Month: July 2017 – ז׳ באב תשע״ז

Not Enough Jews Love Eretz Yisrael? It’s the Rabbis’ Fault!

UNDERLYING ALL ARGUMENTS: DISDAIN OF THE LAND

Because the Spies did not love the Land of Israel, they found rational reasons to fear entering it * To this day, all rational considerations are based on a misunderstanding of the value of the Land * Rabbis do not give orders, rather, they engender processes in their students and in this way, build a bond to the country within them * The juxtaposition of settlements versus the needs of citizens is a lie – the settlements of Judea and Samaria are preventing the establishment of a terrorist state * The revelation of holiness in the physical is possible only in the Land of Israel * The settlements are Israel’s genuine ‘victory prize’ against Islam

What was the Actual Sin of the Spies?

Seemingly, the incident of the Sin of the Spies poses a difficulty: what sin did they actually commit? After all, the spies were sent to explore the land, to see whether the people living there were strong or weak, whether the inhabitants of the country were few or many. And behold, according to their best judgment, they concluded that the Canaanites living in the land were aggressive, the land’s cities were large and well-fortified, and if the Israelites were to try and conquer the land, the men would fall by the sword, and the women and children would be sold as slaves. This was their assessment, so what choice did they have – to sit silently and watch while the people of Israel strode to their destruction? They were morally obligated to warn against the danger! And even if the spies and the people erred in judgment, should the punishment have been so severe – to the point where all of them would die in the desert, the Jewish nation’s entry into the land be delayed for forty years, and if their sin was not rectified – on that same day, the two Temples would eventually be destroyed?

No Love, No Effort

The sin of the spies was that they did not understand the value, or love the Land of Israel, and as a result, lacked the desire to enter it, as it is written: “Moreover, they despised the pleasant Land, they did not believe His word” (Psalms 24:24). Consequently, they misjudged and exaggerated the power of the Canaanites facing Israel. For that reason, when Yehoshua and Calev tried to save them, they declared at the outset: “The land is very, very good.” Only afterwards, out of a recognition of the value of the land, did they call upon the people to strengthen their faith in their ability to defeat the Canaanites (Numbers 14: 9).

A person who does not love the land abhors the need to fight for it, and subsequently convinces himself that it is impossible to conquer and settle it, and finds a thousand reasons why. However, the main reason is – he simply does not care about the Land of Israel, and all his reasons are merely excuses. No one is willing to invest time and effort in something he does not value. For example, a person who does not value the importance of university studies will be incapable of finding the inner strength to pursue their completion. Someone who does not appreciate the significance of combat service will not be able to find the inner strength to withstand arduous training, preparing him to be a fighter. One who does not appreciate the value of family life will not be able to find the strength to seal a marriage covenant, and establish a family. Each one will find a thousand realistic reasons why the time is not right to study, to enlist in the army, or to get married, but the real reason is – they simply do not want to.

History Repeats Itself

Today as well, the vast majority of people who want to withdraw from Judea and Samaria do not love the Land of Israel and fail to understand its significance, and thus, do not feel a connection to Judea and Samaria. Even if there were absolutely no security or demographic problems whatsoever in these areas, they would not be willing to make an effort to settle them.

The Influence of Rabbis

We often hear misinformed people who believe that rabbis wield influence by imposing orders upon those who listen to them. However, they are missing the point. True influence does not stem from orders, but from the study of the essential values of life. When parents and rabbis teach the importance of the Land of Israel by way of the weekly Torah portions and the halachot (laws) related to the mitzvah of settling the land, an internal process occurs among the students. They observe every aspect of life from the vantage point of ‘mitzvat yishuv ha’aretz’ (the mitzvah to settle the Land), and as a result, many of them move to the settlements, and numerous others support the settlers. In view of this, it would be advisable for rabbis to conduct a self-analysis: if they see that a large percentage of their students are negligent in the mitzvah of ‘yishuv ha’aretz’, apparently, it is because they have not heard about the significance of the Land of Israel from their rabbis.

