Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak (YY) Jacobson introducing President Donald J. Trump,&nbsp;at a luncheon of&nbsp;America First Action,&nbsp;November 12, 2019,&nbsp;at the InterContinental New York Barclay,&nbsp;in Manhattan. The event, organized by Leizer Schiner, brought together American Jewish donors expressing their gratitude to the President for his unique friendship to Israel and the Jewish people.

Program: MC of event was Kivi Bernard. US Anthem by Beri Weber. Invocation by Rabbi Yisroel Reisman. Words of introduction by Rabbi YY Jacobson. Address by President Trump.

Rabbi YY Jacobson Introducing President Trump

America First Action Luncheon for Trump

"Mr. President, G-d Promised the First Jew: I Will Bless Those Who Bless You"

How to Treat Israeli Soldiers.&nbsp;The Terrible Mistake Made by Many Religious Jews

This class was presented by Rabbi YY Jacobson in Tamuz 5777, July 2017, at Ohr Chaim, Monsey, NY.

The Terrible Mistake Made by Many Religious Jews

Hashkafa/Mussar

How to Treat Israeli Soldiers

When faced with a gruesome enemy, there are two approaches: Retreat in fear, or go on the offensive.
But what if the enemy will pursue you wherever you are, so that retreat is ineffective? The only option then, it would seem, would be to take on your enemy and crush it; you’ve got no choice.
However, what if that goes against your entire way of thinking? If it runs contrary to everything you told yourself about the world around you? Then there is only one option left—and it is the most dangerous of all: deny the reality of the enemy; make believe he does not exist.
Two centuries ago, the French tyrant Napoleon Bonaparte was master of Europe. In Spain, an embattled English army under the Duke of Wellington was resisting his advance. One day a young lieutenant came into the British general's tent clutching a map in his trembling hands:
"Look, General the enemy is almost upon us!"
"Young man," the general replied coolly, "Get larger maps, the enemy won't seem so close."
This sums up the current mind set of many of our leaders.
Dismissing Reality
After the Islamic State began releasing videos of American citizens being beheaded, White House senior adviser Valerie Jarrett reportedly told President Barack Obama that Americans were worried that they would soon bring this violence here to the United States. Obama was unfazed.
“They’re not coming here to chop our heads off,”&nbsp;the president promised.
In his&nbsp;2016 State of the Union address, Obama blithely dismissed the Islamic State as “fighters on the back of pickup trucks” who he said “do not threaten our national existence.”
As Marc A. Thiessen explained in a recent Washington Post column, Obama has openly&nbsp;declared&nbsp;that climate change is a much higher priority for him than terrorism because “ISIS is not an existential threat to the United States. Climate change is a potential existential threat to the entire world if we don’t do something about it.” Indeed, According to the Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg, who spent hours interviewing Obama about his foreign policy doctrine, the President “gets frustrated that terrorism keeps swamping his larger agenda” and “his advisers are fighting a constant rearguard action to keep Obama from placing terrorism in what he considers its ‘proper’ perspective, out of concern that he will seem insensitive to the fears of the American people.”
The “proper” perspective. No wonder, Mr. Thiessen points out, the president keeps getting the terrorist threat wrong. No wonder, just before the Islamic State took over large swaths of Iraq,&nbsp;Obama said&nbsp;stopping them was not “something that we have to wade into” because they did not pose “a direct threat to us.” No wonder, the day before the Islamic State carried out its massacre Paris, Obama boasted “we have contained them.” No wonder, the day before the San Bernardino, Calif., massacre, Obama assured Americans they were safe from a Paris-style attack, declaring “The American people should feel confident that, you know, we are going to be able to defend ourselves and make sure that, you know, we have a good holiday and go about our lives.”
Well, on June 12, 2016, 49 Americans in Orlando were busy going about their lives when an Islamic State terrorist murdered them in cold blood. Almost the same numbers of travelers in Turkey were going about their lives this past Tuesday, June 28, 2016, as they were blown to pieces.
The Cancer
Responding to criticism of President Obama’s handling of terrorism, White House press secretary Josh Earnest boasted recently of all the setbacks the Islamic State has experienced in recent months, noting that in Iraq “45 percent of the populated area that ISIL previously controlled has been retaken from them. In Syria, that figure is now 20 percent.”
That’s like a patient who ignored a cancer diagnosis bragging that he finally reduced the tumor in his lung — glossing over the fact that he let it spread and metastasize to his other organs. If he had attacked the Islamic State cancer early, Obama could have stopped it from spreading in the first place. But instead, he&nbsp;dismissed the terrorist group as the “JV team” that was “engaged in various local power struggles and disputes” and did not have “the capacity and reach of a bin Laden” and did not pose “a direct threat to us.” He did nothing, while the cancer grew in Syria and then spread in Iraq. Our leaders did nothing as thousands were slain in the most barbaric ways, as genocide and ethnic cleansing became a fun sport, as thousands of girls were sold as sex slaves.
Now the cancer has spread. Its goal is to sow destruction and death everywhere, from Sydney to Orlando.
According to a recent CNN&nbsp;analysis, since declaring its caliphate in 2014, the Islamic State has carried out more than 90 attacks in 21 countries outside of Iraq and Syria that have killed 1,390 people and injured more than 2,000 others. The Islamic State has a presence in more than a dozen countries and has declared “provinces” in Algeria, Libya, Egypt, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Pakistan and Afghanistan. The Washington Post reported in 2015 that “since the withdrawal of most U.S. and international troops in December, the Islamic State has steadily made inroads in Afghanistan” where it has “poured pepper into the wounds of their enemies . . . seared their hands in vats of boiling oil . . . blindfolded, tortured and blown apart [villagers] with explosives buried underneath them.”
Gun Control Debate
Astoundingly, in the aftermath of the Orlando blood bath, our President and many leaders went back to call for gun control.
Sure, anyone with a questionable background and possible link to terror groups and a Jihadist inclination should never be allowed to purchase a weapon. That is common sense. That law should be implemented immediately. But to see the core of the issue as gun control would be akin to saying that the key solution to defeating Nazi Germany in 1945 was to avoid selling guns in Europe to anyone who wanted to own them.
There are 1.6 billion Muslims in the world. FYI, Mohammed is the most popular name for a child today on our planet. If we are to assume that the large majority of them are peaceful citizens, and only a very small fraction, say five percent of Muslims, believe in Jihad, we have on earth today 80 million (!) people who are ready to do what the Jihadist in Orlando did!
That is 80 million who are ready to die so that all “infidels” die!
And even if you are a staunch optimist and claim that only one percent of Muslims embrace Jihad, that is an awful 16 million—more than the entire Jewish nation.
And what if the number is higher than five percent?
Does nobody get this?
“Radical Islam”
Tuesday, June 14, 2016, President Obama, explaining why he doesn’t use the phrase “radical Islam,” asked the question, “What exactly would using this label accomplish? What exactly would it change?”&nbsp;
The question itself indicates the mess we are in. As Ed Rogers put it in a recent essay, the difference is that calling these terrorists what they are — radical Islamists — would be reassuring to those Americans who have doubts about Obama’s proficiency as commander in chief. After all, he is the one who used the term “jayvee team” to describe the Islamic State. He is the one who declared Iraq “sovereign, stable and self-reliant.” He is the one who took six years to declare the Ft. Hood shooting a terrorist attack and not an incident of “workplace violence.”
Using the phrase “radical Islam” isn’t about trying to make the Islamic State “less committed to trying to kill Americans.” Mr. President, it is not about the Islamic State, it’s about you. Your specific refusal to use the term rattles Americans and increases doubts about your grasp of the threat that the Islamic State presents. &nbsp;
Some people like to boast that our Nobel Peace Prize-winning president ended two wars. The fact is, this president has neither won nor ended any wars. At the end of his eight years in office, the United States will be facing more grinding conflicts than existed when he won the presidency.
When it came to terrorist networks, the George W. Bush administration had a mantra: We’re going to fight them over there so that we do not have to face them here at home. Obama abandoned that mantra. And now the danger is getting closer to home with each passing day.
The enemy is ruthless and cruel—a throwback to the 7th century. The greatest crisis today is not ISIS; it is a lack of leadership to confront it, or even demonstrate that it understands what we are dealing with.
At such times, what the world needs is resolute and confident leadership. We need leaders who can name the enemy, who can articulate the evil facing us, and then go ahead to vanquish it. Sadly, we got neither.
Imagine if in 1945, Roosevelt and Churchill would declare that the most serious issue facing humanity was global warming. We would deem them insane. Well, today, we have young Islamists blowing themselves up around the world every week, killing and maiming thousands upon thousands of innocents; we have ISIS operatives everywhere, and our leaders are out for lunch. Do they really not realize the depth of cruelty, barbarity, and hatred we are facing?
It baffles me why is it that as ISIS paraded down public highways in Iraq, with thousands of fighters cheering and dancing we did not bomb them and finish them off? Why did we allow--and we still allow--this most vicious cancer to enjoy the time and freedom to grow and spread around the world? &nbsp;&nbsp;
The Spies
In this week’s Torah portion, ten of the spies whom Moses had sent to spy out the land came back with a report calculated to demoralize the nation.
“We came to the land to which you sent us. It flows with milk and honey, and this is its fruit. However, the people who dwell in the land are strong, and the cities are fortified and very large ... We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we are ... The land, through which we have gone to spy it out, is a land that devours its inhabitants, and all the people that we saw in it are of great height ... We seemed to ourselves like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them.” (Numbers 13: 27-33)
How could they say such nonsense? They had left Egypt, the greatest empire of the ancient world, after a series of plagues that brought that great country to its knees. They crossed the sea that split. They stood at Sinai. They ate the manna.
But they were struck by fear—and this is the nature of fear. When you are afraid of something, it often becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Those who say, “We cannot do it” are probably right, as are those who say, “We can.” If you lack confidence you will lose. If you have it – solid, justified confidence based on preparation and past performance – you will win.
In every generation, we need the leaders who will fearlessly define the enemy, and then fearlessly advance to defeat it.

