And why? What do they have that the nations of the world lack? Is their skin different? Is there no wisdom among the nations? Surely, our sages explicitly said (Echa Rabbah, 2:13), “If a person says, 'There is wisdom among the nations', believe him.” Rather, there is only one difference between Israel and the nations. There is only one logical, rational reason for a person to be proud of his being a Jew: The Torah. As our sages said (Torat Kohanim, Bechukotai, 8:11): “What remains to them that has not become vile and loathsome? Were not all the fine gifts that were given to them taken away? If not for the Torah that remained with them, they would be no different from the nations at all.” This is the secret of Israel's uniqueness and exclusiveness. Only this Torah hallows, exalts and sets Israel apart from all the nations. All the rest, nationalism and national pride, are nothing but a meaningless farce.
Yet, since G-d chose Israel to be His holy people and to fulfill His Torah, they were granted extraordinary love and a special status, and they became the mate and partner, so to speak, of Him Whose word brought the world into being.
The Jew called up to the Torah blesses loudly and with joyous devotion, the One “Who chose us from all the nations and gave us His Torah.” Regarding our sages' utterance (Bava Metzia 85b) that the Second Temple was destroyed because Israel “did not recite the blessing over the Torah before studying Torah,” a great rabbi once commented that they did not make sure to say “Who chose us from all the nations,” which is the content of the blessing recited before reading from the Torah. So great is Israel's selection from among all the nations!
How great is our duty to be happy and thank G-d every single moment for pour having been born as part of the chosen people, supreme and holy! Our sages established that each day before morning prayers we must say, “Happy are we! How good is our destiny, how pleasant is our lot, how beautiful our heritage!” How disgraceful it is that a Jew is ashamed of taking pride in his role and in his exalted spiritual level, fearful of what the nations will say, trying to belittle the importance and definition of Israel as a chosen, supreme people! Consider the blight of exile and servitude. Observe how it has made the alien culture rule over us and harmed our healthy spirits. What healthy nation would not want to be chosen, treasured and unique? It was in response to this that King David said, “In You did our fathers trust; they trusted, and You did deliver them. Unto You did they trust, and were not ashamed” (Ps. 22:5-6). Faith and trust in G-d must be without shame. What times these are, when belief and trust have turned into something “illogical” that a Jew is ashamed to talk about openly. Likewise, the concept of chosenness has become a source of mockery and scorn. Under the sway of the alien culture, it has become a negative, racist concept and many good people have been ashamed to take pride in it; hence the separation between Israel and the nations has been blurred. Listen, my friend, and cast off all your shame regarding the superior status given you. Rejoice in your exalted inheritance!
The way the Hellenists and assimilationists fear the nations' reaction is just part of what compels them to deny Israel's selection. Infinitely worse is the influence of the alien culture which has so penetrated their bones that the idea that there really is a nation chosen from all the rest and spiritually superior appears to them an abomination. Surely they are hostages of the nonsensical concept of equality, which brings everything – goodness and evil, wisdom and folly, the genius and the simpleton – to one standing. Nothing brings greater ruin than this foolishness, and regarding this alien culture it says, “Do not bring any offensive idol into you house, since then you may become just like it. Shun it totally and consider it absolutely offensive, since it is taboo” (Deut. 7:26); and, “Let nothing that has been declared taboo there remain in your hands” (Ibid., 13:18). A thick wall divides Israel from the nations, a Divine partition which separates between the sacred and the profane, between Israel and the nations. Indeed, holiness and separateness descended upon us from Heaven as a beloved pair, bound to one another by Divine decree.
Our sages said (Tanchuma, Kedoshim 5): G-d said to Israel, “I am not like mortal man. With mortal man, non-royalty are forbidden to have the same name as the king.” As proof, when a person wishes to get his fellow man into trouble, he can call him by the emperor's name, and that man's life will be forfeit. Israel, however, were called by G-d's name. Every lovely name G-d had, He called Israel by it. He called Himself Elokim and He called Israel Elokim, as it says, “I said that you are elohim [G-d-like beings]” (Ps. 82:6). G-d was called chacham, wise, as it says, “He is wise of heart and mighty in strength” (Job 9:4), and He called Israel chacham, as in, “This great nation is certainly a wise and understanding people” (Deut. 4:6). He was called dodi, “my beloved”, as it says, “My beloved is white and ruddy” (Song of Songs 5:10), and He called Israel His beloved, as it says, “Eat, O friends, drink, yea, drink abundantly, O beloved” (Ibid., v. 1). G-d was called bachur, “select”, as it says, “select as the cedars” (Ibid., v. 15), and He called Israel select, as it says, “The L-rd your G-d selected you” (Deut. 7:6). He was called chassid, “saintly”, as it says, “I am saintly, says the L-rd” (Jer. 3:12) and He called Israel saints, as it says, “Gather My saints together unto Me” (Ps. 50:5). He was called holy, as it says, “Holy, holy, holy is the L-rd of hosts.!” (Isaiah 6:3); and, “For the L-rd our G-d is holy” (Ps. 99:9), and He called Israel holy, as it says, “You must be holy” (Lev. 19:2).
Consider what our sages said about the greatness, holiness, supremacy and belovedness of Israel – that even though G-d is the G-d of all living creatures, He still associated His name exclusively with Israel. As Shemot Rabbah, 29:4, teaches: “G-d said to Israel, 'I am the G-d of all creatures on earth, but I did not associate My name with any but you. I am not called the G-d of the nations but the G-d of Israel.”
Pesikta Rabbati (10) teaches, “G-d said to Moses, 'Moses, exalt this nation as much as you possibly can, for it is as though you exalt Me.'”
Compiled by Tzipora Liron-Pinner from “The Jewish Idea" of Rav Meir Kahane, HY”D
Tanchuma, Bamidbar, 20, teaches:
A man had glass vessels, and he would take them to the market, set them out and gather them back up without ever counting them. Because they were of glass, he did not keep track of them.
He had other merchandise, fine pearls, which he would count before taking to the market, before setting them out, and before gathering them back up. Because they were pearls, he loved them. In the same way, so to speak, G-d said, “I did not count the nations, since they have no importance for Me, as it says, 'all the nations are as nothing before Him, they are accounted before Him as things of naught and vanity' (Isaiah 40:17). Yet, you, Israel, 'are borne by Me from birth, carried by Me from the womb' (Isaiah 46:3). Therefore, I count you constantly.”
Thus it says, “Make a tally of the male firstborn among the children of Israel” (Num. 3:40)
Israel are G-d's “reshit”, first and foremost among all the nations, and superior to them all. Israel are also G-d's firstborn, as it says, “You must say to Pharaoh, 'This is what the L-rd says: Israel is My son, My firstborn'” (Ex. 4:22). The word for firstborn, bechor, is close to the terms bachur and nivchar, connoting selection, because the firstborn is the one G-d selects, and then “the birthright – bechora – is legally his” (Deut. 21:17), the bechira, i.e. selection.
It is probable that the word bechira, selection, which includes examination and thought about what and whom to choose, is close to the word bakar, a root meaning to examine, clarify and choose, as in the verse, “No distinction must be made – lo yivaker – between better and worse” (Lev. 27:33).
Israel are G-d's chosen people, His treasure, His children, majestic and royal. As R. Shimon said (Shabbat 128a), “All of Israel are the children of kings.”
And R. Ashi said in Zevachim 19a:
Huna bar Natan told me, “I was once standing before[the non-Jewish]King Izgadar, and my sash was too high and he lowered it, saying: 'The Torah calls you "a kingdom of priests and a holy nation"' (Ex. 19:6).
