Dear Friends,

Usually, I don’t get involved with writing about political situations but with everything going on I thought I should share a few thoughts…

One of the most frustrating things in life is trying to reason logic with someone who is emotionally attached to something, some person, or some idea. The more you try to convince the person, the more you both become angry. Like an individual involved in a cult, in an abusive relationship, or a failing business – you can talk yourself blue in the face and it will get you nowhere.

Israel Landscape

Anti-Semitism is not logical. The perpetrator may try to use some warped logic to justify their means but it still stems from an emotional hatred. During The Black Death between 1348 and 1350, there were many violent attacks on Jewish communities throughout Europe. As the plague swept across Europe, killing off more than half the population, the Jews were the scapegoats. They were accused of poisoning the wells which caused the disease. To give you one example, 900 Jews were burnt alive in Strasbourg on February 14, 1349. The plague had not yet affected the city, and killing off the Jews was seen as a pre-emptive move to prevent the plague from coming.

It seems a couple of hundred years later, people were still convinced that the Jews were at fault for the plague. The 16th century German religious reformer, Martin Luther wrote: “they are often accused of poisoning wells, stealing children and mutilating them.”  How many Jews have been killed in pogroms because of blood libels, which falsely accused Jews for using Christian blood in their passover Matzah, when the Christians themselves had killed a child and blamed the Jews.

Jews have been blamed for killing Jesus, starting both world wars and losing them, the rise and fall of communism, 9-11, America’s financial success and financial problems, and just about anything that happens in the Middle East.

There is a story of two old ladies sitting on a park bench having an argument. One points to a gray thing moving along the ground and says: “Look at the size of that pigeon.” The other lady counters, “that’s no pigeon, that’s a giant rat!” They argue for a while until the thing flies up into the air and at which point lady number two remarks: “Wow that is the first time I’ve ever seen a flying rat!”  -   If you want to believe something is a rat, then no matter what happens in life you will keep your belief. Anti-semites have their beliefs about Jews and if they want to hold on to them, then no matter what good Israel does, the negative beliefs will remain. For some, they are so steeped in blame and hatred that even when blatantly good stares them in the face they will see bad.

Praying at the Western Wall

What scares me, is how far some people can go in order to hold on to a corrupt belief. It seems even when Jews do a nice simple thing to help out in their community the world’s anti-Semites have a way of darkening it. Here is what Major Robert H. Williams, in ‘FECP and the Minority Machine’, page 10, has to say about Jews doing good:“B’nai B’rith, the secret Jewish fraternity, was organized in 1843, awakening world Jewish aspirations, or Zionism, and its name, meaning “Sons of the Covenant,” suggests that the 12 men who organized the fraternity aimed at bringing about the fulfillment of “the Covenant,” or the supposed Messianic promise of ruler-ship over all peoples. To rule all peoples, it is first necessary to bring them together in a world federation or world government – which is the avowed aim of both Communists and Zionists.” 

Here is what I know about B’nai B’rith’s inception: The twelve men who headed the organisation were appalled by the deplorable condition of immigrant Jews to the United States.  The newcomers to the country were often living in utmost poverty, and these twelve men wanted to help. They set up an organisation which initially was about ”Visiting and attending the sick” and “protecting and assisting the widow and the orphan.”

My grandfather was president at one point of B’nai B’rith Montreal Canada. Their biggest project at the time was sending thousands of food baskets to impoverished families. I was part of B’nai B’rith Youth movement and we never conspired to inject the world with communist views. We spent our free time packing food baskets, cheering up elderly people and creating a better community environment.

The Jewish people have undergone two thousand years of persecution and expulsion from almost every country they lived in. One website http://biblebelievers.org.au/expelled.htm  has a list of 109 locations, from which Jews have been expelled since AD250.

Throughout history there have been innumerable pogroms across Europe and the Middle East. Jewish communities were decimated, the people murdered, raped, and their homes and businesses ransacked. Those who survive often did so by fleeing with whatever they carried in their pockets.

Significant pogroms in the Russian Empire included the Odessa pogroms, Warsaw pogrom (1881), Kishinev pogrom (1903), Kiev Pogrom (1905), and Białystok pogrom (1906), and, after the 1917 Russian Revolution, the Lwów pogrom (1918) and Kiev Pogroms (1919). This does not include the countless smaller pogroms that took place on a regular basis.