Our Greatest Crisis Is Not ISIS, But Our Denial of It

ISIS, Obama and the Spies

Moses' Profile

As terror continues to threaten&nbsp;our brothers and sisters in Israel, let us turn to the greatest leader of the Jewish people, Moses, for a genuine road map toward peace and liberation.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 

The Hebrew Bible shares only three incidents about Moses' life prior to G-d choosing him as a leader and prophet (Exodus Chapter 2, this week's portion): 
 
1) As a young man, Moses goes out among his brethren and sees an Egyptian overseer brutally beating a Hebrew. He strikes down the oppressor, burying him in the sand.&nbsp; 
 
2) The next day, Moses attempts to bring peace between two Hebrews who are fighting, but the aggressor is indignant and says, "Who appointed you as a prince and leader over us? Do you mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?" Realizing that his intervention the previous day had already become known, Moses escapes from Egypt and finds refuge in Midian.&nbsp; 
 
3) In Midian, Moses probably wants nothing more than peace and tranquility. Instead, he finds himself embroiled in yet another conflict. He witnesses the local shepherds bullying a group of girls who were first in line to draw water from a well. He immediately rises to their defense, driving off the offending shepherds. 
 
These are the only episodes we know about Moses (besides the circumstances of his birth) prior to his selection by G-d as a leader, because they express a paradigm indispensable to leadership: A leader must have the courage to battle injustice wherever it exists. In all three instances, Moses is deeply committed to fighting injustice. He intervenes when a non-Jew oppresses a Jew, when two Jews fight, and when non-Jewish men oppress non-Jewish women. When it is necessary to kill, he is willing to kill. When it is sufficient to talk he is ready to talk; when it is necessary to fight, he is prepared to fight. One who rejects the choice of aggression out of a sense of compassion may be a kind human being but a wholly inadequate leader, because the long-term results of a failure to battle evil are far worse. 

Politically Incorrect

In modern terms, Moses is politically incorrect. He does not lecture the Egyptian taskmaster about "the cycle of violence" or give him a lesson on "rage management." Moses knows that by the time he will complete his lecture the Hebrew slave might be dead. Moses is aware that at times, violence is a moral, though difficult, choice. It saves the lives of the innocent. 
 
Prohibiting moral killing, guarantees immoral killing. It is violence used by police that stops violent criminals from murdering and hurting innocent people. There are many innocent men and women alive today solely because someone used violence to save their lives. If someone had killed the hijackers of 9/11 before they commandeered the planes, thousands of lives would have been saved. If Someone killed the Hamas terrorists before October 7th 2023, thousands would be saved.

Gandhi's Advice

Throughout history, many chose not to emulate Moses' example. During the Second World War, for example, when it appeared that Nazi Germany will attempt to capture England, Mahatma Gandhi offered the British the following advice: 
 
"I would like you to lay down the arms you have which are useless for saving you or humanity. You will invite Herr Hitler and Signor Mussolini to take what they want of the countries you call your possessions. Let them take possession... If these gentlemen choose to occupy your homes, you will vacate them. If they do not give you free passage out, you will allow yourself, man, woman and child, to be slaughtered, but you will refuse to owe allegiance to them." 
 
To the Jews of Germany Gandhi offered a similar message: 
 
"I am as certain as I am dictating these words that the stoniest German heart will melt [if the Jews] adopt active non-violence. Human nature ... unfailingly responds to the advances of love. I do not despair of his [Hitler's] responding to human suffering even though caused by him." Had Gandhi convinced the English to lay down their arms and practice non-violence, the Jewish people would have been annihilated, democracy and human rights would have disappeared, and the world would have been plunged into a new Dark Age of unimaginable cruelty. War, while always unfortunate and painful, is not always evil; sometimes, fighting a war is the most moral thing to do. 
 
Astonishingly, the nation that Moses created -- Israel -- has in recent years emulated Gandhi rather than Moses. With the Oslo accords, we invited our sworn enemies to take parts of our homeland in the belief that they would reciprocate with peace and good will. Instead of declaring outright war against the terrorists and their infrastructure, we chose to practice restraint and non-violent diplomacy. Many of us believed then, and some&nbsp;Jews still believe, that the stoniest terrorist heart will melt in response to our peaceful advances. 

Chamberlain and Churchill

In 1938, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain appeased Adolf Hitler, by allowing the German Fuhrer to occupy the Sudetenland for a mere promise of peace. Chamberlain then returned to England and announced that he had brought "Peace in our time."&nbsp;Winston Churchill denounced him as a naive appeaser who believed that he could buy Hitler's good will by giving in to his immoral demands. "You were given a choice between war and dishonor. You chose dishonor and you will have war."&nbsp; 
 
Sadly, the same has transpired with Israel. By relinquishing parts of our homeland, Israel chose dishonor. In return, Israel received war. Today we are in the midst of the worst bloodletting in Israeli history. The relentless terror is a direct result of the tragic policy that believes in appeasing terrorists and not destroying them. Appeasement is suicidal for the innocent and ensures victory for the evil. 
 
The terror war on Israel, like World War II, is a war against the Jews. Losing is catastrophic. Losing is not an option. This is no time for appeasement or restraint. This is a time for righteous might. 
 
The prophets of Israel were the first to conceive of peace as an ideal. Isaiah gave voice to the great words engraved in the imagination of the West: "Nation shall not lift up sword against Nation; neither shall they learn war anymore."&nbsp;But the way to hasten Isaiah's vision is to fight evil, not allow it to flourish. At another time when the Jews needed to forcefully confront their enemies, the prophet Joel declared, "Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruning hooks into spears." The use of moral violence must always be the last resort. But when all other attempts fail, righteous might is the only response to immoral violence.