My father and teacher [Rabbi Yechezkel Shraga Kahane ztz”l] once pointed out to me that, unfortunately, a large segment of the nation, and perhaps a majority, acknowledge their Jewishness only because of the hatred of the non-Jews who do not allow them to assimilate and disappear. For this, a Jew who keeps Torah and mitzvot is obligated to recite the blessing “She lo assani goy” (“Who didn't make me a non-Jew”) which [also] can be translated “That not the non-Jew made me [be a Jew]”. Rather, I myself, chose to be part of the Jewish People because of G-d's Torah.
Israel endures forever! And why? What do they have that the nations of the world lack? Is their skin different? Is there no wisdom among the nations? Surely, our sages explicitly said (Echa Rabbah, 2:13), “If a person says, 'There is wisdom among the nations', believe him.” Rather, there is only one difference between Israel and the nations. There is only one logical, rational reason for a person to be proud of his being a Jew: The Torah. As our sages said (Torat Kohanim, Bechukotai, 8:11): “What remains to them that has not become vile and loathsome? Were not all the fine gifts that were given to them taken away? If not for the Torah that remained with them, they would be no different from the nations at all.” This is the secret of Israel's uniqueness and exclusiveness. Only this Torah hallows, exalts and sets Israel apart from all the nations. All the rest, nationalism and national pride, are nothing but a meaningless farce.
Yet, since G-d chose Israel to be His holy people and to fulfill His Torah, they were granted extraordinary love and a special status, and they became the mate and partner, so to speak, of Him Whose word brought the world into being.
The Jew called up to the Torah blesses loudly and with joyous devotion, the One “Who chose us from all the nations and gave us His Torah.” Regarding our sages' utterance (Bava Metzia 85b) that the Second Temple was destroyed because Israel “did not recite the blessing over the Torah before studying Torah,” a great rabbi once commented that they did not make sure to say “Who chose us from all the nations,” which is the content of the blessing recited before reading from the Torah. So great is Israel's selection from among all the nations!
How great is our duty to be happy and thank G-d every single moment for pour having been born as part of the chosen people, supreme and holy! Our sages established that each day before morning prayers we must say, “Happy are we! How good is our destiny, how pleasant is our lot, how beautiful our heritage!” How disgraceful it is that a Jew is ashamed of taking pride in his role and in his exalted spiritual level, fearful of what the nations will say, trying to belittle the importance and definition of Israel as a chosen, supreme people! Consider the blight of exile and servitude. Observe how it has made the alien culture rule over us and harmed our healthy spirits. What healthy nation would not want to be chosen, treasured and unique? It was in response to this that King David said, “In You did our fathers trust; they trusted, and You did deliver them. Unto You did they trust, and were not ashamed” (Ps. 22:5-6). Faith and trust in G-d must be without shame. What times these are, when belief and trust have turned into something “illogical” that a Jew is ashamed to talk about openly. Likewise, the concept of chosenness has become a source of mockery and scorn. Under the sway of the alien culture, it has become a negative, racist concept and many good people have been ashamed to take pride in it; hence the separation between Israel and the nations has been blurred. Listen, my friend, and cast off all your shame regarding the superior status given you. Rejoice in your exalted inheritance!
The way the Hellenists and assimilationists fear the nations' reaction is just part of what compels them to deny Israel's selection. Infinitely worse is the influence of the alien culture which has so penetrated their bones that the idea that there really is a nation chosen from all the rest and spiritually superior appears to them an abomination. Surely they are hostages of the nonsensical concept of equality, which brings everything – goodness and evil, wisdom and folly, the genius and the simpleton – to one standing. Nothing brings greater ruin than this foolishness, and regarding this alien culture it says, “Do not bring any offensive idol into you house, since then you may become just like it. Shun it totally and consider it absolutely offensive, since it is taboo” (Deut. 7:26); and, “Let nothing that has been declared taboo there remain in your hands” (Ibid., 13:18). A thick wall divides Israel from the nations, a Divine partition which separates between the sacred and the profane, between Israel and the nations. Indeed, holiness and separateness descended upon us from Heaven as a beloved pair, bound to one another by Divine decree.
Our sages said (Tanchuma, Kedoshim 5): G-d said to Israel, “I am not like mortal man. With mortal man, non-royalty are forbidden to have the same name as the king.” As proof, when a person wishes to get his fellow man into trouble, he can call him by the emperor's name, and that man's life will be forfeit. Israel, however, were called by G-d's name. Every lovely name G-d had, He called Israel by it. He called Himself Elokim and He called Israel Elokim, as it says, “I said that you are elohim [G-d-like beings]” (Ps. 82:6). G-d was called chacham, wise, as it says, “He is wise of heart and mighty in strength” (Job 9:4), and He called Israel chacham, as in, “This great nation is certainly a wise and understanding people” (Deut. 4:6). He was called dodi, “my beloved”, as it says, “My beloved is white and ruddy” (Song of Songs 5:10), and He called Israel His beloved, as it says, “Eat, O friends, drink, yea, drink abundantly, O beloved” (Ibid., v. 1). G-d was called bachur, “select”, as it says, “select as the cedars” (Ibid., v. 15), and He called Israel select, as it says, “The L-rd your G-d selected you” (Deut. 7:6). He was called chassid, “saintly”, as it says, “I am saintly, says the L-rd” (Jer. 3:12) and He called Israel saints, as it says, “Gather My saints together unto Me” (Ps. 50:5). He was called holy, as it says, “Holy, holy, holy is the L-rd of hosts.!” (Isaiah 6:3); and, “For the L-rd our G-d is holy” (Ps. 99:9), and He called Israel holy, as it says, “You must be holy” (Lev. 19:2).
Consider what our sages said about the greatness, holiness, supremacy and belovedness of Israel – that even though G-d is the G-d of all living creatures, He still associated His name exclusively with Israel. As Shemot Rabbah, 29:4, teaches: “G-d said to Israel, 'I am the G-d of all creatures on earth, but I did not associate My name with any but you. I am not called the G-d of the nations but the G-d of Israel.”
Pesikta Rabbati (10) teaches, “G-d said to Moses, 'Moses, exalt this nation as much as you possibly can, for it is as though you exalt Me.'”
Compiled by Tzipora Liron-Pinner from “The Jewish Idea" of Rav Meir Kahane, HY”D
Monday, May 14, 2012
Parashat Behar/Bechukotai - Help! - Rav Meir Kahane
If your brother becomes impoverished and his means falter in your proximity, you shall strengthen him – proselyte or resident – so that he can live with you. Do not take from him interest and increase; you shall fear your G-d and let your brother live with you. (Lev. 25:35,36)
King Solomon said (Prov. 21:13), “He who stops his ears at the cry of the poor shall also cry himself but shall not be answered.”
Anyone who deserts a person who needs him, will in turn be deserted by G-d. This is what happened to Elimelech: Elimelech was one of the leaders of the nation and sustainers of the generation. Yet when the years of famine arrived, he said: All Israel are gathering around my door, each one with his basket [asking for donations]. He got up and ran away from the Land (Ruth Rabbah 1:4). And he was punished for this by dying – he and both of his sons – in exile. Anyone who forsakes the divine commandment of lovingkindness – G-d will forsake him, measure for measure: Thus says Hashem: You have abandoned Me, and I, too, have abandoned you (2 Chronicles 12:5).
Kindness and kind deeds are a general category that includes many individual mitzvot like charity, marrying off a poor girl, visiting the sick and comforting mourners. Truthfully, the potential for kind deeds is immeasurable. Anything one does for his fellow man, even offering a single kind word, is part of the kindness that builds the world. In other words, every good deed one does for his fellow man is called good because of the kindness it contains, because kindness is the fundamental kernel within all good.
