Free thought

Gush Katif - Time to say sorry

2011-11-10T21:41:00.001+02:00

It's been a long time since I blogged anything, and I hope this posting with be worth your while.

Allow me to share something personal with you. Ever since the destruction of Gush Katif in 2005, I have been harboring a deep pain. The images of Jews being forcibly dragged out of their homes - homes that they had lived in for 3 generations - is seared into my memory. The knowledge that this trauma was inflicted by other Jews makes the thought almost too painful to bear. And if this is what I feel - I who was safe and snug in my little home in Beit Shemesh - I cannot even begin to imagine what kind of pain is still in the hearts of the innocent people who were themselves expelled, betrayed and hung out to dry by their own nation.

Six years later, we have seen how the "Disengagement" plan, conceived in iniquity, legalized by duplicity, and executed with cold indifference, has backfired on us all. I confess I don't know what the official statistics are, but given the fact that we are now absorbing continual rocket attacks from the ruins of Gush Katif, and that our standing in world opinion is far, far worse than it was prior to the expulsion, it's hard to believe that there is more than a tiny core of delusional, hard-core post-Zionists who still think it was a good idea.

OK, so now we've learned it was a bad idea, pragmatically speaking. But frankly, that's not enough. We screwed up - badly - and the people of Gush Katif paid the biggest price. And all we have done for them done to date by way of acknowledgement, effectively, has just been to say, "Oops... Um... well, that didn't work out so well... So sorry about that - and... um... good luck with the rest of your lives!" And we've merrily trotted off and started looking for fresh new ways to appease world opinion and try satisfy an enemy who will be happy with nothing less than our complete destruction.

Here's Repentance 101: Yom Kippur does not atone for sins between man and man, until the transgressor apologizes to the person he wronged and appeases him. In these 6 years, we have done nothing of the sort for the Jews of Gush Katif. If we have not achieved their forgiveness, how can we expect that Hashem will forgive us? If we want G-d to forgive us for this terrible injustice that we perpetrated on our fellow Jews, and if we want to be able to pray for Him to relate to us with mercy - we had better be prepared to do teshuva for the cruelty we perpetrated on our brethren.

To this end, I have prepared the text of a collective, national apology. Every one of us, to some extent, is responsible for what happened, as I have attempted to express in the text, and every Jew with a heart, anywhere in the world, should sign on, to say sorry. I want 1 million signatures on this apology, and I believe this is attainable.

So, I ask you, please:

Sign the petition here. (Non-Hebrew speakers, please see the annotated screen shot here for what you need to fill in and click!)
Spread the word. Use Facebook, Twitter, your own blog, email, SMS, whatever. For this to be a meaningful exercise, every Jew in the world, Right or Left, religious or not, needs to be able to say sorry to someone they wronged.

Thank you for your help! And in the merit of our national contrition, and hopefully the forgiveness of those we have wronged, may Hashem show mercy and forgiveness to us, and bring our final Redemption.

bit.ly/sorrygk

Down with the West!

2010-10-12T16:09:00.000+02:00

The projections for Europe seem pretty bleak. Aside from the suicidally low birth rates of "indigenous" Europeans, they have a surging Arab/Muslim population that is openly shaping to take over the continent altogether. So apart from a few notable exceptions like Geert Wilders, the Eurowimps appear to have given up the game already, and are practising a mixture of appeasement and abject surrender to the conquering culture. All the futurists concur that it won't be long before Europe is Eurabia - maybe a couple of decades and the whole continent will be under Sharia law.

The US isn't faring much better, either, under the Obama administration. While I won't go along with the "Obama is a secret Muslim" conspiracy theorists, even though technically according to halacha nationality for non-Jews follows the paternal line (and his father was a Muslim), what is clear is that Obama shares the European penchant for craven multiculturalism, i.e. deprecation of Western culture, and reflexive respect, honor and awe for Islam. That wouldn't be so bad if we could just wait him out for another 2 years, but he's also pursuing a radical socio-economic agenda, that if successful, will leave America's economy in ruins, like the European welfare states on which his policies are modeled.

You might choose to debate the intricacies of these arguments, and maybe I'm overstating the case, but the indisputable point is that the trend is a weakening, diffident and irresolute West, and a strengthening, confident and determined Islam. Conventional wisdom is that this is, in general, a bad thing, because the kind of Islam that's on the rise is the kind that doesn't hold by our fancy modern liberal scruples, like women's rights, free speech, freedom of religion, gay rights, etc. I, for one, would be very afraid of living in a Muslim state, and picturing the world under the domination of Islam is a frightening thought.

But maybe it's not all that bad.

I've been reading a fascinating little book by Rabbi Mordechai Neugroschel, whom I met a few months ago, called "Galus Yishmael", in which he suggests that there is more than just a little silver lining to this black cloud. There's a lot of research behind it from primary sources, but I'll try to precis the main ideas here, without quoting those sources:

There are many primary sources (e.g. gemara) and later commentators (e.g. Maharal) that refer to a Galus Yishmael, which is set to follow Galus Edom (our current exile), in which Esav (the West) hands over his power to Yishmael (the Arabs/Muslims), and the two combined proceed to oppress the Jews, with Yishmael now taking the lead role. While the oppression of Galus Yishmael is in many ways more severe than Galus Edom that preceded it, it is a necessary step towards the ultimate redemption of the Jewish people.

The reason for this is really quite fascinating, and goes back to the story of Yaakov Avinu tricking Yitzchak into giving him the berachos instead of Esav. The agitated Esav wheedles another set of blessings out of his father, among which: "...you will serve your brother, yet it shall be that when you are aggrieved, you may cast off his yoke from upon your neck." (Bereishis 27:40). According to our tradition, this means that when the Jews are behaving correctly, keeping the Torah and all the mitzvos, then Esav is subservient and powerless against us... but the reverse is also true, that when we are not up to par, then Esav has the upper hand over us. That's an ironclad promise from Yitzchak Avinu, and even Hashem will not nullify his words.

So how are we ever to escape from Galus Edom? We cannot even rely on Hashem's mercy - Esav has a blessing from Yitzchak Avinu that gives him power over us, unless Klal Yisrael does mass teshuva! What chance do we ever have of that?

No chance, so it seems. And this is where Yishmael comes into play, as an unlikely - and unwitting - savior. When Yishmael usurps world dominion from Esav, he also circumvents for us the problem of Yitzchak's bracha to Esav - because when Yishmael turns his malevolent attention towards the Jewish people, with Esav sidelined we suddenly have the ability to appeal to Hashem's mercy, even from our lowly spiritual state. Yishmael has no blessing from Yitzchak, and therefore no guarantee of retaining the upper hand even when we are collectively sinful. Indeed, the gemara tells us why he is called Yishmael - because in the end of days, the oppression from Yishmael will be so great that Yisrael will cry out to Hashem for help, and He will hear us (Yishma Kel).

So now it seems all along we've actually been cheering for the wrong team! While Esav of late has certainly provided a more comfortable galus than what Yishmael is offering, in the long run it will actually be very good for the Jews for Esav to lose his world dominion to Yishmael! I won't say I'm exactly rooting for Osama bin Laden & Co, because my enemy's enemy is, in this case, still my enemy. But as a previous prime minister of Israel said in reference to some in-fighting between rival Arab groups: "I wish both sides the best of luck."

For us Jews, these ideas may serve as some comfort - and a reminder to us that our hearts should always be directed towards Heaven, because absent national repentance, only through our prayers and individual repentance can we be saved from our exile. May we merit to see it speedily!

I am a Jew

2010-05-17T15:38:00.000+03:00

This video is going viral, and it's not difficult to see why...

Awakenings

2010-03-25T18:15:00.001+02:00

I'm poking my head up from my self-imposed blogging sabbatical just because this video is too good not to share. It'll take 20 minutes of your time, but I think it's worth it. I found it very inspiring.

When you're done, don't lose the moment of inspiration. Click here now, and do what you gotta.

Why you need a Tav Teken

2009-09-23T22:25:00.006+03:00

I recently bought an electrical splitter from a local hardware store. I specifically wanted a cordless one, and one with the maximum possible number of outlets. Usually you only get up to three points on a cordless splitter, so I was very happy to find one with four points.

But hold on a second. My electrical engineering instincts told me that something was amiss. Didn't I once encounter one of these splitters before, many years ago, in the context of a minor electrical explosion? Well, let's open this baby up and see what sordid sins are hiding behind that clean facade...

Have you spotted the problem? Let me enlarge and annotate this second picture for you...

Well, the earth (green) looks OK. Now take a look at the live circuit (brown). As you face the socket, live should be on the right. And on the right had side of the splitter, the right hand socket is brown. But look at the left hand side: the positions of the live and neutral points have been reversed!

I took it back to the store and got a refund. I showed this faulty wiring to the shop attendant, who assured me that it's perfectly OK to switch around the live and neutral points; it makes no difference which side they're on - and he promptly put this michshol straight back on the shelf.

I presented him with my credentials as an electrical engineer (sort of true - I got the degree then went to work in programming), and attempted to explain that while it may be OK to switch the live and neutral for your unearthed radio/tape player, the minute you plug in an appliance that needs to be earthed, you are going to create a moderately large explosion. The earth and the neutral need to be at the same voltage (or close), while the live oscillates between about +330V and -330V, creating a Root Mean Square voltage of about 220V. (Wow! I remembered that from university, 15 years ago!) If you start sending oscillating voltages up your neutral wire where there's an earth connected, you are going to create a big, fat 220V short-circuit into your earth. That makes a nice big spark, possibly destroying the appliance you were unfortunate enough to plug into this socket.

Yeah, yeah. Whatever. And the splitter stayed on the shelf for the next unwitting victim.

If I'd had more time, I would have been more forceful. Perhaps I should have been, anyway - this may be a case of hashovas aveida, to prevent damage to anyone else who might buy one of these nasty little jobbies.

Anyway, the moral of the story is: make sure that when you buy electrical stuff, it should have the tav teken. Otherwise there is no guarantee that what you bought is anything better than seriously dangerous.

The worst form of evil - and how to fight it

2009-09-08T17:00:00.006+03:00

As an optimist, I always like to preface negativity with some positivity. So let me start by saying there are a lot of really good people out there. People who love their fellow Jews. People whose observance and learnedness of Torah has brought them to the highest levels of perfection attainable by a human being.

And then there are some pretty nasty people out there. There are the Amalekite types - non-Jews who just hate Jews lishma. Then there are the Achav/Menashe types, also known as mumar l'hach'is (MLH) - real self-hating Jews whose share Amalek's goal of eradicating Judaism, if not the Jews themselves. And we have the more benign (and very common) mumar l'teiavon (MLT) - Jews who don't keep the Torah because it's inconvenient, they are unmotivated, they cannot control their desires, etc. Have I covered everyone?

Apparently not. There's another kind of baddie out there. This one is a talmid chacham. He is G-d fearing, pious, learned and scrupulously meticulous in his performance of mitzvos. He is passionate and fiercely committed to Yiddishkeit. And he is responsible for more death and destruction ר"ל to the Jewish People than any of the previous categories of sinners. Let's hear more about him from the Netziv, Rabbi Naftali Tzvi Yehuda Berlin, in this extract from his introduction to Sefer Bereishis from Ha'Amek Davar (translation mine):

[The Jews at the time of the destruction of the Second Temple] were righteous, pious and labored in Torah. But they were not straight (ישרים) in their conduct. Therefore, because of the causeless hatred (sin'as chinam) for each other in their hearts, they suspected anyone who acted differently from their view of fearing G-d of being a Sadducee and an Apikoros. This led to extremes of bloodshed and the most terrible evils in the world until the Temple was destroyed... Hashem is straight and does not suffer "tzaddikim" such as these... even though their intentions may be for the sake of Heaven, [these "tzaddikim"] cause the destruction of Creation and demolition of settlement in the Land [of Israel].

Yup, this "tzaddik" is responsible for nothing less than the destruction of the Temple, and every pogrom, expulsion, massacre and holocaust that has followed. And worse than the MLT, worse than the MLH, he can never do teshuva; he can never repent. He cannot, because it is physically impossible; he has nothing to repent for - because in his own mind, he is right, and everybody else is wrong.

Do you know anybody like that? I do. I met him online yesterday morning - or at least, I met his blog, after he spammed me (and many others in the Jewish cyberworld, as a subsequent Google search told me). Go ahead and take a look - but be warned: have an antacid and/or a stiff drink at hand, because this site is liable to do something serious to your metabolism. Here it is.

Notice how this guy meets all the criteria of the Netziv. Firstly, with brazen chutzpah, he titles his blog "Authentic Judaism" - in one fell swoop relegating anyone who doesn't agree with every word he says to the status of "non-authentic" and therefore an apikoros. (That's not speculation, by the way - he says so explicitly.) And he doesn't just disagree on issues - he loudly and proudly proclaims his own visceral hatred towards anyone who disagrees with him. He ridicules and insults gedolei Torah in the most despicable terms. All this he does this under the veneer of "hating Hashem's enemies", which everyone agrees is a mitzva. But he makes the logical non sequitur of jumping from "I am for Hashem" (true) to "Anyone who disagrees with me is against Hashem" (false). The site is so crammed with half-truths and non sequiturs, that it doesn't even merit specific critique. It is self-evidently sheker of the darkest, most vindictive variety. This is the yetzer hara with a yarmulke. This is truly the Face of Evil.

So what's a healthy approach to people like this? My first reaction after visiting his site was a powerful urge to vomit. Having calmed down a bit, I find myself filled with a kind of morbid fascination at the psychosis that has possessed this yid - and an icy fear at having felt the heart of darkness, and realizing that there is a very large proportion of "frum" society that shares it.

How do we deal with it? What hope is there for Am Yisrael if this malignant tumor of sin'as chinam has become so deeply rooted in our people that hatred has now become a shita, and aveiros of the worst order are considered mitzvos? We see it frequently, and I don't think I need to enumerate all the ways in which this vile philosophy is manifesting - hameivin yavin.

My Rav quoted to me, "A little light dispels a lot of darkness." Well, we have a lot of darkness out there that needs dispelling. I'd like to say that especially coming up to Rosh Hashana, we should take very great care to love and respect our fellow Jews, especially the ones with whom we have disagreements - but I don't think that's enough. The sin'as chinam machine is working powerfully and grinding away at our society, and I am afraid it's a weak and feckless response just to turn the other cheek and talk about brotherly love. As Edmund Burke said: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

I think our society needs a bigger tikkun. How about this: get a bunch of banners printed for people to hang off their balconies: "V'ahavta l're'acha kamocha"; "All Jews welcome in our neighborhood!" etc. Offer a nice sign to be put up at the new mall in Ramat Beit Shemesh (or wherever) to the effect that everyone is welcome, and there will be a zero-tolerance policy towards intimidation and physical or verbal violence; perpetrators will be ejected, by the police if necessary.

What ideas do you have? How do you think we should relate to crackpots like "Rabbi Authentic"? How can we counteract their poison and make a real tikkun olam?

Pirsumei Nisa: Another "Only In Israel" Story!

2009-08-25T11:25:00.004+03:00

Yesterday my wife went on a Very Special outing with my 10-year-old daughter (and 3-month-old baby) - where else, but to go clothes shopping at the Hamashbir 50% sale in Jerusalem. I won't tell you how much they spent; suffice it to say that they enjoyed themselves! My wife was completely thrilled to find a store that didn't feel like it was improvised out of somebody's basement, selling clothes that were actually made with the shape of the human body in mind, made from material that will not perish on its first trip through the washing machine.