Rabbi Dov Greenberg is the director of Chabad at Stanford University

Moses Vs. Gandhi 

Essay on Israel & Its Neighbors

A Road-Map to Peace in Israel

President Barack Obama may genuinely believe that the Iran nuclear agreement will foster world peace and stop Iran from getting the bomb.
Perhaps he is right; perhaps he is wrong. But if he is making an error, the effects for him are not the same as the consequences for the Jewish people.
A few months ago, President Obama met a number of American Jewish leaders concerning the Iran deal. One of the people present at the White House meeting shared with me the following day that the President remarked: &ldquo;If Iran attacks Israel, we will defend it.&rdquo;
To which this Jew responded: &ldquo;But that initial attack might claim 700,000 Jewish lives. We can&rsquo;t afford that.&rdquo;
In 1938, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain went to Munich to negotiate with Adolf Hitler. He left believing Hitler&rsquo;s promise of peace in exchange for Germany being allowed to annex large parts of Czechoslovakia. Chamberlain returned to England and announced that he had brought "Peace in our time." Winston Churchill denounced him as a naive appeaser who believed that he could buy Hitler's good will by giving in to his immoral demands: "You were given a choice between war and dishonor. You chose dishonor and you will have war."
Today, people mock Chamberlain. But might we not be making the same error?
Many maintain that the agreement with Iran is good as it has the capacity to bring Iran into &ldquo;the community of nations.&rdquo; We will no more isolate Iran and will thus be able to influence the Republic to be more peaceful and logical.
If only. The entire state apparatus of the Islamic Republic, from the Revolutionary Guards to the supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei, genuinely believe that G-d craves &ldquo;Death to America,&rdquo; as they have been chanting for decades. The Iranian regime is composed of religious fanatics with similar ideologies to ISIS, al-Qaida, Boko Haram and all the other mass-murdering Islamist movements, for whom human life means absolutely nothing.
We are about to award Iran $150 billion in currently frozen assets, plus the right to keep its nuclear program. Would we do this for ISIS? Would we do this is Iran was just at our border? And Iran is far more dangerous than ISIS. Iran openly calls for genocide, for wiping out six million Jews living in Israel from the map. Its Supreme Leader said a few weeks ago that the destruction of Israel is non-negotiable. No other country in the world is committed to annihilating another country, besides Iran. In Iran you have mass demonstrations, with the participation of its leaders, chanting &ldquo;death to America&rdquo;! Iran is the world&rsquo;s greatest funder of terror organizations. Iran funds and directs the Lebanese terror organization Hezbollah, the most powerful military organization in Lebanon. Iran is the major funder of Hamas, which plans on a daily basis the destruction of Israel. Would we give 150 billion to Hamas?
Trust Your Enemy
Our people endured a long and tumultuous history &ndash; perhaps longer than any other People. If there&rsquo;s one thing that we have learned over the past 4000 years it is this: When a regime or a leader pledges to wipe the Jews off the face of the earth, we should take them seriously. We have been here before.
Within days of signing this agreement, Iran&rsquo;s Supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei couldn&rsquo;t help himself and strongly reiterated Iran&rsquo;s mission to annihilate Israel. Just four days after the deal was announced, Iran&rsquo;s Supreme Leader declared: &ldquo;Whether the deal is approved or disapproved, we will never stop supporting our friends in the region and the people of Palestine, Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Bahrain and Lebanon. Even after this deal our policy towards the arrogant US will not change.&rdquo;
Logically he should have waited a few months, till the money started flowing in. But the hate Iran has to Israel is so profound and runs so deep, that it could not be contained even as the world agreed to remove the sanctions.
Should we trust Iran? Of course! Trust Iran when it declares: &ldquo;The Holocaust is an event whose reality is uncertain.&rdquo;
Trust Iran, when it states: &ldquo;The cancerous tumor called Israel must be uprooted from the region.&rdquo;
Trust Iran when it proclaims: &ldquo;The foundation of the Islamic regime is opposition to Israel and&hellip;the elimination of Israel from the region.&rdquo;
Trust Iran as the world refused to trust last century&rsquo;s Nazi propaganda machine.
The negotiations and deal never required the Iranian leadership to halt its relentless incitement for the destruction of the United States and Israel. Yes, one has to negotiate with one&rsquo;s enemies. But that is with enemies who demonstrate some good will; not with enemies who continue to seek your demise and will use your money and appeasement to achieve that goal. Even as the talks proceeded, and since they were concluded, the poisonous rhetoric &mdash; rhetoric with inevitable violent consequence &mdash; has continued unabated.
The negotiations never stipulated that Iran cease its encouragement, training and arming of terrorist organizations such as Hamas and Hezbollah. Iran promised all of this will continue.
What If?
Since 1945, when the horrors of the Holocaust became known, many good people&mdash;non-Jews and Jews alike&mdash;asked themselves, &ldquo;what if?&rdquo; What if we would have taken Hitler&rsquo;s &ldquo;Mein Kampf&rdquo; seriously? What if we would have believed him? What if we would have done more to stop him?
The people who could have done more to prevent the Holocaust died with guilt, but they could claim ignorance. We aren&rsquo;t going to have that excuse. We can&rsquo;t afford to sit around in twenty years and ask: What if we had taken Iran seriously?
If there&rsquo;s another thing that we&rsquo;ve learned over the past millennia it is that we Jews tend to agree about almost nothing. The U.S. has 50 states and 2 parties; Israel is 1 state with 50 parties. And yet, on this issue &ndash; and I can&rsquo;t recall another one like it &ndash; there is unanimous consensus among each and every Jewish party in the Knesset, from the left to the right. This is not about Netanyahu. This is not about oil or money. The People who stand to lose the most stand united in asking the US leadership not to aid, reward and embolden the enemy.
The Deal
The President maintains that even if Iran will not change, the deal will do the job. It will prevent Iran from getting the bomb.
I fail to see how.
Inspections? As Charles Krauthammer put in in a recent Washington Post article: &ldquo;Everyone now knows that &ldquo;anytime, anywhere&rdquo; &mdash; indispensable for a clandestine program in a country twice the size of Texas with a long history of hiding and cheating &mdash; has been changed to &ldquo;You&rsquo;ve got 24 days and then we&rsquo;re coming in for a surprise visit.&rdquo; New York restaurants, observed Jackie Mason, &ldquo;get more intrusive inspections than the Iranian nuclear program.&rdquo;
The only type of inspection that matters is &ldquo;anytime, anywhere;&rdquo; but that does not exist. If the International Atomic Energy Agency suspects cheating, it gives Iran up to a 24-day notice. What is more, the United States is prohibited from ever sending in its own inspectors.
Plus, no military sites can ever be inspected. Iran can establish or move nuclear facilities to whatever area it wishes and label those areas &ldquo;military.&rdquo;
Which brings us to Wednesday&rsquo;s Associated Press report that one of the side deals reached between Iran and the UN&rsquo;s International Atomic Energy Agency provides for Iran to carry out its own inspection work at the Parchin military facility where the IAEA has long alleged it experimented with high-explosive detonators for nuclear arms. This is beyond absurd. As David Horowitz put it, &ldquo;It&rsquo;s akin to having Bernie Madoff scrutinize his own business practices, or Tour de France cyclists conduct their own doping tests&hellip; except it has global life-and-death implications.&rdquo;
Why did Obama not share this with the American People? Olli Heinonen, who was in charge of the Iran probe as deputy IAEA director general from 2005 to 2010, told the AP on Wednesday he could recall no previous instance where a country being probed for nuclear wrongdoing was allowed to conduct its own investigation.
Even if one believes the agreement to be effective, it does little or nothing to prevent Iran from making nuclear weapons in 10 years.
During his speech a few weeks at the American University, the President said: &ldquo;There will be 24/7 monitoring of Iran&rsquo;s key nuclear facilities.&rdquo; He left out one detail. There is no 24/7 monitoring of anything Iran doesn&rsquo;t want monitored 24/7 and no monitoring at all of any facility Iran labels &ldquo;military.&rdquo;
Alexander the Great reportedly once said, &ldquo;I am not afraid of an army of sheep led by a lion; I am afraid of an army of lions led by a sheep.&rdquo;&nbsp; We are a nation of lions, but it feels like we are being led by sheep.
A Time To Act
This is a moment that calls on every one of us, particularly people of influence, to contact our representatives in Congress, and ask them to, in the words of the President at his American University speech, &ldquo;leave behind a world that is more secure and more peaceful for our children.&rdquo; Ask them to trust Iran.
Churchill once said, &ldquo;An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.&rdquo;
&ldquo;The Guardian of Israel will neither slumber nor sleep,&rdquo; said the Psalmist. But we must do our part to deny the crocodile the freedom and money to prepare his next feast.

A Op-ed outlining the details and the consequences of the Iran Nuclear deal.

Reflections on the Iran nuclear agreement 

I Also Trust Iran

Live Radio show on the Nachum Segal Network on February 28, 2015.

On Purim, Obama, and Anti-Semitism

Netanyahu's Address to US Congress on Iran

The history of Islam and Judaism. Can we ever live in peace? A "Two State Solution" -- Is It a Solution? 

Is A Palestinian State the Solution tot he Conflict?  

Islam & the Jews 

Israel&rsquo;s Greatest Mistake - Israel Repeated the Same Error Six Times. Will It Act Differently This Time?

Israel Repeated the Same Error Six Times. Will It Act Differently This Time?

Essay on Israel and Hamas

Israel’s Greatest Mistake

A Leader Speaks

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech before a joint session of Congress on Tuesday March 3, was powerful and enthusiastically received. It exemplified leadership in a way that Americans have not seen for years. The elected leadership of the US conspicuously displayed their awesome delight from the speech; somehow it restored their own dignity and faith in the role of America today. As a result of the Jewish Prime Minister of a tiny country speaking his mind with unwavering resolve, moral clarity and historical dignity, all those present in the gallery felt better about themselves and their own duties in a confused and bloody world.

It is one of the most important lessons of the event—one that constitutes a major theme in the holiday of Purim we celebrate today.

The Case for Genocide

In the biblical book of Esther, Haman, the viceroy and second in command in the large and powerful Persian Empire, and whose defeat we celebrate on the holiday of Purim (this year Thursday, March 21), makes a short but powerful presentation to the Persian king, Ahasuerus, attempting to persuade him to embrace his plan of Jewish genocide.