Loving one's fellow Jew is a mitzvah of global importance.
Love, respect and reverence for our fellow Jew, created in G-d's image and sanctified at Sinai as G-d's elect, is the duty of every single Jew, because he is part of that chosen people. Every Jew must grow spiritually by showing love and respect for his fellow Jew. In that way, he expresses his esteem for someone holy and select, created in G-d's image and chosen at Sinai to be G-d's special treasure. In effect, he gains self-esteem as well. These benefits are secondary to the main benefit accrued: Though such behavior one suppresses the evil impulse and breaks down his ego. This is man's purpose, and doing so exalts and sanctifies him. It says, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” The moment a person equates someone else – through the love and respect he shows him – with himself, thereby ceasing to view himself as the center of the world, his own ego will begin to grow smaller.
Kindness for one's fellow man, even for someone who is not one's relative and whom one does not know at all, is the trait that separates man from beast. It is this which elevates man to a level just beneath the angels, and perhaps just above them. Man's ability to give and to sacrifice his property and time for his fellow man is what G-d wished to implement on earth when He created it, and for this he created man.
R. Elazar said (Succah 49b), “Charity is only rewarded according to the kindness it contains, as it says (Hosea 10:12), 'Sow charity for yourselves, reap according to kindness.'” Rashi comments, “The giving is charity. The trouble taken is kindness, for example, bringing the money to the poor person's house, or taking the trouble that it should help him a lot... in short, paying full heed to the poor man's welfare.” How true are Rashi's words! Once more we have clear proof that the purpose of charity and kindness is its influence on the soul of the one offering it.
Make no mistake. Kindness, per se, is not the main purpose of creation or of Torah. Rather, it is the most outstanding, pronounced expression of modesty, self-abnegation, subjugation of the evil impulse and acceptance of G-d's yoke discernible in man. Man, by giving, nullifies his sense of taking. By worrying about his fellow man, he suppresses his selfishness, arrogance and lust.
There is nothing great or praiseworthy about the poor person receiving kindness or charity. In taking and benefiting, one performs no mitzvah. The mitzvah is entirely in that the giver gives, that the kind person's mercy wells up and he forgets himself, his property and his selfishness, suppressing his ego and giving of his money or time to someone else. In doing so, he reinforces the humility within. By suppressing his evil impulse and lessening his lust, arrogance and selfishness, he fulfills his task on this earth. For this he was created. It is patently obvious that the main purpose of kind deeds is not that the receiver receive but that the giver give.
Regarding tzedaka (“charity”), Chazal said a great thing which holds true regarding all mitzvot between man and his fellow man: The poor man does more for the donor than the donor does for the poor man. For as Ruth said to Naomi, “The name of the man with whom I worked today is Boaz” (Ruth 2:19). It does not say “who worked with me,” but “with whom I worked”. She said to her: Many good deeds have I done with him today for the slice that he gave me (Leviticus Rabbah 34:8). True, the simple meaning is that the master receives greater income from G-d than what he gives in charity. But Chazal take this far deeper: the greatness of the mitzvah of tzedaka is not that the poor man receives, but that the giver gives. There is no greatness in a person receiving something material – but great is the person who gives to someone else, thereby relinquishing the benefit that he could have received from his money. Performing this mitzvah affects his soul. He elevates and sanctifies it by removing the selfishness that encrusts it. Therefore Ruth said, Many good deeds have I done with him today. The same applies to any form of kindness that a person performs for his fellow-man: the greatness lies, not in the receiving, but in the active performance of giving. This is the great difference between Torah and socialism: Torah emphasizes the giving, whereas socialism emphasizes the receiving – and receiving only increases the selfishness of the recipient, who will never be satisfied with what he has received.
The Jews who distort the Torah are so influenced by the alien culture that they turn kindness and mercy into goals in and of themselves. By such means they elevate them above all the mitzvot, necessarily diminishing the value of all other mitzvot. They also push the concepts of kindness and mercy to foolish and dangerous extremes, while they themselves include wicked enemies of the Jewish People.
The real meaning of kindness and truth is that these principles are only part, albeit an exceedingly marked and conspicuous part, of the Torah's main purpose and goal – self-abnegation and suppression of our evil impulse and arrogance. All the mitzvot were given for this purpose, but kindness and mercy are the most direct part to this goal, as I have explained. Such acts express the Torah's essence, breaking down one's ego.
The word mercy – “rachamim” in Hebrew – comes from “rechem”, womb. There is no mercy like that of a mother for the child of her womb. There is an inseparable bond between them because the child is part of her body, “flesh of her flesh” (Gen. 2:23). Just so must be a Jew's mercy for his fellow Jew (if that fellow is worthy). It should resemble a mother's mercy for her child.
Compiled by Tzipora Liron-Pinner from “The Jewish Idea" and "Peirush Hamaccabee - Shemot" of Rav Meir Kahane, HY”D
King Solomon said (Prov. 21:13), “He who stops his ears at the cry of the poor shall also cry himself but shall not be answered.”
Anyone who deserts a person who needs him, will in turn be deserted by G-d. This is what happened to Elimelech: Elimelech was one of the leaders of the nation and sustainers of the generation. Yet when the years of famine arrived, he said: All Israel are gathering around my door, each one with his basket [asking for donations]. He got up and ran away from the Land (Ruth Rabbah 1:4). And he was punished for this by dying – he and both of his sons – in exile. Anyone who forsakes the divine commandment of lovingkindness – G-d will forsake him, measure for measure: Thus says Hashem: You have abandoned Me, and I, too, have abandoned you (2 Chronicles 12:5).
Kindness and kind deeds are a general category that includes many individual mitzvot like charity, marrying off a poor girl, visiting the sick and comforting mourners. Truthfully, the potential for kind deeds is immeasurable. Anything one does for his fellow man, even offering a single kind word, is part of the kindness that builds the world. In other words, every good deed one does for his fellow man is called good because of the kindness it contains, because kindness is the fundamental kernel within all good.
Loving one's fellow Jew is a mitzvah of global importance.
Love, respect and reverence for our fellow Jew, created in G-d's image and sanctified at Sinai as G-d's elect, is the duty of every single Jew, because he is part of that chosen people. Every Jew must grow spiritually by showing love and respect for his fellow Jew. In that way, he expresses his esteem for someone holy and select, created in G-d's image and chosen at Sinai to be G-d's special treasure. In effect, he gains self-esteem as well. These benefits are secondary to the main benefit accrued: Though such behavior one suppresses the evil impulse and breaks down his ego. This is man's purpose, and doing so exalts and sanctifies him. It says, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” The moment a person equates someone else – through the love and respect he shows him – with himself, thereby ceasing to view himself as the center of the world, his own ego will begin to grow smaller.
Kindness for one's fellow man, even for someone who is not one's relative and whom one does not know at all, is the trait that separates man from beast. It is this which elevates man to a level just beneath the angels, and perhaps just above them. Man's ability to give and to sacrifice his property and time for his fellow man is what G-d wished to implement on earth when He created it, and for this he created man.
R. Elazar said (Succah 49b), “Charity is only rewarded according to the kindness it contains, as it says (Hosea 10:12), 'Sow charity for yourselves, reap according to kindness.'” Rashi comments, “The giving is charity. The trouble taken is kindness, for example, bringing the money to the poor person's house, or taking the trouble that it should help him a lot... in short, paying full heed to the poor man's welfare.” How true are Rashi's words! Once more we have clear proof that the purpose of charity and kindness is its influence on the soul of the one offering it.
