העורך Editor

EIKEV: Life Is Difficult. Once You Accept This, Life Can Be Fun

Listen to Rabbi YY Jacobson’s penetrating Parsha shiur here…

Class Summary:

This women’s class was presented on Tuesday Parshas Eikev, 19 Av, 5779, August 20, 2019 at the Ohr Chaim Shul, Monsey, NY.

The Jewish people are standing at the Eastern side of the Jordan river. They are poised to enter the Promised Land. Their faithful leader, Moshe, speaks to them. These are his words: “Hear, O Israel! Today, you are crossing the Jordan to come in to possess nations greater and stronger than you, great cities, fortified up to the heavens. A colossal and towering nation, the children of the giants, whom you know and of whom you have heard said, “Who can stand against the children of the giants?!”

This is mind-staggering. Moshe is repeating, almost verbatim, the words the Ten Spies uttered 39 years earlier which caused an unparalleled catastrophe, and derailed Jewish history from its course.

Is this for real? After everything they have been through, Moses repeats—as we said, almost verbatim—the terrifying and destructively-impactful words of the spies which sowed terror and dread in all of their brethren hearts!

It is here that we discover the truth of Torah. Judaism does not deny reality; it does not sell us the Brooklyn Bridge. It acknowledged the real fears internal and external hardships, but it also says: Hashem is with you; you can confront every fear. Life is difficult, but if you can accept that, then life can be a lot of fun!

CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) is a powerful tool, but sometimes it can fail you. It is then that you need another, very different tool — articulated in this story of Eikev.

The lecture is based on an address by the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Shabbos Parshas Eikev, 23 Av, 5731, August 14, 1971.

I think this will repay your time!

History Rhymes – Germany Charges the Eternal Jew with Germany’s Crimes

On Germany’s arms embargo:

The conventional narrative is that they are trying to move from the defendant’s chair to the judge’s bench, to remove their creaking “historical burden”, their false and impossible “atonement”. The Jews are still their misfortune. But what they are actually trying to do, in the long term, is slither out of the electric chair.

The case against Aza’s “civilians” is the same against Germany’s so-called “civilians”. Their lives and property are all forfeit. Abject slavery until the end of time is too good for them. Germany tried to annihilate the Jewish nation, so they’re really attempting to defend themselves here, and they’re tellingly doing so by relapsing to their old identity. It’s easier than applying to the German Society for Humane Dying…

I do agree with them not selling weapons to Jews, or anyone else, for any reason or for no reason. (Hmm, they might not want those weapons used against Germany when we recover our Divine mandate to wipe out Amalek.) We don’t need you. But keep the “humanitarian” cant to yourselves!

The Germans try to forestall the obvious by “pointing to decades of cooperation”. Oh? Is Germany merely decades old?! There should never have been any kind of relationship with our murderers in the first place, but the State of Israel does whatever it likes (like actually getting Jews killed in Aza for the sake of looking nice and “proportional”, among other things), and Jews learn to bear it.

דמודי להון נפיל בידיהון, דמתרחיץ עליהון דיליה דילהון.

History is rhyming again. Germany is, after a fashion, once more tarring Jews as killers and murderers. After that short, dissonant pause, a brief “rupture in the fabric of reality”, the old waltz plays again.

Speaking of old songs, here’s an old one that feels apt. If they can quote Jews who “agree with them” Israel is killing “innocents” for Lebensraum, et cetera, I can surely quote Bertolt Brecht:

 

O Germany, Pale Mother!

Let others speak of her shame,
I speak of my own.

O Germany, pale mother!
How soiled you are
As you sit among the peoples.
You flaunt yourself
Among the besmirched.

The poorest of your sons
Lies struck down.
When his hunger was great.
Your other sons
Raised their hands against him.
This is notorious.

With their hands thus raised,
Raised against their brother,
They march insolently around you
And laugh in your face.
This is well known.

In your house
Lies are roared aloud.
But the truth
Must be silent.
Is it so?
Why do the oppressors praise you everywhere,
The oppressed accuse you?
The plundered
Point to you with their fingers, but
The plunderer praises the system
That was invented in your house!

Whereupon everyone sees you
Hiding the hem of your mantle which is bloody
With the blood
Of your best sons.

Hearing the harangues which echo from your house,
Men laugh.
But whoever sees you reaches for a knife
As at the approach of a robber.

O Germany, pale mother!
How have your sons arrayed you
That you sit among the peoples
A thing of scorn and fear!

Don’t know about you, but I hated having Germany (assuming their State reflects them any better than ours does us) “supporting” us against our other enemies. But ahhh! Jew-hatred is now no less stigmatized there than in the rest of Europe. And for any Yiddishe Nars still residing in Ashkenaz: Gut Morgen, Jude, und den Kaffee Riechen! They are back to massively rearming, too (under the rationale of the Russian-Ukrainian War). What could go wrong?

Nu. Just like that, the world makes sense again!

From Dikla to Eponymous ‘Neve Dekalim’: Likud’s Betrayal Echoes in Aza

Excerpt from Shiloh Musings:

I’m referring to Menachem Begin’s “Camp David Accords,” which is to blame for Israel’s withdrawal from the Sinai and the total destruction of all Israeli communities, Yamit and others there. Disengagement was clearly modeled on it, and both Begin and Arik Sharon were Prime Ministers from the Likud. Yes, just like the Likud elections slogan: “Only the Likud Can Do It.” Voluntarily destroying Jewish communities, especially agricultural ones, had been a “red line” for the Labor Party.
Close to a half century after Menachem Begin proudly announced his “achievement,” I still consider it the most insanely dangerous decision in Israeli history. As we’ve seen since then, Israel doesn’t know how to negotiate wisely. Why didn’t he insist on keeping all of the moshavim and towns in Sinai as proof of peace?
Menachem Begin, Ariel Sharon and Binyamin Bibi Netanyahu were/are plagued/cursed with a desire to show the world that they’re reasonable moderates and as a result they do what they consider “diplomatic,” generous endangering the security and existence of the State of Israel.
I’ll never forget Begin’s speech afterward the withdrawal/destruction of Jewish communities in which he claimed that the remaining and new Israeli communities in Gaza and nearby would be forever, fully recognized forever by the world as part of Israel.
Gush Katif was to be the replacement of the Sinai for Jewish settlement. For example, Neve Dekalim was named for the destroyed Moshav Dikla.

Read the rest here…