"There is a certain people," Haman says to Ahasuerus (1), "scattered abroad and dispersed among the peoples in all the provinces of your realm. Their laws are different from all the other nations, and they do not observe the King's laws. Therefore it is not befitting the King to tolerate them. If it pleases the king, let it be recorded that they be destroyed, and I will pay ten thousand silver talents… for deposit in the King's treasuries."

Haman's argument is straightforward and clear: Jews are different. They are alien, outsiders, an obstruction to normal society. They don't fit into the rest of the human family. They have their own faith and their own laws, which they feel are superior to the king's laws. They are a nuisance, a thereat, a growth in an otherwise harmonious and integrated society. They ought to be disposed of.

The Talmud (2) records an oral tradition describing Haman's presentation in some more detail. "They don't eat from our food," Haman lamented to Ahasuerus; “they do not marry our women, and they do not marry their women to us (ironically, at this point they were both unaware that the King's wife was Jewish). They waste the whole year, avoiding the King's work, with the excuse: Today is the Sabbath, or today is Passover."

Haman also discusses bad Jewish habits: "They eat, they drink and they mock the throne. Even if a fly falls in a glass of wine of one of them, he casts away the fly and drinks the wine. But if my master, the King, touches a glass of wine of one of them, that person throws it to the ground and does not drink it (3)."

The Jews, Haman argues, see themselves as superior to us; they will forever stand out. They are a threat to the throne. Who needs them?

Repeating Haman's Words

Some six centuries after Haman, these same words are repeated by Philostratus, a third-century teacher and resident of Athens and Rome, who summarizes the pagan world's perception of the Jews.

"The Jews," Philostratus wrote, "have long been in revolt not only against the Romans, but against humanity; and a race that has made its own life apart and irreconcilable, that cannot share with the rest of mankind in the pleasures of the table, nor join in their libations or prayers or sacrifices, are separated from ourselves by a greater gulf than divides us from Sura or Bactra of the more distant Indies (4)."

The same argument, in one form or another, would be repeated thousands of times throughout history. The greatest Roman historian, Tacitus, living in the first century CE, had this to say about the Jews: "The Jews regard as profane all that we hold sacred; on the other hand, they permit all that which we abhor… toward every other people they feel only hate and enmity, they sit apart at meals and they sleep apart, and although as a race they are prone to lust, they abstain from intercourse with foreign women."

One example he mentions to describe the moral conflicts between the Romans and the Jews is worthy of note. "The Jews," Tacitus writes, "regard it as a crime to kill any newborn infant." The Romans, as the Greeks before them, killed mentally and physically handicapped infants. In their minds, keeping such children alive was pointless and unaesthetic (5).&nbsp;

First Lady Intervenes

Back to the Haman story of Purim. The viceroy's arguments persuade the King. A decree is issued from the Persian throne. Every Jewish man, woman and child living under Persian dominance would be exterminated on a particular date. Then, in a delightful turn of events, the First Lady, the Jewish queen Esther, invites her husband and Haman to a drinking feast

&nbsp;As we recall, Esther, from all the thousands of young women who were brought from across the Empire as potential candidates for the role of queen, succeeded in gaining the affection and grace of the King. "The King loved Esther more than all the women, and she won more of his favor and grace than all other women; he set the royal crown upon her head (6)."

Years later, during this wine feast, the King makes a pledge to Esther that he would fulfill every request and petition. She utilizes the opportunity to make the fateful pitch.

"If I have won Your Majesty's favor and if it pleases the King," Esther tells Ahasuerus (7), "let my life be granted to me as my request and my people as my petition. For we — I and my people — have been sold to be destroyed, slain and exterminated. Had we been sold as slaves and servant-girls, I would have kept quiet. The compensation our adversary [Haman] offers cannot be compared with the loss the king would suffer [by exterminating us, rather than selling us as slaves]."

Clearly, Esther is attempting to approach the issue from two sides, a personal one and an economical one. First, she exposes her Jewish identity. The queen is a memer of the people condemned to death. Esther knows, however, that this alone may not do the trick, so she continues to discuss dollars and cents (Haman too, as recorded above, used a two-point approach in persuading the King: logic and money). By selling the Jews as slaves, Esther argued, Ahasuerus would be profiting far more than by exterminating them. The money Haman offered him is miniscule vs. the potential profit from their sale into slavery.

The King, who never realized that Esther was Jewish, is outraged at Haman. He has his minister executed and his decree subverted. In subsequent conversations with Esther, Ahasuerus grants the Jews the right to self-defense against anybody who would dare to harm them. The entire climate in the Persian Empire toward the Jew is radically transformed. Esther's first cousin, a Jewish sage, Mordechai, is appointed viceroy, replacing Haman.

Yet, one question remains. Haman did not argue the case for Jewish extermination on the basis of senseless venomous passion. He presented what was to the King a sound and persuasive argument. The Jews, Haman argued, were an alien growth, a bizarre people, a separatist nation that would not accept the King's ultimate authority and even considered their law superior to the King's. A leader could not tolerate such a "superior group" in his empire.

This is a strong accusation. The King accepts it and as a result issues a decree demanding his subjects dispose of all the Jews — men, women and children. Yet nowhere in her entire dialogue with the King does Esther refute this argument. Why did Ahasuerus consent to the abolishment of his original plan if he believed Haman's outcry to be valid?

One might argue that Esther's charm and grace were the exclusive factors for the King's change of heart. Yet, as proved above, it is clear that Esther does not rely on this alone. That is why she presents a logical argument for slavery vs. genocide. She refutes the economic offer made by Haman by demonstrating that the king would lose money. How, then, could she ignore the powerful argument of Haman advocating a "Judenrein" society?

When False Notions Face Reality

Some questions are canceled out via answers; some arguments refuted by counter-arguments. But there are those beliefs or notions that require neither debate nor dialogue to disprove them. Reality does the job. When reality is exposed, they dissolve into nothingness. Haman's argument fell into this category. Esther responded to Haman's argument for Jewish genocide not by dialogue, but by her sheer presence.

The moment she identified herself as a member of the Jewish people and as a product of the Jewish faith, Haman's previously attractive "thesis" vanished. Ahasuerus knew Esther intimately. She was his wife. He sensed her soul, he touched her grace, he cherished her personality. He adored her body, her glow, her charm, and would do almost anything for her (as he explicitly told her). He knew that Esther's character and values were noble, dignified and pure. He chose her from thousands upon thousands of young women, all of them not Jewish. Yet the king never realized that she was Jewish—a daughter of the Jewish people and a product of the Jewish faith.

When Ahasuerus suddenly discovered that she was a proud member of the Jewish people, an adherent of the Jewish faith, he immediately realized the falsehood of Haman’s arguments—not through dialogue and debate, but there Esther’s very living presence. Esther’s day-to-day life demonstrated, louder than any argument could achieve, the absurdity of Haman’s arguments that the Jews threatened society. Looking at Esther, seeing her refinement and inner beauty, the King understood that this alien Nation who lived by another code, ought not to be loathed, but respected. They may be very different, but it is an otherness that elevates other nations rather than threatens them. (Leo Tolstoy wrote: "The Jew is that sacred being who has brought down from heaven the everlasting fire, and has illuminated with it the entire world (8).")

The Jew may be very different, but it is this "otherness" that has the power to inspire all of the nations of the world to live and love deeper, to encounter their individual path to G-d.

When the Persian King learnt that the royalty of Esther was a symptom of her Jewishness, he did not need to hear anything more. He got it. The last thing he needs to worry about is the Jewish people and their faith. If anything, they will prove to become the greatest blessing for his Empire. The decree was annulled.

Should We Hide?

The lesson for our times is clear. Sometimes Jews think that by hiding the “otherness” of Judaism and the Jewish people they will gain the approval of the world. Yet the facts prove otherwise: Assimilation, the eclipsing the otherness of the Jewish people, has never assuaged anti-Semitism. Tradition tells us (9) that the Jews of Shushan (the capital of the Persian Empire at the time of the Purim story) were quite assimilated. Yet, this did not deter the Persian viceroy and king from believing that despite all of the Jews' compromises and attempts not to be "too Jewish," they were still strange, distinct and different. This pattern has repeated itself in every milieu since. Never in history, has assimilation solved the problem of Jew hatred. Jews in Germany were the most assimilated and integrated in mainstream society, yet it was in that very country where the worst Jew hatred in history sprouted.

Scores of great non-Jewish thinkers, sympathetic to Jews as well as to anti-Semites, saw in Jews and Judaism something different, bizarre and extraordinary. In Tolstoy's letter above he continues:

"The Jew is the religious source, spring and fountain out of which all the rest of the peoples have drawn their beliefs and their religions." John Adams wrote that "the Hebrews have done more to civilize men than any other nation (8)." Friedrich Nietzsche, on the other hand, believed that the Jews introduced to the world the "slave virtues" like "pity, the kind and helping hand, the warm heart, patience, industriousness, humility, friendliness," designated "for the weak and envious (10)."