Make no mistake. Kindness, per se, is not the main purpose of creation or of Torah. Rather, it is the most outstanding, pronounced expression of modesty, self-abnegation, subjugation of the evil impulse and acceptance of G-d's yoke discernible in man. Man, by giving, nullifies his sense of taking. By worrying about his fellow man, he suppresses his selfishness, arrogance and lust.
There is nothing great or praiseworthy about the poor person receiving kindness or charity. In taking and benefiting, one performs no mitzvah. The mitzvah is entirely in that the giver gives, that the kind person's mercy wells up and he forgets himself, his property and his selfishness, suppressing his ego and giving of his money or time to someone else. In doing so, he reinforces the humility within. By suppressing his evil impulse and lessening his lust, arrogance and selfishness, he fulfills his task on this earth. For this he was created. It is patently obvious that the main purpose of kind deeds is not that the receiver receive but that the giver give.
Regarding tzedaka (“charity”), Chazal said a great thing which holds true regarding all mitzvot between man and his fellow man: The poor man does more for the donor than the donor does for the poor man. For as Ruth said to Naomi, “The name of the man with whom I worked today is Boaz” (Ruth 2:19). It does not say “who worked with me,” but “with whom I worked”. She said to her: Many good deeds have I done with him today for the slice that he gave me (Leviticus Rabbah 34:8). True, the simple meaning is that the master receives greater income from G-d than what he gives in charity. But Chazal take this far deeper: the greatness of the mitzvah of tzedaka is not that the poor man receives, but that the giver gives. There is no greatness in a person receiving something material – but great is the person who gives to someone else, thereby relinquishing the benefit that he could have received from his money. Performing this mitzvah affects his soul. He elevates and sanctifies it by removing the selfishness that encrusts it. Therefore Ruth said, Many good deeds have I done with him today. The same applies to any form of kindness that a person performs for his fellow-man: the greatness lies, not in the receiving, but in the active performance of giving. This is the great difference between Torah and socialism: Torah emphasizes the giving, whereas socialism emphasizes the receiving – and receiving only increases the selfishness of the recipient, who will never be satisfied with what he has received.
The Jews who distort the Torah are so influenced by the alien culture that they turn kindness and mercy into goals in and of themselves. By such means they elevate them above all the mitzvot, necessarily diminishing the value of all other mitzvot. They also push the concepts of kindness and mercy to foolish and dangerous extremes, while they themselves include wicked enemies of the Jewish People.
The real meaning of kindness and truth is that these principles are only part, albeit an exceedingly marked and conspicuous part, of the Torah's main purpose and goal – self-abnegation and suppression of our evil impulse and arrogance. All the mitzvot were given for this purpose, but kindness and mercy are the most direct part to this goal, as I have explained. Such acts express the Torah's essence, breaking down one's ego.
The word mercy – “rachamim” in Hebrew – comes from “rechem”, womb. There is no mercy like that of a mother for the child of her womb. There is an inseparable bond between them because the child is part of her body, “flesh of her flesh” (Gen. 2:23). Just so must be a Jew's mercy for his fellow Jew (if that fellow is worthy). It should resemble a mother's mercy for her child.
Compiled by Tzipora Liron-Pinner from “The Jewish Idea" and "Peirush Hamaccabee - Shemot" of Rav Meir Kahane, HY”D
Sunday, April 29, 2012
Parashat Kedoshim - Forbidden conjugal relations - Rabbi Meir Kahane
“Speak to the entire assembly of the Children of Israel and say to them: You shall be holy, for holy am I, Hashem, your G-d.” (Lev. 19:2)
“ You shall sanctify yourselves and you will be holy, for I am Hashem, your G-d.” (Lev. 20:7)
Twice G-d decreed kedusha (holiness) upon Israel. Why? It is “since I am holy.” In other words, just as G-d is holy, so, too, must we be holy. Our sages made this point in Tanchuma (Kedoshim, 5):
“Make yourselves holy”: Why must we do so? G-d caused us to cling to His loins, as it says, “For as the belt clings to the loins of a man” (Jer. 13:11). Therefore, “You must be holy, since I am the L-rd your G-d, and I am holy” (Lev. 19:2).
We also learn (Torat Kohanim, Shemini, 12), “Just as I am holy, so are you holy. Just as I am set apart, so you must be set apart.” Here, we find kedusha defined: It means separating oneself from the abominations, impurity and bestiality of the world, and instead clinging to purity and spiritual loftiness, goodness and the yoke of Heaven, intent on ascending and becoming holier. The beast is a prisoner of physical drives and lust. It cannot possibly separate itself from bestiality, for it is entirely bestial and was created to be precisely that in order to show man the behavior from which he must flee.
Breaking down one's passions is Israel's task. That is why kedusha was commanded so many times in the realms of life fraught with lust and desire, namely food and conjugal relations.
Regarding conjugal relations, G-d stressed our duty to be holy, when just before the section on sexual sin He said, “You must sanctify yourselves and be holy” (Lev. 20:7). Even though this verse is teaching about separation from idolatry (Torat Kohanim, Kedoshim 10), it still relates to the section that follows as well, that of sexual sin. Thus, our sages expounded (Vayikra Rabbah, 24:6):
Why was the section on sexual sin placed right after the section on kedusha? To teach that wherever we find separation from sexual sin, there we find kedusha. This follows the utterance of R.Yehuda ben Pazi who said, “Whoever fences himself off from sexual sin is called kadosh, 'holy'.”
Following is Rambam at the end of Hilchot Issurei Biah (22:18-20):
No prohibition throughout the Torah is as hard for most of the people to part with as are sexual immorality and fornication. Our sages say that at the moment that Israel were commanded regarding sexual morality, they wept and they accepted this mitzvah with resentment and weeping, as it says, “[Moses heard the people] weeping over their families (Num. 11:10), i.e. regarding family-related matters. Our sages said that a person's soul lusts and craves theft and sexual sin, and we do not find a community in any age that lacks people who breach the laws of sexual morality and forbidden cohabitation. Our sages further said, “Most succumb to theft, a minority succumb to sexual sin, and all use speech that verges on forbidden gossip.” Therefore, it is appropriate for one to suppress his evil impulse in this matter and to accustom himself to exceeding kedusha, pure thought and an appropriate outlook in order to be saved from them.
[In modern times,] the clearest and most painful example of the agonizing contradiction between liberal-democratic-western thinking and Judaism, the one that has led to the most violent and hideous hate and wildly irrational defamation, is surely the clear and ringing Jewish ban on intermarriage and sexual relations between Jews and non-Jews, a thing that has become the centerpiece of the hysterical attack by the Hellenist Jews on “Kahanism”.
There is no doubt that certain marriages are forbidden, such as Jew to non-Jew, incestuous unions, kohen to divorcee, mamzer to non-mamzer. We shall not play games. These are forbidden marriages and no rabbi will perform them. And so there is a cry: Civil marriage! Or a more elegant one: Civil marriage for those who are barred from religious marriage. I shall add only a word or two here about those whose real aim is not civil marriage but also civil divorce, something that would increase the number of mamzerim disastrously. Civil marriage is but a first step leading to civil divorce, which will truly split the nation into two camps, with one refusing to marry into the other. If this is what we truly want it is ours for the asking. But for those who are sincerely troubled by the refusal on the part of the rabbinate to marry certain couples, let us examine those disabled couples. It is true that under no circumstances whatever does halacha recognize an incestuous marriage, and there may indeed be some who will insist that a civil law should be created to allow marriage between mother and son or brother and sister on the grounds that the law should not limit any conduct so long as that conduct does not harm others. It may be true that there will be those who will – as in certain western countries – insist on recognizing the marriage of two homosexual males or females. For these, halacha has no answer; its ban is clear and absolute and one hopes that the proponents of civil marriage in these cases will be accorded the contempt they deserve.