The Importance of Praising the Land

We Have Not Forgotten the People, We are Protecting Them

Occasionally, the ‘yetzer ha’ra’ (the evil inclination) cloaks itself in righteous claims, with arguments such as: “The people of Israel come before the Land of Israel, and you, the settlers, have forgotten the people of Israel.” There are even some “tzadikim” (seemingly righteous people) who condemn the settlers, questioning: “What have you done for the people of Israel?” Are they blind? If not for the settlers, a terrorist state in Judea and Samaria would have been established years ago, and all the cities in the Coastal Plain region would have been under attack, and many of them would have been killed and wounded, God forbid. Can the Jewish people be helped more than that? We’re talking about the actual saving of lives! Only due to the fact that we merited loving the land and established settlements throughout Judea and Samaria does Israel still inhabit these holy areas, thus preventing the terrible dangers of the establishment of a terrorist state in Judea and Samaria! Be that as it may, our numbers in Judea and Samaria are only enough to withstand the current pressure, but should it increase, our ability to persevere is uncertain. We are still in need of tens of thousands of families to ensure our existence – for the sake of our nation, and redemption.

Arise, dear brothers and sisters! Come up to the mountains of Judea and Samaria, to settle the wilderness and build the ruined cities. And by virtue of this mitzvah, the Jewish nation will merit bearing sons and daughters, grandsons and granddaughters – as numerous as the sands of the sea, and the stars of the heavens. There are many houses that remain to be filled, and many houses that can be built; and as more families arrive, additional opportunities will open up for further building.

The Revealing of Faith Depends on the Land of Israel

We will continue explaining the value of the mitzvah to settle the land. Our Sages said: “The mitzvah of living in the Land of Israel is equal in weight to all the commandments in the Torah” (Sifri, Reah, 53). In halachic terms as well, this is the only mitzvah that in order to fulfill it, lives are endangered, for we were commanded to conquer the Land of Israel, and the Torah does not expect us to rely on miracles (Minchat Chinuch, 425, 604). Not only that, our Sages said: “One who lives outside of the Land is similar to one who worships ‘avodah zara’ (idols)” (Ketubot 110b). Seemingly, this is difficult: why is a person who lives outside of the Land of Israel considered an idolater?

The answer is that the fundamental sin of idolatry is that it divides and separates the world into different spheres, each belonging to separate forces and gods. The greatest separation existing in the world is the separation between spirituality and materialism, the soul and body, which is sometimes mistakenly thought of as a separation between good and evil. Since outside the Land of Israel a Jew can reveal holiness only in spirituality, alongside a certain alienation towards nature, it seems as if the word of God is revealed only in the spiritual realm; there can be no graver violation of Israel’s faith than when it appears as if the material realm in its entirety exists without Divine inspiration, and even in opposition to it. Therefore, a person who lives outside of the Land of Israel where faith is revealed in spiritual life alone, is considered as if he worships idols.

In contrast, the uniqueness of the Land of Israel is that it is ‘Eretz HaKodesh‘ (the Holy Land), where the word of God can be revealed in its’ physical realm as well. Therefore, it is a mitzvah to settle the Land, to build houses, and to plant trees. For that reason, Israel’s unified faith is revealed specifically in the Land of Israel.

The Situation of Jews Outside of the Land of Israel

Q: Is it categorically impossible to reveal holiness in the material realm of life in ‘Chutz L’Aretz’ (outside of the Land of Israel)?

A: It would seem that presumably, holiness can be revealed in the material side of life in ‘Chutz L’Aretz’, but in practice, this is not possible. Ostensibly, it was a positive achievement for Jews to develop the sciences of physics and chemistry for the benefit of mankind, and develop banking systems, and build railway tracks for the benefit of all. This is exactly what the Jews in Germany did, and the Nazis used their money to finance their government and army, and to wage a murderous world war. On the same railroad tracks that Baron Hirsch laid, Jews were transported to be slaughtered with gases developed by the discoveries of Jewish scientists. Similar “achievements” occurred in the Soviet Union, before that in Spain, and in every country where Jews resided. True, things are a bit more complex, but generally speaking, this is the curse of the exile. Only when Israel reveals the word of God in the Land of Israel is unifying faith revealed in the world, and from out of the Land of Israel, goodness and blessings spread to all nations and countries.