The UN has passed resolutions condemning just about everything Israel has ever done. During the Gulf War while 39 Scud missiles landed on Israel threatening biological warfare, America asked Israel not to get involved. NOT GET INVOLVED? If your family was being threatened to be killed and someone asked you not to get involved I hope you would never listen to that someone again…yet we do.

Where was the world when 6 million of our brothers and sisters were murdered by the Nazis? An estimated 67% of the Jewish European population which included up to 90% in some countries. This is Genocide. The Palestinians and the world claim “genocide” while the Palestinian population has grown in leaps and bounds. Do you want to reason with a people who deny the holocaust having happened yet say they wished it did happen, and given the opportunity would make it happen? Does any of this seem logical?

So yes we Jews are stupid if we think the world cares; granted there are some Christians and individuals who love us, thank you. Most have demonstrated for the last 2,000 years that they don’t really give a hoot, and that their dislike for the Jewish people will remain regardless.

Thus said, I don’t believe the Islamic world particularly hate us. I believe they hate everyone who is not exactly like themselves – Christians, Buddhist, Hindus, and even Shiite, Sunni, western Culture, America, anything really. If Israel was gone tomorrow, they would have a civil war amongst themselves. All it takes is an artist to draw a cartoon, or an idiot, to make some pathetic movie depicting the Prophet, and the Islamic world will be up in arms, rioting, protesting and killing.

There will never be peace in the Middle East – Iraq and Iran in the Gulf war, the Egyptian political instability, The Syrian Civil War, the Taliban in Afghanistan, and Hamas, Fatah, PLO and Jihad all fighting each other. They like to fight, full stop. It is part of their culture.

We Jews on the other hand don’t like fighting. We want to live in peace and only fight to protect ourselves. If Israel laid down its weapons, tomorrow there would be no Israel. If Hamas on the other hand laid down their weapons there would be peace. But Hamas then would lose its identity which is something they are not prepared to do.

If you meet anyone who wants to talk logic, perhaps start with this. “Can I ask you a simple question; Do you think Israel has the capabilities to blow Gaza off the map. To kill everyone there, and turn it into a pile of rubble?” The answer is “yes.”

“Now do you think Hamas, Iran, Jihad and all the other crazy groups have the capability to blow Israel to pieces?” The answer is “no.”

Now let me ask you another question. “Do you think that, if Hamas or Iran could blow Israel off the map would they?” The answer is “yes,” as they have expressed the intent openly many times.

Thus, when Israel kills a Palestinian child, it is a mistake. There is no malicious intent. Israel gains nothing by killing an innocent civilian. If they wanted to, they could kill them all. Hamas on the other hand specifically targets civilians, with 1,500 killed in buses and cafes in the past Intifada, and constantly by lobbing rockets into civilian populations. They are happy to blow themselves up in martyrdom, so why would they care to take a few of their own with them?

But this is all silly logic for intelligent people to reason with… to negotiate with… ‘insanity is trying to do the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.’ So we are insane as well.

If we care about world opinion we are doomed…because there are two types of people in the world: those who like us unconditionally, and those who unconditionally condemn and hate us. So who are we trying to appease. The world has condemned everything Israel does. During the Sydney 2000 Olympics Countries build fences to protect their athletes from terrorists along with armed security just in case. But when Israel puts up a fence to protect its civilians from terrorists who say and demonstrate their intent on causing harm, the world screams. So let them scream.

I remember one of my first self-defence lectures I went to when I was 14 years old. The instructor said: “Better to be tried by 12 (a jury) than to be carried by 6 (in a coffin).”

Let the UN, pass more resolutions, let the Arabs in every city around the globe protest, let the media broadcast its lies, let the Arab world kill themselves while the world ignores it, let America and every other country in the world condemn, and let the Chamberlains of the world wave a pathetic piece of paper signed by Hitler…but don’t let a single other Israeli civilian die by a terrorist or allow a young Israeli soldier to be killed unnecessarily.

Yes we trade one soldier for a thousand terrorists because life to us is valuable. And it should be too valuable to waste on politics. Too valuable to fire rubber bullets in the face of live ammunition. Too valuable to risk ground force when air strikes would do.

The sooner we wake up to the fact that logic and the plight of the Jews do not mix, the better off we will be. As frustrating and infuriating as it may be, many in the world are emotionally attached to their beliefs and no amount of reasoning will ever work.

Israel exists on miracles. Thirty-nine scuds can land on it without injuring a single person and Israel can take out an Egyptian air force without the loss of a life.