Then there is the question of intermarriage. True, there is absolutely no sanction, a priori or a posteriori, for intermarriage under halacha. A Jew is forbidden to marry a non-Jew; his marriage will not be performed by a rabbi [the violation of halacha by reform clergy is irrelevant, this goes for all other forbidden marriages as well]; it will not be recognized under any circumstances. There are, indeed, more than a few among the nihilists in our ranks who oppose this. They would open the doors to the disaster that Jews fought so successfully through two millenia of Exile and to which they succumb so disastrously in the “free” western world. The destruction of the Jew can be accomplished in the furnaces of Auschwitz; it can also come about through intermarriage that destroys the Jewish identity of the couple and its offspring.
But there are other bans. Consider the ban on marriage between kohen and divorcee or mamzer and non-mamzer or a number of other bans mentioned in the Torah. The rabbinate will refuse tor marry these. Is it the not “fair” to allow them to utilize civil marriage? Before replying, let us understand something that is basic to Judaism.
What is “right” and what is not “right” for the Jew has never been a subjective thing, to be judged by man on the basis of his own cultural imperative. It has certainly never been something to be measured by transient, temporary standards. The Jews are an eternal people with eternal values, and eternity is not subject to the passing modes and fashions of ideology. The Jews are a divine people with divine values, and these infinite truths are not to be passed upon or rejected by finite and human animals.
The greatness and sole strength of halacha lies in its divinity, otherwise why cling to it? And that strength is decimated and the pillar upon which it stands is eliminated when it must give way before a generation that cries “unfair”. What law is “fair” to all people and what society does not demand a few sacrifice so that society may continue to exist? And one day, the one who was touched by “unfairness” will understand that it was not really so. It is not by the standards of finite “fairness” that the Jewish people and halacha abide. Let the law pierce the mountain, but the law must prevail. Or we, as a people, will not prevail. But there is more. Those who cry for civil marriage say that this is the only solution. Is that really true? Is it a solution? And if that solution is considered a solution, then is there not a far better way, one that does not question the absolute supremacy and authority of halacha? What will happen, if a civil marriage law is passed in Israel? Will the rabbinate recognize it? Will the religious community recognize it? The answer is negative in both cases. But that does not matter, is the retort. We are not interested in whether the rabbinate or the religious Jew recognizes it. We want it to be recognized officially by the state.
So, this is what apparently really troubles the proponents of civil marriage. That under present law, the state will not marry one non-halachically. Is this the problem? For this, there is no need for civil marriage; to solve this problem, there is no need at all to introduce the non-Jewish concept of civil marriage, a thing that threatens to be only the first step toward civil divorce that would catastrophically divide the nation. Halacha itself gives a way out. For while, a priori, no rabbi will perform a marriage banned by halacha, all marriages that are forbidden marriages - except those involving gentiles and incest – are recognized as marriages by the Torah a posteriori even though the couples disobeyed the injunction against them. Let us consider the case of a kohen and a divorcee or a mamzer and a non-mamzer. Faced with the refusal of a rabbi to marry them what would happen if, in the presence of two proper witnesses, the man betrothed the woman unto him? Such a marriage is a binding one, calling for a divorce to dissolve it, and although the two have sinned and disobeyed the Torah, the marriage is valid. Certainly the religious stigma remains, but would that stigma be any less under civil marriage? And in any case, do the opponents of halacha really care? Assuming that they are sincere in their avowals that their sole purpose is to allow the couple to be married and have their marriage recognized by the state, there is no need to introduce civil marriage. The state can insist that the marriage be recorded as a legal one, reading “married – in a priori violation of Torah law”. The additional wording should in no way bother those who are not interested in Torah law and who have achieved all that they say they wanted – a recognized state marriage.
To say that there are no problems that halacha cannot solve to the satisfaction of the secular public would be to lie. But halacha, unlike politicians, did not come into being to cater to the public but rather to raise it, uplift it, and sanctify it.
At the same time, however, let us never forget that we came here to the Land of Israel to build a Jewish, not a western country. It is Jewish values that are true, not western values (or eastern, for that matter). What is right and true is not to be determined by liberalism or democracy or progressive circles.
For the inhabitants of the land who are before you committed all these abominations, and the land became contaminated. Let not the land vomit you out for having contaminated it, as it vomited out the nation that was before you. (Lev. 18:27-28)
Compiled by Tzipora Liron-Pinner from “The Jewish Idea”, "Uncomfortable Questions for Comfortable Jews" and "Our Challenge" of Rav Meir Kahane, HY”D
“ You shall sanctify yourselves and you will be holy, for I am Hashem, your G-d.” (Lev. 20:7)
Twice G-d decreed kedusha (holiness) upon Israel. Why? It is “since I am holy.” In other words, just as G-d is holy, so, too, must we be holy. Our sages made this point in Tanchuma (Kedoshim, 5):
“Make yourselves holy”: Why must we do so? G-d caused us to cling to His loins, as it says, “For as the belt clings to the loins of a man” (Jer. 13:11). Therefore, “You must be holy, since I am the L-rd your G-d, and I am holy” (Lev. 19:2).
We also learn (Torat Kohanim, Shemini, 12), “Just as I am holy, so are you holy. Just as I am set apart, so you must be set apart.” Here, we find kedusha defined: It means separating oneself from the abominations, impurity and bestiality of the world, and instead clinging to purity and spiritual loftiness, goodness and the yoke of Heaven, intent on ascending and becoming holier. The beast is a prisoner of physical drives and lust. It cannot possibly separate itself from bestiality, for it is entirely bestial and was created to be precisely that in order to show man the behavior from which he must flee.
Breaking down one's passions is Israel's task. That is why kedusha was commanded so many times in the realms of life fraught with lust and desire, namely food and conjugal relations.
Regarding conjugal relations, G-d stressed our duty to be holy, when just before the section on sexual sin He said, “You must sanctify yourselves and be holy” (Lev. 20:7). Even though this verse is teaching about separation from idolatry (Torat Kohanim, Kedoshim 10), it still relates to the section that follows as well, that of sexual sin. Thus, our sages expounded (Vayikra Rabbah, 24:6):
Why was the section on sexual sin placed right after the section on kedusha? To teach that wherever we find separation from sexual sin, there we find kedusha. This follows the utterance of R.Yehuda ben Pazi who said, “Whoever fences himself off from sexual sin is called kadosh, 'holy'.”
Following is Rambam at the end of Hilchot Issurei Biah (22:18-20):
No prohibition throughout the Torah is as hard for most of the people to part with as are sexual immorality and fornication. Our sages say that at the moment that Israel were commanded regarding sexual morality, they wept and they accepted this mitzvah with resentment and weeping, as it says, “[Moses heard the people] weeping over their families (Num. 11:10), i.e. regarding family-related matters. Our sages said that a person's soul lusts and craves theft and sexual sin, and we do not find a community in any age that lacks people who breach the laws of sexual morality and forbidden cohabitation. Our sages further said, “Most succumb to theft, a minority succumb to sexual sin, and all use speech that verges on forbidden gossip.” Therefore, it is appropriate for one to suppress his evil impulse in this matter and to accustom himself to exceeding kedusha, pure thought and an appropriate outlook in order to be saved from them.
[In modern times,] the clearest and most painful example of the agonizing contradiction between liberal-democratic-western thinking and Judaism, the one that has led to the most violent and hideous hate and wildly irrational defamation, is surely the clear and ringing Jewish ban on intermarriage and sexual relations between Jews and non-Jews, a thing that has become the centerpiece of the hysterical attack by the Hellenist Jews on “Kahanism”.