To My Brothers, the Settlers

Once again we are hearing potentially harmful proposals regarding Israel, and malicious thoughts about the settlements. The interests of countries to get along with the Arab states blinds their vision, and prejudices their opinions against us. The struggle today is not determined by the strength and quantity of weapons – the fact is we have more weapons than our enemies – but nevertheless, we have failed to defeat them. They demanded the release of a thousand terrorists in exchange for one soldier – and got them, despite Israel’s proclaiming for years that it would not give in to such demands. As far as the Arabs are concerned, whoever shows more patience will win, because they are ready to wait for decades or even centuries, whereas the Western mindset is incapable of such perseverance. Consequently, in all the military operations in Gaza and Lebanon, the fact that they survived is considered by them as a victory, and enables them to initiate further armed conflicts. The only thing they see as a loss is the settlements, and the settlers. Jewish attachment to the land is proof that the Jews are more heroic, more determined, more courageous, and more successful. This is the State of Israel’s only ‘victory prize’ which truly deters them. In consequence, enemies of Islam throughout the entire world admire the settlers, and hence, the State of Israel which stands behind them. They understand that the settlers are the clearest expression of the victory of truth, justice, and goodness over the violence and terror of the Muslims.

This is the appropriate moment to encourage and bless the settlers to grow stronger in settlement of the Land of Israel, and not be deterred by external malicious forces, or weaknesses from within.

This article appears in the ‘Besheva’ newspaper and was translated from Hebrew. Other interesting, informative, and thought-provoking articles by Rabbi Melamed can be found at:
http://en.yhb.org.il/

From Revivim, here.

הרב ברנד: להשיב שלטון יהודי להר הבית!

מצוות כיבוש הר הבית

מצוות כיבוש ארץ ישראל ● מצוות כיבוש הר הבית ● תל תלפיות, תל שכל פיות פונים בו ● חיזוק עליה להר הבית והכנה להקריב קרבנות

15:40 (27/07/17) מכון בריתי יצחק ● הרב יצחק ברנד

המשך לקרוא…

מאתר בריתי יצחק – הרב יצחק ברנד, כאן.

Yes to Tribalism, No to Unity

Posted on July 27, 2017

The nation of Israel was not formed as one bloc but rather divided into twelve different tribes with a common mandate and destiny. Such was noticed by the heathen prophet Bil’am who lifted his eyes “and saw Israel dwelling according to their tribes” (Bamidbar 24:2). It impressed him so much that he uttered words that accompany our daily entry in shul: “How good are your tents, Yaakov, and your sanctuaries, Israel.” What exactly did Bil’am see in our tents that was so “good”?

Rashi comments that Bil’am saw Israel dwelling according to our tribal formation, and he perceived that “each tribe [was] living by itself and not commingling, and that the entrances to their tents were not aligned so one person could not look into the home of his neighbor.” Such a nation he deemed worthy of having the Divine presence rest on it.

A few verses later, Rashi reiterates that Bil’am noticed that our tent entrances were not aligned, and perhaps there are two different points being made. One response was engendered by the tribal formation and the other by our tents. The entrances to the tents were not aligned for purposes of modesty and privacy. Too often people are tempted to find out what’s going on in someone else’s house; thus, this safeguard was enacted. Jewish law prescribes where we are allowed to build doors, windows, balconies and the like so as not to encroach on the privacy rights of others. We let others invite us in; we don’t intrude or insert ourselves where we do not belong. That is the definition of the “good tent.”

But Bil’am also saw us dwelling according to our tribes, each tribe to itself, and each entrance staggered so we don’t peer into the next tent. This is not modesty but propriety and broadmindedness. To peer into someone else’s tent means to scrutinize their conduct, to search for the slightest non-conformity, to seek out and highlight the differences, especially the failures or departures from the norm, that very often and improperly agitate and perturb us a little too much. The point is that all Jews are not the same. We were not formed as a linear, one-dimensional nation. If we were, then we wouldn’t dwell in tribes, and we would have our “entrances aligned,” all Jewish homes would look alike, sound alike and act alike. And that is not so and has never been so. We are a nation of tribes.