When King David went to battle, half the army would pray while the other half fought. Both sides employed tactics to the best of their abilities. For those of us not actively fighting for the protection of Israel we must pray with all our hearts to our Father in heaven that He protect them and us. And for those who are fighting, they must fight using everything available to them by air, land, and water. We receive miracles but we are not allowed to rely on them, yet at the same time we must recognise that our survival and victory balances on miracles.

May we see the coming of the final redemption as the prophet Isaiah says, ‘They will beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks. Nations will not take up the sword against other nations, and they will no longer train for war.’

Am Happy to say that the first books have arrived from the Printer in Israel. Please G-d they will be in the shops soon.

Parshas Masei: It’s the Journey, Not the Destination

Around this time last year, I traveled to North America to visit my family.   I had a really terrible trip, where 3 flights turned into 5 (plus a bus ride), with a 22-hour itinerary taking 80 hours to complete – no mean feat for a pregnant woman traveling alone with a toddler on her lap!

Akiva as he sat on one of our many flights last year, reading the safety information card

Looking back on that time, sadly, the difficult experience of getting to North America that eclipses the time spent there after arrival.  It is the crazy tale of my travels that my friends want to hear about – how did I survive 3 & 1/2 days of constant travel with a big belly and a squirming toddler?  What happened, exactly?  It was quite the saga.

This year, the journey (with an energetic toddler and a crawling lap infant) went much better, but when I see people, the question is the same.  ”How was the flight? How did you do it? You’re so brave to travel with the babies like that!”

So it is the journey to North America that people want to hear about, not the adventures in the countryside with family, not the swims in the lake, not the berry picking, not the art show along the boardwalk, not the sandcastles at the beach, not the playgrounds and petting zoos, not the big family dinners…

Which explains, perhaps, why this week’s parsha is called Masei, “the journeys of.”  It is not called “the destinations of.”  The focus is on the journeys themselves.  For it is not our arrival at the destination that changes us, it is the journey.  A journey challenges you, forces you to grow.  The Jews had to undergo 42 journeys, 42 unique periods of growth and transformation, in order to be spiritually ready to enter the land of Israel.

Similarly, we also must focus on our journeys.  Visiting family was nice, but was it truly a challenge (ok, maybe I should not answer that!)? Did it force me to grow as a person?  Or was it more of an opportunity to relax into myself, safe in the arms of those who love me as I am?

So let us continue on our life of journeys.  Let’s not stop for too long in any one station, but keep pushing ourselves to take the next step, to go even further.  Let’s all get up and grow!

Shabbat shalom!

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Parshas Mattos: Consequences Are Not Always Immediate

I remember calling my mother once.  My challah dough had not risen in my cold kitchen and Shabbos was fast approaching.  How, I asked her, could I get my dough to rise really fast?

My mother didn’t understand what the big deal was. “Why not just let it rise slowly? Will G-d really be so mad at you if you bake it on Shabbos? Do you really believe He’s going to strike you down with lightening?” Good question!

Most people today seem consumed with immediacy.  We strive for immediate gratification.  Given the choice between receiving $100 today or $240 in a year’s time, most people choose to get $100 today.  It’s part of our mentality.  It explains why we are so bad at saving for the future.  It feels so much better to spend today than to save for tomorrow.

G-d doesn’t work that way.  As we mentioned last week, G-d is outside of time.  For G-d, there is no past, present, or future.  So what makes us think that G-d has to punish us immediately? How is it a denial of the Torah’s divinity that G-d doesn’t strike us with lightening the moment we do something wrong?

In fact, even as humans we don’t work this way.  We rarely punish immediately.  Often as parents, we deliberately delay punishment to give children the chance to admit and apologize.  G-d does the exact same thing to us.  He waits and hopes that we will do teshuva and repent… but if we don’t, He has no choice but to punish us.

We see an instance of delayed punishment in this week’s parsha.  The tribe of Menashe is split in two.  The Midrash teaches that this is punishment for when Menashe hid Yosef’s goblet in Binyamin’s sack, causing the sons of Yaakov to tear their clothes.  Grief tears us apart and deliberately causing others grief is contrary to Jewish belief and Jewish law.  No matter how good the intentions, it is the actions that really count and Menashe’s actions result in a punishment eventually.

Just as punishments can be delayed, so too rewards.  So just as we must always keep in mind that negative behaviors might not be punished immediately, we must also rest assured that our rewards are waiting for us, too.