Hitler blamed the Jews for inventing the life-denying reality called conscience. Today, many academics and laymen believe that the Jews are responsible for the great conflict in today’s world.&nbsp;&nbsp; As much as we attempt to run from our identity as Jews, the non-Jewish world reminds us of who we are and where we came from. The non-Jew senses that since the day the Jew stood at Sinai, he or she has been different.

The solution for the Jewish people is therefore not to deny its otherness. That will never work. Rather, the Jew ought to embrace his or her Jewishness, and just like Esther, be proud with the lifestyle and moral ethic of Torah. When we learn how to embrace our otherness with love and grace, rather than with shame and guilt, it will become a source of admiration and inspiration for all of humanity.

Just like Esther, the presence of a Jew who is permeated by the love and dignity of Torah and Mitzvos—speaks for itself. The grace of a true Torah Jew, the integrity, the innocence, the discipline, the modesty, the moral code, the sensitivity to all that is noble and dignified in life, the love for man and G-d which Torah inculcates in the Jew—all these refute the argument of Haman more than debate can ever hope to achieve.

The great Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin once remarked:&nbsp;"If a Jew doesn't make Kiddush (to sanctify himself by maintaining a distinctly Jewish lifestyle), then the non-Jew will make Havdalah for him (by making the Jew realize he is truly different)."

Israel, for example, will never succeed portraying itself to the world as “a regular country.” Its choice is either to run from its destiny or to embrace it, and thus become a source of pride for the entire world.

Craving for Clarity

In this sense, Netanyahu’s address to Congress was a mesmerizing tour-de-force. The Prime Minister made only one mistake. He completed his speech with these words: “Before the people of Israel entered the land of Israel, Moses gave us a message that has steeled our resolve for thousands of years. I leave you with his message today: “Chizku ve'imtzu, al tiru ve'al te'artzu m'pneihem,” “Be strong and resolute, neither fear nor dread them” (Deuteronomy 36:6). The Prime Minister received a strong applause.&nbsp;

Netanyahu should have added the conclusion of the verse: “ki A-donay Elokeycha hu haholech imach lo yarpecha velo yaazveka,” “because G-d your Lord is the One who is going with you, and He will not fail you or forsake you.” Had he included with that verse, his impact would have been double fold and the applause&nbsp;thundering. America is a faith-based country; its founding fathers were inspired by the Hebrew Bible. As much as the US leaders cherished every word that came out of the Prime Minister’s mouth, they would have been deeply effected by a Jew who would inspire in them the core and root of American values and its resolve to protect innocent people everywhere from opression and murder. They would have been comforted &nbsp;by a Jewish leader expressing what lay in each of their hearts. Netanyahu himself did not realize how much more power and admiration he would have gained had he spoke as an ambassador of the people who had carried for millennia the torch of G-d, a G-d who cares first and foremost about how we treat each other. &nbsp;&nbsp;

The world admires Jews who admire their heritage and faith. The free world is craving for this type of Jewish leadership—one that can allow humanity to unite with passion and resolve around a G-d that inspires life, liberty and happiness, rather than a god who evokes death, oppression and misery. <a href="javascript: void(0);" id="_edn11" onclick="ty.scrollTo('_ednref11')">[11]</a>

&nbsp;

<a href="javascript: void(0);" id="_ednref1" onclick="ty.scrollTo('_edn1');">[1]</a> Esther 3:8.

<a href="javascript: void(0);" id="_ednref2" onclick="ty.scrollTo('_edn2');">[2]</a> Megilah 13b.

<a href="javascript: void(0);" id="_ednref3" onclick="ty.scrollTo('_edn3');">[3]</a> Wine poured in idolatrous service is according to Torah law forbidden to the Jew. The rabbis decreed that wine touched or poured by an idolator, even if not in service to his deity, be prohibited for a Jew to drink (See Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh Deah 123:1).

<a href="javascript: void(0);" id="_ednref4" onclick="ty.scrollTo('_edn4');">[4]</a> Quoted in Why The Jews? (By Dennis Prager and Joseph Telushkin, NY, 1983) p. 83.

<a href="javascript: void(0);" id="_ednref5" onclick="ty.scrollTo('_edn5');">[5]</a> Ibid. pp. 86-88.

<a href="javascript: void(0);" id="_ednref6" onclick="ty.scrollTo('_edn6');">[6]</a> Esther 3:17.

<a href="javascript: void(0);" id="_ednref7" onclick="ty.scrollTo('_edn7');">[7]</a> Ibid. 7:3-4. The translation of the last clause of the verse follows Rashi's interpretation.

<a href="javascript: void(0);" id="_ednref8" onclick="ty.scrollTo('_edn8');">[8]</a> Quoted in Radican Then, Radical Now (Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, London 2000) p. 3 with reference noted there.

<a href="javascript: void(0);" id="_ednref9" onclick="ty.scrollTo('_edn9');">[9]</a> See Talmud Meggilah 12a; Shir Hashirim Rabah 7:8. Introduction to Manos Halevi. Sicah, Purim 1941.

<a href="javascript: void(0);" id="_ednref10" onclick="ty.scrollTo('_edn10');">[10]</a> Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil (Harmondsworth, 1978) p. 178.

<a href="javascript: void(0);" id="_ednref11" onclick="ty.scrollTo('_edn11')">[11]</a> This essay is based on a talk delivered by the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Purim 5729, March 4, 1969, published in Sichos Kodesh 5729 vol. 1 pp. 401-414.

How Do We Prove that Judaism Is Not Racist? Why Did Esther Not Refute Haman&rsquo;s Accusations against the Jews?

The Free World Is Craving Moral Leadership

Netanyahu Made One Mistake

President Obama’s eulogy at the funeral of Israeli President Shimon Peres, who died on Wednesday, Sep. 28, 2016 at the age of 93, was exceptionally moving, profound and visionary. It was probably one of the better speeches he has given during his presidency. It also demonstrated the positive impact this Jewish leader had on so many world leaders and personalities.

Shimon Peres dedicated his life to the Jewish homeland and was totally committed to the future of his people. For more than seven decades, Peres worked tirelessly to build Israel's military into the powerhouse it is today and to enhance the country in endless ways. One of the most daring and courageous acts of Israel, the rescue of the Jewish hostages in Entebbe in July 1976, is credited largely to Peres, as well as Israel obtaining nuclear power.

The renowned Israeli novelist Amos Oz, during his eulogy, reminded the audience that Peres was mocked for his grand visions of peace and reconciliation. People called him “a dreamer.” Yet Amos Oz compared him to Joseph, who is called in Genesis the “master of dreams,” and whose dreams caused him to save Egypt from devastation. &nbsp;

And that is why it is also important to state, with full respect, where Shimon Peres, of blessed memory, made a mistake. His intentions might have been pure, his dreams grand, but the results were devastating. Peres truly dreamt, as he put it, "of a new Middle East" and took some serious risks to create that Middle East. But it backfired tragically. The Oslo Accords and the Gaza withdrawal will go down as the most irrational decisions of a modern-day government based on delusional faith that someone who screams at every opportunity that he craves to murder all of your children will be transformed if you invite him into your bedroom. Joseph's dreams brought life to the young family of Israel; the dream of Oslo created rivers of blood and tears.

As we recall the legacy of this great man and his extraordinary achievements, it is vital to learn from his errors, even if made with the best intentions and by a man whose many positive contributions to Israel are beyond dispute.&nbsp;

Telling Time

Let me begin, on a lighter note, with this anecdote.

Two elderly Jews, who haven't seen each other in 50 years, meet, slowly recognize one another and embrace. They go back to one of their apartments to talk about the days long ago. 
The conversation continues for hours. Night falls. One asks the other, "Look at your watch. What time is it?" 
"I don't have a watch," says the second. 
"Then look at the clock." 
"I don't have a clock." 
"Then how do you tell the time?" 
"You see that trumpet in the corner?" said the man. "That's how I tell the time." 
"You're crazy," says the first. "How can you tell the time with a trumpet?" 
"I'll show you," said the other man, picking up the trumpet and blowing a deafening blast out the open window. 
Thirty seconds later, an angry neighbor shouts, "Two thirty in the morning, and you're playing the trumpet?" 
The man turns to his friend and says, "You see? That's how you tell the time with a trumpet!"

Confident Speech

There is a lovely short prayer recited many times on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. It reads like this: "And so, Lord our G-d, grant honor to Your people, glory to those who are in awe of You, good hope to those who seek You, confident speech to those who yearn for You, joy to Your land, and gladness to Your city..." 
 