Among the most hollow, vacuous and pointless expressions we hear again and again is the call for unity. It sounds good – but unity occurred only happened at Sinai when we received the Torah. Indeed, if we were meant to have an imposed unity on the Jewish people, we would not have been divided into twelve tribes, nor would it be praiseworthy that Bil’am “saw that all the tribes lived apart and did not mingle.” We would all have to live together, do the same things in the same way, and never deviate. But each tribe has its own path and we glorify our own path and dismiss others out of ignorance. In effect, there are twelve paths to G-d, and each tribe represents a different one. I cannot emphasize enough that I am not referring to halacha here. The opposite is true. Every legitimate path – bar none – has to be faithful to Jewish law. But to think that there is only one way, or even that my way is necessarily better, holier or closer to G-d’s will, is a mistake. And so we are told not to “peer into the tent of our neighbors.”

Continue reading…

From Rabbi Pruzansky’s Blog, here.

re: Did Muhammad Exist?

We already mentioned the book Did Muhammad Exist?: An Inquiry Into Islam’s Obscure Origins by Robert Spencer, 2014. But that is tame compared to an earlier work: Crossroads to Islam: The Origins of the Arab Religion and the Arab State, 2003 by Yehuda D. Nevo and Judith Koren.

The Amazon summary:

In this controversial exploration of the early history of Islam, archaeologist Yehuda D. Nevo and researcher Judith Koren present a revolutionary theory of the origins and development of the Islamic state and religion. Whereas most works on this subject derive their view of the history of this period from the Muslim literature, Crossroads to Islam also examines important types of evidence hitherto neglected: the literature of the local (Christian) population, archaeological excavations, numismatics, and especially rock inscriptions. These analyses lay the foundation for a radical view of the development of Islam.

According to Nevo and Koren, the evidence suggests that the Arabs were in fact pagan when they assumed power in the regions formerly ruled by the Byzantine Empire. They contend that the Arabs took control almost without a struggle, because Byzantium had effectively withdrawn from the area long before. After establishing control, the new Arab elite adopted a simple monotheism influenced by Judaeo-Christianity, which they encountered in their newly acquired territories, and gradually developed it into the Arab religion. Not until the mid-8th century was this process completed.

This interpretation of the evidence corroborates the view of other scholars, who on different grounds propose that Islam and the canonized version of the Koran were preceded by a long period of development. This new view turns on its head the traditional history of the rise of Islam, which claims that Islam began with Muhammad in Mecca and Medina around 622; then spread throughout Arabia under his charismatic leadership; and finally, after Muhammad’s death (632), inspired his followers to conquer widespread territories both in the East and West. By contrast, Nevo and Koren suggest that the rise of the Arab state created a need for a state religion, eventually called Islam.

This absorbing and controversial rethinking of Islam’s early history is must reading for students and scholars of Islamic history and anyone interested in the origins of the world’s second largest religion.

I never heard of this theory before. Have you? Wikipedia notes the authors rigorously employ Argument from Silence (like another attempt: Did Marco Polo Go to China?).

I have not yet read either book myself.

Notes on ARI-Objectivist Conspiracy Theory

As planned, we copy an ARI-aligned Objectivist’s conspiracy theory and add notes in bold. For our purposes, there are only two important types of Objectivists; ARI and other.

Dupes of the Collective

Reading this article about Nobel-prize winning physicist Hermann Muller (1890-1967), it says

Nobel prize winner Hermann Muller knowingly lied when he claimed in 1946 that there is no safe level of radiation exposure… his decision not to mention key scientific evidence against his position has had a far-reaching impact on our approach to regulating radiation and chemical exposure.

Muller himself served on the NAS’s Biological Effects of Atomic Radiation (BEAR) committee, through which the linear dose-response approach to risk assessment became firmly entrenched. The two successfully suppressed last-minute evidence from the fruit fly experiment conducted in Stern’s lab by postdoctoral researcher Ernst Caspari, and the rest is history, Calabrese says. It marked the “transformation of a threshold-guided risk assessment to one now centered on a linear dose-response.”