Anyway, to save herself the stress of driving in central Jerusalem and the expense of using one of the licensed muggers they call parking garages, she parked at the Wolfson Towers and caught a taxi to and from Hamashbir. But on the way back, in all the ballagan of schlepping prams, babies and parcels, the bags from Hamashbir failed to make it back into our car... a fact which my wife realized, to her utter shock and dismay, only when she got back home.

So we started the chase, realizing that the bags had no identifying features that the finder could use to reach us. As far as halachic simanim go, the fact that there was a certain grouping of clothes, in two packets, left in the trunk of a taxi would be a siman muvhak - but that wasn't much help to us. We didn't know the driver's name, just his description (young, nearly-shaved head, no kippa), nor which taxi company he worked for. My daughter remembered that there was a sticker in the car saying "My home is in Maaleh Adumim". A lead!

OK, off to the yellow pages. I mean, how many taxi companies can there be operating in Jerusalem?

82. Plus 3 in Maaleh Adumim.

OK... so let's go for the big hitters first - the most likely ones to have been patrolling the center of town. Luckily the Yellow Pages provides a map of all the locations, so I could pick off the ones based in the area. Some were hasa'ot, some were shuttle services. I eliminated the Arab ones. Anything with a cellphone number probably belongs to a freelancer. So I started calling, developed my script as I went along, emphasizing the driver from Maaleh Adumim and the fact that the parcels were pretty valuable. No dice. While most were sympathetic, they couldn't help me, or told me to "call again tomorrow".

My alarm sounded for mincha, and I went across the road to join the Moroccan minyan. As is my habit, while they were doing korbanot and all the other stuff they do before Ashrei, I picked up a chumash and started reviewing the parsha. I was up to the second aliya. Hashovas Aveida. Hm. I learned it extra hard, with special kavana. Shnayim Mikra, echad targum - the real way. Oh yes, yesterday was Monday - Yom Sheini. Significant? I wonder...

I left mincha imbued with confidence - and gratitude to Hashem for the fact that we were going to get our parcels back. Don't know how or when, but we will.

Made a few more calls to taxi companies, Hamashbir themselves (in case the driver returned it to them). One veteran taxi driver was really helpful, and got into sleuthing: he asked pertinent questions about the driver, the car, a bunch of details we didn't realize we knew, and referred us to another taxi maven in Maaleh Adumim, who also did his part to help. Then we decided this was enough hishtadlus for now. By the end of the evening we were happy and joking about the whole experience. My wife told me animatedly about every garment she bought, with full enjoyment of how beautiful it was, and it kind of felt like we already had them back.

This morning I started phoning again. The first company I called said not to bother until after 10 o' clock - all the drivers were still asleep! So I did, and one by one, I called the companies on my list. Each one in turn sent a broadcast to all his drivers with the pertinent details; each one said no, and I crossed them off my list... until... one of them gave me a cellphone number, and said, "Here, call this number." So I did... and this was the driver of the taxi... who had found my wife's packages in his trunk not 10 minutes beforehand.

So as I write this, he's just brought the packages to my wife, who happens to be in Jerusalem right now. She asked him what would have happened if we hadn't tracked him down? He said, they don't have any formal system for lost items; they just keep the items for as long as they feel like it, and wait for someone to contact them.

Think about it: if I had called 10 minutes earlier, the driver wouldn't have found the parcels yet, I would have crossed that company off my list, and we would in all likelihood never have seen those clothes again.

Yes, it's not a breathtaking miracle, it all happened al derech hateva, but I'm still very grateful to Hashem for having orchestrated things the way He did. And it highlights again that even a young skin-headed "chiloni" taxi driver has the Jewish heart to do the mitzva of hashovas aveida.

Postscript: if you should ever lose an item in an unidentified taxi the way I did, here are some tips:

Resist the temptation to start phoning immediately. Give it a day or two, to give the driver the opportunity to discover the lost item.
The police have a lost-and-found desk. The number in Jerusalem is 02 539 1360/1.
Contrary to some reports, it is not necessary to make a donation to Kupat Ha'Ir in order to get your lost item back. :-D
Probably the most important segula you can have is gratitude. Gratitude for the fact that Hashem is looking out for you, and that He will give you the y'shua you need. This principle applies in all aspects of life, and merits not just a separate blog post, but an entire book in its own right. The more you improve and sharpen your midda of gratitude, the more things in your life will just keep going right, and getting better all the time. Don't worry - Be happy! Really!

Ayn Rand meets Rav Shimon Shkop

2009-08-02T22:17:00.005+03:00

I just finished reading Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead. As a piece of fiction, I found it very entertaining and compelling; as a work of philosophy, I found it intriguing. For those who haven't read it, she expounds her philosophy of objectivism through her characters, who are pretty weird at times, but she makes her point well enough.

One of the main points of objectivism is that your ethics are supposed to be governed by rational self-interest. She is explicitly against altruism, that is, the sacrifice of self for others, but she equally does not subscribe to the converse, sacrifice of others for self. People should aspire to their highest potential, irrespective of others, and neither live for others nor expect others to live for them.

Seems a bit selfish and heartless, doesn't it?

I'm not so sure she's so far off the truth. My friend MG told me a vort he heard in the name of Rav Shimon Shkop. (I can't verify the quote; if anyone can give a source for this, I'd be most grateful.) He was asked, if Hashem wants us to do chesed with others, why did He make us naturally so selfish?

Rav Shkop answered that the selfishness that G-d gave man is part of the gift of being able to do chesed. If you have a normal, single person, he looks out for his own interests. He gets married, and now he also looks out for his wife's interests. he has children, and he now looks out for his children's interests. All the time he is being selfish - but he views his wife and children as an extension of himself. If a person works on his ahavas Yisroel, he will grow his concept of self until he sees all of Klal Yisroel as extensions of himself, and he will look out for their interests as he looks out for his own.

In other words, Judaism does not preach negation or sacrifice of the self; rather a person must develop a healthy sense of ego that encompasses the well being of others.

Ayn Rand almost got there, but in her vehemence against collectivism/dependence, she stopped short at libertarianism/independence and missed the final step: interdependence. (Stephen Covey fans, that's for you.) Interestingly, none of her characters ever have children. Nor did she. I guess that's what happens when you can't grow your ego past yourself.

EDIT: Thanks to MG, who saw this post and sent me links to Rav Schwab's magnum opus, Shaarei Yosher. The part about developing your ego to encompass others is in the introduction, pages 1 and 2.

I am not tweeting for Gilad Schalit

2009-08-02T16:20:00.002+03:00

Gilad Schalit is about to spend yet another birthday in captivity. In honor of this occasion, several Jewish/Israel activists have called for Twitterers to tweet messages about Gilad with a specific tag, in the hope of making his name a Top-10 trending topic.

Let me be clear: I hope and pray for Gilad's safe and speedy return to his family just as much as the next guy; I cannot even begin to imagine what kind of suffering he and his family must be going through.

But I will not support this or any other "Free Gilad" campaigns. Not on Twitter, not on Facebook, not even as a bumper sticker.

Think about it: who is supposed to feel the heat from these campaigns? Hamas? You gotta be kidding! If Gilad Schalit became the top trending topic on Twitter for an entire year, it would not make one whit of difference to those bloodthirsty savages. Rather, it would have exactly the opposite of the intended effect: once Hamas sees that so many people care about Gilad, they will know that they can up their price for him.

The only party who is going to feel the pressure is the Israeli government, who will feel themselves pushed to make yet another obscenely lopsided deal to release more and more murderers, terrorists and common criminals in order to get back one Israeli soldier - who may C"V not even be alive any more. And these deals always result in more terrorism and murder.

I want Gilad home - but not at any price. I will not be party to any pressure campaign on the Israeli government in this regard, because there are 6 million other Jews in Israel who should not be made to pay for Gilad Schalit with their own blood.

The Dilemma of the Cat Man

2009-08-02T12:40:00.002+03:00

For those of you who have been quietly following my cat saga, it has finally been resolved.

Three of the kittens have been adopted (one by my children). And somebody put us in touch with a fellow who runs a cat shelter called Girgurim. We called him up, and he was willing to take in the mother and two remaining kittens. He wanted to push us off for a few days, but eventually we got him to agree to take them before shabbos.

So Friday afternoon, my family piled into the car with said felines, and drove off to Kibbutz Harel (between Tzomet Shimshon and TzometNachson), where Girgurim is located. Here our host accepted the cats and took us on a short tour of his premises.

They care for around 800 cats in 1 dunam of land that they have enclosed for their comfort. Yes, those figures are correct. We saw it. They never destroy any cats, no matter how sick or feeble; they just take them in and care for them. And I have to be honest, these cats look like somebody is taking the most amazing care of them. They look strong, robust, healthy - as if each one of them was being taken care of individually by a family with 2.4 kids and a white picket fence around their garden. Except that they're all living under one gigantic roof, with tens of discarded sofas, beds and other furniture and toys to sleep on and play with. If I were a cat in Israel, I would probably want to live there.

Anyway, I thanked they guy, and gave him a modest donation - maybe enough to feed the 3 cats I gave him for a month. I thought, I can't take this money out of maaser, and I would much rather donate money to a cause that benefits people rather than cats.

So now, this guy with the big heart is saddled with 3 extra feline mouths to feed. I'm sure it's a big maala what he's doing, looking after Hashem's creatures - but would I encourage my children to follow his path? No way. Frankly, I think he's lost the plot. I think he's wasting his obviously considerable koach of chesed on a bunch of dumb cats, when he could be using it to care for any number of different kinds of people who need it.

Yet I am grateful to him, and I took advantage of him. I think what he's doing is silly and wasteful; I think he is wasting his life on a non-cause - and I went ahead and fed him more of the same drug.

Was that a good thing to do? Should I maybe have looked at his situation and said to myself, "This man says he wants my cats, but I know better what he needs, and that is for me simply to dump the cats on some kibbutz somewhere and let them fend for themselves, rather than be an additional burden to this misguided fellow Yid here, who doesn't know his right hand from his left."

What do you think?

Don't donate money over the phone!

2009-07-08T11:46:00.003+03:00

This post was inspired by Rafi's posting today, about an experience he had with a telemarketer soliciting him for a donation. I was going to comment there, but I think this merits a blog post of its own.

There are many stories of people abusing the name of a well known organization to solicit donations over the phone. Lemaan Achai has been the victim of this: they have stated many times that they never solicit funds over the phone, yet there's an organization called "Lemaan Achai (Rechovot)" that regularly phones people in Beit Shemesh, introducing themselves simply as "Lemaan Achai" (maybe mumbling the "Rechovot" part), and leveraging LA's good name in Beit Shemesh to get funds for themselves.

A few months ago, it occurred to me that is is impossible for me to know whether anybody who calls me unsolicited is actually representing the organization they say they are. If I wanted, I could open myself a PayPal or other merchant account and name it, say, "Yad Eliezer", then start phoning people up with a great sales pitch, get their credit card numbers and bill them as if I were the real Yad Eliezer. It would show up on their credit card statements as "Yad Eliezer", and nobody would be any the wiser.

Since then, I have refused point blank to give out my credit card info to anybody over the phone - even if I know the organization, and the caller insists that I've donated to them in the past, and all they want is for me to renew my donation! Who says that they didn't dupe me a year ago? How do I know that they really are who they say they are - especially if their caller ID is blocked, as most telemarketers are? Instead, what I do is I ask them for their website URL, or for them to send me a brochure in the mail so that I can mail them a check. It's actually a little disconcerting how few of these reps have actually followed through with this...

Bottom line: don't give your credit card information to anybody over the phone - unless you yourself initiated the call.

Another wild translation

2009-07-07T19:57:00.002+03:00

I saw this over a year ago, and took this photo, then forgot about it. Today I was cleaning out my cellphone pictures, and I found it again:

Don't trust translation software!

2009-07-05T15:34:00.003+03:00

This one is just too precious not to share. I picked this up from my mailbox a few minutes ago:What more can I say?

The irony of having a "friend" in Washington

2009-06-23T19:57:00.003+03:00

When George W Bush was running for re-election against John Kerry in 2004, I speculated with some of my friends that maybe it would be better for Kerry to win, because at least then you'd know who you're dealing with. With Bush, who was perceived as a "friend" of Israel, it'd be difficult to say "no" to any demands he places on Israel, even though you know the Palestinians will serially violate every single one of their obligations with impunity - because Bush is a friend, and we don't want to alienate our friends, right? But for Kerry, who is known to be more pro-Arab than Bush, there wouldn't be any illusions, and therefore no need to pander to him.

My friends swung me only on the basis that Bush was in favor of keeping US troops in Iraq, which is exactly where you want them if Iran was ever going to be subjected to the former Bush Doctrine of regime change for governments that support terrorism, while Kerry had promised a full pullout.

Four years later, I had the same debate, and still came out rooting for John McCain for the same reasons, muttering a quiet "baruch Dayan HaEmes" when the results showed Obama had won. And now we get to see my "friend in Washington" thesis in practice.

Obama has truly surpassed all my expectations for alienating Israelis. It really is amazing how he has swung Israeli public opinion since his inauguration: when he started out he had 31% of Israelis thinking he was pro-Israel, versus 14% who felt he was pro-Arab, and 40% felt he was neutral. The latest opinion polls have only 6% still thinking he's pro-Israel, 36% neutral, and fully 50% now feel he's pro-Arab. You gotta hand it to the guy - that is really amazing work. Not only has he debased himself by grovelling in front of the Muslim world with his cringing apologetics in Cairo, but he has succeeded in completely alienating Israelis to the extent that only 6% of us feel that he's on our side!

To me, this is very good news. He now has absolutely no leverage to extract any more stupid unliateral concessions out of us. Take today - the US State Department officially stated that they demand and end to all construction in Jerusalem suburbs on the "wrong" side of the Green Line, including "natural growth". Does anyone seriously believe that we're going to listen to a bombastic edict like that? Fuggedaboudit. Obama is just burning all his leverage with Israel, because no "friend" could make a demand like that, especially when we would be getting nothing in return. To a world of Islamist enemies, the USA has no concrete demands, just some touchy-feely stuff about trying to get to know each other better - but for Israel, the US's only staunch friend and ally - for Israel, the US knows how to make concrete demands.

And if we don't comply? What are they going to do - declare sanctions on us? Congress and Senate may be stacked with Democrats, but most of them are still pretty pro-Israel, to the extent that there's even been a rumbling among the Democrats themselves about Obama's Israel-unfriendly line. Sanctions not happening any time soon.

There really is great meaning to the "Baruch Dayan Haemes" blessing - we acknowledge G-d's greater judgment when things happen that appear to be bad. Obama's ascent to the presidency looks like really bad news, but I'll bet in the next 4 years Israel makes fewer stupid unilateral concessions than it did in any of the 4-year terms of Bush (Jr and Sr) or Clinton.

Supporting the Iranian revolution is a no-lose proposition!

2009-06-22T18:09:00.002+03:00

Today I had to say a birkas shehecheyanu - it's the first time I've ever felt proud of a statement made by Shimon Peres!

Israel is to my knowledge the first and only country to have publicly supported the Iranian people in their quest for freedom. And we should be trumpeting this from the rooftops!