There is no doubt that certain marriages are forbidden, such as Jew to non-Jew, incestuous unions, kohen to divorcee, mamzer to non-mamzer. We shall not play games. These are forbidden marriages and no rabbi will perform them. And so there is a cry: Civil marriage! Or a more elegant one: Civil marriage for those who are barred from religious marriage. I shall add only a word or two here about those whose real aim is not civil marriage but also civil divorce, something that would increase the number of mamzerim disastrously. Civil marriage is but a first step leading to civil divorce, which will truly split the nation into two camps, with one refusing to marry into the other. If this is what we truly want it is ours for the asking. But for those who are sincerely troubled by the refusal on the part of the rabbinate to marry certain couples, let us examine those disabled couples. It is true that under no circumstances whatever does halacha recognize an incestuous marriage, and there may indeed be some who will insist that a civil law should be created to allow marriage between mother and son or brother and sister on the grounds that the law should not limit any conduct so long as that conduct does not harm others. It may be true that there will be those who will – as in certain western countries – insist on recognizing the marriage of two homosexual males or females. For these, halacha has no answer; its ban is clear and absolute and one hopes that the proponents of civil marriage in these cases will be accorded the contempt they deserve.
Then there is the question of intermarriage. True, there is absolutely no sanction, a priori or a posteriori, for intermarriage under halacha. A Jew is forbidden to marry a non-Jew; his marriage will not be performed by a rabbi [the violation of halacha by reform clergy is irrelevant, this goes for all other forbidden marriages as well]; it will not be recognized under any circumstances. There are, indeed, more than a few among the nihilists in our ranks who oppose this. They would open the doors to the disaster that Jews fought so successfully through two millenia of Exile and to which they succumb so disastrously in the “free” western world. The destruction of the Jew can be accomplished in the furnaces of Auschwitz; it can also come about through intermarriage that destroys the Jewish identity of the couple and its offspring.
But there are other bans. Consider the ban on marriage between kohen and divorcee or mamzer and non-mamzer or a number of other bans mentioned in the Torah. The rabbinate will refuse tor marry these. Is it the not “fair” to allow them to utilize civil marriage? Before replying, let us understand something that is basic to Judaism.
What is “right” and what is not “right” for the Jew has never been a subjective thing, to be judged by man on the basis of his own cultural imperative. It has certainly never been something to be measured by transient, temporary standards. The Jews are an eternal people with eternal values, and eternity is not subject to the passing modes and fashions of ideology. The Jews are a divine people with divine values, and these infinite truths are not to be passed upon or rejected by finite and human animals.
The greatness and sole strength of halacha lies in its divinity, otherwise why cling to it? And that strength is decimated and the pillar upon which it stands is eliminated when it must give way before a generation that cries “unfair”. What law is “fair” to all people and what society does not demand a few sacrifice so that society may continue to exist? And one day, the one who was touched by “unfairness” will understand that it was not really so. It is not by the standards of finite “fairness” that the Jewish people and halacha abide. Let the law pierce the mountain, but the law must prevail. Or we, as a people, will not prevail. But there is more. Those who cry for civil marriage say that this is the only solution. Is that really true? Is it a solution? And if that solution is considered a solution, then is there not a far better way, one that does not question the absolute supremacy and authority of halacha? What will happen, if a civil marriage law is passed in Israel? Will the rabbinate recognize it? Will the religious community recognize it? The answer is negative in both cases. But that does not matter, is the retort. We are not interested in whether the rabbinate or the religious Jew recognizes it. We want it to be recognized officially by the state.
So, this is what apparently really troubles the proponents of civil marriage. That under present law, the state will not marry one non-halachically. Is this the problem? For this, there is no need for civil marriage; to solve this problem, there is no need at all to introduce the non-Jewish concept of civil marriage, a thing that threatens to be only the first step toward civil divorce that would catastrophically divide the nation. Halacha itself gives a way out. For while, a priori, no rabbi will perform a marriage banned by halacha, all marriages that are forbidden marriages - except those involving gentiles and incest – are recognized as marriages by the Torah a posteriori even though the couples disobeyed the injunction against them. Let us consider the case of a kohen and a divorcee or a mamzer and a non-mamzer. Faced with the refusal of a rabbi to marry them what would happen if, in the presence of two proper witnesses, the man betrothed the woman unto him? Such a marriage is a binding one, calling for a divorce to dissolve it, and although the two have sinned and disobeyed the Torah, the marriage is valid. Certainly the religious stigma remains, but would that stigma be any less under civil marriage? And in any case, do the opponents of halacha really care? Assuming that they are sincere in their avowals that their sole purpose is to allow the couple to be married and have their marriage recognized by the state, there is no need to introduce civil marriage. The state can insist that the marriage be recorded as a legal one, reading “married – in a priori violation of Torah law”. The additional wording should in no way bother those who are not interested in Torah law and who have achieved all that they say they wanted – a recognized state marriage.
To say that there are no problems that halacha cannot solve to the satisfaction of the secular public would be to lie. But halacha, unlike politicians, did not come into being to cater to the public but rather to raise it, uplift it, and sanctify it.
At the same time, however, let us never forget that we came here to the Land of Israel to build a Jewish, not a western country. It is Jewish values that are true, not western values (or eastern, for that matter). What is right and true is not to be determined by liberalism or democracy or progressive circles.
For the inhabitants of the land who are before you committed all these abominations, and the land became contaminated. Let not the land vomit you out for having contaminated it, as it vomited out the nation that was before you. (Lev. 18:27-28)
Compiled by Tzipora Liron-Pinner from “The Jewish Idea”, "Uncomfortable Questions for Comfortable Jews" and "Our Challenge" of Rav Meir Kahane, HY”D
Monday, April 23, 2012
Israel's Independence Day – A play in four acts – assembled from the writings of Rav Meir Kahane
[First Act: While reading this, imagine you are standing on a crowded place, surrounded by music, lights, blue and white flags, beaming faces – celebrating. Planes fly artistic formations overhead, to the cheers of the crowd.]
“The State of Israel came into being not because the Jew deserved it, but because the gentile did. It came into being not because the Jew was worthy of it but because the Name of G-d had reached its fill of humiliation and desecration. “I do this not for your sake, O House of Israel, but for Mine holy Name's sake which ye have profaned among the nations.”
That is the essence and foundation of foundations. We say Hallel on Yom HaAtzmaut, not because the government or we are worthy of the miracle but because G-d has decided to put an end to Chilul Hashem. The sins and demerits of the Jews who created that State are of absolutely no relevance to its creation. Israel came into being because Israel is the essence and the apex of Kiddush Hashem! Israel is the Jew who hits and is no longer hit. Israel is freedom and not bondage. Israel is living proof of the falsehood that is Christianity [and Islam]. Israel is Kiddush Hashem.
And so, happiness for the Jew is watching the Phantoms zoom past the roofs of Zion and Jewish children shouting and waving at them. It is seeing “Jewish planes” after existing in a world for so many years in which every plane was “theirs”. In a world in which planes spit their deadly bullets into Jews, their swastika markings etched into Jewish souls as they pronounced “Auschwitz” upon us; in a world of planes wearing British bullseyes which guaranteed that a limping refugee ship would be stopped before it could reach the gates of Zion; in a world of planes with crescent and star promising to wipe the budding Jewish community of Eretz Yisroel off the map. But those are days that once were and will never return because today there are Jewish planes, too, and only those who endured the eternity when there was no such thing can understand true happiness and serenity.