…Muller was awarded the 1946 Nobel Prize in medicine for his discovery that X-rays induce genetic mutations. This helped him call attention to his long-time concern over the dangers of atomic testing.

It was a lie that led to many restraints on medical uses of radiation even today, but also bans on the testing and development of nuclear weapons by the U.S. government–so I immediately had to ask myself: was Muller a communist?

Though I do agree with his analysis, I must note my difference with his thought process. ARI Objectivists, bloodthirsty as they are, cannot conceive of common opposition to the destruction of so many lives.

Was he doing it on behalf of a Soviet agenda, which frequently manipulated academic trends and science to the end of weakening the U.S.?

If so, this further proves evil intentions often have partial salutary effects.

For instance, the dangers of nuclear weapons causing a planet-wide “winter” was initially a Soviet “Psy-op” to manipulate the Left in this country, with the goal of influencing U.S. policy to halt weapons testing and production, as well as promoting disarmament treaties that would be beneficial to the Soviets (and now Russia).  But when the nuclear winter hypothesis fell apart, it morphed into anthropogenic global warming (AGW), as a means of crippling the economies of Western countries.  (In my opinion, the various attempts to limit CO2 emissions were ultimately Soviet/Russian orchestrated efforts.)

Interesting. Here’s Thomas DiLorenzo:

The way to resurrect “the honorable title of socialism” after the worldwide collapse of socialism in the late 1980s, wrote prominent socialist economist Robert Heilbroner in the Sept. 10, 1990 New Yorker, is to generate public hysteria about what Heilbroner called “the ecological burden that economic growth is placing on the environment.”

He provided a recipe for the destruction of capitalism and the resurrection of socialist central planning:

“Capitalism must be monitored, regulated, and contained to such a degree that it would be difficult to call the final order capitalism.”  All under the guise of “easing the ecological burden,” wink, wink.

This would require that we ignore the reality that more affluent, more capitalistic countries are also environmentally cleaner, and that the poverty caused by socialist central planning of this sort would reverse the ecological progress created by capitalistic wealth creation.  After all, the worst environmental catastrophes of the twentieth century were in the socialist world.  See, for example, the book Ecocide in the USSR.

As for the CO2 campaign’s ultimate origins, this requires proof, obviously. 

To show that this strategy wasn’t limited to nukes, I think there could be credible evidence that Keynesianism was a theory with KGB origins, intended to cripple Western economies–Keynes was an avowed socialist, but he openly admired communism.  For instance, he is quoted here as saying

Until recently events in Russia were moving too fast and the gap between paper professions and actual achievements was too wide for a proper account to be possible. But the new system is now sufficiently crystallized to be reviewed. The result is impressive. The Russian innovators have passed, not only from the revolutionary stage, but also from the doctrinaire stage.

There is little or nothing left which bears any special relation to Marx and Marxism as distinguished from other systems of socialism. They are engaged in the vast administrative task of making a completely new set of social and economic institutions work smoothly and successfully over a territory so extensive that it covers one-sixth of the land surface of the world. Methods are still changing rapidly in response to experience. The largest scale empiricism and experimentalism which has ever been attempted by disinterested administrators is in operation. Meanwhile the Webbs have enabled us to see the direction in which things appear to be moving and how far they have got.

…It leaves me with a strong desire and hope that we in this country [Britain] may discover how to combine an unlimited readiness to experiment with changes in political and economic methods and institutions, whilst preserving traditionalism and a sort of careful conservatism, thrifty of everything which has human experience behind it, in every branch of feeling and of action.

His defunct link now lacks the quote; find it here on the Mises Institute instead. Keynes was always altering his mind to say what would be received best at the time and place, see the above link. And he especially supported the Nazi command economy, as he wrote in the introduction to the German edition of his “General Theory”:

The theory of aggregate production, which is the point of the following book, nevertheless can be much easier adapted to the conditions of a totalitarian state [eines totalen Staates] than the theory of production and distribution of a given production put forth under conditions of free competition and a large degree of laissez-faire. This is one of the reasons that justifies the fact that I call my theory a general theory.