It's a no-lose proposition: if the Iranian regime falls (as we all hope it will), then the Iranian people will have a massive grudge against the people who passively watched them getting slaughtered amid mild statements of "reservations" about the fairness of the election, calls for "restraint" and "calm", and earnest attempts to "engage in dialogue" with the murderers. Conversely, those who stood up and cheered for the people, even if they could do nothing more than have the moral clarity to call Evil for what it is, will at least be remembered as friends.

And if the regime manages to crush the revolution - well, what have we lost? Are they going to hate us more than they already do? Are they going to want to drop a bomb on us ר"ל any more than they do now? And if they try to incite their people against us with the "Look! It's all a Zionist plot!" line, I think that would backfire on them in our favor. The Iranian regime has no more credibility with its people, and they're not going to buy the "Goldstein" argument any more. The fear society of Iran is cracking, and it will not last very much longer at all. And if the perception in the street is that Israel is the enemy of the Iranian regime, so much the better! When the Iranian people eventually are liberated, they may yet become our allies!

Stranger than fiction?

You have nothing to lose. Get onto twitter and make sure everybody knows that Israel is supporting the Iranian people!

Rabbi Horowitz - The System Worked

2009-06-17T15:09:00.002+03:00

After all the bad press we've been getting about the sexual molestation issues in our community, at last we have some good news from Rabbi Yakov Horowitz.

Note that in this case, they went straight to the police. Not to the tznius police, the real police. It was handled cleanly, discreetly, and with the full cooperation and support of the local Rabbonus.

Think we could manage that here?

The speech we wish Bibi could have given

2009-06-16T15:02:00.002+03:00

Ah, if only we had a PM who had the guts to tell it like it is...

You want to have a prime minister who isn't afraid to mention G-d's name?
Sign up already!

Stan's right to have babies

2009-06-15T16:14:00.002+03:00

It struck me that every one of Bibi's conditions for Palestinian statehood is very reasonable, yet even before the applause for his speech had died down, the Arabs had rejected every one of them offhand, and blamed him for setting unacceptable conditions. ("What?! You want our independence not to come at the expense of yours?! Outrageous!")

In effect, Bibi's nod to a Palestinian state is no more meaningful than Judith's proposal that Stan should have the right to have babies. Well played, man!

The best possible outcome x2

2009-06-15T10:59:00.002+03:00

Yesterday there were two fairly significant events: Bibi Netanyahu's grand policy speech, and continued and escalating riots in Iran protesting the stolen election.

All told, I don't think things could have turned out better in either situation.

I'm not going to dissect Bibi's speech here; there are some very good analyses from Jameel and Barry Rubin, among others. I will just say that I think he played his hand very well. He made an offer to the Arabs that incensed the Right, but it's got as much chance of coming to fruition as, we have of, well, the Arabs acknowledging Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state, with Jerusalem as its undivided capital, and not flooded with millions of Arab "refugees". He also had the guts to say "NO" to Obama's noxious demands that we effectively sterilize the Jews who live over the Green Line; and he gave a good lesson to the Prez about Jewish history in Eretz Yisrael not having started with the Holocaust. Just a pity that he failed to call for the release of Jonathan Pollard. Maybe he felt that he'd pushed his luck enough already... but still...

In summary, I would have been ecstatic if he'd given the speech that Moshe Feiglin wrote for him, but I don't think Bibi, given that he does not believe in G-d, could have done any better than he did last night.

Strangely enough, I'm much more captivated by the goings on in Iran than I am by the repercussions of Bibi's speech. Before the elections I was in contact with an 19-year-old Iranian programmer whom I met on StackOverflow. I asked him what his feeling was on the election, and he said he wasn't even going to bother to vote. There was originally a field of hundreds of candidates, but the list got sanitized by the mullahs until there were only 4 candidates who got the hechsher of Iran's Supreme Leadership. If they got the hechsher, that basically automatically disqualifies them as a real hope for the people. They could only choose between Bad, Filthy, Disgusting and Utterly Repulsive.

So I thought, perhaps it's actually worse if Ahmadinejad loses! Coz then the new guy can come in and pretend that he wants to talk with the West, while buying more and more time to continue developing nuclear weapons apace, and still spewing the same hatred and genocidal invective against Israel. At least if Ahmadinejad wins, he can't even fake moderation! It'll be more difficult to pretend that talking to him is going to help things - although I think Obama has already decided that he has no problem with Iran having the Bomb.

But lo and behold! The Iranian people turned out in their masses to vote for Bad instead of Utterly Repulsive - and when their votes were stolen, they decided they had had enough! They have tasted freedom, and they are not going to let go! And it's not just about rallying around the guy who lost. I don't think the Iranians just want a change in government; if they did, I wouldn't be so interested. I think they want a change in regime.

Take a look at all the Twitter traffic emanating from Iran. People aren't just chanting, "Down with Ahmadinejad," or "Long live Moussavi" - they are shouting, "Death to Khamenei!"

It's really amazing, seeing as I'm in the middle of rereading Natan Sharansky's The Case For Democracy - to see how perfectly accurate his words are. We are watching a fear society in its last stages before collapse. The people have tasted freedom, and the regime is being forced to spend every last iota of its power to repress them and beat them into submission. As his last throw of the die, Ahmadinejad is playing his only trump card - the bogeyman of "foreign enemies" who are plotting against Iran and trying to sabotage its internal affairs. Sharansky identified this, too - the only way to keep True Believers as TBs, and to prevent doublethinkers from becoming dissenters is to focus their attention on outside enemies, to serve as a rallying point. Looking at the footage of the Iranian riots, I think it's too late for that.

IMO it's going to go either one of three ways from here.

The mullahs carry out their own version of Tiananmen Square, crushing people's will to resist. Try papering over a massacre when you're trying to fake moderation to the West. Even Europe will have a hard time justifying doing business with Iran after that.
They will give in to pressure and either annul the election results or institute some kind of power sharing between the candidates. There will also have to be some kind of regime reform to accompany that if they want the people to calm down. Yet another crack in the fear society's brittle fortifications.
The people storm the Bastille, as it were, and literally throw the mullahs from power. Not so far-fetched; from what I'm reading on Twitter, the army has declared it will not fight against the protestors, and the government is being forced to use Hizbullah Arabs for crowd control, because the local Farsi police are to compassionate on their brethren.

I'm rooting for number 3. But whatever happens, Iran's fear society is crumbling, and we can look forward to the liberation of the Iranian people from their dictatorship sooner than you think. The only thing that can save them now is if the West, in its infuriating "realist" delusions, decides to give the mullahs and Ahmadinejad a hand-up, all in the name of "regional stability". Right now what the people of Iran really need is for the USA and Europe to come out publicly supporting their struggle for freedom. If they fail to do so, then when the Iranians finally do liberate themselves, they will resent us all the more for failing to come to their assistance.

You can also make a difference. Use the social networking web sites to post messages of encouragement to the Iranian people, who deserve freedom no less than any other nation on Earth. Tell them we are with them; encourage them to liberate themselves - and show them that they have friends in the Weat, and especially in Israel.

The News Revolution

2009-06-14T23:39:00.003+03:00

When social networks like Facebook and Twitter started coming out, I took a look, and after much consideration decided that they were just a bloody waste of time.

Now, watching the stuff happening in Iran after their elections, I am coming to realize that we are actually watching nothing less than a revolution - the News Revolution.

I started realizing this during Operation Cast Lead in Gaza, when my primary news source was not CNN, not the Jerusalem Post, and not Radio Kol Yisrael. It was Jameel @ The Muqata. Yes, a blog web site, which carried the most up to date news about how things were going for our boys in Gaza, where rockets were falling - and they had the scoop hours before the news appeared on any mainstream news source.

And now on Twitter, you can watch everything happening within Iran, as told by the Iranians, and uncensored by the politicos at CNN and BBC who prefer detente over confrontation, who prefer stability over freedom. All the stuff that you'll never see on CNN. And more - it is also serving as a mouthpiece for those people who otherwise could not express themselves - both for Iranians to sound off about how they long for freedom, and for outsiders to encourage them to pursue it.

This is the News Revolution, where the people are taking back the narrative from the journalists. No longer can the mainstream media black out all dissenting opinions and subtly mold popular consensus; no longer can they control what people are exposed to. The truth will out, and we will all be much better off for it!

Girsa d'yankusa

2009-06-14T21:50:00.000+03:00

Jewish tradition has a very strong emphasis on "girsa d'yankusa" - the things you learn when you're young. On a fresh, impressionable mind, things make a much greater impact - so it's considered really important to start out on the right foot.

I can see how true this is of myself. I grew up in a pretty liberal household in South Africa, and the things I learned under my parents' tutelage have been the things that have most stuck with me in my life. Things like basic menschkeit and honesty. Having an open mind, and encouraging questioning. A deep seated revulsion at racism of any sort - I will never forget the telling off I got when, as a 6-year-old, I repeated a racist term I had learned from my schoolmates! I also imbibed a culture of activism, and having the courage to stand up for what you believe in, especially from my mother, who was arrested several times for anti-apartheid activities. People who haven't lived in a fear society usually don't fully appreciate just what kind of mesirus nefesh it takes to be a dissident, and actively work against the regime. My parents took great risks to do what they believed was right, and I can only pray that I can be a worthy heir to this spirit.

I only became religious at age 20, long past my "girsa d'yankusa" stage. And while I have intellectually accepted the ol malchus shamayim, internalizing it to the degree that it is a part of my personality is much more of a struggle, particularly where my religion might conflict with some of the things I learned as a child. I instinctively look for accommodations, and it's a constant challenge for me to be conscious of where the accommodation is justified, and where it's just a case of cognitive dissonance.

For example, I learned to live and let live. If someone else wants to do something that you disapprove of, unless it materially affects you, you should leave him alone to make his own choices. Judaism, on the other hand, is pretty strong about coercion, to the point where (in the presence of an authorized court) a Jew who eats pork can be flogged to within an inch of his life, and he can be sentenced to death for driving his car on shabbos. If that's not coercion, I don't know what is. But here I am, openly criticizing the ban on pork sales, advocating for civil marriage legislation, and quite willing to give directions to a Jew who is driving his car on shabbos. In each one of these instances I have, I believe, sound halachic reasons to back up my position, whether because the benefit of the coercion is outweighed by the loss, or because by giving the guy directions you are actually minimizing the chillul shabbos. But my position is not mainstream; I venture you'd find that most religious Jews would reflexively take exactly the opposite position to me in all of the above issues.

I was brought up with democracy as a fundamental value. People choose their leaders, and the leaders are answerable to their electorate, who will punish them if they fail to perform. Contrast Judaism, which on the face of things, does not have such a concept as leaders elected from the bottom up. The Jewish ideal is top-down: a king, appointed by Divine edict through a prophet, succeeded by his biological heirs, and wielding practically absolute power, albeit constrained by his own requirement to keep all the mitzvos of the Torah, as well as certain checks and balances that are under the control of the Sanhedrin. And the Sanhedrin itself is certainly not elected; it is appointed in much the same way (lehavdil elef havdolos) as the Israeli Supreme Court, only more so - there is not even a judicial selection committee for lay people to have their say; new dayanim on the Sanhedrin are appointed only by the existing members!

I reconcile this by saying that the Sanhedrin represented an unbroken chain of command from Moshe Rabbeinu and the 70 elders, who in turn appointed the best possible people to fill any vacancies. If you have a benevolent leadership like this, their judgment is probably way better than the judgment of a bunch of mostly ignorant lay people. After all, according to pure democratic principles, we have the absurd situation that a mentally retarded teenager's randomly chosen vote carries as much weight as the carefully considered position of a G-d fearing genius like Prof. Yisrael Aumann. But in our time, when we have no prophet to declare whom Hashem has chosen as king, and our Rabbinic chain of command has been all but broken, democracy is simply the best alternative we have left. We cannot continue to follow the paradigm of self-appointed, self-perpetuating structures, because look what happens if your original kernel is corrupt: you come out with an abomination like the Israeli Supreme Court, whose primary agenda appears to be stripping Israel of every last vestige of real Jewish values. We are therefore forced to fall back on the people's choice, both in terms of leadership and judiciary, because a leadership that is answerable to its people is far more likely to be benevolent than an unscrupulous dictatorship. (I include the judiciary in a guarded kind of way, because truthfully, we do have a Jewish judiciary even today - but there is no one beis din that is universally accepted by all factions, so unless all today's gedolei Torah can get together to appoint a Sanhedrin, a hypothetical Torah-true State of Israel would have no alternative but to have some kind of democratically appointed Sanhedrin, perhaps appointed by democratic vote among the gedolei hador.)

What about other clashes with Western values, such as "gender equality"? Yeah, yeah, I know all the apologetics about "separate but equal", and the different roles that men and women are supposed to play in Judaism. But am I happy to let my two sons split my entire inheritance, leaving my three daughters with nothing? Not a chance. Whatever the halachic devices are to do so, I fully intend to make sure that my daughters get their fair share of my estate. What is this? - do I think I'm smarter than the Torah? I'm uncomfortable with the dissonance between my professed beliefs and the fact that I simply don't want my inheritance to be distributed the way the Torah says it should be. Is that a bad thing?

I'm sure there are many other areas of my life where my worldview is colored by my secular/traditional upbringing, and is in conflict with authentic Jewish values - whatever those are.

What about you?
What was the "theme" of your upbringing?
How does that mesh with your current lifestyle?
What dissonances do you experience in your life?
What lessons have you learned, and what advice do you have for others to deal with dissonances?

The safest place for your life's savings?

2009-06-10T16:04:00.002+03:00

With the world's financial crisis, many people have joked that the safest place for your money is under your mattress.

Well, apparently that's not necessarily so!

An Israeli woman mistakenly threw out a mattress with $1 million inside, setting off a frantic search through tons of garbage at a number of landfill sites.
The woman told Army Radio that she bought her elderly mother a new mattress as a surprise on Monday and threw out the old one, only to discover that her mother had hidden her life savings inside.

But look at what she has to say about this misfortune - a profound Jewish response:

For her part, Anat said it could be worse. "People have to take everything in proportion and thank God for the good and the bad," she said.

Kol hakavod, Anat! That is a kiddush Hashem. May He restore your mother's lost money!

Calling cat lovers!

2009-06-08T19:58:00.003+03:00

A few weeks ago, one of our neighbors' kids brought home a cat that somebody else had had as a pet, and didn't want it anymore. I'm sure the story has grown legs, but apparently the original owner was about to dump it somewhere, and our neighbor's kid had rachmonus on the thing and brought it home.

Problem 1: she didn't clear it with her parents. So she wasn't allowed to keep it in the house, and it started wandering from house to house in our complex, picking up whatever scraps it could beg or steal.

Problem 2: it started becoming apparent after a week or two that either this cat had been eating really well, or it had a few buns in the oven. On shabbos a week ago we settled that question; it lay down in our next-door neighbors' garden and proceeded - much to the delight of a capacity crowd of local children, and much to the chagrin of the family whose garden was serving as the grandstand - to deliver six teeny tiny (and very cute) little kittens. (One has since died; the remaining 5 look pretty strong.)

Problem 3: Now this cat has officially adopted our complex as its home, and she is becoming more and more emphatic about her rights to whatever any household happens to be eating, cooking or defrosting at any given time. This past shabbos she had the chutzpah to take advantage of our open front door to sneak up to our second floor, and one by one she deposited her kittens on the pull-out bed in our 2nd bedroom.

