Gush Katif - Time to say sorry

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:

1. Sign the petition here.  (Non-Hebrew speakers, please see the annotated screen shot here for what you need to fill in and click!)
2. 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!

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

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

Awakenings

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

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

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!

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:

1. Resist the temptation to start phoning immediately. Give it a day or two, to give the driver the opportunity to discover the lost item.
2. The police have a lost-and-found desk. The number in Jerusalem is 02 539 1360/1.
3. 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
   
4. 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!