What is the meaning of these words, "Confident speech to those who yearn for You"?

The Obsession

&nbsp;One of the great enigmas of history is the world's obsession with the Jewish people.&nbsp; 
 
From our very inception 3,700 years ago, and throughout our long history until this very day, the Jewish people have evoked&nbsp;passionate responses. Jews, it seems, never knew how to play "little league," staying out of the world's spotlight. We have been always playing "big league," caught up in the center of world events. Over the past four millennia, almost every great culture and civilization has been obsessed with the Jew, for better or for worse. 
 
When a guru sits and meditates on a mountaintop—who blinks an eye? When Indian shamans smoke peyote and go into a trance, who pays attention? When a monk secludes himself in a monastery, who notices? But when the world spots a Jew, even an assimilated and self-hating Jew, it experiences an allergic reaction. Suddenly everyone is sneezing. 
 
Indonesia has a population of 300 million people. How often do you hear about it? Israel has a population of seven million, yet barely a day goes by without&nbsp;front-page news from&nbsp;this little piece of land the size of New Jersey. The Muslims blame all their woes on Israel. Many Christians accuse Jews of deicide, and many extreme liberals and atheists blame the Jews for the scourge of terrorism. Nations who don't see eye to eye on anything, many of whose populations have never even met a Jew, unanimously agree that Israel is guilty of many sins. The only thing you can get the United Nations to agree on is condemning Israel. The Jew appears to be the great unifier, possessing the ability to unite the world in a profound and unique way. 
 
Why the obsession with a people who never constituted more than one percent of the world's population? Why can't the world ever forget about us? Why do we generate so much interest without intentionally wanting to do so?

History as a Progression of Sermons&nbsp;

Israel's first chief rabbi, Abraham Isaac Kook (1865-1935), was a brilliant scholar, mystic and poet. He once formulated his own daring response to this age-old question. Whether one agrees with his conclusions or not, it is an idea&nbsp;worth reflecting upon. 
 
All cultures, civilizations, and peoples, suggested Rabbi Kook, have emerged in the world arena to grant humanity&nbsp;a unique contribution: A philosophical perspective, a scientific truth,&nbsp;an artistic expression,&nbsp;a political principle, a technological development, and the like. Egypt, Assyria, Babylonia, Persia, Greece, Rome, Byzantine, and so many other cultures and states left their individual&nbsp;mark—small or large, positive or negative—on civilization. Once the people or civilization gave the world the gift of&nbsp;its genius, it left the center stage; the civilizations presented their "sermon" with pathos and then moved on to allow for the next "speaker" to emerge and deliver his subsequent message to humanity. 
 
How about the Jews? From the moment they ascended to the center stage of&nbsp;history to deliver their message to the world, they have never descended. They have not even moved&nbsp;slightly off-stage. The Jewish people remained standing in the center of every age and milieu in history. While the Greeks and Romans of old have vanished, the Jews still manage to constitute the hot topic at dinner parties and political conventions the world over. 
&nbsp; 
Why? 
 
Because, says Rabbi Kook, after 4,000 years of existence, they are still stuttering. The Jews have yet to deliver their message to the world with unwavering dignity and unambiguous clarity. We stand there, on center stage, the eyes of the world upon us on a virtually daily basis, but we speak in half sentences and apologetic undertones,&nbsp;continuously turning around to make sure we are not offending anybody. Lacking the courage to present ourselves for who we really are and what we really have to share with the world, humanity awaits with bated breath for the real Jew to stand up and speak. 
&nbsp; 
Some Jews recoil&nbsp;into religion, shunning the world and ignoring its reality. Others travel in the other direction, attempting desperately to accommodate modernity and not come across as "too Jewish."&nbsp;Yet Judaism in its purest sense is the courageous attempt to generate that&nbsp;romantic kiss between heaven and earth, to uncover the truth that the G-d of the heavens and the reality of earth are truly one. 
 
Our ambivalence often stems from our own confusion about whether we could place our wholehearted trust in our tradition, in our Torah, in our&nbsp;faith.&nbsp;Many of us feel that embracing Torah in a modern world is unsophisticated and fundamentalist. Even Jews who adhere to a lifestyle governed by Torah feel that the Torah is good for their families and communities, but that it can't stand up to the pragmatic reality on earth. Washington and the United Nations are too "goyish" for Torah. They will never accept Torah. So our leaders, rabbis, politicians, journalists, and spokesmen stand there during press conferences and stutter.

Should We Be Ashamed With Judaism?

Sometimes, hearing it from the mouths of non-Jews themselves can be helpful. 
 
Nineteenth-century American president John Adams wrote: "I will insist that the Hebrews have done more to civilize man than any other nation. If I were an atheist who believed or pretended to believe that all is ordered by chance, I should believe that chance has ordered the Jews to preserve and propagate to all mankind the doctrine of a supreme, intelligent, wise, almighty sovereign of the universe, which I believe to be the great essential principle of all morality, and consequently of all civilization." 
 
Another non-Jewish philosopher, Peter Kreeft, wrote these words: "The prophetic spirit of the Jew finds a meaning and a purpose in history, thereby transforming mankind's understanding of history. Their genius for finding meaning everywhere—for example in science and in the world of nature—can be explained in only two ways: either they were simply smarter than anyone else, or it was G-d's doing, not theirs. The notion of the chosen people is really the humblest possible interpretation of their history." 
 
The Torah is the only thing that never let us down and never gave us false hopes. The Torah predicted thousands of years ago that if we forsook our identity as a "kingdom of princes and a holy nation," we would fail miserably. The same Torah also predicted that no matter what happens to us, we will outlive all our enemies and never vanish. The Torah possesses the most enduring, powerful, and relevant truths available to humanity.

Telling the Truth

Let's come back to Shimon Peres and the State of Israel. The Arab world has been thundering for 70 years that we are thieves; we have stolen their land and built a state on Islamic soil. Yet, in our response to the Arab accusations, we are always stuttering. Our leaders talk about Balfour Declarations and United Nations resolutions; we talk about self-defense and our readiness for peace. But we have no answer to the blatant outcry of the Arab world: The "Zionist entity" was built on occupied territory.&nbsp; 
 
The Arabs present their message clearly: All of Palestine belongs to them. The entire State of Israel is one big settlement. That is why there was no peace before the 1967 war, a time of no Jewish settlements and no settlers. Gaza belonged to Egypt, the West Bank and East Jerusalem to Jordan, and the Golan Heights to Syria. Why did six Arab countries decide to invade and exterminate Israel that year? Because in their belief, all of Israel occupies Arab land. According to the Koran, Jews have no right to establish a self-governed homeland on Islamic soil. For a Muslim who believes the Koran to be the word of Allah (G-d), even if Israel conceded 95 percent of its soil to the Arabs, the remaining 5 percent would need to be snatched from them. Non-Muslims are forbidden to govern any land that once belonged to Muslims. 
 
While Israel was once held in awe, today,&nbsp;close to seven decades years after its miraculous founding, it has reached its nadir. Never before has it been so isolated, lonely, abandoned, and maligned, today becoming the world's favorite punching bag. Even in America, Israel's true friend, the intelligentsia on college campuses across the country continue to denigrate, humiliate, and harm Jews by pressuring universities to divest from Israel. Not since Hitler, not since the 1930s, have we seen such overt anti-Semitism rear its ugly head the world over. The Jew-hatred in Europe is beyond scary. 
 
It's high time we cease being on the defensive and let the world in on our big secret. The only reason Jews came from Odessa, Vilna, and Warsaw to the land of Israel is because G-d gave it to them; because the Creator of the heaven and earth chose to give his Holy Land to the children of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as stated clearly in the Torah. There are three billion people in the world who believe in the Bible, who live with the Bible, and who quote the Bible. But you will never catch any self-respecting Jew, the people who gave the world the Bible, dare even to whisper in public the obvious, simple and plain truth that our sole connection to the land of Israel is&nbsp;the Bible. 
 
History has proven scores of times that the acquiescence of Jews has never succeeded in gaining the affection of our non-Jewish neighbors. The world respects Jews who respect themselves and their tradition; the world dislikes Jews who dislike themselves and their Judaism. What we desperately need today are Jews who are not stuttering, who are saturated with the quintessential message of Judaism, that the G-d of heaven and the reality of earth are one. This is the road to peace and reconciliation between the Jewish and non-Jewish world. 
 
Paradoxically, it seems the world is waiting for this. Not only the Christian and Islamic world. Even the secular world seems to respect Jews who respect themselves and their faith. The world is waiting for Israel to treat the land the way Israel should be treated, as G-d's personal gift to the Jewish people. 
 