Now the neighbors are growing restless, and this cat is fast becoming felix non gratus...

Are there any cat lovers out there? There are 5 really cute kittens just waiting for a good home. My daughter got very excited about them and went and took a bunch of photos, just so you can see that they really are cute. If you want the mommy, too, you can have them all now; if you just want a kitten, we'll hand them out as soon as they don't need their mother anymore. (Incidentally, does anyone know offhand what age that is?)

Please be in touch by email: sbehr.at.sabreton.com

Update 20 July 2009:
The kittens are now weaned and ready to go to a good, loving home! They are healthy, strong, amazingly cute, friendly and love to play with children.

Please be in touch to claim your kitten!

UPDATE 27 July 2009:
The neighbors have had enough. Ultimatum - the cats have to go... today.

This is your last opportunity to get yourself a strong, healthy, de-flead, hand-tame and very cute kitten.

Email: sbehr.at.sabreton.com or phone 02 999 1342

Venomous drink?

2009-06-04T17:26:00.002+03:00

Just a little bit of fun... I spotted this sign in my local supermarket today:

RC = ארסי = poisonous, venomous, toxic, virulent

Man, does that stuff pack a punch!

Barack Obama as John Lennon

2009-06-04T15:13:00.004+03:00

I just read the full text of President Obama's Cairo speech.

He really sounds genuine. I think he honestly, truthfully wants to make the world a better place.

But to call him naïve would disrespectful to naïveté.
The leader of the free world, in front of billions of viewers, metaphorically sat down, lit up a joint and started singing "Imagine" by John Lennon.
The real kicker was his vision of a world free of nuclear weapons. Marei d'chulei alma! The man sounds like an 18-year-old at a university "Ban The Bomb" protest!

I feel an icy chill when I consider that for the next 4 years at least, we have a guy with the maturity and subtlety of a teenager leading the greatest world power at a time of international crisis.

To put it mildly, the next 4 years are going to be Interesting Times...

Spin

2009-06-02T18:03:00.003+03:00

Here's a short video clip called "Spin", which I think carries some very deep and profound messages. Watch it and tell me what you think...

Hattip: Mois

Pikud HaOref Special Edition

2009-05-31T12:24:00.006+03:00

The Home Front Command (Pikud HaOref) has been busily distributing CDs today in Ramat Beit Shemesh - a version of their emergency instructions specially made for the Charedi public. This includes haskamos of Rav Shlomo Amar, Rav Simcha haKohen Kook and Rav Yitzchak Dovid Grossman (regrettably no "Litvishe gedolim" there), instructions couched in religious terms of "mitzva" and "hishtadlus", recommendations to bring siddurim, tehillim and tallis and tefillin into the safe room, and - of course - not even a fleeting image of anything suggestive of something that might be construed as... um... female. Sssh. (I checked out the "regular edition" Hebrew videos on the web site, and they don't have any women there, either... so I guess any lonely males looking for a glimpse of the opposite sex will have to find another web site.)

In case you don't find the CDs buried in that 6-month-old pile of junk mail in your post box, as a public service, here are the two most important videos:

1) Choosing and preparing your secure room:

2) What to do in an emergency:

And here is the FAQ (in English) regarding the nationwide drill happening this Tuesday (June 2).

Bad news proves: The world is great!

2009-05-27T15:42:00.004+03:00

On the way to visit my wife in hospital a couple of weeks ago, I picked up a hitchhiker. On hearing that we had just had a son, my passenger commented, "It's so nice to hear good news, when the world is so full of difficulties and tragedy." He then proceeded to enumerate several instances of people he knew in difficult financial, health and family situations... being a kind-hearted Jew, he was clearly very touched and disturbed by the suffering of his fellows.

I thought about this for a minute, and started speculating aloud with him:

As human beings, we are drawn to read bad news. Newspapers are filled mostly with a mixture of alarming, depressing and outraging articles; clearly that's what people want to read! Why are we so perversely fascinated by bad news? Why are we more drawn to a story of a horrific car accident ר"ל than a story about a new medication that will lengthen and improve the lives of millions of cancer sufferers?

In determining newsworthiness, my guess is that the most eye-catching stories are the ones that are the most out of the ordinary. Dog bites man = yawn; man bites dog = wow! So in fact, the fact that the media reports on so much negativity is the exception that proves the rule: The world is great!

As you read these words, thousands of babies are being born all around the world, bringing joy and excitement to their parents. Nobody reports on this tremendous miracle, because it is so common, we have come to take it for granted. Yes, many people are dying, too - but mostly people who have lived a good and long life. Most people in the world have enough to eat; most people enjoy their lives in general. The sun rises and sets like clockwork, providing exactly enough light and warmth to sustain life on the planet; our climate patterns are stable enough that we can predict with great confidence whether we should pack away our winter woollies for the next 6 months. Electricity supply has over 99% uptime (compare that to 100 years ago!), we can make inexpensive or free phone calls all over the world, with streaming video, we have a zillion and one different flavors of ice cream (dairy and pareve) to choose from, and we have baby-soft, fresh disposable toilet paper (check out Shulchan Aruch Orach Chayim 3:11 for the alternative).

Yes, folks, the world is working just great, thank you. And instead of focusing ourselves on the exceptions to the rule and getting all depressed by them, we should continually marvel at and be grateful for the infinite kindness of the Creator, Who has set things up so staggeringly perfectly that we barely notice how good things are, except by exception. It's just as well some bad things happen; otherwise we might never notice the good...

Enforcing bicycle safety laws?

2009-05-26T14:40:00.003+03:00

I recently saw a police car stopped on a street in Ramat Beit Shemesh.
The officer was standing with a kid on a bicycle, and writing down something.
The child was not wearing a helmet...

I heard a while ago that they had passed a law that allows police to fine the parents of a child who is riding a bike without a helmet.
Can anyone confirm this?
Does my sighting mean that they are now enforcing this law?

If so - kol hakavod to them!

Azriel Chayim Behr

2009-05-21T10:47:00.007+03:00

On Monday 18 May 2009, כ"ד אייר תשס"ט, our son entered into the Bris of Avraham Avinu, and was given the name Azriel Chayim - עזריאל חיים.

This is a first for us. For all our previous children we put a lot of thought into the meaning of their names, the etymology of each name, the balance between the first and second names, etc. etc. This time around it didn't really matter to us what the names Azriel or Chayim mean or how they complement each other, or even that "Azriel" sounds uncomfortably like our older son's name "Ezra", which could possibly giving the impression that we're obsessed with help (עזר being the root of both names)! There was almost no need for discussion; we simply knew, even from before he was conceived, that our next son would bear the name Azriel Chayim. Because that is the name of the person who, in my humblest opinion, was probably the greatest human being I have ever met.

That's him on the left: Rabbi Azriel Chaim Goldfein זצ"ל, the Rosh Yeshiva of the Yeshiva Gedola of Johannesburg, who passed away about a year and a half ago at the relatively young age of 73. I have written before about him, in a more oblique way; and many others have delivered spoken and written hespedim for him. I'd like to add my angle here.

Rabbi Goldfein was one of those rare individuals who was beloved by practically everyone he ever met. He loved and could relate to every human being, whether the greatest Torah scholar, an assimilated Jew or a non-Jewish nurse taking his blood pressure. He could converse freely and easily with anyone, with sincerity and interest, as one person said at his funeral, as if they were his best friend in the world. "Nay," said this speaker, "when he was talking to you, you were his best friend in the world."

He was a man of profound humility. He did not puff up in self-importance; he declined to grow a beard (other than during sefira and bein hameitzarim); while always dignified, he never felt the need to dress in an overtly "rabbinic" way. I heard that at one major public dinner, there was one table reserved for the Rabbis of the community. Rabbi Goldfein was among the first to arrive, and as he was making to sit down at this table, one of the waiters came and said, "Excuse me, sir, you can't sit here; this table is reserved for the Rabbis!" Rabbi Goldfein simply thanked the waiter for pointing this out, and politely moved away, mingled with other guests, and only later discreetly returned to the Rabbis' table along with his colleagues.

He drilled home the importance of derech eretz, how important it is to behave like a mensch, to dress like a mensch, to relate to others like a mensch. Derech eretz kadma laTorah, he always said: if you don't have the most basic level of menschkeit, how is it possible that the higher level of Torah is going to stick with you? Can you have a house without a foundation?

And speaking of Torah, he was a person who was, if you can have such a thing, the embodiment of pure, unadulterated Torah, with no add-ons of politics or other agendas. Once an Israeli professor met him, learned he was a Rosh Yeshiva, and asked him which camp he was from. "What do you mean, what camp am I from?" asked Rav Goldfein. "I'm a Rosh Yeshiva, not a Rosh Machaneh!" He had no interest in these political squabbles. All he wanted was to know the emes - how to understand the daf, what is the halacha; what does Hashem want us to do? And a love of Torah! He was generally a happy and optimistic person - but when he was giving shiur, he never stopped smiling - not for a minute! Even when he was in hospital, towards the end, in great pain and discomfort, and under strict instructions to relax and not strain himself, he could not resist engaging in Torah discussions with his colleagues and students who came to visit him. He would simply forget his pain, becoming more and more animated and excited as the discussions progressed, until the doctors would come and eject his guests and sternly warn him (again) that he needed to rest.

But to me, the one thing that he represented most strongly was balance. As I mentioned in my previous article, it's actually pretty easy to be stringent all the time. All you have to do is work on your gevura, your ability to restrain yourself, and you can say "no" to pretty much anything. But that's not the whole picture - because for every stringency there is an associated leniency. You want to make your restaurant "mehadrin"? If all restaurants do that, all the "regular" shochtim will lose their parnassa! You want a new, nicer mikveh, with more hiddurim? And cast aspersions on all the people who used the old mikveh for decades before? Every choice in life is something to be weighed up carefully, and casually choosing to err on the side of (apparent) stringency is not automatically the safest route!

Rabbi Goldfein to me represented the struggle for balance - and a thoroughly successful one at that. It is our beracha to our child, Azriel Chayim, that he should take after his namesake in all the aspects I have described above, and that his struggle for perfection throughout his life should be similarly blessed.

What's YOUR position on techeles?

2009-05-03T15:46:00.006+03:00

After a very interesting Pesach trip with Machon Ptil Tekhelet, I'm going through a gradual phasing in of techeles into my tzitzis.

Being extra conscious now of techeles, I'm noticing what other people are wearing, and it surprises me that so few people are wearing techeles. To me it seems a pretty simple choice: the researchers seem to have very solid proof that that the stuff they're producing is the real techeles mentioned in the Torah. And even if you say there's some doubt as to whether it really is techeles, what have you got to lose? At worst you've got a dye on your tzitzis that doesn't make them invalid; at best you're fulfilling an extra mitzva d'oraysa, every minute of the daylight hours, for which the reward is eternal!

Is techeles too expensive? Most people are prepared to invest a fair bit of money in hiddurim/optional extras, such as buying a top-of-the-range esrog for Sukkos, or tefillin with completely black straps. So if you're prepared to pay 200 NIS or more for a nice lulav/esrog set, with which you're going to perform a mitzva d'oraysa exactly once if you're lucky (this year 1st day Sukkos falls on shabbos, so the entire mitzva of lulav will be d'rabbanan this year) - why would you not spend 160 NIS on something that is a mitzva d'oraysa (even if you have some doubt), that you can do every single day, every minute of the daylight hours?

I don't really buy the financial argument; I'm guessing that the reason why more people aren't wearing techeles is partly because people haven't really thought that hard about it, and partly because it's perceived as a political statement: I know one charedi Rabbi who wears techeles, but tucks in his tzitzis so that he doesn't get ostracized by the rest of his charedi chevra.

I'm especially interested to hear if you are opposed to wearing techeles - why?

What do you think? Please ~~take the poll on the sidebar of my blog, or~~ leave comments on this article.

Later Edit: I have taken down the poll, because some immature, insecure person has obviously written a bot to skew the results. I mean, I may be very popular and loved, but even I doubt my ability to attract some 45 people within an hour to visit my blog, let alone vote in a poll... and funnily enough, all of them were "ideologically opposed to techeles".

This reaction is very disturbing, because it says to me that someone feels so strongly against techeles that they are willing to violate "midavar sheker tirchak" (last week's parsha!) in order to push a certain agenda.

Why? What is so insidious, so subversive about techeles, that someone should feel the need to wage a holy war against a mitzva of the Torah?

Lomdishe Graffiti

2009-04-22T15:32:00.004+03:00

Mas'as Mordechai is a major beis midrash in my street, and I've recently started a chavrusa there in the mornings. For the convenience of the many people learning there, they have an automatic beverage vending machine, which produces a reasonable tasting vehicle for the morning caffeine kick, plus several other liquids said to taste of tea, coffee and other popular beverages.

On this machine is a sign attesting to the kashrus of all the drinks. Since some of the drinks contain chometz (chicory, I guess), they also felt the need to assure potential buyers that they need have no concern about the chometz having been in Jewish ownership over Pesach. The sign said something to the effect of:

כל המשקאות הינם ללא חשש חמץ שעבר עליו הפסח
(Loosely translated: All the drinks are above suspicion of being chometz that was owned by a Jew over Pesach)

But some learned joker has gone and strategically inserted two commas, so that the sign reads:

כל המשקאות הינם, ללא חשש, חמץ שעבר עליו הפסח
(Loosely translated: All the drinks are, without any doubt, chometz that was owned by a Jew over Pesach)

Touché!

Groan - Netanyahu immediately disappoints...

2009-04-19T17:25:00.004+03:00

Well, looks like my earlier posting of today was wrong; apparently Netanyahu was not finessing anything, nor was he asserting anything about the Arabs having to recognize Israel as a Jewish state. Quoth he:

"Contrary to reports, I don't condition dialogue with the Palestinians on recognition of Israel as a Jewish state. Nevertheless, progress in the peace process does depend on the willingness to recognize Israel as a Jewish state."

Blah blah blah. Granted, we won't make any progress, but we will still go on talking... and allowing ourselves to be pressurized into making unreciprocated concessions... and destroying Jewish towns and lives... while the Pals do nothing but incite against us in their official media and complain to the world that we're poisoning their wells, using the blood of their children to bake matzos... etc. etc.

Ugh. For a few hours there I thought we were going to see a new style of leadership and advocacy... but it looks like Bibi is slotting straight back into the Kadima/Labor mode of apologetics, concessions and never holding the Palestinian leadership accountable for anything - lest Heaven Forfend! it should turn out that our supposed "peace partners" also want us dead, just as much as Hamas. They only differ on tactics.

Bibi, you let the side down badly. Again.

What NOT to put on a T-shirt

2009-04-19T11:42:00.003+03:00

Every now and then when I want a good laugh, I visit Engrish.com for some very funny attempts at English in the Far East.

Apparently this kind of pseudo-English is not confined to the Orient, though. I went to mincha at a local shul a few days ago, and was treated to a rather disturbing sight. One of the mispallelim was wearing a T-shirt with a slogan emlazoned, in large, bold white on black: "RAPER MEN".

After davening, I discreetly called him aside, and asked him if he understood much English. Nope. Clearly not. I explained to him in my best Hebrew what the slogan on his shirt meant. Oops. He won't be wearing that shirt again. (I decided not to photograph him for Engrish.com!)

What was it supposed to say? "Rapper men"? "Paper men"?

Moral of the story: don't wear garments with slogans in a language you don't understand!