Happiness is watching the Jewish army and knowing that the spirit of Zion cannot live without a body and that this army is the guarantor of that body's existence. And happiness is thinking, just for a moment, about what Jews have accomplished in just a few years since they returned home. From thousands to millions of Jews; from ghettos to cities and farms that are all Jewish; from a motley medley of foreign tongues to the resurrection of Hebrew – and how sweet it is to hear the military commands and the most technical of phrases spoken in the tongue of Abraham and the Book of Genesis. Happiness is to walk, on the eve of Independence Day, down King George Street, and have youngsters hit you on the head with the silly, plastic musical hammers that have become a permanent part of the day. Happiness is to thread your way past the incredibly crowded streets where cars are banned for the night and to listen to the music playing over the loudspeakers strung along the streets and the people dancing and laughing. Happiness is watching the non-Jews looking at a Jewish parade in the Jewish capital city of the Jewish State. Happiness is knowing that most of the non-Jewish countries who have consulates and embassies in the City of David boycott the Independence Day parade lest their presence be construed as recognition of the Jewishness of the City – and not giving one solitary hoot whether they show up or not!
Happiness is watching young Jewish children who never knew what it meant to be a minority and never heard the words “zhid” or “kike” or “yahud”. Happiness is knowing that if anyone did call them that, he would find his face attached to the end of a Jewish fist. Happiness is watching the soldiers with beards and yarmulkas showing that mastering the intricacies of a mere sub-machine gun is child's play for a Talmudic scholar.
He who does not believe that the rise of the State of Israel is the hand of G-d is not only a non-believer; he is also blind. If this rebirth of a nation and state and language from the clutching jaws of the seventy wolves is not a miracle, then there are indeed no miracles. If the renaissance of a people in the face of every logic and sanity is not Divine decree then the Spring that brings rejuvenation to the dead earth is not Divine and the life that emerges from the mother's womb is profane and natural. Happiness is walking in Zion and embracing your father Abraham. Happiness, for the Jew, is Zionism.
[Second Act: Now, imagine the lights going dark and the music fading away... think of the other, the darker side of Israel as a cold breeze touches your face:]
They came at night. A knock on the door. And then another. There are four of them. One flashed his card. Good evening, Rabbi Kahane, we are from the police. I regret to have to ask you to come with us for a small clarification. What is it about? He smiles: I prefer to speak about it at the station.
It is not new to me. Just the previous week others had come – at midnight. I sat in prison for a week and was suddenly released. No charge. I assume this is one more petty harassment on the part of the government. I take my tefillin on the reasonable charge that I will be held overnight and tell my wife: I will see you soon – don't worry. She will, but not too much – she has seen this many times before.
- The Arab in East Jerusalem is not an Israeli, does not want to be an Israeli, hates Israel, and looks forward to the day of his “liberation”, when all Israel will become “Palestine”. -
It is for saying self-evident truths that I am being arrested and I muse ruefully about the fact that even the weather has turned bitterly cold on this unsmiling holiday. A sudden shift in the weather has brought uncommon rain for the middle of May and the cold wind seems to mirror the feeling in Israel and the country drifts, as a ship without a hand at the rudder.
We arrive at the Russian compound, the main police station. The officer in charge jumps out. I wait patiently, knowing the procedure. I will be taken inside for questioning. As always, I will greet the police – whom I know – and smilingly say: “I have nothing to say concerning any question.” I will be either released or held for 48 hours and brought before a judge. This is the usual procedure. But not this time. Israel has progressed. The officer returns. In his hand he has some paper. He gets in and turns to me. I regret that I must do this in the automobile but I must read to you the following. He proceeds to read: “Under my authority as Minister of Defense and under the administrative detention orders, I hereby order that Meir ben Yechezkel Kahane be held in Jerusalem and Shata prison for a period of six months.” (signed) Ezer Weizman.
That is it. No trial, no judge, no attorney, no charge, no opportunity to defend. I think: This is what the “one democracy in the Middle East” has come to. I remember the little blue and white Jewish National Fund pushka I would put a penny into each day as a child. The dream was to build a Jewish State – someday. I remember the years I gave as a youth to Begin's Zionist youth movement – Betar, and the final words of martyred Jewish underground soldiers going to the gallows under “emergency” laws. I think of how many speeches I have made pleading for Jews to come home – home to Israel. I regret nothing. The dream remains and will be, long after the neo-Hellenists and gentilized Hebrews of today are gone. Weizman is not Israel. He represents all that is foreign and un-Jewish in the land. He will pass but the dream will remain – and be fulfilled.
[Third Act: Now the scenery switches again. Imagine yourself sitting in an auditory, listening intently]
The Rabbi used to give a shiur every Saturday night in the museum of the Potential Holocaust in Jerusalem, usually informal and relaxed talks on the weekly Torah portion with direct implications for everyday life and current events.
His audience was mainly young Americans vacationing in Israel, who had come to hear his message, and one theme that the Rabbi always emphasized was the obligation for Jews to make Aliyah. It was in the spring of 1990 that a young American woman confronted the Rabbi on this issue: “I am studying in Neve Yerushalaim,” she introduced herself. “I do understand the obligation to live in Israel – but I hate the government so much, I couldn't stand it here.”
The Rabbi looked at her in disbelief: “You hate this government?” he echoed her words. Then he continued, giving his famous gentle smile though his voice was as hard as steel: “I've been arrested 68 times – and you hate this government?!”
Even she joined in the general laughter, as the Rabbi hammered his point home: a Jew does not come to Israel because he loves the government, but because he loves the land, and because it is a mitzvah to live in Israel.
[Fourth Act: You are sitting at home in front of your computer, reading all this. From now on, it's in your hands. What will you do? If you haven't made Aliyah yet – will you flee your obligation and bury yourself in the impurity of the exile, because it seems to be the easy way out? If you are already here in Israel – will you curse the secular State and “exile” yourself on a windy hilltop or in a Hareidi ghetto, disengaged from the rest of Am Yisrael because you are “better” than them? Maybe instead, do you feel tired and want give up on idealism, join the rush for blind materialism “like everyone” and just forget about why we are here?
Or will you continue the thorny, grueling path of pushing and pulling Israel from what it is now towards what it is meant to be? A JEWISH State, the beginning of our redemption, Kiddush Hashem?
It's a long way that may need a Referendum or a Revolution, a keyboard for writing or a sword to be drawn, a tent on a hilltop or an office in a Tel Aviv skyscraper. This is your chance - think and do.]
The quotes and excerpts in this compilation were taken from Rabbi Kahane's book “Listen World, Listen Jew” pp. 122 -125, from Rabbi Binyamin Ze'ev Kahane's booklet “Confronting the Holocaust” Chapter “A knock on the door”, and from Lenny Goldberg's “The Wit and Wisdom of Rabbi Meir Kahane” p. 211-212. Compilation and conclusion by Tzipora Liron-Pinner.
“The State of Israel came into being not because the Jew deserved it, but because the gentile did. It came into being not because the Jew was worthy of it but because the Name of G-d had reached its fill of humiliation and desecration. “I do this not for your sake, O House of Israel, but for Mine holy Name's sake which ye have profaned among the nations.”
That is the essence and foundation of foundations. We say Hallel on Yom HaAtzmaut, not because the government or we are worthy of the miracle but because G-d has decided to put an end to Chilul Hashem. The sins and demerits of the Jews who created that State are of absolutely no relevance to its creation. Israel came into being because Israel is the essence and the apex of Kiddush Hashem! Israel is the Jew who hits and is no longer hit. Israel is freedom and not bondage. Israel is living proof of the falsehood that is Christianity [and Islam]. Israel is Kiddush Hashem.