Shabbat shalom!

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Parshas Pinchas: Time Travel Teshuva

We are currently traveling in the US and Canada to see our families.  It feels good to be back on the road again. It is a taste of the nomadic lifestyle we so love.  But there is one kind of travel you can do without ever leaving home: time travel.

No, we have not built a time machine! (Although sometimes having such a thing really would come in handy.)  Time in the physical world marches steadily forward and cannot be stopped.

But time in the spiritual realm is a different thing altogether.  G-d exists outside of time.  It is difficult for us to imagine, but for G-d there is no past, present, or future.  They are all the same thing.  That is how it is possible for G-d to know the “future” and yet we still have free will – for G-d knowing the future is the same as knowing the present or the past.  This means that in the spiritual realm time does not exist in the same way it exists in the physical world.  So even though time travel is impossible in the physical world, it is possible in the spiritual world!

We learn this from this week’s parsha.  In it there is a strange verse that says that Korach’s children didn’t die with everyone else.  And yet we read previously that Korach’s whole family was swallowed up by the earth.  What happened? What does it mean?  The Midrash teaches that Korach’s sons got to the entrance of Gehenom and wanted to sing praises to G-d but were unable to. When they found they could not sing, they started to think that maybe they had made a mistake in following their father.  Rashi explains that these thoughts of teshuva (repentance, return) were powerful enough that a niche opened up at the entrance of Gehenom and saved them.  At the very last possible moment Korach’s children felt true regret for what they had done and G-d accepted their teshuva.

You see, the Gemara teaches that teshuva is a powerful way of undergoing spiritual time travel.  Doing teshuva for something has the power to either erase it (so that in the spiritual world it never happened) or even to turn it into a mitzvah!

Amazingly this means that it is not too late to do teshuva.  It is easy to look at our lives and think of all the things we have done with despair.  Why start to keep kosher when we have a lifetime of shrimp and pork as black marks against us? Why start to keep Shabbat when we have such a long history of breaking it?  How can we ever overcome all the things we have done wrong? The answer is that teshuva can either erase or even reverse all of these things! Imagine, spiritually all that non-kosher food could become totally kosher!

But don’t wait to start doing teshuva.  Some people think that if they can get “credit” for doing mitzvot simply by doing teshuva, they might as well continue doing the wrong thing now and do teshuva later, after they have had their fun.  Unfortunately, we never know when our opportunity to do teshuva might expire.  For we can only do teshuva while we are living and once our time is up, our opportunity to do teshuva will be no more.  Korach’s children managed it at the very last second, but the others in their group did not.

Carpe diem! Seize the day! Seize your opportunity and do teshuva right away!

Enjoy your spiritual time travels!

Shabbat shalom!

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Parshas Balak: The Beauty and Modesty of the Jewish Home

I hear it is said that most people do not get along with their in-laws.  I should consider myself very blessed, then, that I absolutely love my in-laws.  They are crazy and I love it.

The laws of yichud dictate when a man and a woman can be alone in a room.  Two men can be alone with one woman or three women with one man.  But the Talmud brings down something extremely interesting: two women can be alone with one man if those two women are sister-in-law.  The Talmud teaches that sisters-in-law are natural enemies.  I guess they haven’t met my sister-in-laws then!  Because mine are awesome.

So it is that we are currently traveling to Canada to meet Rabbi Ben’s family for the wedding of his younger sister Devora.  It is fitting, then, that this week’s parsha is full of curses-turned-blessings.  Just as my relationship with my sister-in-law is “naturally” a bad one, but instead is wonderful, so too, are Bilaam’s words turned backwards from natural curses to easy blessings.

And of course, one of the most famous lines in the Torah comes from his mouth. “How beautiful are your tents, Oh Jacob, your dwelling places, Oh Israel.”  We learn that this is because the Jewish tents were turned so the entrances faced away from each other.  The Jewish people are modest: we don’t go peeping into other peoples’ homes.

So, too, my sister-in-law Devora now will be forming her own Jewish home.  We learn that Jewish women are renowned for their modesty – indeed, that modesty sets the Jewish woman apart.  We are surrounded by the secular world, which venerates the exact opposite.  So Devora will now have the chance to build a beautiful, special, and precious new Jewish home, using this unique Jewish quality of tzniut.

At this time of her wedding, we give her a blessing that she should indeed have a home filled with spiritual beauty, modesty, and Jewish values.

Mazal tov!

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