All credit to Netanyahu

2009-04-19T11:34:00.002+03:00

Bibi Netanyahu is not my favorite politician in the world, but I have to hand it to him, his demand for the PA to recognize Israel as the state of the Jewish people as a precondition to restarting talks was a genius of a maneuver. The Arabs couldn't bring themselves to accept this, and have launched a pretty pathetic counter-offensive in the media to regain the upper hand.

What this really highlights is the stark difference in approach between Bibi and his opponents. Olmert, Livni et al were completely bent on ignoring the fact that no amount of concessions would ever get the Arabs to accept Israel as a Jewish state. Bibi, in one deft finesse, has exposed for everyone to see the fact that we have no partner for peace - for if they will not accept the fundamental premise that Israel is the state of the Jewish people as a starting point, then there is nothing to talk about. Even Obama can't paper over that - or can he?

So now Netanyahu can come out looking like the good guy: "We're willing to do anything we can for peace - but these guys are not in the game for peace."

Kol hakavod, Bibi! Now keep it up!

The origin of April Fools' Day

2009-04-02T17:04:00.004+03:00

Having been "taken" by no fewer than two April Fools' jokes yesterday, I thought I'd mention this...

Back in my bochur days at the Yeshiva Gedola of Johannesburg, I once picked up a (Hebrew) book off the shelf that gave some insight into various odd minhagim. I was intrigued to find one section devoted to the custom of playing tricks on people on April 1. And here's what I found out.

The Christians founded their faith a lot on the Pagan idea of a virgin birth. They claim that their savior was born on 25 December. Which would mean that, given a normal pregnancy of 38 weeks, the baby would have been conceived on or around 1 April. (Go ahead and count - or else you can trust that I've done the math already.) So why pull pranks on people on that day? Well, it wasn't the Christians who started it... it was the Pagans who were, shall we say, a little skeptical of whether the baby's father was really the angel he claimed he was.

The book's author concluded that even though the fun is at the expense of the Christians (and they don't even realize it!), it's inappropriate for Jews to get involved in these practices.

I've been looking for another copy of this book, but I can't remember what it was called, or who wrote it! Anyone know?

Amateur Game Theory analysis - Elections 2009 (1st Quarter)

2009-02-12T01:00:00.002+02:00

I'm a great fan of the very concept of Game Theory - the study how to model strategic situations mathematically - for which our very own Prof Yisrael Aumann won a Nobel Prize in Economics.

I would love to know how Prof Aumann would map out the political landscape on Feb 11 2009, the day after Netanyahu stole defeat from the jaws of victory - but unfortunately I don't have access to him or his phenomenal knowledge and understanding. Even so, I'm going to dabble a bit in analyzing where things stand on the political landscape, and how they will play out.

First up: the facts. As of this writing, the provisional seat allocations are:
Kadima - 28
Likud - 27
Yisrael Beiteinu - 15
Labor - 13
Arabs - 12
Shas - 11
National Union - 4
Gimmel - 4
Bayit Yehudi - 3
Meretz - 3

Now bear in mind that the votes from the army usually favor the Likud or other right-wing parties, and they have the power to swing one or two mandates. Furthermore, Kadima made its vote-sharing agreement with the Green Party, which failed to make the cut, so they won't be getting diddly squat from any vote sharing agreements, making them even less likely to benefit from the army's votes. But in the meantime it's an unknown and I'm going to discount the army votes for now.

So here's my take on the parties, what motivates them, and how negotiations will go, working in rough order of more certain behavior to less certain.

The Arabs: up to 12 seats, will probably lose one or two from the army votes. Bad news for everyone; they won't join any coalition and are effectively just there as spoilers.

Meretz: I shed no tears for them; they lost their support to Kadima, and that's a large part of the reason why Livni pipped Bibi at the post. If only the right-wingers who voted for Lieberman had realized the same thing on the other side of the spectrum... Anyway, Meretz is squarely in the Kadima camp; no way they'll be part of a Likud-led coalition. And if Livni wants Lieberman in her government, she'll have to do without Meretz, too.

National Union: Will never join a Kadima-led coalition, being that they view Kadima as Satan's spawn (as do I). Lo nishkach v'lo nislach.

Bayit Yehudi ("New" Mafdal): Will join any coalition that will have them. The epitome of dati leumi obsequiousness, they will attempt to do kiruv on the most hardened and cynical of politicians, following the tradition of Mafdal remaining in Sharon's government in the vain hope that their feckless presence would somehow prevent the expulsion and destruction of Gush Katif.

UTJ (Gimmel): Same goes for them, except they're less obsequious and more demanding; they will join any government that will meet their price tag.

Shas: They've officially thrown in their lot with Bibi, and Livni has publicly all but burnt her bridges with them. It will take a lot for her to climb down and accept now what she rejected before with such righteous indignation. Shas's price tag is not only waaay higher than UTJ's; it carries with it a strident demand for a socialist economic policy, which even Netanyahu is going to have difficulty finessing. Being that both Likud and Kadima are basically free market supporters, Shas must know that their demands are not going to be met easily, and both Likud and Kadima would frankly rather form a coalition without Shas at all - if they could.
Question: Knowing that his party is suffered rather than welcomed in a coalition, will Eli Yishai tone down his demands and try to get what he can rather than take the chance of being left completely out in the cold?

Labor: Ehud Barak has stated that he's expecting to be in the opposition, but I don't think he'd say no to any opportunity to be part of anyone's coalition. He's more naturally at home with Kadima, but I can easily see him in a Likud coalition, too. Remember, this "socialist" follows the tradition of many other socialist leaders by making sure that his own nest is very well feathered before he attends to the needs of the starving masses. I don't think there's an ideological bone in his body; if he could hang on to a ministry - any ministry - by signing up for a Likud coalition, I don't think Netanyahu's diplomatic or economic agenda would faze him much. He might have more of a problem convincing his fellow MKs to come along for the ride, especially when the knives are already out for him in his own party...

Yisrael Beiteinu: While I may quietly enjoy some of Avigdor Lieberman's demagoguery, the man simply gives me the creeps. There's something darkly Orwellian about him. He says he's right-wing, but he sat quite happily in Ehud Olmert's government while the embers of Gush Katif were still warm. His loyalty to the Jewish people and Eretz Yisrael is not religious; it's racist - and he is open about the fact that he is quite happy to toss away pieces of Israel just so he can get rid of the Arab Israeli citizens who're on it.

Fundamentally, though, Lieberman is a power-seeker, and as head of the 3rd largest party, he knows that he should be in any coalition. He will go to the highest bidder.

Likud: If Netanyahu doesn't manage to block Livni and form his own government, his political career is finished, and he knows it. This electoral loss, when he should have had an easy win, is an enormous embarrassment to him, and he will be desperate to pull this one out of the fire. He also will not play second fiddle to Livni. As far as he's concerned, the right-wing bloc won, and he should be PM. And don't ever forget the deep enmity and resentment between Likud and it's mamzer step-child Kadima. Forget about sitting in any Kadima-led coalition; the Likud MKs will never agree to it. They would rather do another stint in the opposition, knowing that the moment Livni slips up, they can form their own government without going to elections again.

Kadima: Kadima is desperate, too, but for a different reason. If they don't get into government, they will have as much chance of surviving until the next election as a catfish in a terrarium. Kadima was conceived, formed and congealed around only one thing: power. They have no common ideology, just a deep desire to be in charge, and they do not care if Israel is turned into a smoldering pile of ashes, as long as they can stand on top of the pile. This is why they pursue the diplomatic agenda they do - they perceive that this is where the international community and the ruling elites of the media and judiciary want them to go, and as long as they continue sticking it to the settlers and advertising wholesale giveaways of Israel's historical and strategic assets, their grip on power will be strengthened. Kadima is not equipped to be an opposition party, and my prediction is that if they are not at least part of this government, they will be destroyed in the next election by the comeback of the more ideologically motivated Labor and Meretz. Question: if Tzipi Livni knew she could not form her own government, would she play second fiddle to Netanyahu?

Tachlis: here's the scorecard:
Kadima + Meretz = 31 MKs who will only sit in a Kadima coalition.
Likud + NU = 31 MKs who will only sit in a Likud coalition.
YB + Labor + Shas + UTJ + Mafdal = 46 votes for sale, of which 13 are more inclined toward Kadima and 33 more toward Likud.

At this point, Likud seems to be sitting pretty. Bibi says he wants a government of national unity. If Kadima decides to sit this one out, Likud+Labor+YB = 55; add NU and Mafdal, and the charedim can safely be left out in the cold, too. Obviously Bibi would want some insurance, and with less negotiating leverage, Shas and UTJ could be brought in for a much lower price. Even YB would theoretically be disposable in such a coalition, which would then leave the Likud with a narrow 62 MK coalition - and that wouldn't be the first time it's happened. When any party in a coalition is disposable, its relative worth is diminished, and its negotiating leverage is correspondingly undermined.

For her part, Livni has a headache from the fact that YB and Meretz will not sit together in a government. Theoretically she could squeak together 62 MKs from Kadima, Meretz, Labor, Shas, UTJ and Mafdal - but what a mess! Little 3-seated Meretz could bring down her government with the first Charedi demand for yeshiva funding. Meretz will therefore not be in any government, her starting score goes back to 28, and she cannot form a government without Lieberman. Ironically, her weak position could itself be her savior. If Lieberman has done the same math as I have, he will realize this, and know he can ask any price of her, ad chatzi hamalchus. Don't be surprised, therefore, if Lieberman recommends Livni for PM, because he reasons he can get a way better deal out of her than he can with Bibi.

If Lieberman recommends Livni for PM, she will have the votes of the Arabs+Meretz+Labor+YB+Kadima = 71 MKs, and Peres will certainly give her first bite at forming a coalition. Desperate as she is to be in power, she will give Lieberman whatever he wants and form a government of Kadima, YB, Labor, UTJ and Mafdal - 63 MKs. UTJ will be easier to accommodate than Shas, who in any event have bad blood with her.

So now it's Livni who seems to have her nose ahead again! Are we having fun yet? This is just like the Pirate Puzzle; the story goes on!

Now, if Netanyahu is reading this, and realizes that Lieberman could potentially suck the wind out of his sails, he's either going to have to make a better pre-emptive offer to Lieberman (very expensive, knowing how much leverage he already has over Livni), or lock Livni's other potential partners out of her coalition somehow. If he can get either UTJ or Mafdal to bind themselves to him, he can block Livni's coalition. Mafdal is probably the softest target, because they are ideologically closer, and honestly, they don't want Livni to be PM. They would join her government only out of a general misguided desire to influence them for the good, not because they actually want to see yishuvim uprooted or Jerusalem divided C"V. They are also idealists, not power-seekers, so they won't be doing the same game theory analyses that we are currently engaging in. If Netanyahu can just close in on Mafdal and sweet-talk them into declaring publicly that they will have no part in a Livni-led government, then Lieberman would gain nothing by throwing his support behind Livni, and he would only create bad blood with Bibi.

So watch for Mafdal (or maybe UTJ) making any public statements about not joining a Kadima govt. If they do, that's the sign that Bibi has won. If not, watch for Lieberman making a "surprise" endorsement of Livni for PM.

The Pirate Puzzle

2009-02-12T00:33:00.002+02:00

This riddle is an intro to the next post I'm working on... :)

There are 5 pirates on a ship - the captain, 1st mate, navigator, cook and cabin boy, in order of descending rank. These pirates are all motivated by the same things, in order:

Self preservation trumps all.
Greed. They would do anything to get one extra piece of gold, short of giving up their lives.
Bloodlust. They enjoy seeing other people die, and if it doesn't cost them anything, they'd just as soon see their own comrades snuff it.

They discover a treasure of 1,000 gold coins, and a discussion ensues about how to divide it up. They agree and swear a blood oath that:

The lowest ranked pirate (the cabin boy) will make a proposal of how to split the gold.
The pirates will vote on the plan
If the plan wins by a clear majority (no ties!) the plan will be implemented.
If the plan fails to gain a clear majority, the person who proposed it will walk the plank, and they return to step 1 with the next ranking pirate.

Then a genie pops out of a bottle that they found with the treasure, and gives them all the gift of infinite intelligence for 15 minutes, during which they will be making their proposals and voting. (They don't suddenly become moral or lose any of their other motivators - they just become instant experts in game theory.)

After the proposal and voting - who is still alive, and how much money do they have?

I won't post the solution... just yet... :)

(Hattip - Sruli Shaffren who introduced me to this riddle)

Adopt a Soldier!

2009-01-05T16:01:00.001+02:00

Please visit this link and adopt a soldier!

Be a player, not a spectator!

2008-12-23T16:03:00.005+02:00

It's been a couple of weeks since the Likud primaries, and most of the dust seems to have settled.

In summary, the Likud membership selected a powerful array of candidates who have declared and demonstrated loyalty to Eretz Yisrael. Only through the dirtiest machinations and abuses of democracy did Netanyahu manage to shunt Moshe Feiglin from 20th place to 36th. At this writing it is still unclear as to whether Michi Ratzon's appeal against his demotion (collateral damage with Feiglin) will bear fruit; either way, Feiglin won a huge moral and PR victory. For a solid week, he was the top news item in Israel; every news agency was filled with interviews and quotations from Feiglin.

And most importantly, once given the opportunity to present his own case, Feiglin was outstanding at winning over people's hearts and minds. Just reading the talkbacks to every article that dealt with him, whether on Haaretz, Ynet or NRG, it was staggering to see what proportion of people support him! Well over 50% of talkbackers have been supportive of Feiglin - and this on the most left-wing of news sites!

I sense that a major sea change has come over Israel. The people are finally getting access to a point of view that to date has been blackballed by the mainstream media - and they like it! It may well be that Moshe Feiglin does not get a seat in the coming Knesset, but this is of secondary importance. What really matters is that the media embargo of Feiglin and his views has been broken, and the people of Israel, when presented with an alternative to the suicidal path of Oslo, "land for peace" etc., are ready for the change.

But it's not going to happen in these elections.

The Israeli Knesset elections of 10 February 2009 are not so much a referendum on the direction of the country, as a vote on which bunch of losers is the least likely to accelerate Israel towards the abyss. Barak, Livni and Netanyahu do not disagree about the paradigm of leadership, only about the price at which they are willing (and desperate) to sell off Israel's strategic and historical assets. Whoever wins these elections, my most likely scenario is that, like the last n governments, the coming one will disintegrate in a matter of 2 years or so.

And that, dear friends, is what we need to start preparing for - now.

When the next government falls, there will be new primaries in the Likud, to choose the leader of the party. Around 100,000 people - the membership of the Likud - have the right to choose what face they will present to the Israeli electorate. Only about 50% of those people actually vote, meaning that 50,000 people will select the prime ministerial candidate and Knesset list, for whom (I'm guessing) roughly 3,000,000 people will have to option to vote.

Let that sink in: about 3,000,000 voters are only entering the political game at the stage when the candidates have already been chosen. If you don't like the options on display, tough noogies - you just gotta hold your nose and vote for the least bad option. Moreover, each individual's vote is a tiny fraction of the total electorate. On the other hand, a mere 100,000 Likud voters are going to have the option of choosing, for the first time in history, a leader of the Likud who is Yarei Shamayim, who believes in the justice of the cause of the Jewish people, who views Jewish history as having started with Avraham Avinu and not Theodore Herzl - and who will be able to lead our nation in the spirit of the Torah.