And so, happiness for the Jew is watching the Phantoms zoom past the roofs of Zion and Jewish children shouting and waving at them. It is seeing “Jewish planes” after existing in a world for so many years in which every plane was “theirs”. In a world in which planes spit their deadly bullets into Jews, their swastika markings etched into Jewish souls as they pronounced “Auschwitz” upon us; in a world of planes wearing British bullseyes which guaranteed that a limping refugee ship would be stopped before it could reach the gates of Zion; in a world of planes with crescent and star promising to wipe the budding Jewish community of Eretz Yisroel off the map. But those are days that once were and will never return because today there are Jewish planes, too, and only those who endured the eternity when there was no such thing can understand true happiness and serenity.
Happiness is watching the Jewish army and knowing that the spirit of Zion cannot live without a body and that this army is the guarantor of that body's existence. And happiness is thinking, just for a moment, about what Jews have accomplished in just a few years since they returned home. From thousands to millions of Jews; from ghettos to cities and farms that are all Jewish; from a motley medley of foreign tongues to the resurrection of Hebrew – and how sweet it is to hear the military commands and the most technical of phrases spoken in the tongue of Abraham and the Book of Genesis. Happiness is to walk, on the eve of Independence Day, down King George Street, and have youngsters hit you on the head with the silly, plastic musical hammers that have become a permanent part of the day. Happiness is to thread your way past the incredibly crowded streets where cars are banned for the night and to listen to the music playing over the loudspeakers strung along the streets and the people dancing and laughing. Happiness is watching the non-Jews looking at a Jewish parade in the Jewish capital city of the Jewish State. Happiness is knowing that most of the non-Jewish countries who have consulates and embassies in the City of David boycott the Independence Day parade lest their presence be construed as recognition of the Jewishness of the City – and not giving one solitary hoot whether they show up or not!
Happiness is watching young Jewish children who never knew what it meant to be a minority and never heard the words “zhid” or “kike” or “yahud”. Happiness is knowing that if anyone did call them that, he would find his face attached to the end of a Jewish fist. Happiness is watching the soldiers with beards and yarmulkas showing that mastering the intricacies of a mere sub-machine gun is child's play for a Talmudic scholar.
He who does not believe that the rise of the State of Israel is the hand of G-d is not only a non-believer; he is also blind. If this rebirth of a nation and state and language from the clutching jaws of the seventy wolves is not a miracle, then there are indeed no miracles. If the renaissance of a people in the face of every logic and sanity is not Divine decree then the Spring that brings rejuvenation to the dead earth is not Divine and the life that emerges from the mother's womb is profane and natural. Happiness is walking in Zion and embracing your father Abraham. Happiness, for the Jew, is Zionism.
[Second Act: Now, imagine the lights going dark and the music fading away... think of the other, the darker side of Israel as a cold breeze touches your face:]
They came at night. A knock on the door. And then another. There are four of them. One flashed his card. Good evening, Rabbi Kahane, we are from the police. I regret to have to ask you to come with us for a small clarification. What is it about? He smiles: I prefer to speak about it at the station.
It is not new to me. Just the previous week others had come – at midnight. I sat in prison for a week and was suddenly released. No charge. I assume this is one more petty harassment on the part of the government. I take my tefillin on the reasonable charge that I will be held overnight and tell my wife: I will see you soon – don't worry. She will, but not too much – she has seen this many times before.
- The Arab in East Jerusalem is not an Israeli, does not want to be an Israeli, hates Israel, and looks forward to the day of his “liberation”, when all Israel will become “Palestine”. -
It is for saying self-evident truths that I am being arrested and I muse ruefully about the fact that even the weather has turned bitterly cold on this unsmiling holiday. A sudden shift in the weather has brought uncommon rain for the middle of May and the cold wind seems to mirror the feeling in Israel and the country drifts, as a ship without a hand at the rudder.
We arrive at the Russian compound, the main police station. The officer in charge jumps out. I wait patiently, knowing the procedure. I will be taken inside for questioning. As always, I will greet the police – whom I know – and smilingly say: “I have nothing to say concerning any question.” I will be either released or held for 48 hours and brought before a judge. This is the usual procedure. But not this time. Israel has progressed. The officer returns. In his hand he has some paper. He gets in and turns to me. I regret that I must do this in the automobile but I must read to you the following. He proceeds to read: “Under my authority as Minister of Defense and under the administrative detention orders, I hereby order that Meir ben Yechezkel Kahane be held in Jerusalem and Shata prison for a period of six months.” (signed) Ezer Weizman.
That is it. No trial, no judge, no attorney, no charge, no opportunity to defend. I think: This is what the “one democracy in the Middle East” has come to. I remember the little blue and white Jewish National Fund pushka I would put a penny into each day as a child. The dream was to build a Jewish State – someday. I remember the years I gave as a youth to Begin's Zionist youth movement – Betar, and the final words of martyred Jewish underground soldiers going to the gallows under “emergency” laws. I think of how many speeches I have made pleading for Jews to come home – home to Israel. I regret nothing. The dream remains and will be, long after the neo-Hellenists and gentilized Hebrews of today are gone. Weizman is not Israel. He represents all that is foreign and un-Jewish in the land. He will pass but the dream will remain – and be fulfilled.
[Third Act: Now the scenery switches again. Imagine yourself sitting in an auditory, listening intently]
The Rabbi used to give a shiur every Saturday night in the museum of the Potential Holocaust in Jerusalem, usually informal and relaxed talks on the weekly Torah portion with direct implications for everyday life and current events.
His audience was mainly young Americans vacationing in Israel, who had come to hear his message, and one theme that the Rabbi always emphasized was the obligation for Jews to make Aliyah. It was in the spring of 1990 that a young American woman confronted the Rabbi on this issue: “I am studying in Neve Yerushalaim,” she introduced herself. “I do understand the obligation to live in Israel – but I hate the government so much, I couldn't stand it here.”
The Rabbi looked at her in disbelief: “You hate this government?” he echoed her words. Then he continued, giving his famous gentle smile though his voice was as hard as steel: “I've been arrested 68 times – and you hate this government?!”
Even she joined in the general laughter, as the Rabbi hammered his point home: a Jew does not come to Israel because he loves the government, but because he loves the land, and because it is a mitzvah to live in Israel.
[Fourth Act: You are sitting at home in front of your computer, reading all this. From now on, it's in your hands. What will you do? If you haven't made Aliyah yet – will you flee your obligation and bury yourself in the impurity of the exile, because it seems to be the easy way out? If you are already here in Israel – will you curse the secular State and “exile” yourself on a windy hilltop or in a Hareidi ghetto, disengaged from the rest of Am Yisrael because you are “better” than them? Maybe instead, do you feel tired and want give up on idealism, join the rush for blind materialism “like everyone” and just forget about why we are here?
Or will you continue the thorny, grueling path of pushing and pulling Israel from what it is now towards what it is meant to be? A JEWISH State, the beginning of our redemption, Kiddush Hashem?
It's a long way that may need a Referendum or a Revolution, a keyboard for writing or a sword to be drawn, a tent on a hilltop or an office in a Tel Aviv skyscraper. This is your chance - think and do.]
The quotes and excerpts in this compilation were taken from Rabbi Kahane's book “Listen World, Listen Jew” pp. 122 -125, from Rabbi Binyamin Ze'ev Kahane's booklet “Confronting the Holocaust” Chapter “A knock on the door”, and from Lenny Goldberg's “The Wit and Wisdom of Rabbi Meir Kahane” p. 211-212. Compilation and conclusion by Tzipora Liron-Pinner.
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