The world's ongoing obsession with the Jew, according to Rabbi Abraham Kook, is society's subconscious plea to the Jew to stop stuttering and share with the world what it heard at Sinai: that humanity is capable of building a world that will reflect the oneness and harmony of its Divine creator, and that each and every one of us can transform our corner of the universe into a Divine palace. 
 
"Grant confident speech to those who yearn for You," we will pray five times on Yom Kippur. Let our people who deep down believe in You and yearn for You have the confidence to share with the world the revolutionary vision of Judaism that the spiritual and the physical can be seen as one. And that&nbsp;&nbsp;G-d, Israel, and Torah are inseparable.

(Please make even a small and secure contribution to help us continue our work. <a href="https://secure.theyeshiva.net/Donate">Click here</a>.)

Israel, Stop Stuttering: After Four Millennia, the Eyes of the World Are Still On Israel.

Israeli Leaders Had Good Intentions, But They Failed Their People

After Four Millennia, the Eyes of the World Are Still On the Holy Land

Israel Must Change Its Paradigm

Success the Israeli way&nbsp; 
Lionel Gold has become a successful British actor and he's now in Tel Aviv to sign up for the lead in a new Israeli blockbuster movie. Whilst there, he's invited to a cocktail party, with Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, present. During the event, Netanyahu goes over to Lionel and says, "Mazel&nbsp;Tov,&nbsp;Mr&nbsp;Gold. I wish you all the best on your forthcoming film. If it's successful, it will no doubt help Israel's economy."&nbsp;

"Thank you sir," says Lionel, "I hope I can be instrumental in making the film a success. But I must admit that I consider myself first a Brit, second an actor, and third a Jew."&nbsp;

"Well that should be OK then," says Netanyahu, "for here in Israel, we read from right to left."&nbsp;

The Divide&nbsp; 
The divide between the secular and&nbsp;charedi&nbsp;(religious) community in Israel has grown deep. From question of religious coercion to the new movement of Women at the Wall; from mobilizing the religious to the army to the questions of secular learning curriculums in yeshivas and entering the working market, the pages of Israeli media are saturated with conflict and verbal war. To be sure, in the actual day-to-day life of both segments of society the conflicts are not very evident. Yet there are some deep issues causing much contention.&nbsp;

One important perspective can be deduced from the dramatic narrative in the weekly Torah portion.&nbsp;

Defiance&nbsp; 
The spies Moses sent to survey the land had done their job well. They convinced the entire nation that the advance to the Land of Israel was doomed and that Moses has misled them by taking them out of Egypt. A national hysteria consumed the nation. They demanded a new leader who would return them to Egypt.&nbsp;

In the continuation of this episode related in this week’s portion (Shelach), Moses chastises the nation severely. He communicates to them G-d’s&nbsp;pledge that their wish would be fulfilled: they would not enter the land but rather perish in the wilderness. Moses’ words hit the people very hard and brought them to their senses. They decided to repent and advance toward the land. They exclaimed, “We are ready! We shall ascend to the place G-d has spoken; indeed we have sinned.”&nbsp;

This time, though, Moses refused to go along.&nbsp;

“Why do you transgress the word of G-d, it will not succeed!” he tells them. “Do not ascend, for G-d is not in your midst! And you will not be smitten before your enemies.”&nbsp;

But they refuse to obey. They are determined to mend their mistake and advance toward the Promised Land. “They defiantly ascended to the mountaintop, while the Ark of G-d’s&nbsp;covenant and Moses did not move from the camp.”&nbsp;

This path turned out to be ill advised. They were indeed struck down<a id="_edn1" href="javascript: void(0);" onclick="ty.scrollTo('_ednref1')">[1]</a>.&nbsp;

No Second Chance?&nbsp; 
This story must be studied well.&nbsp;

The Bible often speaks of G-d as welcoming and embracing repentance. The Jews have repented in this case: they acknowledged their sin; they expressed remorse; they were determined to reverse their actions and follow the destination G-d envisioned for them at the outset of their journey. They were sincere in their repentance and conviction. But Moses warned them against it. Why? Doesn’t Judaism believe in a second chance?&nbsp;

When we read the verses carefully, the answer becomes clear. Moses was not disputing the fact that their repentance was sincere. What he was telling them was that to conquer the Land of Israel they needed to have G-d in their midst. They could not do it alone. But G-d would not accompany them this time. He had decreed that this generation would remain in the desert. “The Ark of G-d’s&nbsp;covenant and Moses did not move from the camp.” And when the people attempted to take the land without the divine Ark at their side, failure was imminent.&nbsp;

The message Moses was communicating here was nothing less than revolutionary. He was telling them that for the Jewish people, nationalism divorced from spirituality and religion will not succeed.&nbsp;

Was he right?&nbsp;

Let us go forward a few thousand years and study the modern-day creation of the State of Israel.&nbsp;

Two Goals of Zionism&nbsp; 
Zionism was a movement created more than a century ago with the goal of creating a national homeland for the Jewish people. Its founders believed that if a Jewish state were created, there would finally be one place on earth where Jews could be safe. Here, it was said, Jews would be able to defend themselves. &nbsp;&nbsp;The early political Zionists also believed that having a country would normalize the condition of the Jew in the world. The Jews were singled out, they speculated, because there was something unnatural about a people not having a home. The French had France, the Italians had Italy. If the Jews had a country, the condition of the Jew would change. The world would cease its relentless attention on this tiny fraction of the world’s population. &nbsp;&nbsp;116&nbsp;years have passed since the first Zionist congress in Switzerland (in 1897), led by figures like Theodor Herzl, Max Nordau and Dr. Nathan&nbsp;Berenbaum&nbsp;(the latter coined the term Zionism). Israel today is a beautiful country that we love and cherish. Notwithstanding all of its challenges from within and without, it will soon boast the world’s largest Jewish population and one of the greatest armies in the world. Its cultural, academic, social and religious achievements are extraordinary. It has become a home for millions of Jews and for their creativity in many diverse fields. We must support Israel in every possible way.&nbsp;

Yet, the sad truth is that the two primary and noble goals of Zionism – to create a safe haven for Jews and normalize their condition – have, sadly, not materialized in the State of Israel.&nbsp;

Only in the Jewish state were Jews subjected to daily missile attacks – for over six years! --&nbsp;on&nbsp;their children. Only in the Jewish State did a million Jews cowered in bomb shelters to protect themselves from Hezbollah missiles (In the end, the only thing that stopped the shelling of Israel’s northern cities was the United Nations. We needed the gentiles again for our safety…) &nbsp;

Nor has Israel normalized the Jewish condition. Not only has it not assuaged the obsession with the Jewish people and extinguished the flames of anti-Semitism, on the contrary, the very existence of the State has become the target of enormous&nbsp;anti-Semitism the world over. Yugoslavia, Rwanda, Darfur – all conflicts that have taken countless more lives than the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – receive&nbsp;no where&nbsp;near the amount of attention that Israel does<a id="_edn2" href="javascript: void(0);" onclick="ty.scrollTo('_ednref2')">[2]</a>.&nbsp;

What did the ideologues of Zionism fail to understand? Where did they go wrong?&nbsp;

Too much is at stake for us to ignore this question. So many of our brothers and sisters have sacrificed—and continue to sacrifice—so much for our homeland, we must not fail them by not attending to this question with the utmost sincerity and intellectual integrity.&nbsp;

What Makes Us A Nation?&nbsp; 
Writing in the tenth century, the great Rabbi and philosopher&nbsp;Saadya&nbsp;Gaon&nbsp;pondered the question of what constituted the Jews as a nation. What was it what made us ‘one people’ despite the fact that we did not share any of the conventional&nbsp;basis&nbsp;of nationhood. Lacking a homeland or political sovereignty, scattered around the world, speaking many languages and possessing a diversity of cultures, what defined the Jews as a single nation?&nbsp;

Rabbi&nbsp;Saadya’s&nbsp;answer was straightforward: “Our nation is only a nation in virtue of its Torah<a id="_edn3" href="javascript: void(0);" onclick="ty.scrollTo('_ednref3')">[3]</a>.” What he meant was this: The exclusive factor that defined Jewish nationhood – the thread that connected a Jew from Spain to a Jew from Tunisia – was their shared commitment to the same Torah and its&nbsp;Mitzvos.&nbsp;

The very genesis of Jewish nationhood attests to this, for our beginnings as a people differ from every other nationality on earth. Where the history of other nations begins with a piece of territory inhabited by many individuals who then form a nation and a constitution, Jewish history begins outside of their homeland, in the wilderness. What defines them as a nation is not the territory, but rather a single idea, a vision, a perspective, what we call today the Torah. For other nations, the homeland breeds the laws; for the Jews – whose very identity as a nation was defined by law, by Torah -- the homeland is an outgrowth of Torah. The Torah defined the Land of Canaan as the suitable homeland for the Jews, the most conducive place on earth for them to carry out their mission and destiny.&nbsp;