This is not just a nice-to-have. It's all very well voting for your favorite sectoral party and hoping that they'll be able to influence the government - but while the splinter religious and right-wing parties are bickering and haggling over their little patch of turf, the leadership of Israel is continuing to accelerate our national train towards the precipice of disaster. We are in the midst of a national emergency, and if we are to survive we desperately need leadership, not self-interested kingmakers.

If you really care about the future of Israel, and you really want to make a practical difference to the direction that this country is taking, then stop being a spectator and become a player. Join the Likud. It costs all of 96 NIS a year for a couple, or 64 NIS for one person. You can only vote once you've been a member in good standing for 16 months, so now is the time! If you sign up now, you will be in a position to vote when the next primaries come around... and you will have the power to determine the future of Israel by selecting a worthy leader for Israel's ruling party. With enough like-minded people joining the party, we can realize this dream.

Don't let your yetzer hora start making excuses for you. This is a time for action, and you can be a part of the revolution that will change the face of Israeli leadership.

Click here, print out the form, fill it in and fax it to the number provided.

Eis laasos laShem. Do it now.

Speed as an expression of hashkofa?

2008-11-30T15:47:00.002+02:00

Let me start by admitting that I'm not the fastest davener in the world.

Actually, that rather understates the point. I think I must be well slower than the median, because I don't remember the last time I actually got to answer physically to a kedusha rather than relying on shomeia k'oneh, unless it's been at my home kehilla, Shivtei Yeshurun, where we do give people considerably more time to finish their silent amida.

I can understand that different people will daven at different speeds, and I don't expect everyone to cater to my preferred pace. But as one who is more sensitive than most to slight variances in the speed at which the shaliach tzibur davens, I am a little disconcerted by what I perceive as a tendency specifically among "dati leumi" communities to pray at a much faster pace than "charedi" shuls. I don't understand why this is, because it doesn't seem to fit into any of the classical philosophical or political areas that are under dispute between the DL and Charedi communities: it's not about Medinat Yisrael; it's not about "Chadash asur min haTorah"; it's not about tz'nius; it's not about relating to the non-frum world. Tefilla (and kavana during prayer) is about our relationship with Hashem, and that's an area where it shouldn't make any difference whether you believe that the State of Israel is holy or evil incarnate.

In case anyone has misunderstood me, let me be clear: yes, this is a gross generalization. I know plenty of "dalim" who daven way slower than I do, and I know plenty of "charedim" who go so fast that I cannot believe they are actually saying all the words. But the general rule is that "dalim" daven fast and "charedim" daven slow. I don't understand why this is, and I'm hoping that you will illuminate me with your comments.

Likud Primaries Dilemma

2008-11-27T13:08:00.002+02:00

I am wavering on who to vote for in the upcoming Likud primaries.

Obviously I will be supporting Moshe Feiglin and all the other Manhigut Yehudit affiliated candidates. But I have 10 national votes + 1 regional + 1 oleh (I think - pls correct me if I'm wrong), and AFAIK there are only 4 actual MY candidates:

Moshe Feiglin
Sagiv Asulin (youth)
Asya Entov (olah)
Shmuel Sackett (oleh - competing with Entov? Or is he regional - Yo"sh?)

If you're wondering why there aren't more MY candidates, it's because the remainder of the MY supporter base's votes are being used as trading chips by the MY top brass, in exchange for support from other candidates and their supporters. Thus, for example, MY is supporting Keti Shitreet from Beit Shemesh for the Jerusalem regional slot, and she in turn is punting Feiglin among her supporters (we hope).

This political vote-bartering is pretty much what used to happen in the Likud merkaz, when that body used to select the Knesset list. Now that it's in the hands of the party rank and file, our votes are going to be a lot harder to control.

This, I think, is especially so in Manhigut Yehudit, where the membership by its very nature is very independently minded and doesn't just do because it's told to. An example of this is the little brouhaha caused by the Keti Shitreet deal, which has alienated Freddy Moncharsh, a longstanding and dedicated MY activist who had previously announced his intention to compete for the Jerusalem spot. I'm not going to get into the politics of who said what, who's in the right and who backstabbed whom - it is sufficient to note that we in the Jerusalem region now have a choice of voting for, inter alia, a non-MY person who has the endorsement of the MY top brass, or a MY person whom we know shares our values and will promote them in the Knesset.

I expect there will be similar conflicts of interest surfacing before Dec 8. I doubt MY will do any deals with the likes of Dan Meridor or Asaf Hefetz, but it is entirely probably that they will support mediocre candidates and not come to terms with top class people like Benny Begin and Moshe Yaalon. I'd like to vote my conscience, but then I also don't want to undermine MY's bargaining ability next time around, if people realize that they don't have any control over their voting members.

Another little complication - Rambam in Hilchos Melachim states clearly what the criteria are for appointing someone to public office: male Jews-from-birth who are shomer Torah umitzvos. I'd love to vote for Ayub Kara, given his almost embarassingly vehement pro-Jewish, pro-Eretz Yisrael views - but he's not even Jewish! I'm not sure just how frum Begin and Yaalon are, and Asya Entov is a woman. I don't even know if there are 10 candidates competing who meet Rambam's qualifications!

I'd love to hear what you think, even if you're not a Likud member. Please leave your comments!

The Great Lerner-Abutbul Debate

2008-11-10T00:05:00.004+02:00

Insomniac post follows. Since my thoughts on the hastily (and very well) organized debate between Shalom Lerner and Moshe Abutbul at Beis Tefilla last night are keeping me awake anyway, I may as well share them with you...

Overall I have been very impressed with the decorum and civility between two serious candidates in a very close contest for the mayorship of Beit Shemesh. At least these two appear to be keeping themselves above the disgraceful smear campaigns that have been conducted by some other interested parties, some of whom I would have expected to know and observe a little bit more about hilchos loshon hora. 'Nuff said.
The candidates had to field some very tough questions, and well done to the organizers for not pulling any punches!
On the qualifications for mayor, I scored a tie. Both men have a long and impressive track record of public service, and both were able to present adequate administrative resumes.
On who will be able to unite the city more, I think Lerner got the edge. True, Abutbul can point to his shadow coalition with Labor, Dor Acher, Gimmel and Shas, but that attests more to his ability to wheel and deal politically than his ability to reach out to people who are different to him. I think Lerner is more accessible personally to more different types of people.
Abutbul played down the issue of the extremists, suggesting that the conflict has been largely instigated by the outgoing mayor for political reasons, and with him (Abutbul) as mayor, he would be able to ease the tensions significantly. My concern is that he intends to do so by conceding to the biryonim and gently persuading the others that it's all in their best interests. Lerner is much more aggressive on this point; he made it clear that while everyone's views will be respected and taken into consideration, there will be zero tolerance for violence. I made that a big score for Lerner.
Abutbul's idea of a separate minhelet for RBS is interesting, though not compelling. I like the idea of having a more personal branch of the iriya, but I'm not hung up on it. I don't think Lerner had given it much thought; he dissed it by presenting himself as the person to speak to, rather than a decentralized call center of sorts. Abutbul was very quick to point out that this is exactly what Vaknin did with his "mayor's open line", but I didn't catch exactly why this was a bad thing.
On the youth - well, everyone agreed that it was a high priority, and the debate was more of a "your word against mine" as to who had been more involved and effective in dealing with youth at risk. Here the debate got a bit caustic from both sides, which I thought was uncalled for. I have no idea who really has a better track record here, but I thought Abutbul sounded more sincere on this point. Put it this way: if I was a teenager having an existential crisis and I could choose who to go to for a warm embrace, I'd choose Abutbul.
There was a little exchange where Lerner criticized Abutbul for having dished out jobs in return for political support, to such an extent that he had nothing left to offer the Gerrer Chassidim. Lerner, by contrast, has a practically clean slate, and will be able to appoint people on merit. Abutbul retorted by saying, "Whoever gets on the bus last has to stand." This elicited a spontaneous round of laughter and applause from his supporters, but in retrospect it left me cold. That was basically a public admission that he's planning to be running the same kind of gravy train that Vaknin did. You support me, I give you a job. That's pretty cynical, and I thought it was a major gaffe on his part.
"Where's the money going to come from?" Lerner disappointed me here. While he said all the right things about fiscal responsibility, he came down hard on Abutbul for promising a hospital in Beit Shemesh, which he said was unrealistic given the budget constraints. That, IMHO, displayed a scarcity mentality and a lack of imagination. Abutbul responded by citing the example of Teddy Kollek, who supported Jerusalem's budget by fundraising overseas (though I can't remember the figures he quoted). I don't know if he's right about Kollek, and I don't care if the world is in financial crisis - what struck me here is that Abutbul appears to have vision, creativity and the will to achieve, and all Lerner could do was nay-say it. Analogies to Obama came to my mind here. Big score for Abutbul.
There were a list of smaller issues, like the Ma"ar, Route 10, techonological development, parking, etc. on which the candidates basically agreed with each other on all points.
Abutbul's closing remarks were ordinary to positive; Lerner's were a shocker. Up until then, the debate had been basically respectful - then Lerner played the race card. Basically he said that we cannot elect Abutbul - because what will everyone say if a Shasnik becomes mayor? I actually physically squirmed, because I could not believe he had said that - and nor could a large portion of the audience, who started clicking their tongues disapprovingly. His intention was to say that it's bad PR for a city to get a Charedi mayor, because non-charedim will get scared off and either move out or not move in. And you know what - he may be right, but to say it outright like that was in despicably bad taste. Can you imagine John McCain telling people that they shouldn't vote Obama because a black man is too scary a thought for some people to countenance? By me, that ranked as the dirtiest comment of the evening - far worse than Abutbul's self-incriminating comment about the first-come-first-served, seats-for-supporters gravy train.

Overall, I'm now thrown into confusion. I walked in a Lerner supporter and I walked out undecided. I guess that means Abutbul won the debate as far as I was concerned.

In summary: Lerner wins on the tough stuff, like dealing with miscreant biryonim and clean governance. I think he would serve my personal interests better, being that I believe he would develop Beit Shemesh a lot more aggressively in the direction that I envision it - plus he has a strong pro-Eretz Yisrael record and deserves recognition for that. OTOH, Abutbul is a more inspiring candidate, who seems to have a lot more of a personal touch, charisma and creativity. I like the fact that he is willing to dream a bit, because those kinds of visions can become reality.

Right now, I'm still inclined to vote Lerner, despite his closing remarks, and despite his lack of creativity. I think he'll be a competent mayor, certainly better than the current one, though I have no great expectations of him. While Abutbul is the more exciting of the two, I'm not comfortable with the company he keeps, and I don't have the warm, fuzzy feeling that his vision for Beit Shemesh and mine are fully aligned.

At the very least, what this debate has done is persuade me that having Abutbul as mayor would not be the worst thing in the world. I'm voting Lerner, but if Abutbul wins, I won't be too upset, and I'll be watching with great interest to see how he performs.

Don't ask my Rabbi, ask me!

2008-10-27T17:53:00.007+02:00

I think I'm going to take a lot of flak for saying this, but this attitude of having to ask your rabbi for his instructions of who to vote for truly gets up my nose.

Last election Rav Shteinman allegedly paskened a chiyuv on every G-d-fearing Jew to vote Gimmel, which placed me in a dilemma, because Rav Ovadia Yosef had already allegedly promised me a chelek in Olam HaBa for voting Shas. And the previous elections I knew that voting for Rav Kaduri ZTzL's flash-in-the-pan party would bring me such unbelievable segulos for mazal, brocha and hatzlocha - how could I not vote for them?

So now I'm reading the comments on Rafi Goldmeier's Life In Israel blog about how these Rabbis say not to vote for Tov, but others say it's OK, while another bunch privately endorse Tov but feel they can't come out publicly and tell anyone to vote for anyone other than Gimmel.

Marei d'chulei alma! What is this narishkeit?! You have a group of good, koshere Yidden who want to influence the city in a positive direction - but you are paralyzed and unable to exercise your own judgement until the Rebbe has told you what to do! Do you not have a brain of your own? Are you simply a robot who will not act without input from The All Knowing Rabbis? Do you also check with the Rebbe what color granite to use in your new kitchen, or what brand of printer you should buy for your home office?

Yes, there are halachic considerations, and for this the Rabbonim are there to advise us on whether or not Caesar Stone can be kashered for Pesach - but beyond that, the choice is yours as to what color scheme you want to use in the kitchen. Likewise the requirements for someone to be chosen for public office are matters of halacha - and it seems to me that the slates of several parties competing in the Beit Shemesh municipal elections conform perfectly to halacha. In no particular order, the lists of Gimmel, Shas, Beyachad (Mafdal), Chen and Tov all consist entirely of upright, koshere Yidden who are all at least halachically qualified for office, and even the Likud list could arguably fit the definition.

Given that you have a halachically acceptable range of at least five or six choices, it's up to you to decide who will represent your interests best in the city council. Whom do you trust most? Who do you think will be most effective? Whose agenda do you agree with?

Asking the Rabbi for instructions on decisions like this looks like piety, but IMO it is a willful abdication of responsibility. Life is so much simpler if you don't have to make tough decisions yourself and you just leave it up to the Rabbi. Then after 120 years if HKBH asks you, "Why did/didn't you do such-and-such?" you can simply shrug and say, "I just did what my Rebbe told me." And if your Rebbe was wrong or misinformed (am I allowed to suggest such a thing?) you expect that Hashem will say, "Oh well, that's all right, then, I'll punish him instead. You move along to your chelek in Olam Haba now."

I don't believe in self-abnegation and abdication of responsibility; I believe in self-esteem and accountability. Hashem gave us faculties of rational thought, not so that we could delegate our thinking to others, but so that we could use it to understand His Torah and apply it to our daily lives. If we realize that we do not know enough to make an informed halachic decision (and that happens plenty to me!) then we are forced to turn to someone else whom we trust and who is likely to be able to advise us correctly. That's the role of the Rabbi - your trusted spiritual advisor whose advice you rely on to make sure that your Olam Haba is safe. But ultimately, whether or not you choose to follow his advice, only you are accountable for your actions, and after 120 years you will not have your Rabbi shielding you from the Heavenly court; it's just you, your mitzvos, and your non-mitzvos.

I asked one of my trusted spiritual guides recently, "How do I know whom to trust as a spiritual guide?"

His answer, in short, was, "It's very difficult... but I will tell you one thing: if anyone uses the phrases 'Daas Torah' or 'The Gedolim Say' - run a mile! Run a mile, because these are conversation stoppers used by insecure people to squash debate."

There's a lot more space to develop on this theme, but I'll leave it for a later blog entry IY"H. Meanwhile I think I'll hang a Chen poster next to the Shalom Lerner ones on my mirpeset. If I burn in hell for not voting Gimmel, at least it's because that was my choice.

No cholesterol?

2008-08-11T13:02:00.005+03:00

Is it just me, or does anybody else out there get really upset about the nutritional labels on food?

I just saw a tub of humus, with 29% fat, of which 4.5% saturated, and in large bold font: 0% Cholesterol!

I saw the same on a packet of crisps: 37% fat, 11% saturated fat, and - you guessed it - no cholesterol!

