These Words of Rabbi Nachman Kahana Ought To Be Engraved in Stone

If you are shuddering at the thought of how many “karet” transgressions one performs when ascending the Mount, permit me to fill you in on a little halachic geography.

Har Habayit is made up of two areas, the center is solid bed rock, which is surrounded by land fill made by Herod when he turned the Temple Mount from a square into a rectangle. The building of the Bet Hamikadash was 100 amot high (50 meters) equivalent to a 25 story building. Herod did not build with steel and aluminum but with huge stones, like those in the Kotel, so the sheer weight of the Bet Hamikdash was too heavy to be held up by land fill. Meaning, that even though we do not know the exact point of the Azara, we do know where it is not, and so we tread only on the land fill. Indeed the Kotel is no more than a supporting wall for the land fill to prevent slippage.

Read the rest here…

Iran, the Only State Which Decriminalizes Kidney Markets

Tina Rosenberg on the Kidney Market in Iran

Sep 19 2015

There is only one country in the world where a person can sell a kidney to another citizen who buys it. That country is Iran. Tina Rosenberg of The New York Times talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about the Iranian kidney market–how it works, its strengths and weaknesses, and whether its lessons apply to the United States or elsewhere.

Listen on Econ Talk here…

The Abortive ‘Medinat Yehuda’ Plan: A History

Medinat Yehuda : Palestine or Judea???

18 August 2013

13 Elul 5773

In January 1989, Rabbi Meir Kahane, Hy”d, held a conference about which he said, “We did not declare a state.  We declared our intent to declare a state if and when Israel will leave the areas.” [Yehuda, Shomron and Aza – Yesha]

To the government of the State of Israel, he said:

“You will not be able to sign an accord with the Palestinians giving up parts of the Land of Israel – you will not be able to.  This is not Sinai, this is not Yamit.  Here, we’re not dealing with two or three thousand people. Here, you are speaking of 65,000 settlers who live there, including 100,000 Jews who live right across the border who will pour into the area to ensure that it will not be given up because they know that the day after a Palestinian state arises in Judea and Samaria, the next day, the Palestinians will say, “now to the next.”

It’s clear that while Rabbi Meir Kahane put no faith in the Israeli government, he put a lot of faith in his fellow Jews.

Twenty-four years later, we’re not still talking about 65,000 settlers.  We’re talking about 350,000 settlers. And today, we are no longer talking about 100,000 Jews living on the Green Line, but the entire population of 7.5 million who are in rocket range!  And even so, still the government is continuing with the same insane and unfeasible policies.

Why? Well, maybe the government knows something today that Rabbi Meir Kahane did not know in 1989. For one thing, no replacement has ever been found for Rabbi Meir Kahane since the US and Israeli governments colluded to silence him permanently in November of 1990.

Second, Rabbi Kahane was speaking in a time before the Madrid Conference and before Oslo took it’s terrible twenty-years of terrorism toll; before the US and Israeli governments colluded to train and arm a Palestinian-Arab army on our doorstep. And before the US Ambassador to the UN suggested quite openly that the US introduce a “massive protection force” to impose a solution on the parties.

Third, Rabbi Kahane did not live to witness the ease with which 8600 Jews were forcibly expelled from Gush Katif, along with the complete and utter destruction of seventeen Jewish communities, including the removal of graves.