It is fair to say that history has proven Rabbi&nbsp;Saadya&nbsp;right. Any Jewish movement over the last 3300 years that redefined&nbsp;Jewishness&nbsp;not in terms of Torah and&nbsp;Mitzvos&nbsp;-- from the worshippers of the Baal during the First Temple era to the Sadducees in the Second Temple era, to the founders of Enlightenment, the&nbsp;Yiddishisten&nbsp;and&nbsp;Bundesten&nbsp;in our own modern era --- did not pass the test of time. Their great grand children either returned to Torah or were lost to the Jewish people. The Jewish people could not sustain themselves as Jews without Torah.&nbsp;

What is even more: If we were to search for an objective, scientific answer how have the Jewish people survived through millennia of unparalleled suffering and abuse, we would be compelled to search for the common thread that pervaded all of Jewish history from its very beginnings to this very day. And the only constant factor that has accompanied the Jewish people through&nbsp;all its&nbsp;vicissitudes -- was not land, language, culture, military prowess, etc. but its tenacious adherence to our spiritual heritage; its commitment to Torah and&nbsp;Mitzvos. &nbsp;

The New Jew&nbsp; 
For close to eight centuries Rabbi&nbsp;Saadya’s&nbsp;declaration went uncontested. Even those Jews, like&nbsp;Boruch&nbsp;Spinoza, who abandoned Jewish law, understood that this meant abandoning conscious membership of the Jewish people<a id="_edn4" href="javascript: void(0);" onclick="ty.scrollTo('_ednref4')">[4]</a>. Emancipation and Enlightenment in the 18thcentury gave birth, for the first time since Rabbi&nbsp;Saadyah, to the idea of redefining the Jewish people outside of the context of Torah and&nbsp;Mitzvos.&nbsp;

Zionism followed suit. The leaders of secular Zionism sincerely believed that the new national identity of the Jewish people would create a new type of Jew, a “national creature” rather than a “religious creature.” The founders of the State of Israel, too, tried hard to create the identity of an “Israeli.” They believed that the Jewish religion served its purpose while in exile countries, giving Jews a distinct identity. But once they have created a national homeland for themselves, they could let go of their religious baggage and finally become a nation like all nations, a nation defined by its nationality, homeland and culture, not by its faith and spirituality.&nbsp;

The Israeli national anthem speaks of "the 2,000 year old Jewish hope to be a free people in its land, the land of Zion and Jerusalem." It makes no mention of the religious connection between the Jewish people and the Land. The signers of the Israeli Declaration of Independence, drawn up in May 1948, made no mention of G-d or Torah. After much debate, it was agreed upon to insert the ambiguous phrase "The Rock of Israel (Tzur&nbsp;Yisrael)," to be interpreted as one desired. &nbsp;&nbsp;This seemed like a rational approach. Why mix religion and statehood? For a democracy to flourish, liberal pluralism must be maintained. Church and state need to be separated. Introducing biblical notions into the Zionist endeavor would only undermine Israel's success as a liberal democracy.&nbsp;

Buber’s Warning&nbsp; 
Writing from a very different paradigm, Martin Buber (in an essay titled <a href="http://www.wzo.org.il/en/resources/view.asp?id=1235">Zionism and the Other National Concepts</a>) argued against the creation of a purely secular state of Israel&nbsp;

“The secularizing trend in Zionism was directed against the mystery of Zion too. A people like other peoples, a land like other lands, a national movement like other national movements -- this was and still is reclaimed as the postulate of common sense against every kind of 'mysticism.' And from this standpoint, the age-long belief that the successful reunion of this people with this land is inseparably bound up with a command and a condition was attacked. No more is necessary -- so the watchword runs -- than that the Jewish people should be granted the free development of all its powers in its own country like any other people…&nbsp;

“The certainty of the generations of Israel testifies that this view is inadequate. The idea of Zion is rooted in deeper regions of the earth and rises into loftier regions of the air, and neither its deep roots nor its lofty heights, neither its memory of the past nor its ideal for the future, both of the selfsame texture, may be repudiated. If Israel renounces the mystery, it renounces the heart of reality itself. National forms without the eternal purpose from which they have arisen signify the end of Israel's specific fruitfulness. The free development of the latent power of the nation without a supreme value to give it purpose and direction does not mean regeneration, but the mere sport of a common self-deception behind which spiritual death lurks in ambush. If Israel desires less than it is intended to fulfill, than it will even fail to achieve the lesser goal.”&nbsp;

Buber, himself quite distant from many aspects of Jewish faith and practice, talks of the “eternal purpose from which they have arisen.” These are, like Buber himself, beautiful but nebulous words; but they can be taken in many directions. In fact, some of Buber’s students at Hebrew University have become Post-Zionist thinkers calling for the abolishment of Israel as a “Jewish State<a id="_edn5" href="javascript: void(0);" onclick="ty.scrollTo('_ednref5')">[5]</a>.”&nbsp;

The Soul of a People&nbsp; 
More than 3300 years ago Moses spoke clearly of the Jewish struggle for self-identity. He understood that nationality divorced from spirituality would not suffice for the Jewish soul. Our very identity is bound up with Torah; the definition of our nationhood is that we are carriers of Torah. If the Ark does not enter into the land with the Jewish people, their existence is in peril.&nbsp;

A national homeland on its own cannot do the trick for us. It can’t “normalize” us, nor can give us the safety we crave for. We need G-d in our midst; we need the Torah at our side.&nbsp;

This is not to suggest that citizens of Israel should legally be coerced to follow Jewish law. This would create an even deeper animosity to Judaism and its laws. In the world we live in, religion and spirituality must be a personal choice coming from within. What it is saying is that every nation needs a soul.&nbsp;Even Israel.&nbsp;And the soul of the Jewish people for 4,000 years has been the Torah.&nbsp;

Ancient Egypt and Rome built great monuments to outlive the winds and sands of time. What they built still stands, and in some respects has never been surpassed. But the civilizations that gave them life are long gone. The Jews became builders, too, but what they constructed were not monuments of stone. Instead they were summoned at Sinai to build a righteous world, worthy of becoming a home for the Divine presence. Its stones would be its holy deeds,&nbsp;mitzvot, and its mortar -- Torah study and compassion. By teaching the Jews that the Architect of this world is G-d, and that the builders are all who wish to become His “partners in the work of creation,” Moses turned a group of slaves into an eternal people<a id="_edn6" href="javascript: void(0);" onclick="ty.scrollTo('_ednref6')">[6]</a>.&nbsp;

<a id="_ednref1" href="javascript: void(0);" onclick="ty.scrollTo('_edn1')">[1]</a> Numbers 14: 4-45.&nbsp; 
<a id="_ednref2" href="javascript: void(0);" onclick="ty.scrollTo('_edn2')">[2]</a> This theme is discussed at length in an essay by Daniel&nbsp;Gurdis, A Place Called Hope (January, 2007).&nbsp; 
<a id="_ednref3" href="javascript: void(0);" onclick="ty.scrollTo('_edn3')">[3]</a> Emunos&nbsp;Vedeos&nbsp;3:7. See Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, One People,&nbsp;P. 21; 35-36.&nbsp; 
<a id="_ednref4" href="javascript: void(0);" onclick="ty.scrollTo('_edn4')">[4]</a> I state “conscious” because on a deeper, super-conscious level every single Jew remains connected to Torah (See&nbsp;Rambam&nbsp;Laws of Divorce, 2:20.&nbsp;Tanya chapters 18-19).&nbsp; 
<a id="_ednref5" href="javascript: void(0);" onclick="ty.scrollTo('_edn5')">[5]</a> See The Jewish State:&nbsp;The&nbsp;Struggle for Israel’s Soul, by&nbsp;Yoram&nbsp;Hazony, Part three.&nbsp; 
<a id="_ednref6" href="javascript: void(0);" onclick="ty.scrollTo('_edn6')">[6]</a> This essay is based on a letter written by the Lubavitcher Rebbe on 19 Sivan&nbsp;5713,&nbsp;June 2 1953 (published in&nbsp;Igros&nbsp;Kodesh&nbsp;vol. 7 pp. 280-81). &nbsp;

Revisiting Zionism - Can Israel Survive Without a Soul?

Can Israel Survive Without a Soul?

Essay on the Past & Future of Israel/Shlach

Revisiting Zionism

This radio show was aired on March 21, 2015, on the Nachum Segal Network, a few days after Benjamin Netanyahu&#39;s victory in the Israeli elections.

Is Netanyahu the Obstacle to Peace?

A Conversation about the Prospects of Palestinian Statehood

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