This is complete rishus! The cholesterol content of food is one of the most insignificant markers of whether or not it's safe for a person with hypercholesteremia to eat; saturated and trans fats are the big villains. Yet the food companies present this 0% cholesterol as if it's some kind of major achievement - deliberately attempting to mislead people with cholesterol problems into thinking that it's OK to eat potato chips! It's like marketing a 100g slab of chocolate to Weight Watchers with the slogan, "This slab of chocolate will only make you 100g heavier!"

I can understand cereal companies using manipulative marketing, trying to get kids to kick and scream and demand the cereal with their favorite cartoon character. All's fair in fair competition. But marketing "0% cholesterol" foods to people with hypercholesteremia is a dangerous and cynical deception that could cause - and is intended to cause - ignorant people to endanger their health.

Yes, we should recognize Hamas!

2008-05-15T22:13:00.006+03:00

It may seem a bit strange for this Bible-thumpin', gun-totin', Arab-hatin', knuckle-draggin' right wing Zionist settler to say, but lately I have been developing a certain respect for JPost's columnist Larry Derfner.

It all started when he penned a column throwing his support behind John McCain for the 2008 US presidential elections. That really wasn't what I had expected from someone who was, I thought, a standard knee-jerk liberal. Turns out Larry really applied his mind to the issues, and had the guts to come out touting a very contrarian position that probably made most of his colleagues at the NY Times and Haaretz choke on their granola bars. It probably cost him an invitation or two to the high society gatherings where support for the Democratic Party goes without saying, and sticking up for the guy from the Godawful Other Party is practically treasonous. So kol hakavod to you, Larry, for having the intellectual honesty to stick up for what you believe is right, against all conventional wisdom.

Well, seeing as Larry started leading the way by challenging the Conventional Wisdom (CW) of the Left, I thought it fair to do the same for the conventional wisdom of the Right. In truth, I've always tried not to take the standard right-wing positions on any issue without further analysis, but being human, I sometimes do get lazy, and without even realizing it, I find myself advocating and opposing things just because it's what everyone else in my "camp" is doing. (This, by the way, is one of the reasons why I'm such a fan of Moshe Feiglin: he has a knack for flipping right-wing CW on its head and arguing with complete clarity for things that you would never expect from a "right-winger".)

Anyway, the fact is that as much as we ridicule the classic knee-jerk liberals, who will always take predictable positions on any issue from international terrorism to abortion to the death penalty to the Middle East to environmentalism - there is also such a thing as a knee-jerk conservative, who will always take the predictably opposite position to his KJL counterpart. You will see all these people on the talkbacks for Derfner's articles on JPost, all spouting the same rhetoric and ad hominem insults, and refusing to relate in an intellectually sincere way to his arguments, which I have to concede, are usually pretty cogent.

Now that's not to say that I agree with the man on all issues - far from it! But I respect his thought process, and often enough I do wind up agreeing with him, against the CW of right-wing circles.

Take for instance his May 14 column, advocating removing the taboo on negotiations with Hamas.

Standard CW: "But they're terrorists dedicated to the destruction of Israel! How can you ever negotiate with them?!"

Larry's response: "But we are already. And everyone knows we are. And yes, they are a bunch of bastards - but they are the power in control of Gaza, and they are the ones who can make the missiles stop and give back Gilad Schalit."

And thinking the issue over, I realize that this is another issue where I've lazily accepted the standard CW. Of course, the first warning sign should have been when I realized I was agreeing with Ehud Olmert on something. Doh! I forgot Rule of Thumb #1: any stand Ehud Olmert takes should be treated with suspicion, even if you've believed it for years. For example, if Olmert visits Sderot and compliments the citizenry on their stoic behavior, taking it on the chin, not complaining and carrying on their lives as normal - you should immediately realize that the best thing for the citizens of Sderot to do would be to stop life as normal, evacuate their children (as the British did during the London Blitz), close down the city, storm the Knesset and throw this band of despots into the street. This is why Olmert doesn't like unruly citizens; if people get too worked up over a mere drizzle of "shmassams", they might do something nasty like breaking up one of his cocktail parties with some international celebrity. So he makes a personal appearance, soothes the nerves of the hapless Sderotniks, lulls them with flattery of their heroism and convinces them that the true Zionist response is to just shut up and get used to life under a constant barrage of Kassams.

Back to Gaza and Hamas. Olmert says we will not negotiate with Hamas. Why not? Because the only people we will negotiate with are Fatah, because they say they will make peace with us, and Hamas won't.

OK, let's flash back to August 1945. After a good, solid 5 years of doing everything he could to kill as many American servicemen as he could, Emperor Hirohito had probably earned himself a very deserved reputation as an enemy of the American people of the worst kind. And he wasn't about to give up fighting, either, even after his Nazi allies had been defeated - he was good to the last drop. Now, let's imagine at this juncture that through forces heretofore unknown by mankind, the spirit of Ehud Olmert suddenly possessed Harry Truman, while James Byrnes (Truman's Secretary of State) started channeling Tzippi Livni. Here's what would happen:

Truman (Olmert): You know, James, there's just no military solution to this Japanese problem.

Byrnes (Livni): That's what I've been saying all along, Mr President. Every day we're losing more and more soldiers. We can't go on like this. Public pressure is just to great to bear. We're going to have to cut some kind of a deal with them.

T: But how? Hirohito is a lunatic, believes he's on a divine mission to wipe us out! How can you cut a deal with him?

B: I have an idea, Mr President, and it's just crazy enough to work... I know a certain Japanese fellow - Wishi Washi is his name - a very good man...

T: What about him?

B: Well, he says that he's in favor of peace with America.

T: That's great! What is he - president, prime minister, what?

B: Umm... well, he's the leader of an alternative movement in Tokyo. I think they're some kind of socialist group; they do stuff like redistributing wealth from the rich to the poor. Sort of like Robin Hood. Only they're obviously very poor themselves, because they keep all the stuff they take from the rich. And they're very organized and efficient - they have a whole co-ordinated network of people all over Japan who are synergizing to achieve their goals. They're very influential and even the Japanese legal establishment is in awe of them.

T: You mean he's the leader of the Japanese mafia.

B: Well, really, I wouldn't put it quite like that. It's true he may have a few personal failings - but he's someone you can talk to, and most importantly, he's indicated that under the right conditions he might well be prepared to enter into positive consideration of American overtures for a cessation of hostilities, and breaking the cycle of violence.

T: Hmm, interesting idea. And what's his track record? Is he a man of his word? Is he pro-peace?

B: Umm... well, he did allow his supporters to wipe out an entire rival family after having just shaken hands on a non-aggression pact with them, but what could you expect? His supporters were angry, and he was really powerless to stop them. I'm sure he meant for the pact to be honored; it just didn't work out so well on the ground. And it's true that in Japanese he gives all sorts of wild speeches about killing Americans and bathing in their blood - but you can't take that kind of stuff seriously. It's all the rage in Japan now, and that's what his supporters expect; this war has really got them angry at us. Besides, listen to his English speeches and you'll see how erudite and cultured he really is. I'm sure that given the right deal he'll make peace with us. And he really hates Hirohito, really hates him.

T: Just hang on a second. What about Hirohito? He's the guy with the guns, the bombs and the Kamikaze pilots. What are we going to do about him?

B: Well, you just can't talk to him, can you? He's crazy! Here's what we'll do: let's supply Washi with a whole bunch of weapons and tanks, train his men for him, and so on, and then he'll fight Hirohito for us and then we can make peace with him!

T: Sounds like a plan. Any idea what his terms for peace are?

B: (blushes) Well, I've actually taken the liberty of putting out feelers to Washi's people. Just exploratory stuff, you know, nothing binding. I said that if he'll make peace with us it'll be worth his while, and we'd be prepared to make very significant concessions for peace, maybe even give them Singapore, a chunk of mainland China and shared sovereignty over Hawaii.

T: WHAT! You offered them Hawaii?!

B: No, no, no! I didn't offer them anything! I just said that these would all be negotiable points, to be finalized under the terms of a formal peace treaty!

T: And what are they asking for?

B: Singapore, a chunk of mainland China and complete sovereignty over Hawaii.

T: Your negotiation skills are a wonder to behold. Good heavens, man, how are we ever going to sell that to the American people?

B: Oh, really, that's easy. Already the media are crying about all the casualties. People are tired of this war; they just want it to end already. And here's a guy who's willing to make it end. The people will recognize the need to compromise. Giving up Hawaii will be painful, but if we want peace, we're going to have to give something in return.

And so it was, that while Emperor Hirohito kept on bombing the US Navy with kamikaze fighters and attacking US targets all over the Pacific with deadly regularity, Ehud Truman and Tzippi Byrnes began negotiating peace terms with Wishi Washi, a Japanese mafia boss with little public support and neither the power nor inclination to deliver that elusive peace. While the US continued to make gestures for peace such as withdrawing its forces and strengthening Washi against Hirohito by providing him with weapons and armor, Hirohito simply moved into the vacated positions and used those as bases to attack the Americans further. Strangely enough, most of the shrapnel found in the destroyed US vessels indicated that the weapons themselves were of US manufacture. When the US forces would counterattack Hirohito's forces, Washi would decry the injustice against the Japanese people, and threaten to call off all peace talks, whereupon the Americans would immediately freeze all military action. Little by little, America withdrew further and further, all the time losing ground and deterrence, while the Japanese, emboldened with each successive American concession, continued relentlessly to demand more and more, without ever delivering anything in return. But it was OK, because peace was just around the corner.

Fortunately it wasn't really that way. Truman didn't go for the "let's pretend" line, nor did he shy away from the ugly necessity of finishing the war off. Whether or not he needed to nuke Hiroshima and Nagasaki in order to achieve that is a different point - but the fact is, he knew who the address was for negotiating with Japan, and when he did, it was with the Big, Bad, Mean and Nasty Emperor Hirohito. And he wasn't suing for peace; he was dictating Hirohito's terms of surrender.

So once again, back to Larry Derfner and Hamas. You're spot on, Larry: refusing to deal with Hamas is a stupid and dangerous exercise in self-deception. But here's where we diverge. You have correctly identified who the power in Gaza is - but your mistake is in wanting to appease them. Hamas is a cruel, relentless enemy, and it is not interested in living in a cold peace next door Israel. Any ceasefire is merely an opportunity for them to regroup, rearm and prepare for the next round of warfare. It's called Jihad, Larry, and your secular mindset has yet to wrap itself around the concept of a religious war. They don't stop when they get tired. They're not fighting for the sake of any political or territorial gain. Fighting is the end in itself. Killing Jews is an end in itself. That is what these people are living for; their greatest desire in life is death as a shahid. Don't believe me - ask them! Why don't you surf over to the Hamas website, or watch a few clips of Palestinian TV? It's an ugly truth, but if you don't recognize it, you are playing a very stupid and dangerous game of "Let's Pretend", just as stupid and dangerous as not dealing with Hamas at all.

Yes, we have to recognize Hamas. They are the ruling power in Gaza, and we have no choice but to deal with them. But that doesn't mean negotiation. When you have an implacable enemy such as this, whose sole reason for living is to kill as many of you as possible, you have no choice but to fight back; you cannot negotiate anything with him other than the terms of his surrender. You fight militarily, with every inch of your resources, spirit and determination. Not pinpoint strikes, but conquest. Driving the enemy, men, women and children, out of every inch of land you conquer, because an implacable foe fighting a religious war will fight you to the last drop of his blood. And when you are done, you don't hand it over to the Good Terrorist Wishi Washi or whoever his current incarnation is. You keep it, you settle it with your own people, and you never, ever even fleetingly consider that you might give it back.

I'm sorry. It's ugly, it's nasty, it hurts the Yiddishe neshoma to think of doing such brutal things. But war is hell, and we have no other choice.

On South African Jews and Aliyah

2008-01-28T17:50:00.003+02:00

As a Jew, it is my belief – and I think a pretty non-controversial one – that, all else being equal, G-d wants Jews to live in Israel. I choose my words carefully: "all else being equal"; sometimes there are very good reasons why a Jew should live in Chutz LaAretz (Chu"l), e.g. if he can't make a living in Eretz Yisrael (E"Y), or if he's doing a mitzvah like honouring his parents or teaching Torah in Chu"l. But the default state of a Jew is that he should be living in E"Y, unless he has a valid reason not to.

Let me stress again: I'm not a gung-ho "everyone-get-on-the-next-plane-to-Israel" advocate; there are tons of very valid reasons for a Jew not to live in Israel, and I do not stand in judgment of anyone who chooses not to live here. But I do think that even for someone who has such a reason, they should at least have a feeling of lacking, of missing out on something really big. It shouldn’t be a relieved, "Well, Boruch Hashem, I have a heter to stay in Chu"l, so I don't need to go to Israel," but rather a heavy-hearted, "I wish I could be in E"Y – but what can I do; my duty is to be in Chu"l right now."

Unfortunately, I think most people don't even get to the lesser of those two levels; for the most part when a Jew lives in Chu"l it's not because they've made a conscious choice to do so, but rather because it's never even entered their minds that living in E"Y is actually a Jewish value, and one that might require some degree of personal sacrifice. But again, that's not for me to judge; each individual Jew must be intellectually honest with himself in determining whether his continued sojourn in Chu"l is because he is there on a mission, or because he has rationalized away the value of living in E"Y for the sake of preserving his own comfort zone.

Even so, I find it very interesting to observe in this light developments in Israel, compared to the situation in my old country, South Africa.

For non South African readers, a bit of background: SA is a very special community, particularly the Jewish community. It boasts the highest per capita rate of baalei teshuva in the world, and in general the Jewish affiliation of the community is very strong, even among the non-observant. The lifestyle of Jewish South Africans is generally very luxurious compared to other parts of the world. Once you've gotten used to living in a 300 sq. metre house or more with an even bigger garden, a live-in maid whom you can get away with paying what would be slave wages in any first-world country, two cars, Daddy working a 42.5-hour work week, and Mommy free to paint her nails, go shopping and have tea with her friends at leisure, it takes a lot of convincing to make you believe you should be anywhere else.

Obviously that's a very simplistic picture. The fact is, for as long as I know, there has always been a steady trickle of Jewish emigration from South Africa, for many different reasons: ideological opposition to apartheid; fear of a black revolution; economic pessimism; crime; affirmative action, etc. Most of this emigration has been to other countries in the Anglosphere: Australia, the USA, the UK and Canada. Proportionally very little of Jewish South African migration has been to Israel.

And there have been a lot of good reasons for that. Since its birth nearly 60 years ago, Israel has been in existential danger. Many South African Jews answered the call and went to fight for the fledgling state, and some even stayed. But for decades Israel was under physical threat, and the lifestyle was several orders of magnitude beneath what South Africans were accustomed to. The economy suffered from hyperinflation, and basic facilities and products were in short supply. It took a really motivated ideologue to make Aliyah then.

But amazingly enough, Israel pulled through. Whatever your feeling about the so-called "peace process" currently underway, I think it is pretty unarguable that in terms of existential threats, we no longer have enemy armies massing at our borders, making preparations for the unthinkable. So why not make aliyah now?

"You gotta be kidding!" says the South African. "The economy is a shambles, and I'll never be able to make a living there!"

Think again. Israel's economy is now the regional powerhouse, inflation is almost negligible, unemployment is at record lows - and we even have a budget surplus! Jobs are staying open for months on end because there isn't enough qualified manpower.

"OK", says the South African, "but even if you have low inflation and low unemployment, the lifestyle still stinks. I could never live in one of those dingy little 3-bedroom Israeli apartments on the fifth floor with a 4 square metre balcony and my washing hanging out in full view!"