Keynes was very probably a Fabian–a secret society of communists pretending to be socialists, working to promote communism. (Under Marxist dialectic, socialism is merely a stepping-stone to communism.)  A well-known British political theorist and economist in the 1930’s and 1940’s, Harold Laski, was publicly a Socialist and much later revealed as a communist Fabian — he was highly influential, and the architect of post-war Socialist India, as well as the model for Ayn Rand’s fictional character Ellsworth Toohey.

Was Keynes a Fabian? Maybe. I do fundamentally disagree with the author’s attribution of supreme importance to the question, though. Rothbard, defending non-interventionism during the Cold War: 

… The danger is statism. I don’t think communism is any particular danger except insofar as it is statism. We’ve got enough statism to try to roll back here, and part of that rolling back is the sort of foreign policy and anti-military policy that I advocate. I don’t think that anybody really thinks Russia or China or Albania are out to conquer us militarily. If you press the cold warriors hard enough, they will admit that.

But they’re worried about so-called subversion. In other words, they’re worried about internal communism, either here or abroad. And what I’m saying is that the internal problem we have to worry about is statism. The main objection I have to communism is that communism is statism. And American statism is what’s oppressing us.

So as I read the above story, which says that Hermann Muller’s lie led to restrictions on U.S. nuclear weapons development, I had to ask if he was a communist.  Sure enough.  Typing “Hermann Muller communist” into Google brings up this biography, which says

Hermann Muller was born in Manhattan in 1890 and grew into a 5’2″ science geek. His father… influenced Hermann with his socialist ideals and a love of science. …Upon graduation from Morris High School in 1907 at age sixteen, Muller attended Columbia University and was attracted to the emerging field of genetics.

…In the 1920s, Muller performed his Nobel prize-winning research showing that X-rays could induce mutations and he became instantly famous. Muller used his fame to caution against the indiscriminate use of X-rays in medicine, but despite his warnings, some physicians even prescribed X-rays to stimulate ovulation in sterile women. His warnings angered many doctors and were largely ignored.

Muller’s outspoken views on socialism also got him in trouble with the Texas administration. He helped publish a Communist newspaper at the school, and the FBI tracked his activities. Feeling that U.S. society was regressing during the Depression, Muller left for Europe in 1932.

A move to the Soviet Union in 1934 seemed to have cured Muller of his Communist sympathies, although he always remained a socialist.

Well, maybe.

By the time he left in 1937, several of his students and colleagues had “disappeared” or been shipped to Siberia.

How many people got out of Russia while it was under Stalin, simply by asking to be let out?

A zinger!

So I think we can safely say Muller was not only a communist, but he was working for the Soviet spy apparatus, in some capacity.  In fact, his zeal for the dangers of radiation seemed to grow after he came back to the West, and

World War II forced Muller to leave Scotland in 1940 and he eventually found a permanent position at Indiana University in 1945. A year later, Muller won the Nobel Prize for his work on mutation-inducing X-rays and he used the opportunity to continue pressing for more public knowledge about the hazards of X-ray radiation.

Given that, I would say with very high probability that his lie about the dangers of radiation — in 1946, one year after the bombs were dropped on Japan — was part of a KGB operation to scare people in this country away from using anything associated with the word “nuclear”.

Well, good for them. The bombs “dropped on Japan” ought not to have been.

It offers some insight into how the Soviets operated then, and how Russia operates today, under Putin (who is ex-KGB/FSB). Or possibly how Obama (a closet communist, in my firm opinion) pursues destructive economic policies such as “stimulus”, tax increases, crippling regulations, and healthcare laws (a trillion dollars annually when fully implemented) — all with the object of stressing the U.S. economy to the breaking point.  Or his aggressive pursuit of the new START disarmament treaty, which reduces U.S. nuclear stockpiles by 2/3, while letting the Russians increase their stockpiles.

Putin is an admixture. I say this but to demonstrate it would take too long. And who cares? Obama is not a communist, with or without a closet, but if you wish for evidence he is, look here.