Not so. The once stereotypical dingy Israeli apartment is no longer the mode of living. Take a look at any of the towns with high concentrations of English speakers: Raanana, Netanya, Modiin, Gush Etzion, Maaleh Adumim, and of course my own Beit Shemesh, and you will see spacious houses, gardens, parks, and an aesthetic beauty that can rival anywhere in Chu"l. Even Jerusalem is developing higher quality living spaces in its newer neighbourhoods.

"Really? But still, to support your lifestyle you need to have both parents working!"

The point may be valid that for the most part you need to have two working parents in order to come out every month - but the single working parent was a luxury of South Africa that is now not as prevalent as it used to be. The cost of living in SA has gone up appreciably in the last few years, especially for families who are sending their children to private schools.

"OK, but I hate the Israeli culture. It's just too Middle Eastern for me - I like the Western, cultured way of life, and I don't feel comfortable with the Hebrew language."

Well, here's some news for you. The last 6 years have seen a surge in immigration from the USA and UK. Towns like Beit Shemesh, Modiin and Yad Binyamin are so full of English speakers that it's becoming a running joke: "Ramat Beit Shemesh - a beautiful town only 5 minutes from Israel"! Consequently an entire sub-economy has sprung up in English-speaking services and businesses - a sub-economy that has a completely different salary scale than the regular Israeli job market. I myself work in English, for a company that services the US economy. It's almost embarassing - I speak English at home, I speak English to my friends and neighbours, my Rabbi delivers his Shabbos deroshos in English, and I work in English. I might find those calls from telemarketers annoying, but at least they serve as a reminder that there actually are some people out there who speak Hebrew!

And if that's not enough, the Sal Klita has since 2003 been opened to every new immigrant - a sizable cash grant given to all olim, which gives you the breathing space to go to Ulpan and otherwise acclimatize for the first few months of your Aliyah.

"Yeah, but still - it's difficult to move from South Africa. Our currency is practically worthless and you're starting off with a really small capital base, and having to buy a really expensive house..."

Well, lucky you. In the last few years, the South African property market has veritably exploded. The house that you bought 10 years ago for a few hundred thousand bucks with change is now worth a couple of million rand! You can sell your house for a handsome profit, and start off in Israel with a very respectable capital base. As for property in Israel, it's not uniformly expensive. Yes, places like Raanana and Netanya are pricey, both other, smaller and newer developments are very affordable, especially if you've just sold a South African house. Most Israelis can only dream of choosing a home and paying cash for it - most people pay off their houses over 20-25 years! - but a South African can buy a comfortable home in Israel with the change from selling his house in chu"l!

The whole progression is just exquisite to watch. Hashem is steadily whittling down the excuses why not to make Aliyah, by making it ever easier to come home to Israel. How much easier can it get?

Problem is, Hashem doesn't just send "nice" messages. I'm not saying I have a direct line to G-d, but based on my knowledge of Jewish hashkafa, I know that when He has exhausted all the "nice" ways of gently prodding us in a certain direction, the next thing is that He starts sending not-so-nice messages.

Since the early 1990s, crime has increasingly been a problem, though for many years it became background noise, as people became inured to the constant carjackings, robberies, home invasions and other contact crimes. Lately, however, it seems that the situation has been spiralling out of control, with horrific stories like that of the recent murder of Sheldon Cohen z"l becoming all too common. When I describe the situation in South Africa to my fellow Israelis, they invariably turn to me and ask, incredulously, "What are the Jews still doing there? Why don't they get out?"

I know why, because I lived there for 29 years. It is a beautiful country, an easy lifestyle, and if you can just blot the crime out of your mind, build yourself a gilded prison to live in, get used to driving your car with the constant vigilance of an Israeli foot soldier in Ramallah, and keep praying that "it" never happens to you or your loved ones, life is great.

But it just couldn't stay that way, could it?

The big talking point right now is Eskom's rolling power cuts, better known by the Orwellian euphemism "load shedding". Now it's not my place to level criticism at the South African government for failing to anticipate this crisis; there are plenty more eloquent and better informed critics to do that. My job is to observe the situation and ponder its meaning. And I see it in the overall context of all that I have described above.

Suddenly life is not so bright any more, if you'll pardon the cheap pun. When your electricity is cut off for 2.5 hours a day or more, and instead of roast chicken and steaming potatoes, you're eating cold spaghetti with ketchup and tinned mushrooms for supper, it really is hard to swallow - and I don't even mean that as a pun. When your business cannot operate during prime hours, because your area is taking its turn at power sharing, that cuts deep into your economicwell-being. When your Mom's hip replacement operation has to be postponed indefinitely because the hospital generators have only got enough power to support emergency cases and they can't take the chance of a life-threatening unplanned power cut, then it doesn't matter much whether you have the Discovery Essential, Classic or Select Comprehensive medical plan - you and your Mom will simply have to get used to the wheelchair and painkillers. All in all, it becomes a lot harder to look past the spiralling crime, rampant AIDS, shameless governmental corruption, punitive affirmative action, etc. when your very lifestyle that you were trying so hard to hang on to is crumbling before your eyes.

Look, I have to hand it to the South Africans - there's still a significant proportion of them who are adapting to the new reality, planning around the load shedding schedule, changing their spendthrift electrical habits and overall keeping up their positive attitude. What can I say against that? I salute their resilience and their positive, proactive attitude! On the other hand, though, there has to be a point where even the most diehard Afro-optimist has got to take an honest look at the situation, and say, "This is not normal, it is not acceptable, and I will not accept it."

Think it through: even the official line is that the status quo is not just a spike or a passing phase - it's going to be like this until at least 2013! If even Eskom and the government are saying 5 years, the reality is probably going to be 7 or more. And while you may be prepared to tolerate 7 years of darkness, international investors are not. Increasingly, local businesses are going to move abroad. Will FIFA withdraw the 2010 World Cup? That would be economically catastrophic for the country - but whether or not happens, those "disloyal" South Africans who are skilled enough to attract job offers from the USA, Europe and elsewhere, are going to be leaving the country in droves. Who will be left to turn off the lights, if indeed there are any left burning?

The diehard Afro-optimists;
those who are not healthy, wealthy or skilled enough to emigrate; and of course
the bad guys.

South Africa is deeply embedded in my heart. I didn't run away from South Africa; I chose to make Aliyah because my passionate desire to live in Eretz Yisrael trumped my love for my birthplace. So for most of my 5+ years as an expatriate, I have been an apologist for my Jewish countrymen who have chosen to stay in South Africa. But I just can't do it anymore, and this breaks my heart.

How many more messages and messengers must Hashem send? The Golden Age of South African Jewry is over, finished and klaar. This is golus - exile - and like every other sojourn in the history of the Diaspora, the South African chapter in the story of the Jews is drawing inexorably to its close. If there's any reality worth coming to terms with, it's not the reality of "load shedding" - it's the reality that it's time to move on, and soon. There's not much time before the ruthless law of supply and demand starts reducing those 4-million-rand cluster houses back to the prices of the 1990s.

And when you do go, I urge you: consider Israel as your destination of choice. As I've said above, Israel is actually a very attractive place to live, and it probably represents your best chance at having your own children and grandchildren in the same country as you.

Most of all, we need you... here.

Lashing out at the stick

2007-01-07T21:31:00.000+02:00

Lashing out at the stick
Shaul Behr, 7 January 2007

I haven’t lived in Israel for long – not yet 5 years – but from what I am reading and sensing around me, I would venture to say that in the history of the State of Israel, public morale has never, ever been as low as it is now. I don’t need to rehash what all the talking heads are saying about lack of trust in any public institutions, from the Knesset to the judiciary, to the enforcers of the law, to the civil service – there is not a single stone in the edifice of the state that is untainted by utterly brazen filth, corruption, and incompetence, if not outright evil. We have reached such a level of despair that we have even given up on trying to change our government – because the trend is such that we would only get an even worse one in its place, if such a thing can be believed possible.

In truth, not everyone has despaired. On either fringe of the political spectrum are those who are still energized for their cause. On the Left, the Beilins and the Sarids are still deliriously hyping their hallucinatory visions of Peace In Our Time, and just as “even on the threshold of Gehinnom the wicked do not repent”, they will continue to insist, to the minute that the last Jew is C”V exterminated from the Land of Israel, that the Arabs really just want to settle down next to us with little white picket fences, if only we would stop being so horrible to them. I have no interest in these people; they are a lost cause and not worth spending any energy on.

On the other end of the spectrum is the Religious Right / “Orange” camp (of which I count myself a member). Morale-wise, we all took a big hit from the Disengagement, which led to a lot of despair. The Disengagement was a shameful display of reactiveness, naivety and messianic attachment to the “holiness” of the State, but things appear to have been turning a corner since then. Firstly, Amona demonstrated what I believe is an important point – that the instruments of the State of Israel are not by any means holy, and that some things are worth fighting for, even against the erstwhile “holy” State. Then, more recently, the ascent to Chomesh showed a tremendous sea change – instead of being reactive and just demonstrating against unjust policies, the Orange camp showed itself to be proactive, and able to set the agenda. And last week – whether or not it was a good idea, the march on Tzurif was again a proactive move, which to my mind is at least an encouraging sign. And of course, lurking in the background is the dark horse of Moshe Feiglin, who is increasingly giving Bibi Netanyahu chills in his sleep, and giving the rest of us some hope to hang on to that there might be someone capable of taking over the reins of power in a responsible, Jewish way.

All this activity is well and good – but I have this nagging sensation that something very big is missing from all this hishtadlus.

G-d.

Whoa. That’s a heavy accusation. After all, is our faith not the unifying force that motivates us and gives us our core belief systems, for which we are unquestionably so willing to be moser nefesh? No question about that. And we all know that our faith requires us to put in hishtadlus in order to achieve our righteous goals. But IMHO, the application of that required hishtadlus is being done in a way of naivety and childishly weak hashkafa.

Here’s an analogy: imagine a man play-attacking his dog with a rubber stick. He bops the animal on the head, then on the nose, taunting the dog into a frenzy. Then he lets the dog bite the stick, and the animal savages it with all its canine fury. The stick is now neutralized, and the dog proudly displays and chews on his trophy, thinking how clever and strong he is that he beat that mean old stick.

So here in the Middle East, we have, oh, about 400 million Arabs, a significant portion of whom have no greater desire than to see us all dead. Whether through grinding terrorism and despair, or in one blinding flash of atomic glory, our enemies are making absolutely no secret of their intentions for us. And what are we doing? Marching on Arab towns to try put them in their place? Calling for greater military action against Gaza? Threatening pre-emptive nuclear strikes on Iran? Guys, in the Olam Hateva, these are all the right noises to make – but we, as the people of faith, Am Yisrael – we should know better than that! Do you really think that’s what Hashem wants from us – just that we should flex our muscles a bit more against the Arabs and the Olmerts – and then He will take away all our troubles? We are just like that dog, snapping at the stick, and not getting the message that the Wielder of that stick is sending us.

We have a very good precedent for our times in Tanach: Megillas Ester. Rav Elchonon Wasserman HY”D analyzed the difference between the Jewish responses to Haman and Antiochus respectively. There are two types of troubles that come on Am Yisrael, says R’ Elchonon: “maaseh Hashem” and “maaseh Satan”. Maaseh Hashem is when the trouble comes in the form of a threat to the physical well-being of Yisrael; it is a slap on the wrist; a wake-up call from Hashem that our house is not in order, and we need to do teshuva. Maaseh Satan is when the trouble is in the form of a threat to our spiritual well-being, with oppressive decrees aimed at weakening our connection to Hashem and His Torah. For maaseh Satan, to be sure, one has to daven and do teshuva – but the ikkar avoda is mesirus nefesh, going to war, fighting and dying for the cause if need be. Thus the Chashmonaim took up arms against the evil decrees of Antiochus – but Mordechai and Ester did nothing other than proclaim three days of fasting and teshuva. There was no point organizing a military response or attempting to assassinate Haman; the decree was from Hashem, and any hishtadlus spent on trying to “lash out at the stick” would have been utterly futile and counterproductive. Only once Hashem had accepted Am Yisrael’s teshuva, made the tables turn, and the decree was effectively cancelled, did military action become an option.

Folks, I really feel that bombastic proclamations and vigilante actions, no matter how well planned and coordinated, represent nothing more than a wild outpouring of pent-up frustration and anger, and they will achieve nothing if we fail to take heed of the messages that the Creator is sending us. And those messages are clear – we hear them every day in the words of our enemies, and see them in the steady, grinding deterioration in Israel’s security. There is a gezeira out against us: ISRAEL IS GOING TO BE DESTROYED! It may be Nasrallah and Ahmadinejad whose mouths are forming the words, but that decree is coming straight from Hashem. And we are not going to avert the decree with any attempts to silence the messengers, or by loudly proclaiming our Jewish pride. Are we so small of faith, that we really believe things would change, if only we’d “let the IDF win”? Are we trying to play tricks with G-d, hoping He’ll forget about the decree if we just manage to neutralize one or two of His agents?

Guys, it’s time to set our hashkafa straight. The only chest thumping we should be doing is a giant collective viduy. The Orange camp should be teaming up with the Black camp, and screaming like Yirmiyahu in the streets of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv: AM YISRAEL, WAKE UP! THE ENEMY IS AT THE GATE! Cry out for mercy from Hashem! Search your deeds, do teshuva, come back home!

This is the message we should be splashing in banners across the highways and in full-page spreads in the newspapers. Olmert, Peretz, Assad, Abbas, Ahmadinejad – they are all irrelevant; they are just the stick with which HKBH is hitting us. If we get our spiritual house in order, Hashem will save us with ease, as He saved us from Haman. And conversely, if Heaven forbid we carry on like we are now, flailing wildly at the “sticks”, how can we possibly expect any kind of salvation? Rest assured, until we get the message, Hashem will just keep turning the screws on us.

I believe that the time has never been more opportune for a huge, nationwide Teshuva campaign. The despair into which Israel has sunk might actually be a good thing, inasmuch as it represents a kind of foxhole, in which, as the saying goes, there are no atheists. “You’ve given up on everything else?” goes the campaign. “Turn to G-d. Strengthen your Jewishness in any way you can. Just take on one mitzvah, perfect it and make it yours, for the sake of all of Israel.”

This campaign will need organizers and infrastructure. The existing “Orange” organizations have exactly that, if only they will have the “Rosh Gadol” to recognize that salvation comes only from Hashem, and our collective fate depends entirely on our collective merit. It will take some very clever spin, but I believe the Black camp can and should also be brought onside. Any ideas as to how to do that will be much appreciated.

I think it would be most appropriate if the most likely pretender to the throne, Moshe Feiglin, would lead it himself. A real Jewish leader needs to be able to inspire his nation to teshuva. Part of their teshuva could be as simple as voting for him instead of the rest of those godless scumbags currently on display in the Knesset. If such a campaign were to take hold, we will have proven ourselves worthy of salvation. Maybe then we will be ready for a true Jewish Leadership; “Chadeish yameinu kekedem”.

I will add one little postscript, and that is to note where mesirus nefesh, is really called for. As R’ Elchonon said with reference to the Chashmonaim, they were fighting “maaseh Satan”, decrees against the Torah, not decrees against the physical bodies of the Jews. It behooves us all to put a little thought into considering exactly who is making decrees against the Torah today, and what an appropriate response might be from the People of Faith.